If You've Got a Problem, Come at Me
"That yukata is so cute!"
Chise pulled Noah into her arms and nuzzled her cheek against hers. Soft. Pleasant.
"Would it kill you not to put me in this thing for once...? This is exactly why I never want to come here."
"Ah-ah. No bad language."
Noah sighed.
The Minamoto household had dozens of irritating rules, but this one grated on her more than any of the others. Indoors, a Minamoto was required to wear a yukata. Always. Even Genji wore one constantly, except when he was training.
"Time to sleep. Hey. Lights out."
"Yes, young lady!"
Lying on her futon, Noah found herself thinking, once again, that the Fujiwara house was better. Apparently even sleeping in a bed was forbidden. Some logic about good energy... not flowing in, or whatever.
If someone asked Noah to list the superstitions the Minamoto believed in, she could have written down dozens. The frightening part was that even after that, hundreds more would still be left.
"This reminds me of the first time I came here. I didn't even know people could sleep on the floor. The wood felt so nice I wanted to copy it at home, but it never felt the same. I'm jealous, Noah."
The grass is always greener — except in this case, the grass was rotting.
"You making fun of me?"
"I mean it. I like the Minamoto estate."
"What's so great about this old-fashioned dump."
"It's not old-fashioned. It's tradition! The air is clean, and the people are genuine."
"You mean they're idiots."
Lying side by side, Noah and Chise talked in low, easy voices. Noah's eyes were closed. Chise's were wide open.
"The yukata I'm wearing, the people, even this floor — everything smells so nice."
"That's just the wood."
Noah's little jab at childhood wonder made the corner of Chise's mouth twitch. She sank back into her own impressions anyway.
"That's why I always wanted to come more often."
"Why."
"I don't know. Because the yukata is pretty?"
"You've got them at your house too."
"Heheh. Wearing a yukata around the Minamoto estate is just... natural. At my house it isn't. I only get to wear one on special days."
"Stop staring and go to sleep."
"Your eyes are closed. How do you even know, Noah?"
Chise pulled the blanket up to her chin. Her face was flushed.
A brief silence settled. Worried Noah might already be asleep, Chise spoke in a small voice.
"I still can't believe it. Tomorrow... we really get to go to the dorms?"
"Yeah."
"But he was so against it."
"Don't worry. Dad looks like that, but he's pretty good about keeping his word."
"Uncle Genji is such a tsundere! Just like you, Noah."
Chise rolled toward Noah and whispered. Noah was too sleepy to even get angry. She ignored her.
"Thank you. For working so hard."
"......"
She didn't mention that she'd done it because she wanted to cut her hair short. Honestly, her conscience twinged a little.
"It's not like I did it for you."
"Ah! That was a textbook tsundere line!"
It was true, though. Whatever. I said it.
Of course her conscience didn't last more than five minutes. Anyway, she'd said it. And with that, Noah drifted off in peace. Falling asleep took her three seconds.
"Noah. You're already out?"
"......"
"Ha. I notice it every time, but you're fast."
Watching Noah's even breathing, Chise smiled faintly. Noah always took what she wanted with her own two hands. Without borrowing anyone's strength. Boldly. Simply. Even falling asleep easily — something Chise found so hard.
"I'm really jealous."
Chise poked Noah's cheek.
"Minamoto."
"Thank you for being so kind to us!"
Before they passed through the front gate, Chise waved her right hand and beamed.
"Lady Fujiwara...!"
"How can you be so kind to dogs like us!"
The yakuza — men who counted themselves lucky if Noah didn't hit them, never mind thank them — shed tears of gratitude.
"Out of the way. Dog."
"I-I'm sorry!"
"Please, forgive me with a single finger!"
Just as a crease was about to form on Noah's brow, Chise gave an awkward smile and slipped her arm through hers.
Snow had piled up thick overnight.
"It's so pretty. Look, Noah! Someone made a snowman!"
"Hm?"
There was a snowman in front of the car. Noah stopped walking and headed toward it.
Snowmen are made to be smashed.
"Noah!"
Chise followed after her with a bright smile.
"The person who made it will be sa—"
"It really is a snowman. A snow... man."
Chise blinked. The snowman blinked back.
Whoa. The snowman just blinked.
"What are you doing?"
Whoosh!
The snowman's true identity was Suzuki! Chise clapped her hands to her chest in horror. Her heart had nearly stopped.
"Were you really out here all night?"
"I-it's the little oyabun's orders. I have to protect her even if it costs my life."
You don't have to stake your life on an order like that...
Another peaceful day at the Minamoto house.
An imposing van rolled to a stop in front of the main gate of Saints Academy.
Most of the students passing by didn't even glance at it. This was a school only Japan's finest houses could attend. Arriving by limousine was hardly unusual. A few, though, caught the family crest on the front of the van and started murmuring.
"Huh. That crest."
"That's the Minamoto Clan."
"Oh, I've heard of them. One of the Four Great Clans, right? They barely do any public activity, so it didn't click right away."
"They're behind the times, honestly."
"Still around at all is something. Guess they're still kicking."
"There's a rumor they're yakuza."
"Come on. No way a savage house like that is one of the Four Great Clans."
