The shower gave Eric time to think and to come to the conclusion that he could choose to hide from all evidence that would cast aside his last vestiges of doubt, or wait until such things were forced upon him. Whether the latter would be more traumatic he could not tell. Accepting things as they were, and on his own terms, required that he acknowledge the end of his life as he knew it, a fearful proposition in any case.

He had washed his hair for the third time before he realized he was stalling. It was as though the decision had been made for him, and that he was only waiting for when he had to surrender to circumstances. After washing the last of the shampoo away he forced himself to turn off the water.

He found Rind seated on the floor with her back to the wall the room shared with the bathroom and her knees drawn to her chest. She was hunched over, arms folded, head resting on them as though asleep.

"Uh, Rind?" The idea that she was taking a nap seemed so antithetical to all that he knew about her so far that he had not softened his voice at all.

"Yes?"

Carrying his bag back out again, Eric set it down where he had placed it earlier.

"So, uh..." Revealing what he knew, whether by intuition or because some deity had 'shown' him, made him nervous. Past experience told him Rind would be annoyed at best.

"... Who... which one was watching me earlier, when you were bathing?"

"Cool Mint." No anger this time.

The name didn't help. "They're, uh, twins, right?"

Rind looked up. "In a manner of speaking, yes." She stood and faced him. "Perhaps now we should discuss what the Voice of Earth's neophyte revealed to you."

"I don't know all of it. It comes and goes like... memories of a dream."

Rind just looked at him. Assuming she didn't understand, Eric struggled for an analogy. "Like driving down a street. Sometimes you see the hills in the breaks between buildings, and sometimes you don't."

"Reveal what is available to you." It sounded more like a poorly worded request than a command.

"Ok, but first I'd like to ask you something."

"What is it?"

Feeling shy and without any kind of meaningful self control, he babbled. "Well, so many things have happened and it's hard to take it all in. Sure this 'neophyte' put things in my head but it doesn't make it all real. I mean, seeing those hills between the buildings isn't the same as walking on them, you know? You can image what it's like, but when you get there it's totally different, like—"

"Cool Mint, come forth."

Eric flinched as though struck. Even when the angel appeared and the spectral flurry of activity surrounding her emergence had subsided, he was still without breath. She hovered a foot before his face, her one wing, behind her right shoulder, was motionless, and her blonde hair, defiant of gravity, looked windswept. She was naked save for a thin, flanged piece of fabric covering her chest, and coils of a similar substance surrounding her like a cocoon from the hips down.

Her blue eyes, inquisitive and expectant, held him. There was nothing in them he could fear or react against, no potential or deception or malice. The power of her gaze was like that of someone able to see through him, but Eric found that in the openness of the angel's gaze and expression, the reverse was true. Her eyes allowed him to see through her.

He realized he had extended his hand.

"Um. Hello. Nice to meet you."

Cool Mint looked at it, smiled gently, and took it. Her grip was soft, warm, and solid. Like flesh and blood.

"I guess you already know my name," Eric said.

She nodded.

"Didn't mean to be so weird earlier."

Cool Mint's eyebrows rose.

"I mean, when... I guess she had you watch me because she couldn't see me from the tub. I was kind of scared to look because of what it would mean. It's not that a lot of weird things haven't happened already, but a person can always kind of ignore some of it and explain a lot of it away, and then before you know it you think a goddess is just some ordinary person."

He knew he was babbling but felt powerless to stop. But following his apology he could feel a desire to sit down and tell his life story to this angel, and while doing so with a human being would make that life story short and uneventful, telling it to Cool Mint made him want to treat every detail with equal importance. The hard part was the feeling that if Rind permitted it, Cool Mint would listen to every word.

"Anyway, I want to say it was nothing against you. I guess I just have problems facing up to reality."

It was news to him, but when Cool Mint inclined her head and her expression softened, Eric forgot all about it.

"I uh, I guess I should talk to Rind now."

A smile, a nod, and the angel disappeared in a near silent vortex of the ribbon that had been covering her hips and legs.

Her influence lingered. Eric had to sit down.

"How did you know?" he managed.

"To which information are you referring?" Rind asked.

"That I wanted to see her."

"Your earlier skepticism was indication enough that you would have difficulty accepting the additional circumstances of the company of a goddess. I understood that Cool Mint's surveillance of you would not go unnoticed, and that you would be faced with a choice to continue with denial or without it."

"All right, I get it. You had a hunch."

"I had more information than the word 'hunch' implies."

The warmth of Cool Mint's presence had faded. Now there was just Rind. Eric no longer felt like long discussions when a word such as 'hunch' was explanation enough.

