Story:

The shopping bags made a steady, papery percussion against their legs.

Butterfly carried hers in both hands, keeping the cake level with an attention she had not extended to it inside the shop.

Violet walked beside her with considerably less concern, the neck of a bottled drink protruding beneath her elbow.

Peach followed half a step behind. “I’m just saying,” she insisted, “people can resemble other people.”

“Certainly,” Violet said.

“So it could be a coincidence.”

“Certainly.”

“You keep saying that in a voice that means the opposite.”

Violet glanced over her shoulder. The streetlights caught a small, infuriating smile.

Peach shifted the bag she had somehow ended up carrying.

“And she speaks perfectly natural Kansai dialect. That tomboy way of talking, too. When would Kenshin-san have learned that?”

“Never say never.”

“That is not an explanation.”

“It is an invitation to remain curious.”

“It is what you say when you don’t have an explanation.”

Butterfly made a thoughtful sound.

Violet turned toward her sister. “You noticed it too, didn’t you? When she first saw us.”

Butterfly nodded. “Her right hand.”

Peach looked between them.

“What about her right hand?”

“It dropped about five inches,” Butterfly said. “Toward her hip.”

She demonstrated carefully, lowering her hand beside the shopping bag. Her fingers curved around an absent hilt, and her elbow settled into a familiar angle. “Like this.”

Violet’s smile deepened.

“A swordswoman reaching for her weapon.”

Peach stared at the demonstration.

“She works at a cash register. There are things beside her hip. Bags. Shelves. Possibly an itchy pocket.”

At the next corner, Violet adjusted her grip on the shopping bag. “Well, she attends our school.”

Peach heard the conclusion approaching and disliked it already.

“We shall have opportunities to learn more.”

“We are not interrogating her between classes.”

“Conversation, Peach. A perfectly ordinary conversation.”