Tap, tap—
Her footsteps stopped.
A heavy iron door—its paint mostly peeled away, dark red rust showing underneath—blocked the way. The hinges seemed frozen with corrosion. Mustering all her strength, Amano Hina pushed; with a teeth-aching creak, it opened just enough for her to slip through sideways.
The view opened up at once.
It was an island in the sky that the city had forgotten. The broad concrete rooftop, neglected for years and gnawed by rain, was crosshatched with cracks. In many places, pools of water of uneven depth reflected the leaden sky.
In the corners, stubborn weeds and low, nameless plants had forced their way up through the seams in the concrete. Their humble yet unyielding green wavered in the wind and rain, adding an unexpected, defiant touch of life to the desolate gray.
But the most striking thing wasn't this small miracle of life. It was the small structure standing, abrupt and alone, at the center of the roof—a red torii gate. It wasn't tall. Its style was plain and old-fashioned—one might even call it crude. The vermilion paint, weathered by years of sun, wind, and rain, had grown mottled and dull; in many spots the gray-black wood beneath showed through, like deep wrinkles on a weathered elder's face. It stood there silent and solemn, a stark, uncanny contrast to the cold, modern towers all around—as if torn from a time-forgotten shrine and dropped atop this forest of steel and concrete, a mysterious, lonely coordinate linking an unknowable past to the noisy present.
Rain washed its frame, gathering into threads that slid down with the grain of the wood.
Without a moment's hesitation, Hina walked straight toward the torii, as if long familiar with it. Cold rain fell on her unshielded. Her clothes, already soaked through, clung to her skin, sipping away what little warmth she had. Her hair was drenched; cold droplets ran from the tips, over her cheeks and along her neck, sending shivers through her. She seemed oblivious—or rather, chose to ignore it.
She stopped directly beneath the gate. Tilting her face up, she let the rain strike her. A few mischievous drops slipped into her eyes and stung. She closed them; her long, rain-wet lashes trembled slightly. Then she pressed her hands together before her chest, her movements slow and deliberate, as if performing an ancient, devout rite—facing the silent torii, and the gray sky that seemed it would never clear.
In a voice barely above a murmur, faintly trembling, she began to pray.
"Please… let the rain stop…"
The words were so soft they were swallowed almost at once by the drizzle, like the faintest ripple from deep inside her.
She paused, as if confirming an identity she herself could not fully grasp. Then, in a clearer voice—tinged with uncertainty and a touch of self-encouragement—she spoke the secret buried deepest in her heart:
"I am… a Sunshine Maiden."
It was less a plea to some nebulous presence than a declaration to herself—a calling and affirmation of a special gift she could not explain, yet knew was real. She didn't know where it came from, or why it had chosen someone as ordinary—at least on the surface—as her. She only vaguely remembered noticing it sometime after her mother died—when she was at her lowest, silently crying up at a rain-choked sky, and the clouds had miraculously parted before her eyes.
Ever since, she had felt a hazy, uncanny link between herself and the sky. When she truly wished for it—when she called for clear weather with all her heart—the clouds would indeed give way, and sunlight would break through to bathe her. It was her deepest secret: a strangeness she dared not tell anyone, one that confused her and that she had come to lean on. It was also the one fragile, sunlike thread of warmth and hope she could grasp in a life heavy with gloom and loneliness. Coming to pray before this torii had become her only way to ease the pressure and comfort her heart.
And just as her prayer faded—and her whole being sank into that faint hope and the subtle resonance of her strange gift—
A cold, mechanical chime with no trace of emotion detonated without warning in the depths of her mind:
[Ding! You have joined the Trading Chat Group!]
Hina's eyes flew open. Her pupils shrank; shock and bewilderment flooded them. She could clearly hear her heart pounding—thud, thud, thud—like a frantic drumbeat threatening to burst free.
Instinctively she looked around, her gaze sweeping every empty, wind-and-rain-lashed corner of the rooftop. No one! Nothing living but herself and the silent torii!
"Am I hearing things? Too tired? A fever hallucination from the rain?"
She shook her wet head hard, flinging cold droplets. But the sound had been so clear, so real.
"Is anyone there?" she whispered—so softly only she could hear—her voice trembling with fear and uncertainty. Even a sunshine maiden could be spooked by ghost stories. Her question was swallowed at once by the steady rain; no answer came.
But the chat group did answer.
The rain stopped. The clouds began to slowly part. Warm sunlight poured down like a sanctifying glow over Amano Hina.
Then, in the blankness of her shock, an interface abruptly appeared in her field of vision:
[Trading Chat Group]
The chat group's interface hovered quietly before her, radiating a presence impossible to ignore.
~~~
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