Is This Fate as Well?
From that day on, the child was shut away without reprieve. She met no one. She could not leave the lonely room. She remained there alone.
They dressed her in fine clothes and fed her fine food. What good was any of it?
"Save us!"
"Save us!"
"Save us!"
Whatever trick he had worked, the voices beyond the wall multiplied. At first there were two. Then ten. Then twenty. And now—
"Pray! Beg! Blessing will come!"
"We believe!"
Every last one of them. The child wept in bitter grief. There was nothing she could do. People carpeted the ground outside, and inside there was only a door.
Once, sunk in despair, she had tried to escape. The people the man had planted caught her and dragged her back. They rejoiced that they had received the shrine maiden. The man laughed, sent them away, and then came the beating he called education.
"Yeah. If you'd just given up, I'd have been suspicious."
"Hhk..."
He pressed her head down, slow and firm. Blood and sweat smeared the hand that stroked her hair back.
"This is how it ought to be. This is what makes it fun."
His smile deepened.
"Thanks. You handed me a pretext."
A chill went through the child.
"Now I can relax."
Ah.
Lust kindled in the man's eyes.
"You want to see your mother, don't you? You'll see her tonight."
He left the blood-soaked child where she lay.
That night she heard a woman's thin moans and the wet coupling of flesh. She clamped her hands over her ears however she could. Blood ran from them. She passed the day no different from a corpse.
The next morning:
"It is an honor to behold the shrine maiden!"
"It is an honor to behold the shrine maiden!"
The child realized her parents were gone.
A woman entered with her clothes in disarray and her cheeks flushed, and beside her a man so wasted the bones showed through his skin. They bowed. Behind them, the man grinned.
"Now, now. The shrine maiden must be pleased as well. That will do for today. Off you go."
"Thank you, Apostle!"
"Thank you! Thank you!"
The two lowered their heads. In the gap of the bow, the woman languidly let the skin beneath her clothes show.
"Devotee, I'd like you to come to me for a moment."
"Yes."
The woman licked her lips. The man watching at her side blessed her for it. He could not possibly have failed to know what his own wife was doing, and still he was glad, as if it were only natural.
"I'll look after this devotee a little more myself."
"Thank you! Blessings upon the Apostle! Glory to the shrine maiden!"
They looked happier than they had at the sight of the shrine maiden, and for the first time the child felt disgust. To people like these, she was nothing at all. She understood that she was alone.
After that, several others came to see her. Every one of them worshipped her, and then flew into a frenzy at whatever words the man let fall next. If they shared anything, it was a young beauty on the arm. The scheme was so naked that the child threw away even the faintest scrap of hope.
Now and then, people in costly clothes came as well. Those he received with grave courtesy, the reverse of his usual manner. The tears, though, never changed.
Time passed. The man came in as if the whole business bored him.
"Ah. So the day's here. Fuck."
The child glared at him.
"Whoa. Those eyes could kill a man. You planning to murder somebody?"
He rubbed his arm as if gooseflesh had risen on it.
"Eyes down, you little shit."
Thud.
He struck her across the head.
"Ow. Why's your skull so damn hard?"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
He shook out his hand and beat her. The child took it without resisting. From some point on, it had stopped hurting.
"Vicious little thing. Not a flicker on your face."
He crouched and pressed a finger to her brow.
"Hey. I really can't be bothered, but this is something I've got to do, so I came all the way here, all right? So how about we cooperate?"
"............"
Smack.
"Answer."
"......Yes."
"What's wrong with your voice?"
Since when had she stopped speaking? How long had she done nothing but breathe and eat? She didn't know. She had no wish to know.
The man chopped her across the throat with the edge of his hand.
"Uk!"
"Miss Shrine Maiden? If we're expanding the business, you're going to have to make public appearances from now on, and give speeches for the morons. You understand?"
He sighed.
"Which is why I have come to teach you manners, speech, and letters. For gutter trash like you, it's a luxury you've never been offered. Let's learn it properly, shall we? Hm?"
He growled it.
"Understand?"
"......Yes."
"Tch! These days some damn tiger cub's been giving me a headache."
He struck his own chest as if the frustration were choking him.
"Aigoo, my luck. I go and buy my own suffering."
He opened the bundle he had brought. Books of every kind were stacked inside.
"Learn well. The Apostle himself is teaching you, no less."
"......Yes."
And so the child was educated by the man. Language, letters, rites, mathematics, astronomy, geography, the study of the Changes, law, bearing, tone of voice—whatever could be taught, she learned.
"Good. I can take you outside now."
When the lessons ended, the man dragged her out into the open. For a moment the outdoors, unseen in so long, lifted her heart. Then she saw the multitude prostrated before her, and her face went hard.
"After long years of waiting, the Apostle has enshrined the shrine maiden!"
"Save us!"
"Bless us!"
"We offer everything!"
"Give us happiness! Give us Heaven!"
The world the child had known was gone. This was not the humble village that used to welcome her with warmth. What lay spread across the ground were offerings that had passed into a hungry ghost's mouth and become food.
Did they know?
"Save us!"
There is no salvation.
"Bless us!"
There is no blessing.
"Happiness! Heaven! Glory in the life to come!"
None of it. Not one thing they wanted.
"Shrine Maiden, please bless this child!"
Who is this woman?
Ah. Mother. She hadn't recognized her. Of course she hadn't. The woman was no longer a person. She had fallen to the rank of prey. How could she still be a person?
And where is Father?
Ah. There he was, wedged into the crowd with his head bowed to the earth. Why was he missing an arm? Was it jammed in among them somewhere, being boiled?
