"Tendo" was nibbling on a Blanc Manju under the morning sunlight, standing at the juncture between the restaurant-filled streets of Arakawa, and the old, frigid industrial sectors of Yamauchi. With the streets devoid of the usual clutter of people, Asa's flaming orange hair and yellow scarf could be seen from the other end of the street.
Slowly but surely, she walked past the alleyway Asa was in, only turning back at the very last second. Just like what a curious child might do, after she saw someone kneeling down beside a row of rubbish bins, examining the trash bags with keen interest.
Not bad. Asa knew their suspect had to get food. She did not think the girl would be that desperate yet; keeping an eye on vending machines would probably yield more results. But it was a good starting point.
She stepped on the pavements just a little harder, as she approached the stationary figure.
"Hello?"
The second they made eye contact with each other, Asa's face went completely blank and stiff. It was a twitch that she had only seen on experienced fighters, bracing for an incoming blow. Then, her expression slowly morphed into a grouchy scowl.
"If I may ask, are you lost?" She raised her hand, with a carefully constructed smile on her face.
"Fuck. Off."
"I'm curious, that's all—"
"Fuck off back to your retirement home and stop meddling," Asa stared straight into her eyes, as she squeezed out the word through gritted teeth. "Rubis."
It took all her composure to hold back a gasp and keep smiling, as the barrier that was "Tendo Uemura" broke apart, and a thousand years of "Rubis" came crashing down on her. The real Rubis. Not the giant paper doll they marched across the streets during the national festivals, or the formidable warrior enshrined in Lowee's Basilicom.
Just a lonely relic pretending to be a normal child, living a mundane life. Nothing more.
"Ah. I see that you are interested in history." After a brief silence, she raised her head and met Asa's stare. "Perhaps you've also visited quite a number of shrines and old places of worship?"
"I was bored. Go away."
She knew Ayumi and Utsugi, who ran that old shrine in Uemura, would never speak ill of her. But she did not see fit to press the matter further.
"Regardless of how you feel about me, my words hold true. I'm just out on a walk, and you seem to be searching for something in there." She pointed to the scattered trash bags. "So, I presume that you'd like some assistance. Is that still too meddlesome for a retired Goddess?"
"Rats," Asa mumbled.
"I beg your pardon?"
Asa pointed to a trash bag. A few shallow paw prints were scattered across the thin patch of snow nearby. "Saw some complaints on the Guild dashboard. They thought a raccoon was making all these messes, but it's rats. Not a job you should dirty yourself with."
She was no expert in distinguishing the traces of different creatures. That was Dameko's forte. But it sounded like a good excuse on Asa's part, and a good opportunity.
"Oh, I'd leave the fighting to you."
"You leave everything to me and stay out of this."
"Say, if a local who knows the area wishes to help you out. Will you reject their help, just like you reject mine?" She asked. "Maybe no one likes seeing a bunch of vermin dirtying the streets. Maybe they'd like to make an effort to keep their city safe and beautiful, Goddess or not."
Asa gave her a long, hard look, before finally letting out a sigh.
"...If I say no, you'd follow me anyways." She groaned. "Be my fucking guest, then. Lead me to the rats, and I'll serve a stern warning to them on the neighborhood's behalf. Just keep your mouth shut, and don't you dare nag at me like I'm one of your brats."
"You read through every single of my speech in the history records?" She raised an eyebrow. "I have to praise you for your dedication."
Asa grunted, and kept on walking.
Both of them had their sight fixated on the lone rat, making its way across the tangled telephone wires between the buildings. If Asa was surprised that there were, indeed, rats in this neighborhood, she was not showing it.
For a second, Rubis thought the rat, rubbing its paws together in anxious preparation, was about to land onto the pile of trash bags below. Instead, it leaped in the opposite direction, narrowly grabbing onto a window ledge above.
