Episode 265: I Will Give You Three Days
"Uuuuugh……."
"……."
"Aaaaah……."
"Chuyeon. Shut up a second. You're so loud I can't rest."
"Uh. Ngh. Uh."
"Oh, come on!"
Na Wangrang snatched a cushion and flung it at the friend sprawled across the sofa. The wind drifting around Dan Chuyeon caught it and set it gently down.
"Wangrang……."
"What."
"I'm so tired."
"So am I."
"Who even are we, to be doing this?"
"If we don't, everything falls apart. That's why, isn't it?"
"Being this talented is a crime. A crime."
"That's an incredibly obnoxious thing to say, but I'm no different, so I've got nothing."
The two high schoolers let out deep sighs.
"Be realistic. Would we even help? What if we panic and just get in the way?"
"I don't think an S-rank's mind breaks that easily……."
"Stress still ticks damage over time."
"Like you're the only one? We're already in as deep as it goes. Nothing left to discuss. We have to do it."
"Me most of all."
At that bitter mutter, Dan Chuyeon tipped his head back and planted his eyes on the ceiling.
"You getting nightmares?"
"Yeah. I am."
The moment that battle was mentioned, Na Wangrang's hands went damp.
"Thanks to it, what little sleep I had got even shorter. It got so bad Grandpa Wildflower told me to rest."
"And the catch is, you're not resting."
"Can't rest. That's all."
No one had pressed the two children to fight. Paradoxically, that was exactly why they hardened their will to. The silence of consideration had struck a nerve in the storm of adolescence.
An adult's concealment was a flimsy fence before a child. It only held among adults, so the young simply looked past it.
"What about you? Any better? A few days ago you were whining like crazy."
"Master chewed me out, and I've been training with you, so I got through it. More or less. Worrying now isn't going to solve anything, is it?"
Fate, or whatever they wanted to call it.
"All I can do is train and wait. What's the point of piling anything else on, or taking anything off?"
Dan Chuyeon forced a look of relief onto his face. Na Wangrang pretended not to see the bluff.
"There is still something left we can do, though."
"What."
"That phantom thief. The man's nothing but secrets, but couldn't he at least give you some advice about your problem?"
"It's not like I haven't thought about it……."
Dan Chuyeon twisted his fingers this way and that, hesitating.
"Honestly, I'm scared as hell to even talk to him."
"……Fair. He is scary."
A man in a suit and the Smiling Mask overflowed with pressure even standing still, and he committed every kind of eccentricity as casually as eating a meal. If he were weak, familiarity might at least have softened it, but he was the strongest person on their side. Of course they watched their step.
"And every now and then, when he looks at me, his eyes get really complicated. Even Nature couldn't read them. It drove me crazy."
"Still, he's someone fighting to save the world. He's also the one the prophecy mentions the most."
A bitter taste filled Dan Chuyeon's mouth.
"……When I have the time, I should try talking to him. He did look out for me."
"I'll go with you."
"Thanks."
He hadn't been able to tell his friend, but what Dan Chuyeon was really turning over was something else.
The line the phantom thief had warned him about, hard and clear.
Murder. Or the taking of life.
He hadn't wanted to. He'd had to, and so in the Arctic he had gotten blood on his hands.
Nature had explained that those things were lives that had failed to finish becoming—imitations that insulted life and hurt it. That erasing them was a mercy. That it would set life at ease. Dan Chuyeon agreed, in part. He had learned in his bones how unethical the laboratory was, what filth it was, how badly it needed to be gone.
And yet.
He did not look away from the fact that he had taken life. Denial was the loss of possibility, and the shortcut to rationalization.
Because he was an ability user who handled Nature, Dan Chuyeon could faintly tell that another road existed.
Even a wrongness that could never be healed was, before Nature, nothing more than a lower category.
The Nature he felt was omniscient and omnipotent. Impossible did not exist. It wasn't that Nature could not. It was that he could not.
If I wanted to reach that far, how hard would I have to work?
Hundreds of years? Thousands? Was it even a realm that spending time could reach?
And the real problem is that killing is too easy.
A few gestures, and Dan Chuyeon could open several throats. Give him a little more time and he would bring a school building down like dry straw and bury everyone inside.
So that's why he went on about the easy road and the hard road…….
Dan Chuyeon realized two paths lay in front of him.
The Avatar of Destruction, which destroyed all things. The Avatar of Nature, which embraced all things.
Whichever he chose, there was no correct answer. Only the one who used them decided.
"……Chuyeon!"
"Yeah?"
Na Wangrang's voice cut the reverie short.
"Break's over. Everyone who passed out is awake. They say they're ready."
"Already?"
"Two hours have gone by. If anything, we're late."
Dan Chuyeon brushed off his knees and stood. He left the comfortable sofa behind and opened the container door.
"Your Majesty. All personnel are in position."
Peril, presiding with all the lofty dignity of a summit, offered Na Wangrang a formal bow in his werewolf form.