The Minamoto Clan. One of Japan's Four Great Clans — and a house so plagued by civil war that people said they had written half the country's history books themselves. They had managed, barely, to unify. But while the Minamoto had been busy fighting among themselves, the other houses had kept developing. The Minamoto were also the only martial household among the Four Great Clans. In a capitalist world, they were an anachronism.
The public called them obsolete. Compared with the other houses, which ran several major corporations, the Minamoto operated beneath the surface, so that assessment wasn't entirely unfair. It was, however, only the public's assessment. Anyone who actually knew, knew. The Minamoto's power was still intact. If they felt like it, they could still erase any house from Japan entirely. Of course, anyone who said that out loud tended to turn up as a corpse the next day, so there weren't many of them. In other words, very few people at Saints Academy truly understood the Minamoto.
Ignorant people running their mouths was nothing new to Noah. Chise knew she never paid attention to what others said, so she spoke as she always did.
"I'm so excited for student council! What are you going to do, Noah? Public Morals Committee, right?"
"I'm joining the library club."
"Noah... in the library club?"
Chise's pupils had an earthquake.
Before she could even point out that the library club was an ordinary club activity, not student council, the impact of Noah going to the library club at all was already too much.
"Why are you looking at me like you've seen a ghost. It's creeping me out."
"It's weird! I've never once in my life seen you study."
"I thought libraries were for sleeping. Maybe I had that wrong."
She had joined the student council. She had no intention of taking on anything annoying, though. It was only to match Chise's school hours. Noah walked with her head high — but Chise had one more card to play.
"Heeh. What now, Noah."
"...?"
"Yesterday, the thing you signed... was for Public Morals Committee Chair."
Wait.
Noah went rigid from head to toe. Then she started scribbling furiously in the air, as if she could scratch the words out of existence.
"I didn't know that. It's void."
"It was written clearly on the contract. Don't tell me you'd go back on your word, Noah?"
You planned this, didn't you, Chise!
Macho Noah. She wasn't the type to read petty contract clauses.
How did this happen...!
Noah clenched her molars and glared at Chise with a look that could kill. Chise pressed her hands together, mouthed Sorry!, and ducked her head. Noah let out a long breath and looked down at her left arm.
What a nuisance.
An armband stamped with the Saints Academy crest was fastened there. She had just collided with the reality she least wanted to face.
The Public Morals Committee was supposed to be like a disciplinary committee. Existing in name only, with no real power whatsoever. The kind of student council body so irrelevant you forgot it was even there. ...That was how it should have been.
"Miss Fujiwara. I was certain you would be the one taking the chair. Why did you put a Minamoto in the seat?"
"The Public Morals Committee Chair at Saints is an extremely important position. The security record of our district is measured against the performance of the entire student council."
"Which is exactly why I recommended a Fujiwara as the proper fit for a post that important. A Minamoto?"
They were also responsible for maintaining public order in the city. Not all of Tokyo — a radius of about one subway stop. Even so...
Does that make any sense?!
Noah barely restrained the urge to blow them away with a shotgun. Why were high schoolers keeping the peace? It was bizarre. No matter how insane the world had become.
"That's a rather rude thing to say. The Minamoto are one of the four pillars that have upheld Japan for a very long time."
"That pillar is weak. Far too weak. That's why I'm saying this, Fujiwara."
"......Can you take responsibility for what you just said?"
There was, in fact, a plausible reason. The reason Saints Academy students did all kinds of absurd things and got scored for them. Because it was a prestigious school. Not some loosely attached prestige — a school attended only by the children of the nobility, in an age when the aristocratic system still had not been abolished. In short: use your family's power to influence society. Saints Academy's results were said to have a profound effect on succession as well.
Around there, Noah thought: our house is a yakuza family. Public safety...? She was pretty confident she'd be great at the opposite.
"Even if you're backing her, nothing is more efficient than standing on the front line yourself. Reconsider. A Minamoto is not qualified to serve as Public Morals Committee Chair — the face of our Saints Academy."
"What power does that girl even have that you'd give her a responsibility like that? I honestly don't understand."
"Same here. Forget catching criminals — she looks like she'd get kidnapped herself."
"She'd be lucky not to get rocks thrown at her over all that bad blood from padding the history books."
And they'd been yapping, yapping, yapping this whole time. She'd thought she'd left all the dogs at home. Apparently there was a racket outside too.
Noah clenched her fist and gave the table a light tap.
BOOOOM!
That alone was enough. The table let out a thunderous crack and shattered to pieces. A deep silence settled over the room. Noah stood, her expression ugly with temper.
For the record, the conference table was a single solid piece of hard material. Its strength had been rated extremely high against earthquakes. There was no way it should have broken.
The silence grew even deeper. Time passed, and still no one stepped up for a fight. Disgust filled Noah's eyes. She truly despised the type that only flapped their mouths.
One hundred and thirty thousand years of human history. DNA driven deep from the Paleolithic to the modern age. The primal fear of violence. Overwhelmed by a pressure they had never once experienced in their lives, the Saints Academy student council was swallowed whole. This was the killing intent of a soldier who had crossed the line between life and death more times than she could count. The students had no chance of withstanding it.
S-so cool......!
Chise, of course, had her heart pounding.