Asa frowned when the rat lifted itself up and slid its long tail into the window lock. After a few tries, the panels creaked open, allowing the small creature to squeeze through the gap and vanish into the dark indoor space. After a few minutes, the rat poked its head out again, its tail wrapped around a brown wallet, and jumped back onto the telephone wire with an acrobatic grace.
Still crouching, Asa moved down the rooftop ladder, before gesturing for her to follow. She did not move an inch.
Focusing her sight on the rat, she reached for the metal card in her oversleeves and flicked her wrist. The card cut through the chilly air with a sharp noise, followed by two loud curses—one from the rat, who tumbled down the wire and fell onto the pile of snow below, and one from Asa.
The rat hit the ground running, paying no attention to its lost spoil, and swiftly ducked into the nearest sewer drain. Asa let out another curse when she ran back onto the street, and only saw a splotch of red on the snow. Rubis was half-expecting Asa to drag her up by the collar and start yelling in her face, the moment she came down the ladder, but the woman merely rolled her eyes.
"...Getting rusty?"
"Creative, you mean."
Rubis snapped her finger, and the metal card levitated into the air. Its thin edge was stained a bright crimson by the rat's blood.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the heat in her chest—now faded to a comforting warmth, a fraction of its previous intensity, and let it flow into the card. The blood sizzled with a rusty smell. When she opened her eyes again, the blank poetry ribbon and vine carving on the card surface was glowing a dim red.
By today's standards, tracking spells were an invasion of privacy, and using blood as a medium would always be creepy in the eyes of regular folks. But it did make getting away after a fight so much harder for her targets, as a certain delinquent in a mouse hoodie had found out in the hard way.
"Next time, please fucking say something before you start carrying out your masterplan."
"You make it sound like I have sinister motives."
"No. I thought you were being unhelpful on purpose," Asa said, in a tone that was hard to distinguish between sarcasm and genuine annoyance.
"That rat is not a professional, but certainly a repeated offender. And rats always go in groups. I can lead you to their nest, and the rest of their stolen goods, but only if I have something to work with."
"Of course. You have it all under control." Asa let out a bitter laugh, as Rubis started walking again, guided by the weak tingling heat radiating from her card. "I don't know what I was expecting from you."
"Why do you harbor such a personal dislike towards me?" She stopped in her track and turned back, with a little more edge in her voice than before.
"Take a guess."
"I suppose it's understandable to hate on past Goddesses, now that their blunders can be judged in a more objective light." She paused. "But you are either very fair in your harshness, or overly bitter. For most people, these feelings don't come from reading a history book."
Asa's face was a blank mask again. "You aren't wrong."
"I'm not wrong about what?"
A groan. "I don't know. Maybe you should stop caring about the feelings of a foolish, ill-mannered mortal, and focus on your fucking job."
They both quickened their steps and made their way through the cramped alleyways. The paths were full of half-melted ice and snow, stained into a dirty grey color by the dust that seeped into every inch of Yamauchi's industrial districts, even after the factories were long gone.
A long silence ensued, until she finally asked the question that had been pounding inside her chest, since the moment Asa called her by her real name.
"Have you, by any chance, heard of the name Delphinus?"
There was no response.
They were getting close enough that Rubis could hear voices. Not from inside the sealed gates of the warehouse, where the only sound was the gentle drips of melted snow, falling onto the pavement. It was coming out of her card.
"If you don't have the money, get out already, chu!"
The stutters were soon drowned out by a wave of squeaks and clicks, but words like "tokens" and "special prize" could still be vaguely made out. Asa pointed to the cardboard boxes stacked next to the warehouse wall, where a small bit of dried blood was smeared on the grey concrete. They were using it to conceal an opening, it seemed.
With a light cracking sound, bluish-purple flames enveloped Asa's fighting gloves. When Rubis stepped before her and gestured for her to wait, the heat only became more intense.
She removed more cards from her oversleeves. One by one, she placed the four cherry-blossom patterned cards at the four corners of the warehouse. The moment the last card touched the ground, silver strings of light shot out of their surface, creating a giant circle around the building perimeter.
