Sometimes, she was Tendo Uemura.
As she gazed at the flaming scarlet light that stained the evening sky, there was a moment of pure serenity and adoration, before she looked back at the buildings below. Their red and white colors were as brilliant as ever, but none of the original bricks and tiles stayed.
Once that realization struck, she was no longer Tendo Uemura, the little girl who happened to be a little more mature for her age.
"Tendo" kept on walking, all the way into the dingy interior of the arcade. Her eyes had never gotten used to the sharp brightness of electric lights. If sacrificing atmosphere for the sake of convenience was the norm in this age, she could at least take solace in the fact that some spots would always be a deviation, an anomaly.
Mr. Esaka soon emerged from the backroom, dragging two round straw mats behind him. "There you are, Tendo girl! You've grown taller!"
"I do?" She replied. "Oh, it must be my new boots. The heels are a little higher."
"No, really. You've grown like—" He held out a finger, "—this much, since the last time I saw you. At this rate, you'd grow as tall as Asa. Hopefully not as grumpy!"
This man was as much an anomaly as her, when it came to his obliviousness to the passage of time. The last time they met in person was a decade ago. Whether it was willful or real ignorance remained a mystery.
"Asa? You've found a new...associate?"
She was thinking 'romantic partner', but saying it out loud was improper. Making wild guesses about others' private affairs would always be a grave discourtesy in her book, no matter how drastically the etiquette standards had changed in the past century.
"No no, Tendo girl! She's not one of those no-good hooligans I used to hang out with, just a pair of helping hands—" He put the mats down on the ground. "She's the reason why I called you here. But have a seat first, please? I'll go get the drink."
She sat down on her heels, back straight and palms pressing against her thighs, with a formality that one usually saw on martial arts students who were being punished for their misdemeanors. According to Dameko, no one could be so proper all the time, unless they were punished all the time.
Her face tensed up slightly at that thought, just as Mr. Esaka came out of the backroom, and set a bottle of sake and some plastic cups down on the floor. Fortunately, he wasn't one for details.
"Now, just wait a sec." He walked to the arcade entrance and started lowering the shutter gate. "Yeah, I know, 'in traditional families, kids past 13 are considered full-grown adults', but if anyone sees me offering drinks to you, a police car would probably come here again!"
"Again?"
"You haven't seen it in the newspaper? There's a break-in at the archive next door," he said. "Something went horribly wrong, and Asa had to knock a girl out, 'cause she was about to kill an officer. C-gal said the same girl had escaped from the hospital last night."
"I suppose that's why the patrol is so heavy in Arakawa District?" She tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible, but her heart was beating faster than before.
No. This is none of your business. You didn't get involved when the entire Lowee was under attack. Why should you start helping now?
"They pat you down on your way here?" Upon receiving a nod from her, he huffed, "Really! Did these red-vests think you were hiding a wanted criminal in your skirt pocket or something? Overcompensating, that's what it is, now that they finally have something to do."
She smiled a little, feeling the tingling coldness of the metal cards inside her oversleeves. He wasn't wrong about their lack of thoroughness.
Meanwhile, Mr. Esaka sat down, grabbed the bottle, and started pouring the wine into the cups. "Sorry, Tendo girl. Don't have fancier cups for ya'. Starting all over is a lot more expensive than I expected."
"It's the thought that counts. Thank you."
She received the cup with both hands and took a sip. Wasn't it amazing, being able to savor alcohol like tea with no fear of losing her manners? A drunken version of herself would be downright terrifying, if Dameko's first exposure to caffeine and root beer was any indication.
"Now, where was I at? Yeah, the break-in. The girl who escaped from the hospital? She was not the only person in the archive that night. Two more were on the loose, and they were the big fishes who stole an artifact from the archive basement!"
"First level or second level?"
"Your skill as an informant is sharp as ever, Tendo girl! First level it is." He gave her a thumbs-up. "But I'm not asking you to go after these two. Not when C-gal and the Lady herself are working on it."
"Asa's after the small shrimp. She's gonna start searching tomorrow, probably outside of Arakawa, since that place's all turned upside down by Guild agents and patrols now. Now, Asa can read a map alright—still has problems with GPS and smarty-phones, but she's adapting to technology quicker than me. I bet she's from a traditional family too!"
