Where Did They Go?
Gimpo Airport.
Mina, the Shrine Priest's own shadow, glanced down at her watch.
"Zero nine-thirty."
Raccoon: All clear.
Inazuma: All clear.
Tori: All clear.
This is...
A jumble of sounds circled her ear. A frog croaking, a bird chattering, a cricket, a toilet flushing, an engine spooling up, a man's heartbeat, water running on and on. They piled over one another until they became a single uncanny drone that raised the hair on her neck. Mina listened without a word.
"Position."
"All units, hold."
The noise cut out all at once.
Her abused eardrums shut the world away for a moment. The canals of her inner ear seemed to pant. Balance failed, and her vision turned over on itself. It was the price of the shadow clan's secret art of communication, handed down through the generations: a method made so that only the trained could catch it, never an ordinary person. An art among arts, and a burden on the one who spoke as much as on the one who listened.
Mina had worn that sound since she was small, and she did not so much as blink. Her stomach lurched toward vomiting. Her face stayed cold.
She stretched out a leg as if nothing were amiss. This was no kunoichi's garb. A modern office look sheathed her, and the leg emerged long and smooth, black stockings webbed like cracked spider-silk sharpening every line. Her hips kicked once into empty air and made no effort to hide their lushness. Mina did not conceal her appeal. Muscle drilled into her as a kunoichi, and a neckline loosened just enough to bare the swell of her chest, pulled at every gaze.
People acted as though she were not there. A heart-stopping beauty with a generous bust was walking in plain sight, and still they looked through her.
Click. Click.
Presence erased, she wove through the crowd and arrived with not a fold of cloth disturbed. There they were: a party impossible to miss.
"Don't wanna go, don't wanna go, don't wanna go, don't wanna go, don't wanna go, don't wanna go, don't wanna go."
"Pele. I would very much like to hit her. May I?"
"I've already scorched her a few times. That's just a weak will."
"Well. A few properly chaotic incidents and she'll be back to herself."
"Worry about yourself. You haven't forgotten the promise, have you?"
"Yeah, yeah."
A red-haired woman with a cat gathered in her arms. A man in a suit and a white mask. A black-haired girl with bronze skin laid bare. A woman in hanbok beneath a satgat. A shrine maiden with dead eyes.
So these are they.
Mina started toward the honored guests at an unhurried pace.
"I don't see anyone who came to meet us."
"Wait. They'll notice and come on their own. More than that, I'm thirsty. Go buy me a strawberry shake."
"We'll be on the plane any moment. Please endure it."
"I'll drink the whole thing in three minutes."
"Have the in-flight meal."
"Hmph."
They still haven't noticed.
Mina wiped away even the faint presence she had left. Breath, heartbeat, the brush of air, the laws of physics themselves—she erased them until even the cameras could not catch her.
Nonexistence
Erase breath, heartbeat, physics, and the eye of every camera.
The secret of vanishing from the world unfurled. A shadow that could lie to nature itself let her eyes gleam.
The appointed hour is ten. I will watch them, and then I will appear directly in front of them.
This was a test. Were they truly capable enough to ease the Shrine Priest's worries—and if they ever turned enemy, were they people who could be handled without incident?
The Shrine Priest's command brushed past her like a fading echo.
Forgive me. Pardon this humble one's disloyalty.
Before any order from the Shrine Priest, a shadow was bound to examine even the slightest possibility and prepare for it down to the bone. The Dan Clan and the Shrine stood as allies for now, but an alliance was a thing that could break at any moment, in any way. Whatever trust the Shrine Priest placed in these people, a shadow was not permitted to let go of her tension.
Mina called their files to mind.
A god and an immortal. A phantom thief and a Heavenly Tiger. And last, a Heavenly Punishment. Relax for an instant, and I will be seen.
There was so little on them that all five could have been written onto a single sheet of paper. From that scant record alone, the shadow had judged their danger to be absolute.
A Heavenly Punishment by itself is already a great incident. And they settled one like that without a single sacrifice. Nothing more needs saying.
She followed at their heels with care.
"Now that I think of it, this is my first time at an airport. A shame it isn't Incheon."
"If we're bound for Tokyo, this is the fastest way."
"Can't I look around?"
"You may not. You might get lost."
"I have a smartphone, and there are signs everywhere. If I got lost with all that, wouldn't that make me an idiot?"
"That idiot turns up every year."
"Grr. Grr."
"Lord San-gun. I understand."
"........."
"Huuueeeeh."
The talk was ordinary, with nothing in it worth taking. A god conversed with a phantom thief. An immortal soothed a Heavenly Tiger. The Heavenly Punishment and the shrine maiden only trailed along behind them.
She followed like that for thirty minutes. Ten o'clock was drawing near.
A pity, but this is as far as it goes.
