It was past 8 PM and, outside the center, night had already fallen.
Clutching his cane more tightly than usual, Naomi hurried down the street toward the hospital.
Was she awake right now, or sleeping? Either was fine with him, of course. If she was asleep, it would only be for a few short hours; she’d open her eyes again in the morning. That was nothing compared to ten long years.
He realized he was practically bouncing and tried to tamp down on his excitement. As his mind grew calmer, a nagging hint of guilt slipped into his thoughts.
Mentally, he apologized once more. To Senko, to Xu, and to all the coworkers he’d lied to.
And to the boy.
All of this was his fault, but he could never tell them that. He’d keep it locked up in his mind forever and take his secret to the grave.
Calmly, deliberately, Naomi headed for the hospital.
A cold moon hung in the Kyoto sky.
4.
A COLD MOON HUNG IN THE KYOTO SKY.
An unpleasant, sticky wind blew through the city. Thick clouds rolled into view, hiding the moon; before long, they’d covered the entire sky, forming a solid lid over the Uji River.
The people who’d come to see the fireworks were chatting in the distance. Some of them sounded excited, others concerned.
“Was that lightning?”
“Was there an accident?”
None seemed to know what had happened, but most of them weren’t too worried. Whatever it was, it was over, and no real damage had been done. Now that the show was over, it was time to go back to their normal lives. Their first priority was to make it back to the station and head home before the trains filled up.
The fireworks were over for the year.
“Sensei?”
Standing alone in the middle of a bridge, Katagaki Naomi called out once again. There was no reply.
He stared up blankly at the sky. His mind couldn’t form any coherent thoughts. His brain had been going a mile a minute, but now it felt like it’d shut down completely.
He wanted to think, of course. Slowly, with the clumsy ineptitude of a toddler, he pieced words together inside his mind. Nothing was making any sense, but he forced his thoughts forward one step at a time.
Naomi scanned the length of the bridge. Ichigyou Ruri was nowhere to be seen. She’d been standing here moments ago, but now she was gone.
Why? Well, the claws of that crow had surrounded her, transformed into a cage, and disappeared into the sky. It had reminded him a little of the way the fox-masks had teleported them here. Maybe she’d been sent off somewhere else now.
In that case…
“I’ve got to find them,” Naomi muttered softly to himself.
He shuffled one foot forward. He’d meant to take a step, but instead, the sole of his shoe scraped weakly against the stone surface of the bridge.
He was close to one of the bridge’s decorative poles, a post of painted wood and metal pointing straight up at the sky. That was convenient. Approaching it, Naomi pressed his right hand to its surface.
He wasn’t wearing his glove.
“Huh?”
Right. The glove had sprouted wings and flown away on him. He didn’t have the God Hand anymore. It had slipped his mind somehow.
He’d have to find some other way to pursue them, then.
For now, he needed to get moving. He started to walk. There was no point hanging around on this bridge all day.
Where was he supposed to go, though? The station, maybe?
As he thought through his next step, Naomi stepped mindlessly onto the broad steps at the end of the bridge and tripped, tumbling down to the very bottom.
Naomi grimaced in pain as he hit the ground. He’d smacked his arms and legs against the hard stone stairs, and he could tell some of his scrapes were bleeding. He lay still for a moment, spread out like a dead frog. He could hear muttering voices around him—apparently he’d had an audience for his pratfall. How embarrassing.
Naomi tried to pick himself up, but his joints ached and didn’t act how he’d expected. Humiliated, desperate, he pressed his hand to the stony ground.
But he didn’t have his glove on.
And in this moment, he finally understood.
No train, no bus, no boat could take him where he needed to go. Nothing could take him to where she was.
“Give me something,” he said, pressing his right hand to the ground.
Nothing emerged.
“Give me anything!” he shouted, punching his hand against the unyielding stone. “A plane! A car! A bike! How about an elevator? A flight of stairs? Anything’s fine! I don’t care!”
He punched the ground again and again. Over and over. But it was still stone. It refused to transform.
“Come on, please! Turn into water, I don’t care! Just do something!”
A drop of water fell beside Naomi’s hand.
Another followed, and then another, plopping softly against the stones. A summer rain fell from the thick clouds above; in no time at all, it grew from a drizzle into a storm.
It was a natural phenomenon, of course. Naomi’s hand hadn’t produced a single drop of it. An ordinary human hand wasn’t capable of something like that.
After a long moment, Naomi forced his aching body to its feet and trudged off through the driving rain.
Deep puddles had formed on the sidewalks, but Naomi rushed straight through them. Muddy water splashed up with every step he took, but what did it matter? His pants and shoes were already soaked through. There wasn’t much point going around.
He breathed rapidly, in gasps. It felt like his heart might give out at any moment. But he didn’t stop walking. If he slowed down, if he let himself catch his breath, he might start thinking again.
He might remember she’d been taken away.
He might remember that Sensei did it.
His chest burned, an unendurable pain that ate him alive from the inside out. He ran toward Shimogamo, desperately hoping that relief was waiting for him.
Maybe she’s back at home right now.
He had no reason to believe it, of course. Why would she disappear into thin air, only to reappear back where she belonged? Still, he headed for her house, clinging to a fantasy.