She let out a chuckle. "I hope she doesn't break nearly as many phones as my sister."
"Well, Asa might be a punch-first, ask-no-questions type, but she has more restraint than she looks. Pretty attentive, too." Mr. Esaka sounded almost like a proud father when he said that. "Still, you know how many nooks and crannies just aren't on the city maps at all? She'd easily miss a lot of stuff, without a local guiding her, and I'm not gonna let some nameless Guild NPCs triumph over her because of that!"
"You want me to be her guide?"
"Bingo! But don't tell her I sent you, of course. You can offer to show her around, ask her to be your playmate, or tell her that you've lost a pet and need a big, strong adult to help you..." Mr. Esaka scratched his head. "I'm sure you can come up with better excuses than me, Tendo girl. Just take her to spots that may serve as a good hideout, okay?"
"Indeed," She replied. "I'd love to help your employee out."
"Great! Go for it, Tendo girl. If we got the reward, I'd have the money to treat you to some finer drinks! Served in fancy cups, too."
"I do have a small request, however." She leaned a little closer. "Do you happen to know anything about the other two suspects? I will not pursue them, but I do wish to keep an eye out, just in case."
She was eyeing the cartoonish pig crest on the hovercraft's hull when she noticed a faint light in the water.
It wasn't there before. Not while she was rummaging through the tool shed of the lighthouse hangar. In the darkness of the cave, it looked just like the reflection from a light bulb, until it abruptly disappeared into the inky water and reappeared a few meters away, bobbing up and down. Soon, it swam out of the mouth of the cave and blended into the shimmering sunlight.
What was that? A weird luminescent fish? She hadn't seen anything similar before. Definitely not in the illustrated wildlife guide Primo handed to her this morning. Maybe they'd give her more money for spotting a new species of wildlife? If so, that was a chance she couldn't miss.
She stepped back and, on a count of three, started running. With a kick, she propelled herself off the hangar dock, and started sprinting on the cave walls at a gravity-defying angle.
The strain and fatigue hit only after she landed on the nearest rock outside the cave, and cut off her power. Panting, she stood up again and started to glance around. The light was nowhere to be seen, but a small metallic object did pop up at the edge of her vision, lying on top of another rock in the distance.
Its position was too high to be a piece of washup trash, and a...bright purple blob of color was sitting right next to it.
Before long, she began preparing for another leap. Launching herself into the air, her eyes widened at the last second when the misjudgment of distance became clear as day, and her upper body slammed onto the rock. She barely clutched onto the edge and stopped herself from slipping into the sea.
The piercing chill of the water that soaked her boots and pants made her curse out loud. She was shivering when she climbed onto the rock, wincing at the scrapes on her arms.
A steel blue phone lay in front of her. A really old model, judging by its dingy green screen and dirty keypad. It was only a few steps away from a purple backpack, and an adapter was plugged into its bottom, stretching all the way into the water.
She reached out and tugged at the rubber wire. There was mild resistance, followed by a jerk, as if someone was holding onto the other end. Half unsettled, half intrigued, she made another tug. No response this time. Holding the phone up in the air, she began to pull on the wire, and before long, an object was dragged out of the water.
It was a small handheld console, with a spherical camera attached at its top.
"Boo!"
Right when she was squinting at the handheld, a little head poked out of the water, wearing what appeared to be a cumbersome hybrid between a scuba goggle, a headlamp, and a solar panel. She reeled back with a yelp.
"Howdy! You look like you wanna shoot something, but don't have anything to shoot." The kid had a feminine voice, but her short, messy grey hair made her look just like a scruffy boy.
"That's the strangest 'hello' I've ever heard?"
"Are you a stranded sailor? You don't sound like you're from Gunpei Prefecture. Or anywhere in Gamindustri." The little kid climbed onto the rock, before taking off her weird headgear and starting to shake the water off her clothes. "Oh! You must be a PC Islander!"
"Hmm, Neca ships don't come so far north anymore, and there aren't enough blue colors on you, so you can't be from the Azure Fleet X—" The kid gasped, "Are you a nun of Saint Lisa? I've never seen one of your Silver folks in Lowee! Does your church really worship a giant fruit? What's your flying island like? Tell me tell me tell me!"
"...I'm not from the Silver Republic." She paused. "And we haven't been living on a bunch of islands in five hundred years."
"Ooh? How so?"
