Ch.8
"Issei-san, I don't understand. Which button makes it go down?"
"The one on the right. No, your other right. There. Now press the front button to grab."
Asia pressed the button. The crane descended into the pile of stuffed animals, closed its claw around empty air about six inches from the nearest plush, and lifted back up with nothing. She turned to me with a face so earnestly disappointed that I almost laughed.
"I did it wrong."
"You were close. Try again."
She was not close. She had been aiming for a penguin on the far side of the machine that no amount of crane adjustment was going to reach. But she put in another coin with the gravity of someone performing a sacrament, and she pressed the buttons again.
The claw came down. Descended into a different section of the pile than she'd been aiming for, because she'd mixed up the directional buttons again. Closed around a small stuffed dog with floppy ears. Lifted it clear.
Asia stared at the dog dangling from the claw as it traveled across the machine and dropped into the retrieval slot with a soft thud.
She pulled it out. Held it at arm's length. Looked at it. Looked at me. Then she pressed it against her chest with both hands and her whole body curled around it and she made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob and she didn't let go.
I stood there watching a girl who'd grown up in a convent and never owned a toy hold a stuffed dog she'd won by accident.
She held onto it for the rest of the morning.
I'd found her on the street below the church around ten, walking slowly, looking at the shop windows. She'd been wearing a different outfit than the nun's habit, a plain white blouse and a long blue skirt that looked borrowed, and she'd spotted me before I could pretend the meeting was accidental. Her face had lit up the same way it had at the intersection, total and unguarded, and she'd run the last few steps.
The arcade was my idea. The burger shop was hers, because she'd seen a poster in the arcade of a hamburger the size of someone's head and her eyes had gone wide and she'd said, very quietly, "I have never had one of those."
The burger shop was two blocks from the arcade, a fast-food place with plastic seats and a counter service that smelled like grease and cleaning solution. The lunch rush was thinning out. A couple of office workers were finishing their meals at a corner table. A kid was throwing fries at his sister while their mother was on the phone.
Asia ordered a basic cheeseburger, fries, and a cola. She set the tray down, folded her hands, closed her eyes, and prayed.
I watched her mouth move. She was silent, but I could read the shape of the words, Latin, the Ave Maria maybe, or grace before meals. Her eyes were shut tight and her hands were pressed together so hard her fingertips were white.
Halfway through the prayer, she winced. A small thing, a tightening around her eyes and a hitch in her breathing that someone who wasn't watching for it would have missed. Her hands unlocked and one of them pressed against her temple for a second before going back to the prayer position.
She finished. Opened her eyes. Smiled at me like everything was fine.
I put my hand over hers on the table.
She blinked. Looked down at my hand covering her small fingers. Looked up at me.
"You don't have to hide it," I said.
"I- I don't know what you-"
"The headache. From the prayer. You don't have to pretend it's fine."
Her mouth opened. Closed. Her eyes got wet and she looked down at the hamburger.
"It's been happening since I arrived in Japan," she said quietly. "The prayers feel... different here. Heavier. Like they're not reaching where they're supposed to go." She pressed her fingers against her temple again. "I thought maybe I was just tired from the travel."
"Maybe," I said. I didn't move my hand.
She looked at our hands on the table. Then she picked up the hamburger with her free hand and took a bite, and the expression on her face when the flavor hit was worth every bad thing that had happened since I'd woken up in this body.
"It's so good," she said through a mouthful. Her eyes were wide. "Issei-san, this is so good."
"Yeah," I said. "They're pretty great."
She ate the whole thing. She ate the fries. She drank the cola. She looked at the empty tray like she was considering ordering a second one. I bought her a vanilla milkshake and she drank it holding the stuffed dog in her other hand.
After lunch we walked through the park. The afternoon was warm and the paths were mostly empty. An older couple was feeding ducks at the pond. A groundskeeper was mowing a section of grass near the far entrance, and the cut-grass smell hung in the warm air.
We sat on a bench under a tree. Asia had the dog in her lap and the milkshake cup, empty now, between her feet.
"Issei-san," she said, "can I tell you something?"
"Yeah. Of course."
She told me about Italy. The convent where she grew up. The sisters who raised her, who were kind until they weren't. She told me about the day she healed the wounded man who turned out to be a Devil, and how everyone's faces had changed when they found out. She told me about the word they used.
