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The wind idly toyed with the paper charms at the entrance to the Grand Narukami Shrine, and they answered with a faint rustle, whispering of things that slipped beyond mortal hearing. They did not need to be understood to unsettle, carrying their vague, vast knowing.
The long stone steps below still held the warmth of the day, though dusk had already begun its slow descent. Shadows stretched thin and deliberate across the shrine grounds, pooling beneath the eaves and gathering in the hollows between lantern light. A few late visitors lingered, offering coins, clapping hands, murmuring words that steeped somewhere between hope and routine. The shrine maidens moved among them with practiced grace, offering usual support to the devoted.
Ei stood a little apart, beneath the branches of the Sacred Sakura, whose leaves were already darkening with the onset of night. Her gaze drifted over the steps, over the quiet movements of the shrine maidens absorbed in their rituals, over the visitors who would soon descend back into the city below. It lingered on nothing in particular, and yet nothing escaped it, as befitted a detached observer who had long since grown accustomed to watching the passage of time without partaking in it.
“Hold out your hand, Ei.”
Behind her, a soft voice slipped lazily into her awareness, threaded with a smile that never quite faded.
Ei did not turn.
“If this is yet another amusing pastime of yours,” she replied evenly, “find one of the maidens instead. They have far more patience for such things.”
Miko was already beside her, as always close enough to suggest that distance between them was merely a formality. A folded piece of paper rustled in her finger — light, nearly weightless, yet stubbornly holding its shape, something between a flower and a horse’s hoof.
“You’re unfair,” she drawled, tilting her head slightly, just enough for one of the ornaments on her ear to sway. “I came to you with the most innocent of offers.”
Ei’s gaze slid over the paper without granting Miko the same attention.
“It looks questionable.”
“It looks,” Miko corrected gently, lifting Ei’s chin with her free hand, “like a part of human life you so diligently avoid.”
A pause stretched between them, taut as a drawn string.
The distant murmur of voices below seemed to recede, swallowed by the hush that settled in their shared space.
Ei held out her hand.
Deliberately reluctant, the gesture lacking the firmness with which she wielded a blade. She knew Miko would read her as easily as one of her light novels, but she still suppressed her curiosity out of long-ingrained habit.
Miko’s fingers brushed her wrist.
Too light to be called a true touch, — the first rumble of thunder beyond storm clouds rang out in the distance, — and Ei reflexively opened her palm.
The paper figure settled into it.
“Humans call this paper fortune-telling,” Miko said, already unfolding the creases with lazy precision. “A child’s game. Quite primitive.”
Her nails, neat yet faintly sharpened, glided along the folds, opening and closing them, drawing the eye with even so simple a motion.
“Pick a number.”
“I have no use for this.”
“Of course,” the shrine maiden agreed lightly. “Then I’ll choose.”
She left no room for objection.
“Two.”
The snap of paper sounded unexpectedly loud in the quiet.
Ei watched. Not so much the process as Miko herself: the way light caught on her lashes, how the corner of her lips curved as though the outcome had long been known, now merely reenacted for her own amusement. Time had sharpened her features, but her whims still lingered in the faint lift of her smile.
“And now a color.”
Ei silently shifted her gaze back to the paper.
Miko narrowed her eyes, raising a brow, and clicked her tongue softly.
“Purple, naturally.”
The folds moved again.
This time, slower.
“Well?” Ei’s voice carried more interest than she had intended.
Miko peered into the paper figure, and for a fleeting moment, a rare crease touched the space between her brows.
“It says…” she began and stopped.
Deliberately.
Ei frowned.
“Finish it.”
Miko lifted her gaze.
And within it, beneath the familiar teasing softness, something else flickered.
“Your spouse is a stubborn one, with a storm in their mind.”
The last shrine maiden closed the shutters, preparing for the inevitable rain.
Ei exhaled in quiet disappointment.
“Human nonsense.”
“Undoubtedly,” Miko agreed, folding the paper again, more carefully this time. “Their inventions rarely withstand time.”
She did not hurry to put it away.
“But sometimes,” she added, almost idly, “they come surprisingly close.”
Ei tilted her head.
“You’re implying—”
“Me?” Miko smiled faintly. “I’m merely divining.”
She stepped closer.
Close enough that the boundary between their spaces dissolved on its own.
Her fingers touched the same still-open palm again, and, without asking, closed it around the folded figure.
“Keep it,” she whispered. “It might come in handy.”
Ei curled her fingers.
A little tighter than necessary.
“I don’t believe in such things.”
“I know.”
Miko was already stepping away, and with her went the warmth, leaving only a trace of incense and a faint, lingering electricity in the air.
“But you won’t throw it away.”
Ei said nothing.
Only after a few moments did her fingers loosen.
The paper was only slightly creased.
***
By evening, the sky over Inazuma had filled with heavy silver, and scattered drops of rain began to fall on rooftops, on steps, along the hushed shrine paths, gathering into a primordial rhythm.
Ei stood by the open frame where the wind moved freely inside, carrying the scent of wet wood and the distant murmur of an approaching storm.
The paper was still in her hand.
Its folds had softened in the damp air, losing their sharpness, yet stubbornly holding, as though the shape itself refused to yield to time.
She unfolded it slowly.
Amid the creases, spreading like fractures across calm whiteness, faint traces of ink could be made out.
For a moment, Ei's gaze lingered.
One fold.
Another.
It came out rougher, simpler than when Miko had done it, still somehow the final shape was nearly the same.
She repeated the number, the color in her mind, but for some reason hesitated. The wind stirred the shutter below.
Inside, there was nothing, only numbers and colors divided by folding lines.
Ei considered crumpling it and checking again. But the image of that faint, knowing smile surfaced once more.
And then, just barely, the corner of her own lips moved.
“A foolish human tradition.”
A gust of wind swept through the opening, catching the sleeves of her kimono.
Ei opened her hand.
The paper trembled, then, caught by the air, slipped easily from her palm, spinning in the current, wavering between falling and flight before vanishing beyond the edge of the roof.
Somewhere far away, the next roll of thunder sounded.
Lightning flickered in violet eyes.