You Are Not Chaos
The limousine clawed its way through the streets of Tokyo and climbed at last into a mountain where people were scarce. It ran the mountain road for a long while, and the moment it passed a sign forbidding entry, a magnificent building appeared all at once.
Stillness hung over the entrance itself, and a great gate rose as if it had never been told there was a sky above it. The emblem of the Three Noble Gods was carved into the gate, and the pillars were packed tight with characters no one could read.
A breeze stole through. Even inside the car they caught its fragrance—a wind that had come reaching out from the gate.
Rrrumble.
As the limousine drew near, the gate began to open on its own. No machine did it. No human hand did it either. The Shrine was receiving them as guests.
Flung wide. When the gate stood fully open, light burst forth, and their eyes narrowed of their own accord.
"Uh—uh—uh?"
Kana, who had been unconscious, shot upright the moment they passed through.
"Th-this is the Shrine?"
Shock had flooded her face, and yet her eyes were clearer than they had ever been. The rattled, listless look she had worn since the airport was gone without a trace.
"A shrine maiden's a shrine maiden. No question."
Pele saw an aura without precedent wrapping the girl—the same as her own, and yet not. She caught the fragrance of a divinity of high standing. It was gathering toward Kana's head, and from the crown something like mud-thick paint crept out, slow and seeping.
"She ought to be fine now."
Pele smiled, thoroughly pleased.
"We have been expecting you."
Creeeak.
The limousine stopped. The door opened. People in kimonos and shrine-maiden robes stood in ranks.
"We welcome you to the Shrine with all our hearts."
"Welcome to the Shrine!"
When the endless crowd cried out as one, the sky itself seemed to ring.
Mina opened her palm with grave courtesy and indicated the way ahead.
"This way. At the end of this path, the Shrine Priest is waiting."
She withdrew toward the crowd.
"Lady Kana."
"Yes?"
Kana startled.
"I leave the guiding of our honored guests to you. My duty ends here."
"M-me?"
"Yes."
Kana swallowed hard.
G-guide them? In front of all these people?
In the days she had lived at the Shrine, the only time anyone had welcomed her like this was when she followed in the Great Shrine Maiden's wake. Back then she had been nothing but an attendant. Even as Amaterasu's shrine maiden, she could not outshine the Great Shrine Maiden.
Now, though, she felt the illusion that she herself stood at the center.
O-of course I'm still just an attendant, then and now. That hasn't changed...
The only difference was whether she walked in front or behind.
"Guide them."
A presence she feared pressed her on.
Kana stole a glance around. Aside from Ookami, every face was indifferent. What they shared was that all of them were looking at her. Under that attention a strange elation rose.
F-fine. What's the harm? Guiding people is nothing!
When else would she ever lead the likes of them? Once she left the Shrine, she probably never would. So she would savor this feeling for as long as she could.
Kana drew a deep breath and settled her mind. When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the good-hearted shrine maiden of Amaterasu she had once been.
"Then please follow me. I will guide you."
Her posture bowed. Her head stayed straight. She corrected every motion so it would not stray from propriety. The Shrine was ground that revered the gods. Even if she herself felt shame, she must not bring shame upon them.
"There. That's it."
The volcano goddess appraised the shrine maiden walking ahead.
"That's how it should be. Fits a child the gods look after."
"Does it make you proud?"
"You bet it does."
The volcano goddess flicked her eyes toward the sky.
"But three above me are gonna like it even more."
"A child's growth is a proud thing, for a parent."
The human behind the mask followed the shrine maiden.
"Let us go. To the Divine Soil of the Three Noble Gods."
The end of the path.
Shrine Priest Tsukumi and the Shrine's senior ranks had come out to meet them.
"We greet our honored guests."
The Shrine Priest bowed his head first. A small stir ran through the crowd.
Shrine Priest Tsukumi was the proxy of the gods. His every action gave voice to their authority. If he smiled, the gods were smiling. If he grew angry, the gods were angry. It was a privilege among privileges, one that not even the imperial line—Amaterasu's own blood—possessed. For him to bow meant that the gods themselves bent and yielded.
It might have been different in the days when that old monster, the one who had damaged the gods' authority, was running wild. That old monster had died a violent death overseas. The Shrine Priest's authority had returned to what it once was, and so it was right that conduct be kept proper.
A few in the crowd looked up at the sky with uneasy faces, afraid that Heaven's punishment might come falling.
"Good boy."
A bronze-skinned girl came forward and stroked the Shrine Priest's head.
The grounds went silent. Common sense fled.
"...Th-that..."
