When that strange Omni-voice told Shikata that Purgatory will be both familiar but foreign, he meant it.

If the silver-haired ghoul would give a plain description of what he has seen within his short wander through the streets, he could easily make it seem like a mundane region. Some buildings that were built are there, people walking around, and the sky still had clouds. Very generic components of any area.

But nothing sat right with Shikata, no matter how long he spent looking at everything he couldn’t mentally move past all the differences.

The biggest one was the sky! Maybe all the entertainment media he consumed might’ve corrupted his expectations but he is having a hard time relaxing when the sky is light orchid and the clouds are all shades of orange. Not only did it feel like some doomsday event was going to happen any moment, which was unsettling, but he couldn’t tell what time of day it was!

That was when a thought hit Shikata.

“Wait, is time even a factor here? As far as I know, it’s always like this and the concept of day and night doesn’t exist here. I could judge the traffic here to guess what time of day it is, assuming souls need to rest in cycles like in the real world. Mary did say souls could feel fatigued here when they first arrive. That means souls can experience exhaustion here, naturally that implies souls need rest to recover. I was in a bed when I woke up. But does that translate to this place having a day and night cycle?”

He was running in mental circles and he knew it.

“This’ll be a lot easier if I just found someone friendly to talk to, hopefully someone who speaks my language,” Shikata thought to himself, not sure why he was wasting so much speculating and there was an endless stream of informants in front of him.

A stream of very different-looking people.

It seems he wasn’t the only one who experienced a drastic body change entering purgatory. Many of the compatriots here showed similar changes. Numerous of them lacked the natural hair color than the usual black hair or even the rarer brown hair he sees in Japan. 

Blonde hair and red hair, pigmentation he has only seen naturally occur in foreigners from other countries.

But the variety didn’t end there, people with green, blue, purple, and even pink hair were walking around casually as well.

“I only ever see this kind of rainbow mixed batch with cosplayers and weirdos online, and most of the time they were either wigs or dyed,” Kokoro thought to himself, eyeing all the people. He would be suspicious that this may just be a strange trend here, but then he laid eyes on a middle-aged guy with light pink hair in a business suit running around as if he was late to an event. He immediately concluded,  “But something tells me they’re not faking it because there’s no goddamn reason an actual grown man would choose that color and go out proud of it.”

Those weren’t the only features he noticed, people had noses, teeth, ears, and eyes with characteristics that were a biological impossibility for regular humans to have without some degenerate genetic mutations taking place. Yet, even from his analytical eyes, he couldn’t see any signs that these were cosmetic add-ons.

He even saw someone who had the inverse change with their eyes, where only their black pupils could be seen.

Kokoro still felt he was out of place even though what they have is no different than what happened to him.

“Maybe a side effect of being in Purgatory is how it screws with our bodies. Well, souls since we’re all dead here,” he thought, staring at the pale skin of his arm, “And somehow, I still feel like I got screwed over here with this shit.”

While he was still looking at his arms, he reminded himself of another oddity he noticed with the residents here.

Many had chains wrapped around their bodies like he did. 

“At least I’m not the only one with this thing, but why do some people don’t,” he questioned, he was about to continue his distant watching when he felt a slender hand come onto his shoulder.

A chill immediately ran down Kokoro's spine. Snapping his neck around to look, he was faced with another fair-skinned woman, one without wings. 

She had ruby-tinted brown hair that flowed down to her shoulder and her emerald eyes shined through. While somewhat startled from Kokoro’s quick turn around, she gave a friendly smile as she greeted him with a wave, “Oi, sorry to bother you there mister. You just seemed a little lost, wandering around like you were.”

Despite the warm greeting she internally commented, “and it’s kinda creepy with that glare of yours.”

“Not lost,” replied the amber-eyed man in his usual monotone voice as he scratched the back of his neck, “Just doing a bit of a touring.”

“You new here?”

“Hot off the oven.”

“Thought so. The only time there’s a ‘tourist’ this deep is if you just arrived in Purgatory.”

“Why?”

“This place manages to be more organized with its arrivals, it’s uncommon for souls to just appear in the streets.”

“I see.”

“How did you end up here?”

“I died,” bluntly replied Kokoro, not even blinking when he spoke. Like a dagger, his comment staggered the conversation from how abrupt it was pulled out. 

Taking a moment, the ruby-haired woman pondered to herself. She would tilt her head to the side with a curious look before asking, “That was a joke wasn’t it?”

Kokoro nodded, still keeping his deadpan expression.

Letting a snort slip out, the young woman told him, “Ah, you got me. You’re tricky fella, at least give me a hint that you were kidding around instead of that straight face. But what I was getting at was that most stragglers get caught at the outskirts of here. It’s weird for a newcomer like you to be left alone on their first evening. ”

“How do you know it’s evening time!?” immediately asked Kokoro, so curious to learn what they use here to tell time here that he spoke quite swiftly in anticipation compared to his usual pace.

Hearing him, the ruby-haired slapped a hand on her forehead before declaring, “Wow, you really are new. I know you said you were fresh off the stove but I didn’t think you meant you were red hot and a minute off the burner. Did the angel who introduced you here explain anything to you?”

The amber eyes of Kokoro slowly trailed away to not make eye contact as he answered, “I had an early departure with mine.”

“Oh, well then, how about you take a walk with me?” the woman offered, nudging his arm. She couldn’t leave someone who’s out of their element when they can’t even tell the time of day, plus, he looked like he needed to lighten up, “I’ll give you a nice show around.” 

Objecting to this, Kokoro replied, “It would be appreciated but if you got any plans you don’t need to waste your time. A few directions will work, I can figure it out from there.”

“Don’t worry about it silly, we’re in Purgatory, we got plenty of time. I can spend some of it doing a little community good,” she insisted, after picking up a few stones off the ground, she took up his arm and started pulling him down the street, “Now come along, let’s make you look like less of a stranger.”

“I’m new.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to actually look the part.”

“... Is this because of my face?”

“A little.”

“I woke up like this!”

The ruby-haired girl withheld any comment, being considerate by keeping it on the inside, “Yikes, the fuck was his life to leave him like this?”

Kokoro gave no resistance to getting hauled off, thinking to himself, “My expectations of what could’ve happened wandering around this place alone, this wasn’t a bad result. I was looking for someone to talk to anyways, now I can get two things at once.”

While they were walking, the redhead gave a comprehensive explanation of how one can tell the time of day in Purgatory. Similar to the real world, it’s all about the colors the sky displays. By her words, the sky changes between five colors which tells what time it is but he only needs to watch out for four. The one they’re currently under, the orchid sky with orange clouds indicated it was currently evening time; there would be one more change that’ll signal nighttime.

Throughout it, Kokoro was relieved this atmosphere was only a naturally occurring stage of the day. He just hopes the other stages also don’t have such bizarre aesthetics.