"Long story short, we combined our islands together." She squinted at the kid's archaic clogs and ornate purple cloak, which really clashed with her mundane T-Shirts and shorts. "You...don't happen to be raised by a bunch of technophobic cultists who tried to convince you that you still live in the era of floating islands, do you?"
With the sheer scale of the last Resonance event, maybe that castle would have ended up landing on a continent thousands of miles away—no. It couldn't be. Nothing ever escaped out of a dimensional rift.
"Noooo?" The kid tilted her head. "I'm just a teeny bit out of touch with modern stuff, that's all. Our family is like, super traditional."
"Is scuba diving in freezing water a traditional thing?"
"Used to be," the kid said. "People don't jump into the water in their loincloth to hunt for giant clams anymore. I miss that, really. Now I'm just out here on my own, taking photos of sea critters."
"With that camera thing? Why are you mounting it on the handheld?"
"Because I have to plug my handheld into my phone."
"Why are you plugging it into the phone?"
"Because I need photos for an 'app' thing? I still can't find it in here—" The kid pointed at the phone screen, "—but I guess I should get the photos first."
"Why can't you just take photos using the phone?"
"Because it's not waterproof, and is the only one I haven't broken yet!" The kid responded with a huge grin.
"Okay. That...makes sense." It didn't, really. She was just being nice. "Which app are you looking for?"
"The Hunter's Guild Wildlife World App! I can't find it anywhere, so I went to the Guild, but Shauni isn't there, and everyone else's summoned for some emergency meeting."
"Oh, are you talking about this?" She took out the pink phone and clicked on the app icon.
"Yes! Hi, kitty!" The kid waved at the virtual mascot. "Do I have to ask it to come and live inside my phone?"
She shook her head. "So, your 'Lokia' phone. When did you buy it?"
"I didn't buy it. My sister picked it up from a Lost & Found corner eighteen years ago."
"It's not compatible with a modern smartphone app."
"Even if I plug them together? Hmm, looks like I'd have to make my own cable for that..."
"I'm a hundred percent sure that it still won't work."
"Really? What a bummer. Why do they call them smartphones? More like dumbphones, if you ask me." The kid pouted. "Can't even use them to crack walnuts."
"Why would you ever need to use a phone for that?!"
"Well, the best phone should be as sturdy as my handheld, and my handheld can crack walnuts."
"Can't argue with that logic." She said flatly, before an idea struck her. "Wait a sec. Perhaps you'd like to use this phone to take photos? We can split the credits between us, as long as you don't use the phone to crack walnuts, or do anything weird with it—"
"Sure, and you can keep the credits! I'm just doing this for fun." The kid shrugged. "I'll take photos for you, but under one condition—"
She held up a finger, "We'll have to do this together. Teach me how to use this smartphone thing, and tell me everything about your islands—no, land—that I've missed in the last five hundred years! Deal?"
"Deal."
"Great! My name's Dameko. We are gonna have a ton of fun together!" The kid reached her palm out for a high-five, which she hesitantly returned. "How did you get onto this rock, by the way?"
"Parkour skills and luck—" She gulped a little, as she looked back at the cave entrance. "Uh-oh. I don't think that'll be enough to get me back."
That was not true. But she didn't want Dameko to see her eyes glowing, or risk falling into the water a second time. Which was quite likely, considering how her legs had gone numb from the cold.
"So, you wouldn't mind swimming to shore and rowing a boat here, right? Sorry for starting our partnership on such a sore note."
"Don't worry, I have just what we need!" Dameko gave her a thumbs-up, before walking towards the purple backpack and pulling its zipper wide open. There was a weird buzzing sound, followed by a burst of bright light.
When she opened her eyes again, a giant white hang glider was floating in front of her. Its cubical wings were not aerodynamic, by all means, but the wires on their undersides were glowing a bright ruby color, humming with the familiar aura of magic.
Dameko, after putting her weird headgear back on, had buckled herself onto the control bar of the glider. With a jerk from her hand, the entire thing soared up.
"Ta-Da! Meet the HANDY-Plus!"
She stared at Dameko, who was now dangling high above her.
"...You compressed that into a backpack? How?"
"Magic. It's actually the wing attachment of my robot." Dameko responded with a huge grin, before sweeping down and grabbing her by the shoulder. "Now hang on tight!"