She had gained nothing worth the name of intelligence. Setting the regret aside, Mina prepared to show herself.
"I grew tired of waiting."
Phantom was suddenly there, close enough that she could have felt his breath.
......?!
"Concealment of this caliber means the shadow has come. And not some lesser shade. The darkest shadow, in person."
He looked straight into both of her eyes.
"Miss Kage Mina. A pleasure. I am Phantom."
............
Mina looked to the rest of them. Aside from the shrine maiden, every one of them had already marked her. Not a flicker of surprise showed on a single face.
They knew from the very beginning.
Nonexistence, never once broken, had been broken today. By five people at once.
Tailing them was nothing but empty bravado.
These were powers that could not be measured by a human standard.
"I apologize. I have been discourteous."
She let her presence spill fully back into the world. Her waist folded into a bow, and fluent Korean flowed out of her.
"It's quite all right. It isn't as though you failed to arrive on time."
"No. I have shown our honored guests a grave discourtesy, so..."
"Child. What you did was no discourtesy. For it to be one, we would have had to suffer it."
Pele patted the small of Mina's bowed back.
"If anyone was rude, it was us. We knew perfectly well you'd come, and we ignored you on purpose. If we'd admitted it right away, none of us would have been put out."
"........."
"That's the end of it. It's time, so let's get on the plane. I want to know what the in-flight meal is like."
Pele caught Mina's hand and swung it back and forth. Skin smooth as worked obsidian, and a smile as brilliant as the sun, melted Mina's wariness clean away.
"...Understood. A private jet is waiting. If you would come this way."
"They sent a private jet? How big is it? Besides us, another thirty are getting on, aren't they?"
Mina flinched.
"The aircraft is for our honored guests alone. Six will find it more than sufficient. If anything, it may prove too large."
"Then how are the rest of them coming?"
"They will make their own way back."
"Okay. Then let's go!"
Pele seized her suitcase and hauled Mina along with it.
"Not that way. Over there."
"Ah, sorry."
Pele scratched her head. Mina broke into a cold sweat.
She looks innocent. Even so, a god is a god.
She had picked the hidden shadow out exactly. She had not even missed the count.
"I will attend you with every courtesy."
"Yes!"
Pele beamed.
"Pele, the shrine maiden has fainted. Please go slowly."
Phantom called it out as he dumped the shrine maiden, none too gently, across Sipsado's back.
"What is it this time!"
"She thought the shadow had come to kill her."
"Leave her. She'll get up on her own."
Amid the racket, Mina understood in her bones that this journey would not be an easy one.
Surely nothing is going to happen on the plane.
A few hours at most. Nothing would happen.
"...Hah."
Contrary to every worry, nothing happened for the whole of the flight. Mina had never known the soil of her own country could feel this welcome.
"Ooh. So this is Japan?"
Tokyo International Airport. At Asia's other great hub, Pele's eyes shone bright as lamps.
"They've got anime characters out on display in the airport. How strange."
"There are Japanese hero figures over there as well."
"Wow. They're allowed to walk around that naked? One hit and they're done for, aren't they?"
"Degree of exposure is defense."
"That's incredible..."
Bags in hand, the party followed Mina out toward the limousine. It was large enough that six people could have lain down inside and still had room to spare.
With a low rush of exhaust, the limousine slid forward.
"We expect to reach the Shrine in two hours. Is there anything you find wanting?"
Once they had come out into the city, Mina asked.
"There is not."
"Nothing."
"........."
"Kaaaah."
"Grr."
Hong Yumin lifted a hand, just slightly.
"Yes? What is it?"
"The car."
She pointed out the window.
"Stop."
Mina looked where Hong Yumin was pointing.
A building came down with a grinding roar and sealed the street. Brakes screamed.
"Report."
Ookami, the Wolf, has appeared.
An accident seems to have occurred while S-rank heroes were suppressing him.
"Awooooo!!!"
A wolf's howl rolled over the street. A werewolf came striding out through the ruin of the building, and heroes gathered to bar his way.
"Ookami! Your evil ends here!"
A passionate hero in a skin-tight red suit.
"With your blood, I will soothe the tears of the dead."
A hero whose left arm was wreathed in a coiling black-flame dragon.
"...Ah. The sky is clear."
A strange hero who never looked at the enemy at all, only at the sky.
"Awoooooo! Try and stop me, you rotten heroes!"
A werewolf pouring out his rage. Hero and villain crashed together.
The impact shook the street.
"We ought to withdraw at once. It is all right. This limousine was specially built..."
No one was there.
Aside from a single passenger, the limousine was empty.
"Huh?"
The shrine maiden sat up, wiping spit from her mouth.
"Eeeek!"
She saw Mina and fainted all over again.
"......Where did they go?"
Mina's head spun.