singlet ablation (youth unbound)

"Ahhh, there they are," Gustave crows. Chiaki turns to look behind their back on instinct, even though they know that Aogami is with them, and this slimy shopkeep is most definitely able to tell so as well.

"Keehee! You think I mean to trap you?" The rings on Gustave's fingers clang against bony jasmine as he claps with delight. "I want nothing but your Macca, Nahobino. Oh, and a little something else, but we'll come to that once I see what you have in store for me."

"Young one..." Aogami's voice echoes in their head. "I do not believe this demon means us any harm. As we have no need of any of his wares, might I suggest that we hear out his request and then excuse ourselves?"

Looking for Gustave's truant, if not to say derelict, employees? It seems a benign (if not to say banal) enough task. It also gives a good opportunity to make amends and apologize to Gustave for the implied suspicion, should he be in need of or even blithely interested in such a peace offering. Chiaki sets their mind to it without another pause, once they exit the leyline's pocket of the netherworld.

There's a buzzing in their head, though, separate to the usual (as much as it could be, by this early point) activity of Aogami's quiet, staunch, constant presence.

So Chiaki stops walking and squats down in the sand - the white-blue heels they have in this form do seem to help with this perenially awkward posture at least a little bit. Their hair pools around them, floating by barest infinitesimal separation above the ground.

If Aogami can be reticent, so can they.

"Is something amiss?"

So Aogami takes the bait. But Chiaki shakes their head - their head, the conjoined monstrosity curtained in an impossible energy river.

Whatever they were at Jouin, they are now something completely different, left in charge of their own body only by the grace of Aogami's chivalrous detachment. So what does it do to dwell on what people - demons, if that - think of them?

Chiaki Tennosuke has never been one with enough popularity and/or friends to warrant hearing their own self referred to in the third person while they're yet present; no one offers what Tennosuke has spoken of or plans to do at a brief quarter turn to another individual who's actually paying attention.

Then, Amanozako speaks mostly in "hey you" and Pixie seems equally content to accept the Nahobino, her savior, as a boy or a girl, based almost purely upon how they present.

But the gods of law and chaos are male. Megami are merely accessories.