"Ok then. You wanted to know what that, uh, neophyte told me. Showed me. Right?"

"Yes."

"Right. Ok. So I know there's a guy in Japan, a college student. I think his name starts with a K. I think what I remember is in chronological order. He was having kind of a bad day and was in his dorm calling somebody. He dialed the wrong number and got, uh..."

He uttered a short, uncertain laugh. Despite what he had seen already, giving voice to these memories was still an awkward experience.

"An agency of some kind in Heaven. Uh, the heavens, or whatever you call it. Apparently this agency is for helping people in need, so they sent down a goddess to grant him a wish. Belldandy. The guy wished for someone like her to be with him forever. And, well, I guess there is no one like Belldandy but herself."

Te rest of the story flowed easier, though the occasional hole in his memory caused Eric to provide tentative explanations of his own as to what might have happened during the gaps. He told Rind everything he knew and in all the detail he had available. The only thing he did not give fair treatment to was the part of his false memories that involved her. He knew the ice on the payphone had been in response to what she had heard from the person on the other end, but he could easily imagine part of her anger having been in part due to his calling her 'one-winged angel'. He meant to avoid a repeat of that by touching on events during which that name had been uttered.

There was no immediate response to his recollections.

"So is it true? What I said?"

Rind nodded. "Outside of your speculations, and to the best of my knowledge, yes."

"So why did this girl show me all of that?"

"Unknown."

"Because it really messes things up for me. I mean, not only do I have some monster after me, I have this knowledge, no, dream of a goddess whose very smile just... makes things better. I... I can't put words to it."

"The hitokui is not a cause for concern," Rind said.

"Which brings me to why the hell you're protecting me from the fucking thing. It seems to me you're pretty pissed off about something, and I've been getting the feeling that I'm just some insect somebody finds valuable and so you got stuck with having to babysit me."

He was not exactly satisfied to see the subtle change in her expression. But it did make him feel that he was right to suspect circumstances as opposed to personality as an explanation of her behavior.

"So yeah, you could kill it without breaking a sweat. Hell, maybe even I could kill it by throwing ice cubes at it. But I figure somebody up top told you not to do that and made up some shit excuse as to why. All part of the way things are done right? It's like where I work. Worked. There's all this procedure that messes things up more often than it keeps mistakes from happening. Like today, somebody in customer service couldn't understand some manager's new order form and made a big mistake, and so somebody assembled some computers with—"

Rind had turned away and the rest of Eric's rant died on his lips.

"Sorry."

"Do not apologize for faults not your own," Rind said, still not looking at him. Eric thought he heard a change in her voice. Conciliatory? Forgiving? Sympathizing? None seemed to fit. He wanted to know more.

"We're going to be around each other for a while, aren't we?"

"That is a possibility."

"So maybe you can tell me a little more about what is going on, so, you know, I don't go making any wrong assumptions."

"I have limitations as to what I may reveal to you."

Eric sighed. "Of course. 'Need to know' and crap like that, right? But what can you tell me? Why'd they stick you with such a simple mission?" He reached for and caught a fragment of memory that was not his. "You fought with that girl. She was really powerful, and it was just a piece of her there. She was somebody's mother, the rest of her was... and there was that monster." Another memory, this time it was his, of what he'd touched on earlier in the car when Rind had first told him of the hitokui. "That angel eater. Lot's of things to fight, and you weren't all that winded at the end, were you."

Despite his intention to avoid this particular narrative, he was in it anyway.

"I know you're no lightweight. Not some grunt who has to earn respect. You—"

"Enough. This is not a topic I wish to discuss."

Far more than a reference to what she was allowed to say, the expression of her own desires made him want to abandon the subject. He found that he actually wanted to bond, but not by forcing sensitive issues.

"Ok. So now what?"

"You should get your rest. It is best we remain in motion, and I agree that it is best that you sleep here, now, in a bed."

"I don't think I can sleep right now." His mind wanted to race, and he new that the moment he closed his eyes, it would break free from his control and deny him any peace. The mental suggestion of going to the bar for a drink to slow him down came and went. From what he had seen of the bar it was seedy enough to attract the kind of people that made mean drunks who didn't take no for an answer. The carnage that would ensue should one of them decide he wanted to take Rind home with him would not make for a relaxing evening at all.

"It is not something I can help."

"Yes you can."

Rind looked at him again. "It was your express desire that I do not."

Eric tried a smile. "Well maybe I was a little hasty. Go ahead."

This time he didn't even hear the screech.