“They don’t seem to carry any weapons,” Ichigo said.

“How strange…” Yuta said.

“Not as strange as this…” Ichigo said, opening a glass door.

The sight that had caught the young man’s fancy was a rectangular prism of a room that jutted out from the corner of one of the hospital’s many concourses. Its glass walls gave a perfect view of its brightly lit interior. It seemed Ichigo couldn’t resist the childish compulsion to step through its glass doors and touch and see what lay within—and Yuta didn’t blame him in the slightest.

At a glance, the place reminded Yuta of a shrine to a kami or a barashai. Both were filled with rows upon rows of shelves laden with colorful objects, but there, the similarities ended. In a shrine, the shelves would be made from stone, and the objects on them were packaged prayers or votive offerings, pleading for the god’s favor, or for the support and intervention of the enlightened barashai that wandered across the firmament.

“Do you think it might be a shrine?” Ichigo asked.

Even in death, great minds thought alike.

Yuta shook his head. “No, not likely. I have been to a Rasudai temple, and can still remember what I saw. They were built from stone, and far less illuminated than this.” He stared at the shelves. “And they had nothing like this.”

The shelves in this not-quite-a-shrine were also filled with goods, but, beyond that…

“What do you think they’re for?” Ichigo said, as he stepped up to one of the shelves.

Some of the objects were stacked on the shelves; or slid in, like codices in a library. Others dangled hooked racks. Most notably, however, everything—absolutely everything—was encased in sheets or boxes of the material Ichigo called “thickened air”—what Horosha had called by some nonsense word—purasuchikku. Most parts were covered or filled with colorful inserts sprinkled with images and Tsurentu text.

Entire rows of shelves and hooks were dedicated to… accessories. Yuta saw bags of gaudy-colored (serpent?) skin hanging from the hooks by lengthy straps. He saw showy, decorated plates, and he could tell that they were plates, thanks to images on the inserts, which showed them covered with food. He saw short-sleeved shirts brazenly covered in images of sights like the ones Yuta had seen from the balcony—buildings, vehicles, street scenes, and more.

“What could it mean?” Ichigo said.

“I…” Yuta cleared his throat, “I think this is a shop of some kind.”

Ichigo looked at him like he was mad. “A shop? In a place of healing? What do shirts and bags and thickened air have to do with healing?”

“Who says a shop in a hospital has to sell medical goods?” Yuta said.

He regarded the boxes on the nearest shelf. Each was filled with a single figurine—extraordinarily lifelike. The figurines came in many different varieties, each of which had a style of box all its own. The same figures could be seen in different poses, suggesting that the figures could be posed and arranged, like wooden puppets. Some of the figurines—very very few, though—were physicians, dressed like Horosha. Others were ronin, with fine haori and gleaming blades drawn at the ready. Yuta also saw Tsurentu knights with weapons in hand, and imperious figures in sumptuous white robes, encrusted in recreations of pearl and gold; he dimly recognized them as Rasedaitu holy men. Still others seemed utterly fantastical: muscled men with golden hair that grew from their heads like carrot tops; strange hybrid beings—dressed like Tsurentu knights, but with blue hair or a ninja’s bandana to go along with their flowing capes. Many weren’t even human. He saw grinning devils and colorful, fanciful creatures of charming design.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

To his surprise, however, Yuta saw Munine text on the backs of the objects:

A-mi-bo figurine. Game sold separately.

He hadn’t the slightest clue what an A-mi-bo was, though he didn’t dwell on it for long, for there was an even greater puzzle in the set of shelves next to the ones with the figurines.

The shop was selling rectangles: dark, tiny rectangles—no larger than a thumb-nail—covered in a smidgeon of text or imagery, embedded in purasuchikku sheets large enough to be pages in a codex. Some had inserts showing what could only be the buildings he and Ichigo were currently in. Others depicted things completely divorced from reality: drawings of tiger cubs gazing winsomely from within a cloth-bottomed basket; images of warriors with swords and shields of a design that Yuta half-recognized, and made him shiver. He saw ones covered with real images of people dressed like Horosha had been—presumably, other physicians; all were smiling. Some of them depicted some of the more fantastical figures available nearby. But, no matter the content depicted on the insert, there was always a small drawing of the consuru device in the insert’s upper right-hand corner.

What it meant, however—or what the small objects within were for—that was anyone’s guess. On a hunch, remembering the figurines, Yuta checked the backs of these seemingly packageless packages, and was rewarded with another snippet found Munine text:

Made in Mu.

“I believe… these are for children,” Ichigo said.

Stepping away from the figurines and the purasuchikku sheets, Yuta walked over to where Ichigo stood, beside a row of shelves pressed up against the shop’s one non-glass wall. The shelves were filled with what could only be children’s dolls. Most were in the shapes of animals—hummingbirds, especially—or, if not animals, then something halfway between animal and human. He saw dragons and bears and birds of all sorts, from blue owls, to red birds with yellow beaks half a forearm in length. The quality of their materials and make was simply astonishing, and as Yuta ran his fingers across their plush surfaces, tears came to his eyes as he pictured how his children would have reacted to a gift like this.

Children whose names he no longer remembered.

To the left of the dolls’ section were scores of brightly colored boxes, covered with bits of text or stylized images. Picking one up, Yuta noticed the boxes had a slight weight to them, and that their contents made noise, rustling about, when he shook them.

Putting the box back on the shelves, he continued down the aisle until he reached a point where the many varieties of dolls reduced to only a fantastical, winged beast—like a dragon and a lion—a woman in robes of blue and white, and…

—the Angel.

That was what they called it.

The word came to him, but only for a moment.

Beyond the dolls of the Rasedaitu gods, the goods gave way to objects Yuta actually recognized: religious paraphernalia. He saw statuettes, trinkets, candles, miniatures of Tsurentu temples, and decorated editions of illuminated manuscripts—his first encounter with paper in this strange new world. Several baskets sat on the shelves. One was filled to the brim with translucent purasuchikku tubes, and held a clear fluid—possibly water. The other baskets had probably held the same things, but had since been emptied of their goods.

Further down the aisle lay the corner of the shop, where the glass wall met the wall of the larger chamber. There, Yuta saw an area enclosed by a polished counter. One of the consuru was built into the countertop, next to which lay an arm, perfectly still.

“Ichigo…” Yuta said, getting his retainer’s attention.

Behind the counter sat a corpse. She leaned over the countertop, resting her head between her crossed arms.

She must have died in her sleep.

The sickness within her had started to bloom. Prominences split her flesh open where they grew out onto the countertop. Dark filaments spread out from the base of the prominence, looking like roots beneath her skin. Several of the prominences had burst open, spraying spores everywhere, with the result being that the entire back of the store was splotched in corrosion. The shelves in the back row were dissolved and burnt. Holes and depressions were etched into the countertop around the woman’s body, as if she was sinking into the earth.

Even now, as he turned his head down the aisle, he could hear the sound of soft, bubbling sizzles, and see a faint cloud of green wisps hovering over the floor.

Yuta did not know this woman, but she had died at her place of work, and for that, she earned his respect. He lowered his head, while Ichigo intoned a quiet prayer.