"They called me a-" Her voice caught. She swallowed. Tried again. "A witch."
Her voice cracked on the word.
My hands were in my lap. My fingers closed into fists. I kept them there where she couldn't see.
I knew this story. I'd watched it on a screen in another life, read about it on wikis. Hearing it from the girl sitting next to me, who was holding a stuffed dog and had milkshake on her lip and whose voice was shaking because real people had called her a witch for showing kindness, was different.
"The people who did that to you were wrong," I said. My voice came out flatter than I intended. "You healed someone. That's all you did."
"I know," she said. She was looking at the pond. The ducks were fighting over a piece of bread. "I know that. But it still happened. And they were- they were my family. The only family I had."
She went quiet. The groundskeeper's mower buzzed in the distance.
"Do you have family, Issei-san?" she asked.
"Yeah. My parents."
"Are they kind?"
"They are."
"What do you want to do with your life?"
I lied. I told her I wanted to be a teacher, which was close enough to what the real Issei's parents probably hoped for and vague enough that I didn't have to build an elaborate cover story. She listened with her full attention, the green eyes on my face, nodding at the right moments. She believed every word because she didn't know how to disbelieve people, and I hated lying to her more than I'd hated anything since arriving in this world.
"You're the first friend I've ever had," she said.
She said it simply. Like stating a fact. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Issei-san is my first friend.
"You'll have more," I said.
"Do you promise?"
"Yeah. I promise."
She smiled. The warm one. The one that made her look like the anime version of herself, the girl I'd watched from another world and wished I could help.
I could help her now. I was going to.
The sun was getting low. Asia looked at the sky and her shoulders dropped.
"I should return," she said. "They'll wonder where I am."
I walked her to the base of the hill road. Same intersection as before. Same spot where I'd stopped last time.
She turned to face me, the stuffed dog clutched against her chest. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were slightly pink from the walking, and she opened her mouth to say something, and then she didn't.
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me.
Fast. Tight. Her face pressed against my chest and her arms locked around my sides and she held on. The top of her head barely reached my chin. She smelled like soap and old paper. She was shaking, just slightly, a tremor in her shoulders coming through my shirt.
My hand came up to the back of her head. Automatic. My fingers settled into her hair, blonde and fine and warm from the sun. I held her there.
It lasted maybe five seconds. She pulled back before I was ready, her face red, her eyes down, and she grabbed the suitcase handle and turned and walked up the hill without looking back. She was moving fast, almost running, the suitcase bumping on the pavement behind her.
I stood at the intersection and watched her disappear through the church gate for the second time, and my hand was still warm where her head had been.
I walked home. The streets were quiet. Dusk was settling in, the sky going from blue to orange to purple. A woman was watering her garden as I passed, and the spray caught the light and made a brief rainbow across the sidewalk.
At home, I went straight upstairs.
"The nun has a Sacred Gear," Ddraig said. "Twilight Healing. Two rings. Green light. Heals any being regardless of species or faction."
She paused.
"You already knew."
I sat on the bed. The pillow smelled like laundry detergent. My chest still felt warm where Asia had pressed her face.
"Yeah," I said. "I did."
"You knew what she was carrying before you met her. You engineered the meeting. You walked the route in advance."
"Yeah."
"You have foreknowledge."
It wasn't a question. I didn't treat it like one.
"I have foreknowledge."
The weight of Ddraig's attention pressed in, steady and focused. She was listening.
"How much?"
"Enough. I know the big events. The major players. The shape of what's coming. The details get less reliable the more I change things."
"And you have been changing things."
"From day one."
Silence. The ceiling fan turned. I was starting to find the off-balance clicking comforting, which was probably a sign I'd been in this body too long.
"The Fallen Angels will extract the nun's Sacred Gear. When?"
"Days. Maybe less. The timeline's fuzzy because I've already changed too much."
"What happens to her without Twilight Healing?"
"She dies."
More silence. Heavier.
"Then we have work to do, partner."
"Yeah," I said. "We do."
Tomorrow I'd go to Rias. I'd bring her the intelligence, the layout, the timeline. I'd negotiate the raid. And then we'd go get Asia back before the people in that church took her apart.
I closed my eyes. My hand was still warm.