The plaza outside the train station was sparse of any passersby, while the surrounding arcades lined with stores bustled with life; soothing music played in the background and came to him with distant chatter; and behind his back, faint rumble of cars arose down a short flight of stairs where three boulevards intersected to form a busy thoroughfare.

  The day was cool, pleasant, and the sky mild and scenic. Everything seemed suffused with an incorporeal aura of a dream; and even now, he found it hard to believe, truly believe, that he was here, and not there, back at home, still asleep.

  He looked up, and up there, in the sky, proof dangled right before his very eyes.

  A celestial body of dawn blazing in all its brilliance. At first he thought it was the sun; but the undeniable fact that it was imprisoned inside seven concentric rings of radiant runes brooked none of his askance.

  Briefly blind from squinting at it again, Satou rubbed his teary eyes, and said, looking up:

  “I’m in another world, aren’t I?”

  The statue in the middle of the plaza did not reply: memorial of some royalty from yore who proudly looking past him with his deep-set furrowed eyes, to where? He looked back, down the stairs, down the boulevard, to a large dome faraway.

  Elbows resting on his thighs, Satou looked down at his still slightly trembling hands, and again felt that jarring dissonance that these lithe fingers were really not his. He felt conflicted, perturbed, just to see it, precisely because for the life of him he could not call these his own; yet nothing felt more real, corporeal to him than this body he was now in.

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  An hour had passed since he had been sat here, parsing out his thoughts; and an hour more since he had seen himself in front of a storefront’s mirror. He recalled that face—that tousled jet-black hair, hazel eyes, lips parted to see him—and again he felt his heart skip a beat.

  “What a beauty,” he murmured, and blushed, when he realized just who he had repeated. He laughed, embarrassed; he could not help himself but laugh, embarrassed; and he found that his own gaily laughter did not fail to enchant him.

  What a beauty indeed…

  Never in his life had he felt this giddy, yet so utterly confounded at the same time. Vertigo—that sinking feeling which he so dreaded coursed through his entire body, his heart raced, but he did not shun it. How could he, when the discomfort which had first brought him here now imbued this precious moment with a glint of indelible beauty?

  Dry tears stuck to his cheeks flowed again, and he wiped it off with the heel of his palm. A warm breeze brushed past him, and all of a sudden he remembered where he was: in a public-square, out in the open, with tears glistening down his cheek. Coyly, he looked around him, startled as well as a little embarrassed, and sighed in relief when he saw no one stare.

  His body loosened, go less taut, and he felt a cold dampness underneath his shirtsleeve: it was sweat, he realized, his own; and also realize only now just how long he had been sat here, under the sun for. He looked around him for somewhere else he could go and sit, preferably somewhere with a shade, but found none where he could have his privacy as well.

  Then he looked down beside.

  There, leaning beside his thigh was the leather satchel he’d had on him ever since he first opened his eyes. He had no expectations as to what he might find inside, but that must not be taken to mean that he had no expectations. He certainly did expect to be surprised. He did expect to find something out of the ordinary. But a gun?