Date A Mysterious Being

Chapter 8 - Puppet

"...Aah...," Shidou sighed.

He plodded along the residential street at the pace of an old man with bad knees as the sun began its journey back to the horizon. His face was haggard with exhaustion, and the hair that hung over his eyes was dull and lifeless. He was only sixteen but looked much older. And who could blame him?

"...Aah." Another sigh.

Tohka and Origami kept going at each other, and he stepped in to stop them every time. This wasn't the first of these fights. They'd been happening almost daily since Tohka transferred to Raizen High, the public school Shidou attended. If it were the bickering of two teenage girls, he wouldn't have been as anxious as he was.

"Can't they get along for five seconds...?" he grumbled, then shook his head at his own idiocy.

Until a month ago, the two girls had been literally trying to kill each other. Kotori said Origami and the rest of the AST wouldn't come for Tohka because they weren't getting a Spirit signal from her. Even so, she wasn't exactly champing at the bit to become best friends with the now-powerless Spirit.

Worst part out of all is... Lucas hasn't been to school for quite some time. He only told him that he would take a break for personal reasons but.. for more than a month is quite a odd.

"What is he up to now...? I could really need some help y'know!"

Shidou wouldn't last much longer if things kept up the way they were. He was about to sigh even longer and louder when he jerked his head up.

"...Hmm?" He felt something cold trail down his neck. "...Gah." He scowled at the sky.

At some point, it had turned leaden with clouds.

"Rain? Give me a break! The forecast said it was going to be sunny," he muttered to himself, cursing the weather forecaster, who was more miss than hit these days.

As though the sky had been waiting for that very moment, droplets started to mark out dark spots on the ground.

"Yikes..." He held his bag up over his head and trotted towards his house. The rain started to come down harder and turned into a downpour. "Oh, come on. Seriously...?"

He frowned in annoyance, cold rain seeping into his skin through his wet uniform. He started to run down the road, trying in vain to keep his uniform from getting totally soaked. Right when he was about to turn at the T-intersection, his feet stopped abruptly.

"Uh...?" It wasn't that he was simply too tired to go on or he'd decided he was fine with being wet. Something had appeared just up ahead, which he found much more interesting than beads of water falling from the sky.

Yes. A girl. A small shadow wrapped in a cute cloak. He couldn't see her face because a large hood with decorative rabbit ears hid it completely from view. Even more curiously, on her left hand was a cute rabbit puppet. This girl hopping around the deserted road, looking like she was having the time of her life.

"What...?" He stared at her, frowning as a question popped inside his head.
He wasn't curious about why she would be bouncing around in the rain without an umbrella, but why? What about her had so instantly caught his attention? Her outfit was indeed eye-catching. But that wasn't it. He couldn't describe this feeling, but it was like something was out of place, a strange, mysterious sensation.

"..."
The chill of the rain and the clamminess of his wet uniform didn't bother him anymore. His eyes were fixed on the girl dancing beneath the stormy sky.

Fwoosh! Thud!

"Huh...?" His eyes snapped open as the girl tripped.

She slammed into the ground face-first, sending droplets of water up into the air. The puppet on her left hand broke free and flew off ahead of her. She layed on the road, motionless.