"Attention passengers. Train XX3, scheduled for departure to the Eternal Rain Kingdom has arrived."

Veto stayed still on his bench, observing the passengers filing into the train.

Let's see... I need to find a weird and striking appearance group. He thought.

Myu poked his waist with a finger that still had cheese sauce on it.

[Myu? myu myu myu!] "Veto? They're going to leave us!"

Veto did not respond. The cheese sauce was already gone.

He continued scanning for anyone with a striking appearance.

He could not find a single one.

...

"Alright Myu, let's get go—" Myu was already gone from his side. She was already in the train.

So much for a loyal pet. He thought as he walked in after her.

While searching for his seat, a person bumped into him. He did not dodge.

The person wore a hoodie, a headset, and a mask.

This guy... He studied him. This is definitely the guy. So this is the... He tried to recall the group name he'd overheard at the waiting bench. ...the whatever-they're-called. Truckside Tail?

A smirk formed across his face.

The guy jolted the moment he saw Veto's expression.

"I-I'm sorry — I'm so sorry." He said, walking past Veto at a hurried pace. His hands were shaking.

[Myu myu?] "Why is that guy shaking?"

Veto continued walking. Myu followed. They found their seats at the back of the train, near the window.

Veto sat. Myu climbed onto his lap.

Alright. I've found the suspicious one. Now I just need to time my arrival for when they're about to make their move. He glanced down at Myu, who was currently staring at the blank station wall through the window. She's going to cause trouble every time I try to stand up. Whatever. I saved money doing this. Yeah. Saved money. Definitely worth it.

"Mom! I want to sit near the window!" A child's voice registered somewhere to his left.

Veto, who had been mid-calculation for the ideal entry angle when the criminal group made their move, immediately lost the entire thing.

He recognized the situation with the specific quality of bees recognizing a flower. 

No no no no no. Please don't tell me the mom's appearance fits the— He looked.

The mother had thick lips from her lipstick, long eyelashes, painted nails, makeup layered on every available surface. The child besides her looked like every spoiled noble boy from every piece of fiction that had ever been created — collar stiff enough to function as armor, a coat that cost more than most people's furniture, and a single line of snot hanging from one nostril that he had apparently decided was not worth addressing.

Yep. That's the most "ohohoho noble" appearance I've seen in this life or any other. She would definitely argue with me about the chair.

Should I just give it up?

The mother spoke the moment he finished thinking, as if she had been waiting for him to.

"I'm sorry for my child here. Don't mind him." She said.

"Eh?" Veto dropped a noise.

"But mom—"

"Shut it, Daver. I already told you to stop bothering strangers when we're outside." The mother cut him off.

The kid could only pout. He sat in the aisle seat. The mother took the middle.

She turned to Veto one last time.

"Again, sorry if he was bothering you. I'm trying to teach him to be a better person."

"...No problem. Good luck." Veto replied. The Elation had slipped slightly from the surprise.

Well. That was new. He filed this into the category of things worth keeping.

[Myu myu!] "Hello rich lady!"

The mother smiled back, politely and without any understanding of what had been said to her.

The train began to move.

Alright. Back to the planning.

He looked at the window.

...What was I planning again?

It had been four hours. Myu had stayed on her position for the past thirty minutes, looking at the scenery through the window.

Veto had remained in his for the past three hours, right arm propped up to support his jaw.

Where are they... He clenched his left fist. WE'RE ABOUT TO ARRIVE IN 30 MINUTES. THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING YET. His left hand came down on the armrest. The mother, who had been leaning back asleep, did not notice. Her child was busy kicking the seat in front of him.

Is the rumor false? No, it shouldn't be. My train got delayed for a reason. That rumor must be true.

He turned his head left — glancing at the seat line across the aisle, where the guy he'd bumped into earlier sat. The one Veto had already filed under main villain for this segment.

That guy has gone to the toilet thirty-one times over the span of four hours. Probably a loose bladder — but he must be contacting his evil partners. WHEN ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO ATTACK?

The masked guy stood up and headed to the toilet for the thirty-second time. This time, he asked a security officer to follow him.

Oh? A corrupt security? This must mean they're about to start.

[Myu myu!] "Veto, look!"

"Silence, Myu. We're about to start here."

[Myu?] "Huh."

A scream came from inside the toilet. Not a loud one. The kind that only reached the corner of the back section.

Veto disappeared from his seat. Myu hung in the air for a few milliseconds before gravity remembered and pulled her back down to the chair. The mother, still sleeping, did not hear or notice anything. The child continued whatever he was doing. The two other passengers across the aisle who had also caught the noise did not react.

Veto was already on top of the moving train. He looked around.

Huh. Didn't realize we're actually over open sea right now. He adjusted the left shoulder point. ...How do they maintain the rail out here?