One of the Shrine's elders gaped, mouth hanging open. He could not take in the reality that a girl who had not yet turned ten was laying hands on the master of the Shrine. Several loyal retainers were an instant from rising in outrage.
The Shrine Priest, having set his mussed hair to rights, spoke with a somewhat embarrassed face.
"The kunoichi who did my hair is going to cry. It took her hours..."
"You're the one who started it, brat."
"Ahahaha... As expected, a god cannot be fooled."
What?
Someone let the word slip without thinking.
A god?
That girl?
The Shrine Priest waited for the questions to swell. And before anyone, unable to hold back their curiosity, could speak—
"You must be wondering who this girl is."
"Not a girl. A lady."
"Ahem. You must be wondering who this lady is."
He looked around. Attention had gathered well enough.
"Her name is Pele. She is Hawaii's Creator God, and the goddess of fire."
"......!"
Hawaii's Creator God?! Can that be true?!
You mean there were gods besides ours?!
Wait... isn't Pele a soccer player?
"She is a true god, and so she must be received no differently from our own. The same is true of the honored guests who came with her. Our guests punished a Heavenly Criminal and passed judgment on the Shrine's traitor. Do not cause them the slightest trouble."
"We will take it to heart."
The Shrine Priest had laid down his warning. Into every mind in the crowd was stamped a caution that must not be broken.
"Kana."
"You called."
"Please guide our guests to their lodgings."
"Understood."
"You must be tired from the long road. Rest, and shake off the journey. I will come find you separately later."
"Good work."
The party gave the Shrine Priest a nod and departed. He dismissed the people. Mina clung to him like a shadow.
"Mina."
"Yes."
"I heard there was a small disturbance on the way."
"That is correct. I am sorry. The fault was mine."
"It is all right. They are not the sort of people one can predict."
The Shrine Priest recalled Ookami, who had been standing there all awkward and stiff.
"Bring me the information on Ookami. The hero he clashed with, and the full circumstances. All of it."
"By your command."
Mina vanished without a trace.
The Shrine Priest looked down before the main hall. The place that had been full of the crowd's heat had gone cold, as if it had never been otherwise.
"...Lord Phantom would not have brought him here for no reason."
A man who, from where he sat, saw clean through their situation. Why would such a man bring a mere villain all this way?
"It must be something tied to the reverse side of the world."
For the Shrine Priest, the design behind it was hard to guess. He had broken through a wretched world of politics and prided himself on reading people rather well. Against Phantom, that pride was useless. It only piled on a confusion that could not be pinned down.
In the end he could not endure the curiosity, and he opened the Divine Eye, heavy a burden though it was.
"It existed, and yet had not existed; because it did not exist, it existed. It was one, and yet two, and because it was two, it was three. Those three drew together into one again, and something stitched it shut."
The Shrine Priest let out an empty laugh at the strange information pressing down inside his head.
"What the hell is this supposed to mean."
It was a vicious koan.
"This isn't something I saw, is it."
At his level, he had no right to look upon Phantom. A god had surely intervened.
"...What is it hinting at?"
What was real, and what was false?
"Is Lord Phantom truly a person?"
Was he still a person? Or was he becoming one?
"Why did you leave a question like this with me?"
Was it necessary?
"......"
Stillness. Time slid by, slow...
"......!"
Intuition, certainty, terror, despair—driven like nails into the brain. The lines of his emotions snapped. Tears sprang up. The corner of his mouth shook. His intestines wrenched, and maggots boiled in his stomach.
"Kugh! Kugh!"
He spat the impurity from his mouth at once. It never entered his sight. It became powder and vanished.
"Haa—haa—"
He lifted a gaze that streamed with bloody tears.
The moon.
There was a moon.
A moon that filled the sky.
"......"
The Shrine Priest stared straight into it, as if he might be drawn in. His eyes shone with radiance.
"So you are not Chaos."
"...No. I have been rude. I apologize."
She bowed her head.
The moon scattered like smoke.
And then...
"Bring me the information on Ookami... huh?"
"What is the matter?"
The Shrine Priest blinked.
"...Did I not just say this?"
"This is the first I have heard it."
Mina's blank, round-eyed look snapped his mind awake.
Didn't I?
"How far did I get?"
"You told me to bring Ookami's information."
"I see. Along with that, gather all of it—the hero he faced, and the circumstances."
"By your command."
When Mina vanished, the Shrine Priest scratched his head.
"I'm tired... I'll receive them tomorrow morning. Not this evening."
Not even knowing whom he was speaking to, he returned to his office.
Beyond the horizon, the moon was rising.