Never Come Again
The sun was sinking, low and slow. Tsukumi watched the blue sky stain itself yellow and then dark, and at last uncrossed his legs.
He had been sitting a long while, and the Shrine Priest had not furrowed his brow even once.
Cheep! Cheep!
A bird took wing. A single sparrow settled on his shoulder.
"There now. There now."
The Shrine Priest slipped a hand into his robes, drew out unhulled rice, and fed the sparrow grain by grain. Chirping, the bird pecked each seed down to the last.
"Lord Shrine Priest!!!"
Thud! Thud!
Cheep?!
"Ah."
Startled, the sparrow shot up into the sky and vanished beyond the wall.
Rattle!
And in the same breath, an unwelcome guest arrived.
"……Barging into the Shrine Priest's quarters in your stocking feet. Anyone would think I'd become an idol. Great Shrine Maiden Onodera."
Yellow hair, steeped in the sun's favor and pinned up with a vicious sharpness: Onodera Io, Great Shrine Maiden in service to Amaterasu.
She wore a furisode whose sleeves nearly brushed the ground, lavish with flowers and fans—the very essence of Japan's famous paintings worked into the silk—and she was panting in a way that did not suit the garment at all.
"Lord Shrine Priest. This will not do."
She must have run. Her jade hairpin sat cocked on a diagonal. Her makeup was a ruin, and the black lines of her eyes had run.
Ugly. And it suited her.
The Shrine Priest privately judged that if she ever took the kabuki stage, she would be a sensation. The face was pretty enough, and the heart was already dressed in hundreds of masks. What reason would she have to fail?
"What won't?"
He paid the glare no mind. He set his geta neatly on the stepping-stone and stepped up onto the wooden corridor.
Onodera, who did not care for the Shrine Priest's arrogant manner, ground her teeth.
"'What won't,' he says……. Where in Lord Tsukumi's dictionary does it say a man may do this without so much as a word of consultation?"
"Which is why I asked what this is."
"Ha……!"
Tsukumi answered at a slant. Both arms tucked into his sleeves, one knee cocked, he looked like a street thug.
Onodera was appalled. Such a complete lack of manners.
"Consider your station. The Shrine's Shrine Priest is a presence that must never show itself. And you think it right to bare that fact to Korea in the open?"
"Great Shrine Maiden Onodera. Are you speaking because you don't know who you're dealing with?"
"I know. Of course I know. The Dan Clan. That loathsome old enemy standing in the Shrine's path."
"You don't seem to……."
Tsukumi murmured it as if disappointed. Onodera's neck flushed red.
"Ha! Then you're saying you know them well? And a man who knows them still acts so recklessly?"
"I acted that way because I know them. The Dan Clan called for me. What was I supposed to do—not go?"
Sparks flew from Onodera's eyes.
"And that! Right now! Is that something the leader of the Shrine says?!"
Boom!
The corridor shuddered up and down, as if an earthquake had struck.
"Your conduct speaks for the Shrine's dignity! How dare you!"
"……How dare I?"
The space that had trembled with every word she spoke went still at that single cold line.
"I've been patient with you, Great Shrine Maiden Onodera. Patient, and patient again. And still you do exactly as you please."
Softly.
The Shrine Priest drew his arms from his sleeves. At that nothing of a motion, Onodera stepped back.
Tsukumi took one step forward.
"If you didn't want me speaking with the Dan Clan, you should have handled it properly when I gave you the chance. Didn't you say you would take responsibility, settle the matter, and keep the relationship sound?"
Unable to admit she was being driven back, Onodera raised her voice.
"That was because they weren't ready to listen! They carry themselves as if they were our masters. How was I supposed to end it well?"
"And you call that an excuse? I watched the whole thing."
Tsukumi snorted.
"Great Shrine Maiden Onodera. It was never a matter for you to settle on your own authority to begin with. I indulged that stubbornness, and this is what I get in return?"
He pressed a finger hard against Onodera's forehead.
"You storm the Shrine Priest's quarters without leave, and far from apologizing, you pick a quarrel. Is this a marketplace?"
"……I did it for the Shrine's safety."
"I don't want to hear it. Get out. The outcome of the talks with Korea will be announced at the next council."
"……This puts me in a difficult position, Lord Shrine Priest."
Onodera covered her mouth with her sleeve and wept as if her heart were breaking.
"Shrine Priest and shrine maiden are bound so tightly they cannot be parted. To see you this angry—this girl's heart is torn in two."
A wet, cloying sound.
Drip. Drip.
Stains spread across the wooden floor. The darker they grew, the more desperately she worked the crease between her brows.
This old ghoul. I swear.
The Shrine Priest congratulated himself on his extraordinary patience. A woman who had lived more than long enough, playing the jilted maiden—that went well past anything a man could be asked to endure.