He kicked the ceiling panel beneath him. It produced no sound. He dropped into the toilet from above.

"My name is Veto—" He stopped the line delivery.

"He'd been staring at me the whole time! He must've been planning to kill me!" The suspicious guy was talking.

"AHHH — I said CALM DOWN. I told you he could just be a weirdo." The security officer replied.

The scene before him did not match his expectations.

The suspicious guy — hoodie, headset, mask — was sitting on the toilet seat. Crying.

The security officer stood in front of him with a stern expression.

He noticed Veto.

"Who are you?" He put his hand on his firearm.

The suspicious guy lifted his head and cried harder the moment he saw Veto.

"T-that's the guy! HE'S HERE TO KILL ME NOW!" He shouted.

"Calm down. This might be a misunderstanding!" The security officer replied.

...I had a line.

"Would you mind taking your hoodie off? I'll need to see your face." The security officer continued, already moving his hand toward Veto's hood.

The stage did not follow its script...

Veto grabbed his head and threw him backward. The security officer hit the toilet wall and slid down unconscious.

The suspicious guy trembled harder.

"P-please — I'll give you a-anything. Just don't k-kill me!" He stuttered.

Veto approached him. The guy covered his face with both arms.

Veto placed a hand on his shoulder.

They stayed still for a moment. Until the guy took a peek through the gap between his fingers.

"Look at the mirror and reflect on your personal choices every time you're about to head outside."

Veto walked back to his seat and sat down.

...Well, that was disappointing. He settled his arm back into position, jaw resting on his hand, looking out the window. At least the guy got a good lesson from me.

He thought this while wearing a hoodie under a floor-length charcoal cloak with gold trim.

20 more minutes... He tapped his foot quietly. I've already lost the expectation there. What am I supposed to do now?

[Myu myu!] "There's a whale, Veto!"

He stopped tapping and took a peek through the window.

A whale exceeding a hundred meters broke the surface — then went back down, taking a significant portion of the sea's opinion about staying flat with it.

The train, which had been quiet, filled immediately with passenger noise.

"That's so cool—"

"You see how big it was?"

The noble kid abandoned his seat-kicking campaign and rushed to the window, stepping directly on his mother's foot in the process and shoving Myu aside as a secondary casualty.

[Myu myuuu.] "Bad kid."

The mother, who had survived four hours of transit undisturbed, was woken up by her own child's foot on hers. The child's ear did not survive the next ten seconds.

Veto adjusted the left shoulder point.

"I wonder if the whale could reach this train and smack it with its tail." He mumbled.

[Myu?] "Eh?"

Myu's eyes went wide. She stared at him and quietly put some distance between herself and his lap.

The open sea outside the window was replaced by dark cloud cover.

The speaker crackled.

"Attention passengers. We are now approaching our destination. Please remain seated and secure your belongings as we begin our ascent through the cloud layer. Thank you for your cooperation."

The train shook. A flash of lightning moved through the clouds outside.

[MYU MYU MYUUU!] "AHHH HELP ME VETO, WE'RE ABOUT TO CRASH—" Myu covered her eyes with both flippers.

Veto stayed in his position. Expression still carrying the specific disappointment of a man whose villain had turned out to be a crying guy in a toilet.

Then the clouds broke.

The platform came into view above them — a wide stone mass sitting in open sky, rain falling in a steady curtain off its edges and disappearing back into the clouds below. The underside was plain pillar work and stone. The train continued upward through open air until it reached the outer wall — thick stone, high enough that the city above it wasn't visible yet, a single arched gate cut through the center with water channels carved into the frame. Two thin streams ran down either side of the track. Passing through meant passing through both of them simultaneously.

The train passed through.

Then the incline.

The city revealed itself incrementally as they climbed — rooftops first, then full buildings, then the whole layout opening outward in one motion. The rain arrived through the open side of the ramp before they were fully inside it. Light. Closer to mist than rain. It didn't soak. It just settled.

Two more minutes before they reached the station.

"Alright, Myu. Time to step out." Veto said.

Myu — flippers still covering her eyes — jumped onto his shoulder.

They stepped off the train with the other passengers.

The station was open-sided, a canopy roof on stone columns with rain visible past every edge. Wide enough that people stopped and looked before moving. Most of them did. Below the station steps, the main promenade ran straight out from the entrance — covered walkways on both sides, water moving constantly along channels cut into the stone, steam rising from open kitchen fronts where the rain mist and the cooking met each other. The sound of it was everywhere.

Veto stood at the top of the steps.

He adjusted the left shoulder point.

Now this, he thought, looking out at a city sitting above the clouds in permanent rain with nowhere obvious to put the water it kept receiving, is a good backdrop.