We've Come from the Shrine
No matter what unfolded on the earth below, the sky went on as if nothing were the matter.
Clouds passed. Rain fell. Birds flew. The sun rose, and the moon went down. She had watched that procession for hundreds of years. It ought to have grown tiresome, yet every moment differed from the last, and so it never did.
When did it start—this business of not looking up at the sky?
It had been ordinary. She looked when she woke, before she slept, before she ate, even while she walked. Then, sometime she failed to notice, the habit vanished cleanly, without a trace.
Her fingers brushed the modern thing in her pocket. In the old days she would not have spared it a glance. Now she felt unfinished without it.
The sky was beautiful. When her friend saw something beautiful, what was it she used to do?
She drew the object out and turned it on its side. The view across from her lay reflected in its face.
Click.
A tap, and the view was saved. A single shot felt stingy, so she pressed it again and again.
Click. Click. Click.
Sometimes blurred, sometimes sharp. Seizing one fleeting instant took nothing more than a few flicks of a finger.
"Nice."
She swept her fingers across it, and moments were sorted out from among moments—until, without her meaning to, another moment caught her eye.
"......"
Herself, smiling awkwardly. Her friend, smiling wide.
A bitter taste rose.
"She'll be all right. She isn't a weak child."
Stronger than her, if anything. Not a person who came up short.
"Come out. I know you're watching."
She glared into empty air. The emptiness warped, and a lovely woman in a hanbok bowed her head.
"Did you cough, Shrine Maiden?"
"Don't call me Shrine Maiden."
A soft split.
The woman's cheek opened in a shallow line. Blood ran down in a sheet, and still she held her posture without a word.
"Forgive me. What, then, would you have us call you?"
"I have no name for the likes of you to speak. Get out."
"That we cannot do. You are the sacred one who will fulfill our wish and Heaven's will. We cannot leave you alone."
"So you twist it pretty, when what you mean is that you'll be watching me. Your boss already has this whole stretch clenched in his fist. I can't move. Escape isn't even a dream."
A scoff escaped her on its own. They were granting her courtesy. They were not granting her freedom. The place was no different from a prison.
"We beg your deepest pardon for disturbing your peace. Yet a day will come when you understand."
"That day will never come. Once tangled up with fanatics is enough for a lifetime."
Whoooosh.
A wind of blades roared up around the woman. The lovely hanbok shredded worse than scrap paper.
"Last warning. Leave."
"......Understood. Should anything displease you, please tell us at any time."
"Anything that displeases me......"
She drew the blade-wind back. The woman had steeled herself to withdraw, and there was no sense wasting strength.
Instead she reached for words that might catch her off guard.
Now that I think of it, I feel as if I've seen this one somewhere......
The gat had torn away in the blade-wind, and the beauty beneath it lay bare. Not a single feature fell short. Set her walking down a street and men would lose their sleep.
Where? Where have I seen her?
She took the face apart, piece by piece. Eyes, brows, the cut of the lids, nose, skin, lips, the set of the muscle, ears, forehead, hair.
Matched at speed against someone in her memory, the pieces soon settled on a single name.
"......Yongnyeo?"
A question edged with a sigh, out before she knew she had spoken.
"Pardon me."
"Wait!"
Before another word could land, the woman vanished like a mirage.
The hand she had reached out fell, empty.
"......Ha."
To the very end. To the very end, this was how it would be.
"......Is it still not finished?"
She did not turn her head. She only forced the rising anger down.
Tick. Tick.
"Tick. Tock."
Tick. Tick.
"Tick. Tock."
Whish! Thunk!
Well, now. A pen was buried in the mask. I seized it in both hands and yanked it free.
"I'd be grateful if you'd shut that goddamn mouth."
"People usually say that sort of thing before they throw, don't they?"
"If this were Russia, I'd have shot you."
"This is Korea, though?"
"I'm not."
"Some ally. Not a scrap of warmth."
Whish!
This time I caught it.
Thunk!
I had not expected a follow-up.
"What in the world is that mask made of?"
"A phantom thief's mask never breaks. Not until the phantom thief takes it off."
"What kind of phantom thief are you? You're a monster."
"A monster! How pitiful you are, unable to appreciate a phantom thief's splendor!"
"Haa...... I'm the idiot for talking to you."
"You've realized it, then?"
"......Мозгоёб. You mind-fucking bastard."
"We're not children. Can't the two of you be quiet? I can't concentrate!"
Pele hurled a sofa cushion at Sword and me.
Sword caught the cushion with a look of faint distaste and clutched it against his chest. Absurd as that was, the plush of it was honestly excellent, soft enough to justify whatever it had cost.
"......I don't get it. That kid—no, that lady is a god?"
"Yes. Nothing less than a great goddess of Hawaii."
"You already felt that power at the meeting, didn't you?"