The man spoke.
"Shrine Maiden, please bestow your blessing."
"Bestow your blessing!"
The child did what she had been made to do. She laid her hand upon the baby. The child looked strangely like the man.
"I bless you."
At those parched words, a cheer went up, and the man's voice climbed over it.
"Young devotees who long for love, who long for happiness!"
Madness.
"Before long, the shrine maiden shall hold the rite!"
It caught and burned.
"The shrine maiden's grace shall turn toward you!"
The child thought the room had been better.
"Hold a festival! Eat and drink! Loose your desires!"
Before her eyes, cries of pleasure tangled with flesh. A hollow laugh escaped her.
Hell was here.
The child stroked the bell at her breast. Her face was reflected in the gold-painted metal.
"Shrine Maiden, it is time."
"Yes."
She stepped down from the palanquin. Dozens had borne it. Once her feet touched the ground, she walked the road that ran straight as a ruled line, and the crowd spread along either side was past counting. She walked it as if the way had grown quite familiar.
An altar stood at the end of the road, and the man stood beside it. He was not as he had been. Three gashes had split his face, and the smell of blood rose from his belly. He was sick.
"Shrine Maiden, bestow your grace."
He flung himself flat. The child looked down at him and did not move. When she gave no sign, he lifted his head.
"Shrine Maiden?"
His eyes met hers, and he went rigid.
"What?"
The child said nothing more.
"......You."
No longer a child—a girl turned her back on him. The man who had been so violent with her chewed his lip and withdrew. He shook with humiliation. It was not a pleasant sight.
The girl looked up at the sky.
Grace. They call it grace...
Perhaps such a thing truly existed. The child who had become a girl had awakened to her own power. Heaven was there.
"Sound the drums!"
Boom. Boom. Boom.
"Play!"
The gong cried out, long and brazen. A thin chime rang. The girl danced, and the bell answered the music in a clear, high voice.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
"O Heaven."
"If You are watching."
"If You take pity on me."
"Hear my plea."
"Mercy upon this land."
"Rest upon this hell."
"Punishment upon this man."
At that desperate prayer, Heaven looked. It saw the immortal. It saw the hell. It saw the man. The prayer of an immortal who had not lost her light—Heaven heard it, and granted everything she wished.
"Oh! The shrine maiden's will has reached Heaven!"
"We believe! We hope!"
"Save us!"
Storm clouds massed. Wind and rain tore through the air. Lightning seethed. They felt that something had gone wrong.
The girl looked at the man. The man looked at the girl. His face twisted ugly.
"What did you do!"
"I prayed to Heaven."
"......What?"
"For your death. For the end of this hell."
"What kind of bullshit is that!"
He thrashed and raged, but the girl ignored him. She took up the dance she had paused.
"You crazy bitch! Bring that brat here, now!"
He barked the order at his men. Several of them started toward the girl, and lightning fell and burned them where they stood.
KWAANG!
"......Huh?"
The girl kept dancing.
"Wh-what..."
The man stumbled backward.
The girl kept dancing.
"......Heaven's punishment."
The murmur left her, and divine punishment came down. Screams were burned and sank into the earth. Hell was vanishing. Filth was being purified. Within that cool clarity, the girl danced.
On and on.
On and on.
Crackle. Crackle.
The girl walked the ground where divine punishment had fallen. Ash, burned dry and crumbly, tangled about her feet.
"Aah. Ah. Aaagh."
She stopped before the man. Filth ran from him as he clawed at the earth.
"Uh. Uuh. Ah?"
His mind was gone. He saw the girl's feet and lifted his head.
"Aaaagh!"
On legs he no longer had, he crawled, scrabbling over the ground. The girl was curious. Why was he still alive? Heaven ought to have granted her plea.
Then, all at once, she saw the sword beneath her foot. It was strange. Upon that earth there was no one but him and her. How could there be a sword?
She picked the sword up. Not a speck of dust clung to it, and she could feel no weight in it at all.
"This must be a chance as well."
A chance to see the end of this chain. With this sword she would kill the man, and then she would kill herself. That would be liberation.
"Ah, aah. Uuh. Ah!"
The girl raised the sword high.
"Die."
CRUNCH!
"Kkhk."
Before her eyes, a life went out. The man who had pushed her into hell was dead. Emptily. Crushed like fruit.
"Why? Why did you interfere?"
She could have ended it. She could have rested at last.
"Krrrrung."
"All this time I howled for help, and only now you appear—why!"
San-gun lifted his paw. Blood dripped from it, drop by drop.
"Krung."
San-gun licked the girl's face. The blood was washed away by gentleness. With his one remaining eye, he looked at her.
"Krung."
"Hhk. Hhhhhk!"
The girl wailed. She poured out the bitter grief she had stored for so long. The sword that had been in her hand a moment before was gone without a trace.
"Krrung."
San-gun did not leave her side until she was spent and collapsed. When she fell, he took her up in his jaws, just as on the day San-gun and the girl had first met.
"......Ah......there......"
"Hurry......the......!"
The noise dragged the girl's eyes open. In her blurred sight stood a man with a cloth wrapped about his head.
"Ah! God, thank you!"
Looking as if he might cry, he gathered the child up in his arms.
"It's all right. Everything's going to be all right."
Who is this person?
Was he a person at all? He smelled of wild boar.
"You can rest easy now. You're safe."
He kept soothing her, and in that warmth the girl's eyes slid shut.
San-gun...
Down in the dark of unconsciousness, the girl searched for San-gun. In her hand there was only a tuft of golden fur.