Anyway, It's the Cult's Fault

Flustered, Klein hunched in on herself and shot nervous glances at the crowd.

"W-what? What did Klein do?"

If she had been wandering around in an ordinary shrine maiden's vestments, dragging her sword along behind her, the reaction would never have grown this fierce. Cross her then and you were meat on the spot. Who would have dared?

But Klein was dressed now in something cute and gaudy, and the rumors had spread everywhere—that she was being hauled around like a dog in that very outfit and put to forced labor. The people of the Republic were bound to lose their minds over a story like that. This was the shrine maiden who had tormented them until they were sick to death of her, and now she was crawling on all fours like a dog? They didn't even need to check the facts. They would crow about it as if it were their own achievement.

There was one thing the crowd had wrong. Klein had only smothered her nature because Lupin was standing right in front of her. As for which of them was the bomb more likely to go off without warning, Lupin or Klein, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. No one had realized it yet.

Crash.

A glass bottle came flying, struck Klein in the head, and shattered. Habitual aura armor soaked the impact. The orange juice pouring down afterward was another matter. The white frilled dress Lupin had bought her drank the tangerine-colored juice in a rush, the cloth wicking the liquid until the stain bloomed across it in an instant.

"Ah."

Klein had never worn clothes like these, and she had no idea how thick an aura she needed if she meant to protect the dress as well as herself. More bottles came flying and burst against her one after another, and the dress only grew filthier. In no time she was a patchwork of colors, and her reason snapped.

"Will you stop?!"

Aura exploded outward and dropped several people nearby in a dead faint.

"You think that just because Klein is standing here like this, she can't take a single one of your lives? I honestly cannot believe you..."

Then several strands of aura whip sprouted from her body, writhing and lengthening like tentacles. One of them slammed down hard on an empty stretch of ground where no one stood.

Shwick!

The whip sang through the air and split a wooden bench as if it were nothing. It did not shatter under the blow. It sheared apart, clean as a knife cut.

The startled citizens did not even stop to tend the ones who had fainted. They simply fled as far as they could. Powerless ordinary people are stronger than anything when they mass together, but before overwhelming force they scatter just as fast.

Klein's rampage did not last long. From the center of the dueling ground, Lupin was staring her down with a terrifying look. She had even summoned the pigeons, and that peculiar light in her eyes hovered on the verge of flaring.

...Damage control first.

If the people were going to call them Klein's pigeons, then Klein's pigeons they would be. That way the cult's reputation would rise, and the anger aimed at Lupin would die down.

"The pigeons are Klein's—"

But once again a finger snap split a plane of empty air. Another flock poured out, and this time the birds began to wheel around the entire dueling ground. The first flock had closed on Ekaterina and fallen to brawling with her clones. The second wrapped the whole arena and flew at tremendous ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠speed, as if warning the crowd not to even think of leaving.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Lupin had climbed to the very top of the tall judge's chair. She spoke with force.

"Everyone."

Aside from Ekaterina, who was screaming and dodging pigeons as she ran, every mouth snapped shut, and every ear turned to Lupin's voice.

The bombshell turned the hall upside down. Lupin was the pigeons' true master? Then Lupin was with the cult? Hadn't there been talk of a new test subject, or something of the sort? So what, exactly, was the truth?

Klein's mouth fell open. Lupin was choosing, of her own accord, a road that would set her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠apart from everyone else. An Apostle of the Calamity Star falling into isolation was the harbinger of disaster.

"Lupin... what are you say—"

But Lupin winked. It was only a look, so Klein could not read all of it. Even so, it seemed to say, This is right. You stay quiet.

"Come now. Would one of you step forward and see for yourselves? If you like, I'll summon still more pigeons and show you. Will you believe me now?!"

No one present knew that the line was a famous saying of a singer who had carved out a legend back in Lupin's homeland. There were, however, plenty of people who remembered the Ryabolsk incident poorly, and the mood only grew more unsettled. The Ryabolsk police, starved for results, had colluded with the press and dragged a killer through the mud until nothing was left but garbage.

A man shot to his feet in the stands, took a few steps forward, and shouted.

"Lupin! Did you kill all those people in Ryabolsk?"

Dmitri moved fast, trying to clap a hand over Lupin's mouth, but as anyone could have told him, Lupin was not a person who readily allowed physical contact. She was also sitting at the very top of the chair, high enough that even a hard jump could not reach her.

"I didn't kill them. The pigeons I called did."

"That's the same as you killing them!"

Lupin shrugged.

"Huh? No, it's different. Every one of them is a spirit, with a proper ego and a will of its own. Would noble spirit-bodies like these just charge off and kill people because I gave the order? Perish the thought. The Spirit Queen I know thought far too highly of herself to let a single word of mine in one ear."

The moment spirits entered the conversation, the crowd began to murmur. To ordinary people, a spirit was an utterly unfamiliar thing—something you might meet once in a lifetime, if you were lucky.

"Spirits? Did she just say spirits?"

"She commands that many spirits at once?"

"Impossible."

