Momo and Daniel walked through an appallingly large space, a space not bound by distance.
Everywhere in this space—left, right, up, down— there stretched endless rows of desks. This was where the black-clad staff worked. This was the shinigami bureau. The workers there were all Shinigami.
To a human, a shinigami ’s face would be frightening. It was terribly pale and expressionless.
Even Momo, who was herself a shinigami, found this place uncomfortable, so she rarely showed up there. As Momo walked, the other shinigami stole glances at her.
“It’s her…”
“It’s Death…”
“She thinks this is all a joke…”
“She should just do her job…”
“Such a fool…”
They murmured on and on, stealing accusatory glances at her.
Shinigami ran low on emotion. But of the emotions they did possess, a large percentage seemed to be negative. Perhaps it was a result of the self-regret they harbored in becoming shinigami.
Momo couldn’t understand. “Is that the reason…?”
“What is it, Momo?” Although he asked her aloud, Daniel sensed what his master was feeling.
It must be hard to endure such harsh treatment, he thought.
“Is everyone looking at me because I’m so tattered and torn?” Momo murmured absentmindedly.
“I-I don’t think so…”
“Really…?” Momo asked.
Daniel thought she was playing dumb on purpose. At least, that’s what he wanted to think.
Y’know how Momo can really be absentminded sometimes… In any case… this place gives me the creeps.
“…I don’t like it here,” Daniel declared quietly.
“I don’t like it either…” she answered. “But I have to look something up.”
“Look something up?”
“That’s right.”
The cat asked, “You mean that thing just now?” By “that thing,” he meant the being they had just encountered in the sky.
“Well, yes.”
Momo came to a certain place and stopped. She held out her hand, and a doorway appeared. Opening the door, she entered.
Inside was yet another large and empty space. In front of Momo and Daniel was an enormous television-like object. A transparent orb glowed inside it.
Daniel spread his wings—watching Momo with just the least bit of caution, lest he get yanked by the collar again—and pointed the tip of his tail at the crystal orb. The white tip of his tail, no larger than a fingertip, slid easily into the crystal.
“Code confirmed. Connection completed. Online. Okay, Momo, we’re good.”
Like the self-proclaimed superb servant demon that he was, he always worked swiftly and efficiently.
“Thank you, Daniel.”
Momo was poor at administrative tasks such as this. So she always left these things to Daniel.
You’re very trustworthy, my superb servant demon.
Momo gently tied her ragged and messy hair up, fixing it to the side. “Now then, shall we begin?”
Daniel teased her. “What? There’s nobody here, and you’re making sure you look proper? So you are a girl after all!” He clasped his forepaws together in an exaggerated display of astonishment.
“Well, yes,” she replied. “But this is awful, my clothes are all ruined… and I liked this outfit too.” Momo let out a melodramatic sigh and shrugged her shoulders, yet somehow there was a trace of sincerity in her words.
“Oh!” Daniel exclaimed. “I see. Well, I’ll bring out some new clothes later. I think there are still some spares…”
Feeling guilty all of a sudden, Daniel fidgeted, thinking, And here I am trying to play dumb. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea… Maybe Momo really is seriously worried about her looks…
While Daniel fretted quietly, Momo swiftly began working. As she touched the crystal, it began emitting a bright light. She wanted to dig up information on that black entity from the shinigami bureau database, but no matter how much she tried, nothing came up. Not one shred of data on it existed in the database.
“What’s going on here?” Momo asked Daniel.
Daniel shook his head, “I don’t know… It just isn’t possible that the bureau doesn’t have any data on a particular shinigami.”
Disturbed, he thought, Then what was that shinigami? Who is Nichol’s master? Was it not a shinigami? But Nichol was there… So why can’t we find anything? Hmm…
“…It’s no good. I can’t find a thing.” Daniel let out a big sigh.
“It can’t be helped. Let’s go, Daniel,” said Momo.
“Huh?” Daniel asked, disappointed. “We’re not going to research anymore?”
“If you can’t find anything here, there’s no use looking any further, is there? Maybe there’s another way to get information.”
“Another way?” the cat asked.
“Who knows.”
“What do you mean, ‘who knows?’ This doesn’t change anything…”
“Like I said,” she repeated, “maybe there’s another way.”
Daniel heaved another sigh. I swear, my master is so optimistic. Even after that experience she just went through… Really, Nichol… why are you serving that jerk…? What is it, that #A-99? #A-99…?!
“Hm? Oh!”
“What is it, Daniel?” Momo looked curiously at Daniel, who had sucked in his breath as if he’d suddenly remembered something.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he insisted. “Uh… I’ll lock up. So go on ahead!”
Hurriedly, Daniel pushed Momo toward the exit.
“All right… but what is it all of a sudden?” Momo was a bit bothered by Daniel’s strange behavior.
“Like I said, it’s nothing. Go on, I’ll clean up here.”
“Oh, okay.”
Since she was being pushed out, Momo stepped outside.
With Momo gone, Daniel’s expression hardened.
“………”
Something was nagging at him. If he remembered correctly, that shinigami ’s ID had been #A-99. The “A” code was a peculiar one. Until then, Daniel had only met, or even heard of, one other shinigami who possessed the “A” code. That one was, of course, his one and only master, Momo. Momo’s ID was #A-100100.
Not only that, its face had been exactly like Momo’s.
So what does this… mean…?
He had a bad feeling, like a stinging sensation at the back of his mind. Something lurking beneath his thoughts.
…It couldn’t be… Could it…? he thought desperately, but there definitely was something there he couldn’t dismiss.
“…All right…”
Steeling his resolve, Daniel plunged the white tip of his tail into the crystal. The orb emitted light as the data search began.
“…This can’t be true… How could this be…?” The bad feeling proved to be true.
Just as in the case of that mysterious shinigami, there was also not one shred of data available on Momo.