"......Right."
At the council on the Heavenly Punishment, Pele had proven by force alone that she was a goddess. No one had been left any room to doubt it.
"If you're curious, go to Hawaii later. She'll welcome you in her true body."
"I'll save that for later."
Sword stood.
"Where are you going?"
"Training."
Sword went out into the yard. I was curious what sort of training he meant, but watching would only get me sliced, so I let it go.
"Ooh! Yes! Yes! That's it! You've got to win!"
Pele sat planted in front of the TV, delighting in a soccer match. A storied English club and a French side were going at each other.
Europe ought still to have been reeling from the harm Ilshikgyo had done, and yet none of that showed on the screen. They were playing their hearts out. A way of saying they were all right?
"Who are you cheering for?"
"Hm? Those kids on the left. They're good."
"Are they."
Pele turned it over, then her eyes flew wide.
"Mark my words—the team I'm cheering for is going to win the whole thing!"
"Truly?"
"Obviously! My eyes have never been wrong!"
I took out my smartphone at once and slammed every bit of money I could lay hands on onto the other side.
"I hope they win."
"They will win!"
A little later:
"Why......?"
Pele sank into despair. The sum landing in my account was deeply satisfying.
"......I'm a goddess, and I was wrong?"
"Get up. So you lose. It happens."
"No! This is impossible!"
Pele refused to accept it.
"Ugh! The team I cheered for lost, so now that other team is going to win it all!"
Let's see. The next match......
I was looking up the schedule on my phone when Pele, nerves frayed, switched the TV off.
"Haa.... So what's the plan?"
She asked it sharp.
"Didn't we already settle that at the meeting?"
Once we had brought Sword in and Terra's cooperators had arrived, we held a council on the Heavenly Punishment. Dan Miryu led it, and we traded what each of us knew. The roster was me, Dan Miryu, Hwang Seokgu, Pele, Sword, Captain Kid, and Terra's assistants. Short and blunt, the meeting had ended unsatisfyingly, but a rough line had been drawn.
"Don't make me laugh."
Pele flopped onto her back.
"They outnumber us. Even if I take four or more, we still don't have the absolute strength."
The enemy numbered eleven. Count San-gun, and we were eight. If Pele handled four, we could grind it out seven against seven—but set against the Heavenly Punishment's real power, the shortage was plain. Captain Kid was no front-line fighter; he sat a tier below. And the other side was holding hostages.
"We have the Stone of Resurrection, don't we?"
Even so, it would be wrong to call us simply disadvantaged. We had asymmetric pieces of our own: a goddess, and an object that might as well have been one.
"Sure. Fight them as a group, and we'd have the edge."
With the Stone of Resurrection, our side would be healed as the blows landed, and the enemy would bleed out in a war of attrition.
"But you know the law that bastard's holding."
"Yes. With that, they could shut the Stone of Resurrection out. Only for a moment, but they could."
As authority alone, it stood equal—nothing less than the first commandment Heaven had handed down.
"But there's a limit on how many times it can be used."
It was a thing that had slept beside the golden calf, and across the long years it had lost a great deal of its rank and worth. Use it recklessly, and either it would break or its wielder would. One of the two.
"I'm not saying I think they'll come in fast and finish it fast."
Pele cut ahead, as if she had read the thought.
"They'll use the Child of Heaven and open Heaven. From that moment, the war turns over."
"So we're the ones forced to end it quickly."
"Right. Then Life's Guardian won't be able to look after our side. It's a fight against time."
And—
"They won't even need a battle of groups. With that thing's power, forcing it into single combat would be possible too."
"Hmm. We really are on the defensive. The advantage is theirs."
"Doesn't it worry you at all? Them reaching Heaven?"
"Well......"
The original was even more of a dead end. So this is simply how it is.
"......You do have a thought in there, don't you? I prophesied it. If you don't succeed, it's going to be bad."
"That won't happen."
Beyond the door, a number of presences gathered.
"The bugs are gathering, little by little. You agreed to this as well, Pele."
"I did. I'm still uneasy, though."
What if.
"What do we do if something happens to the Child of Heaven?"
That child. Still......
"Pele."
I cut the useless words short.
"It's mine to decide, so I'll bear the responsibility. Nothing is going to happen."
"......You're not going to go too far, are you?"
The worry, I could bear.
"I promised. A phantom thief keeps his promises."
"......"
Pele said nothing. I added nothing more.
Ding-dong.
The bugs I meant to take in had arrived.
"Who is it?"
On the entryway camera, three sturdy men had come to the door. They turned their mouths toward the side my voice was coming from.
"We've come from the Shrine."
"What is your business?"
"We've come to offer an apology, and to convey our wish for an alliance."
"Come in."
Well then. Just how many of these bugs would actually step through the door?