"Hic. Very well, Lord Shrine Priest. If that is truly your will, I shall withdraw. Take care."
And she just cuts the conversation off whenever she feels like it…….
Tsukumi was so dumbfounded the words would not come. It was hardly the first time, or the second, and the irritation had doubled.
There was a limit to how thoroughly a person ought to be made a fool of.
Onodera turned on a quick step and vanished down the corridor.
The Shrine Priest lifted his middle finger, pouring all his displeasure into it.
Say it all he liked. If she didn't care for it, she would come again.
"I ought to give some thought to the fact that there's no one around."
He had kept only the bare minimum, there being no one he could trust, and this was what he got for it: tear tactics. Had there been more ears listening, she would have behaved.
"Well. Even so."
He did not have many days left. Let her thrash all she liked.
Cheep?
"You're back?"
When the sparrow came winging in again, Tsukumi greeted it with his face alight. The unpleasantness of a moment ago was already gone.
A black-haired woman sat gazing out at the dim world beyond. She looked at the moon with such a wistful air that she seemed a woman whose heart was full of wounds.
Slurp.
The blue-haired woman sharing the table drank her tea.
Thud! Thud!
"She's nearly here."
The black-haired woman spoke.
"Yes. She sounds thoroughly angry."
The blue-haired woman set down the tea she had been drinking and looked toward the door.
Rattle!
The door flew open, and a yellow-haired woman appeared, drawing a deep breath.
"What has you so displeased? Did the Shrine Priest scratch your temper?"
"Ha! Do I look like someone who rises and falls over a mere child?"
"Yes."
Crack.
A vein stood out on Onodera Io's forehead. She glared at the black-haired woman.
"Watch your tongue. Lady Tomomura."
"Yes. I'll watch it."
Onodera clicked her tongue.
Tomomura Mitsukazu clicked hers as well.
"Both of you, stop being childish."
The blue-haired woman, Tsunemi Seshiru, delivered the rebuke.
Onodera shot Tomomura a look, then came and sat.
"Did you hear what you wanted from the Shrine Priest?"
Tsunemi offered her the sweets.
"No. That shallow little brat. He didn't so much as open his mouth."
Onodera bit into the sweet with a vicious crunch.
"Did you actually do it properly? You didn't fail to kill your temper and just shout again, did you?"
"……I did not."
"You did."
Tomomura let it pass with a there it is.
"I never expected anything. If you had done it well, we would have swallowed the Shrine long ago."
"Are you finished?"
"And if I am, what will you do about it?"
Rumble.
Their auras collided. The two women, who attended the gods closely enough to be steeped in that grace, could make the very air heave with the rise and fall of their moods.
"Enough. With the great design before us, do you mean to keep fighting?"
Tsunemi set her teacup down with a sharp click and scattered both their pressures.
"……Yes. The great design. There is the great design."
Onodera clenched her fist.
"No trouble with it?"
"None. We review it, and review it again."
"Good."
Onodera smothered her anger.
"The Shrine Priest's conduct is not normal. Little by little, he is preparing some trick."
"It's fine. Even if he thrashes, we hold the Shrine's power in a tight grip. No method he tries can overcome us."
"I'm not so sure……."
Tomomura was not pleased.
"The Shrine Priest is no fool. Young as he is, he is the one who kept the Shrine from falling into our hands. How can we know what outrageous move he will produce?"
"For example?"
"He may simply let the Heavenly Road open."
The two maidens' faces went hard.
"That, we cannot allow. There is no telling what those plague-like Three Noble Gods would do to Japan."
"Before that, we ourselves would be minced meat."
Tomomura brushed a hand down her own body.
"……We will have to deal with the Heavenly Punishment first."
"Is there a way?"
"……The immortal must die. Only then does peace come."
"How?"
Onodera smiled a cold, fishy smile.
"Squeeze the little one a bit harder. Wouldn't that do?"
"Any further than that, and won't she die?"
Tsunemi looked worried.
"She won't die. Her will to live is extraordinary. Would she die so easily?"
"Very well. I'll pass it on."
Onodera murmured, quiet.
"Not much longer now. Japan's true freedom is right before us."
Not by a god's hand, but by human hands, Japan would take its freedom back.
"To ruin, upon our loathsome blood."
"To ruin."
The three maidens swore it with one heart and one will.
The next day.
"The alliance with the Dan Clan has been concluded. Therefore the three of you will go to Korea, to put an end to the Heavenly Punishment."
"…………!"
"…………!"
"…………!"
"Please exert yourselves, for the sake of peace."
The maidens felt the blow land square on the backs of their heads.
The plans they had agonized over all night had become scrap paper in a single morning.
The Shrine Priest smiled, bright and wide.