Back when she was learning etiquette, Lupin had wanted to run away a hundred times a day. It had been that hard. The aristocratic rhetoric she had learned then, though, was becoming tremendous power now: how to speak in a vague, roundabout way and soothe the other party's anger; how to sidestep the dangerous part and blur the point at issue; how to dress the other person's thinking up as wrong and overturn the situation itself. All of it had come from studying noble etiquette.

"Is there anyone here who knows spirits well? I really don't think we'll understand each other otherwise. You're all complete amateurs, and it's painful to watch."

Etiquette, of course, had included no method for working a crowd. This was a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠variation born in Lupin's homeland and laid on top of noble manners. At her words, people craned their necks and looked at one another. Everything they knew of spirits amounted to a few sentences in a book, so no one could step forward with any confidence.

Fortunately, from the noble section of the stands, a professor who had majored in spiritology popped out.

"I'd say I know spirits about as well as anyone."

Lupin stole a glance at the stands. Yes. If it's him. He knows spirits better than anyone here. Trustworthy enough, even among the nobles... The reaction was not bad at all.

"Would you explain what sort of beings spirits are?"

"So... all of these pigeons are spirits, you say?"

"Yes. They're spirits. Would you like to touch one?"

Lupin gestured, and a pretty little pigeon—as if someone had daubed it at random with every color of paint—flew over and landed on the professor's hand. The spiritology professor stroked it once from the crown of its head and let out a cry of wonder.

"Well now... a pure spirit-body. First time I've ever touched one in my life. To lay hands on something I'd only ever seen in books and pictures..."

For the record, his lectures were famously the least popular on campus. In an age of industrialization like this, how many people could possibly care about spirits? Everyone was mad for gears and steam engines, and nature was being destroyed far more often than it was protected.

"Thank you. Thanks to you, I can close out my life without regret."

"What? No, you can't pass away here. Then I'd have killed someone with a spirit again."

"Hahaha! I only meant I've set down my lingering attachments, and it's time I retired from academia. That sort of thing. Sorry for the misunderstanding."

The professor turned away with a delighted face and began telling the ignorant public everything he knew.

"I'll stake my fifty years of research on it. These are spirits. For reference, spirits are drawn to pure, clear souls. They do, however, have rather strong wills of their own. Answering a summons does not mean they are obliged to obey the summoner's commands."

Those words put real weight behind Lupin's claim—that she had not wanted the killing, and that the spirits had simply run wild on their own.

"What's more, there's a saying that spirits know the human heart better than anyone. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠That's because they covet aura. Aura tends to grow clear when one does good, and turbid when one does evil. The theory in spiritology is that spirits, who love aura more than anyone, can tell the difference."

It was, of course, a theory still under study, not yet recognized by the academic world. But the professor—thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime chance to set a spirit on his hand and pet it to his heart's content—had already become Lupin's sturdy ally.

"Put another way, these pigeon spirits flying overhead might take off toward a wicked person at any moment."

He pointed at Ekaterina. She had gone so far as to build an igloo out of clones and hide inside it.

"Look at that. There were stories she'd gone around raping a great many women, and sure enough the pigeons are swarming her like mad. The rumors must be true. Heh heh."

When he finished, people began sizing one another up. A few glanced at the sky and tried to slip away, only to be blocked by the wheeling flock before they could get any farther.

A world without CCTV or dashcams is always like this. People put on a genteel air and claim to be good, but peel back a single layer and a staggering number of them have committed a misdemeanor or two. Look back at the Ryabolsk incident from here, and it becomes clear just who had shown such fierce rage at the serial killer who massacred the mafia. People who had dabbled in crime at least once, consciences grown a coat of fur, had trembled with the worry of I'm not going to die too, am I?—and then raised their voices to shout that a serial killer was a great evil, and ought to be beaten down.

Anyway, thanks to the professor, Lupin succeeded in extracting herself from the crisis on her own. What remained for her was the Polar Bear Butcher, still wearing the title of Crazy Psycho.

"Uwaaaaah!"

At the spirited roar, the startled pigeons burst upward in a flutter of wings. Lupin looked to see what the noise was, and found the igloo of clones walking slowly toward her like a mobile fortress. Was she really planning to attack at that speed? Even Lupin felt applause rising on its own. The will. The grit.

"Lupin! Don't think this is the end! It isn't over yet! The duel goes on!"

But Dmitri was already seated. One declaration, and the trial would be void.

"As the officer presiding over this trial by combat, I declare—"

Four clones appeared all at once, intent on smashing the judge's seat. Ekaterina had abandoned any defense against the attacks coming in from the front, dismissed those clones, and summoned these in their place. Lupin had known, of course, that her opponent would play it this way. The pigeons she had kept hovering over Dmitri's head poured down in four streams like machine-gun fire and pinned the clones. The ones that held out, she beat aside with sword and limbs. Ekaterina's last desperate struggle was crushed with ease.

Unable to accept reality, Ekaterina screamed and dropped to her knees.

"Noooooo!!"