"Sakura ni Maku," she whispered, before nodding to Asa. "Now you can go in."
Asa sped into a blur, her right hand stretched out in a clawing motion. The warehouse door exploded in a burst of splinters and sparks as she charged in, with a force that almost brought down the entire wall. Waves of panicking squeaks and curses soon ensued, and several rats scurried out of the cardboard boxes in a mad dash to get away.
They slammed against an invisible barrier, piling on each other in an almost comical manner as they lost their balance and fell. The smell of burnt fur wafted through the air, before a giant pillar of flame shot out of the warehouse ceiling, accompanied by multiple screams of sheer terror.
"SHUT UP!" Asa yelled, before her voice faded to a flat monotone. "It's only a singe. But pull a knife on me again, like your boss here, and you will be cooked. Is that clear?"
There was a long silence. Even the rats outside, who had been scrambling around the warehouse, banging their paws against her barrier, were sneaking uneasy glances at each other.
"You heard her." Rubis walked out of her hiding spot and waved to them. "Now, please don't make a fuss, raise your paws, and line up against the nearest wall."
"That's some powerful flame magic you have," Rubis commented, as she gazed at the rat being carried into the police station's medical quarter. The burns on the leader of this little underground gambling ring were a lot worse than a "singe". It probably wouldn't be able to use its right paw, even after it got out of jail.
Asa walked away from her without a word. The rest of the rats, who were sitting inside a single cell, heaved a collective sigh at the sight of her departure. After making sure that no one was watching, she made her way towards the rats.
"Greetings."
A few awkward "chu" could be heard, followed by half-hearted waves. Some of the rats were lowering their heads and averting their gazes, while the others' expressions were one of pure distrust and hostility.
"I'm sure that not all of you are involved in the thefts and misdemeanors that have happened in this neighborhood," she said. "However, your innocence is not up to me to determine."
"Then why are you still talking to us, chu?" One of the rats snorted. "Get lost already, kid."
"I swear, I've only ripped open some garbage bags, chu!" A smaller rat squealed. "Every coin I put into that pachinko machine is honest money—"
"Yeah. Like that'll make you any less of a scumbag in their eyes, chu." His companion gave him a dirty look. "Shut up."
"This 'kid' here may not be threatening to roast you, but she does have a few tricks up her sleeves that prevented you from getting away, isn't that right?" She raised an eyebrow. "I am familiar with the detective business, and happen to be on good terms with the police chief. Not all of you have stolen enough to warrant a jail sentence, and if you promise to cooperate, I can negotiate a more favorable community service term for you."
More uncertain looks. Some of the rats seemed a little more receptive than before.
"How favorable, chu?"
"Well, there'll still be a lot of walking, and won't be a piece of cake for you. But in comparison to shoveling snow in the streets and carrying bricks, it should be a lot easier."
Seeing the shifty grins of a couple of rats, she added, "It is in your best interest to not try anything funny. Especially after you have dripped your blood onto our contract, as your official signature. Even a tiny drop can enable a proficient magic user to do a lot of unpleasant things to you, and I do not take kindly to those who betray my trust."
"You still haven't told us what we'd be doing, chu."
"Let's just say something dangerous is brewing, and we need a few pairs of extra eyes to be on the lookout. But first—" She held up a finger, "—Which one of you was around the Arakawa Night Market area, before the district went under lockdown?"
Several paws raised up.
"Tell me about it."
"Chu, sheer rotten luck, that's what it was! We weren't even stealing anything, just going through the rubbish bins for food scraps—" A rat with balding patches grumbled. "Then the cops started flooding in and stepping on our tails."
"Yeah, chu. Had to hide in a sewer for the entire night, before I could get back to my kids." An older rat with greying whiskers said.
"What? Can't we have families too? Human criminals sure do, chu." It added, after seeing her surprised look.
"And they love to bully us rats, chu!" The balding rat huffed. "I'd finally found a cardboard box to spend the night in, after ditching the cops, and this girl just jumped off the damn roof and trampled over my box, chu."