"This time will be a little different, right?"
"It will be difficult, Your Majesty. Two of the elders are taking part, and they have brought their personal troops."
"Elders are a lot of pressure……. Well, we've got tactician Chuyeon, so does it matter?"
"No. I think even I would have a hard time."
Dan Chuyeon could sense it clearly: a savage roar crouched out there, thick with menace.
"And of course it's night. Not quite a full moon, either. Just barely."
"Shame. A full moon would've made it easy."
"Wouldn't every elder have shown up then?"
"Let's save that for next time."
Na Wangrang and Dan Chuyeon loosened their stiff bodies with a stretch.
"Mr. Peril. You can go now."
"Understood."
"You know to move once I count to ten, yes?"
"Yes. I know."
Peril's eyes twisted into something as hideous as eyes could be.
"I will come at the two of you with everything I have, in order to kill you."
"Good. Then—"
The training would begin.
Peril vanished like the wind, and Dan Chuyeon and Na Wangrang were left standing alone in the dark of the mountain.
"All right. One!"
"Times ten!"
"Hey!"
Na Wangrang jumped at the sabotage, and the mountain seized the opening to vomit wolves.
In the dead of night, wolf-howls rolled on without end.
"Kotori, what exactly are you doing?"
"I am staging a protest demanding to be sent to Korea."
Japan. The Shrine.
Shrine Priest Tsukumi looked down at Kotori lying spread-eagle on the office floor and pressed a hand to his throbbing head.
"How many times have I told you no? Do you have any idea how much we still have to prepare before the war that is coming?"
"Aaaah! We still have time! How can you not give me a single day!"
"One day will turn into a week!"
"When a man and a woman click, that can happen!"
"Cultivate some feminine charm before you talk like that!"
At Tsukumi's roar, Kotori puffed out her cheeks.
"And where exactly am I lacking!"
"Have you already forgotten the incident you caused while I was away?"
"Th-that would be hard to call entirely my fault, wouldn't it……."
"And you call that an answer……."
She had half-necrotized the two political parties that served as the roots of politics, folded several major corporations into the Shrine, and driven the Hero Association to the brink of collapse.
Tsukumi learned for the first time that Mina had dark circles. The other kunoichi were no better. Kotori had nearly worked people who stayed perfectly fine through three sleepless nights straight into a collective death by overwork.
"Haa. Let's drop this. It's over. Next time, please actually listen to the people around you."
"Yes, sir……. So may I go to Korea?"
"You may not!"
"Aaaaaaah!!!"
Tantrum Deployment!
The Shrine Priest's vision went black!
"I'm going to see my husband! If you won't let me out, I'll sneak away!"
"Nnnnngh……."
Her intelligence was supposed to have returned in keeping with her age. So why didn't it seem that way? Had the phantom thief made a mistake?
Push her any further, and she really might escape.
If she borrowed Tsukuyomi's power in the dead of night, there was nowhere in Japan Kotori could not go. And he could not leave her in the Divine Soil, either. Amaterasu had gone far too soft on her.
A few rounds of tears, and they might witness the rare spectacle of Amaterasu coming to beg a favor of the Shrine Priest.
If I had my way, I would have let them meet once the war was over…….
It was a future in which neither victory nor defeat could be promised. They might never meet at all.
Nnnngh…….
If it came to that, he would be the one who had blocked a girl's last love.
A dilemma.
Himself as Shrine Priest.
Or himself as a man.
The Shrine Priest brooded, pacing circles around the room. Kotori watched him with anxious eyes.
"Kotori."
"Yes!"
"I will give you three days. No more than that."
"When you return, I will work you to the bone. Understand that."
Kotori blinked, as if the words had stopped her brain.
"You mean……?"
"What are you standing there for. Pack your things."
"Waaah! I love you, Shrine Priest!"
Kotori laughed, bright as a lamp, and threw herself into his arms. The Shrine Priest gave her a wry smile.
Well. There won't be many chances for her to play like this.
Even if they won the war by some miracle, the Shrine Priest's life did not amount to four full years.
In four years, Kotori would have to devote herself to the Shrine, just as he had.
Go and enjoy yourself, Kotori. You are a free bird.
Unlike Tsukumi, who had only ever been shut in.
Kotori had to be free.
"We depart tomorrow. I will of course assign an escort. Obey them."
"Yes!"
Kotori flung the paper door aside and ran out, feet drumming away down the hall.
"Shrine Priest, a moment……."
"Hm……?"
Mina leaned in and whispered at his ear.
"That person……?"
"Yes. He says he absolutely must go to Korea—and that he might as well coordinate with the Hero Association while he's there……."
"Good. Then it seems we need not worry about her safety."
If it was that man, he could be trusted.
White Setsuna. Japan's S-rank hero would accompany her—not as the officer charged with minding her day, but as her guardian. Kotori would surely learn a great deal.
Mm. Without a doubt.