Rubis leaned a little closer. "What makes you think she's also a criminal?"
"I dunno, chu? The smell of blood on her, and the way she bolted away from the police sirens like there's no tomorrow?" The rat rolled its eyes. "I bet there's plenty of human pickpockets in that night market too, chu. But your cop friends only went after the rats trying to get their supper."
"Do you remember her appearance?"
"Sorry, I was too busy trying to save my whiskers and not become a rat pancake, chu—!"
The rats' eyes suddenly widened, and it fell silent. When Rubis turned back, Asa was standing there, leaning against a wall. Noticing her, Asa made a dismissive wave and glanced away from her.
"So, the girl who smelled like blood, and was also running from the police." Rubis asked, in an intentionally slow voice. "Which street were you on, when you encountered her?"
As the rat began to recite the street address and describe the surrounding landmarks, she heard a sneer behind her. It wasn't long before footsteps echoed through the corridors, going further and further away from the cells.
Asa must have thought that she was also after the ransom. Good. Rubis had more or less finished handing a clue to the woman.
"You busted a gambling ring?"
"Yes. Asa destroyed most of their machines with her last attack, and the investigators weren't too pleased about that—"
"Good! These pachinko machines are evil, I tell you! EVIL!" Mr. Esaka rolled up his sleeves. "Even when they aren't possessed by some freaky monsters."
Rubis winced when she saw the jagged scars on his arms. "I'm sorry you have to go through that."
Would she have known, if he became one of the casualties during the Rewrite?
No. Even if you did, you'd pretend to grieve and feel guilty and forget about the death in a few years, just like the generations of people that came before him. Like nothing was ever your fault.
She was hearing those words in Asa's voice, and it was oddly fitting.
"Sometimes, you gotta' hit rock bottom first, before you can climb back up, ay?" Mr. Esaka shrugged and offered another cup of drink to her. "My life had gone to shit because of these machines, and I only realized that after they'd literally tried to murder me."
He took a deep breath, "But enough about the crappiest years of my life. You took Asa on a nice tour, before the whole gambling ring fiasco? I hope she hasn't been too mean to ya'."
"We'd gotten sidetracked, I'm afraid. But I did get some clues from the rats. One of them ran into an injured human on Spawny Street, who might be the girl you are after." She paused. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you come across Asa? She's quite an interesting figure."
"Oh, a few months ago, C-gal received this report of someone who'd broken into the Guild's training area, killed all the monsters in there, then walked into the headquarter, demanding a reward for clearing the place out." Mr. Esaka shrugged. "See, Asa girl didn't know it was not a regular dungeon, so she was pretty pissed when they said she was not a registered Guild agent, and asked her to pay for the damage."
Seeing how Asa scared those rats half to death, it wasn't hard for Rubis to imagine the Guild clerks' reaction to her anger. She narrowed her eyes slightly. "She didn't try to threaten them, I hope?"
"No! She just sat there, fuming, and said she wouldn't leave until they explained what 'no Guild accounts detected in the online database' mean. So they called C-gal to escort her out of the building. Instead, C-gal helped her make a Guild registration, and since she said she'd been homeless and jobless for a long time, C-gal thought of good ol' me, and offered her a job here!"
As she expected, Mr. Esaka saw nothing suspicious in this story, just like his obliviousness to her unchanging appearance. But who didn't have a few skeletons in the closet, a fragment of their past that they did not wish to speak about?
Mr. Esaka's brows furrowed up, as she took a sip from her cup, seemingly absorbed in deep thought. Finally, he started talking again.
"I know it's bad, talking behind her back like that. But really, Asa girl is a little too tight-lipped about herself. Almost like she has something to hide, and..."
Rubis looked down into the cup and took another sip. With Mr. Esaka's detective talent, she was not expecting to hear that question until after a few weeks of subtle prodding and nudging. Perhaps she had underestimated the man's perceptiveness—
"Do you think she could be my long-lost daughter?"
She almost spat out her drink at that question.