Why Do You Trust Me
"Sugar! How have you been? You've been watching for a while now, haven't you? You should have come in sooner."
The woman had the senses of a damned ghost. Sugar clicked her tongue.
"I've been miserable, thanks to you. Get out. Right now."
"You look healthy, at least. Though unlike last time, the flow of your mana is all aflutter. Have you been training...? Do you want to become a mage? In that case, why not join us after all?"
She didn't so much as blink at the eviction. She only smiled and said whatever she pleased.
This is so creepy... Sugar shuddered, trying to shake off the gaze she could feel even from behind closed eyelids.
"You're really persistent, Rubshi. Going after my friend this time, too."
"Recruiting talent is the kind of work where you try a dozen times and barely bring in a single person. Proselytizing takes consistency, you know."
"Shouldn't you be retiring? Just go already..."
"I'd like to, I really would. But I can't get all of you out of my mind. I thought I might delay it a little. If only you'd come to the church, I could leave with peace of mind."
"Ha! This from a woman who can't even see."
And under her breath, Sugar muttered old hag. At this distance, of course those sharp ears would catch it.
And yet.
"...Heh heh."
Whether she was angry or not was impossible to tell. Her smile only deepened, and something unholy crept into the air.
Sugar answered it by squaring her shoulders and standing taller.
"Do you have no shame at all? A grown adult, pushing a child to the brink of tears. They said no, and you keep trying to take them anyway. Should I tell the guards? Call the Holy Knights? Send you to the Inquisition?"
She hadn't expected the woman to flinch. The reaction she got, though, was nothing like what she'd imagined.
"Ahaha! The Holy Knights! Pfft...!"
Rubshi burst out laughing. For someone who was ordinarily so composed, the cackling had an almost frivolous edge to it.
Sugar tapped her foot against the floor and watched. Losing her temper here would accomplish nothing. She waited, perfectly calm, for the mockery to burn itself out.
"...Whew. Sugar... don't forget that Gabianto's followers are far weaker than you'd think."
"Excuse me?"
"What could those creatures possibly do, holed up in that land they so pretentiously named the Holy City? I've been active for a hundred years now. If that all-powerful 'Saint' of theirs were really standing behind them, shouldn't they have dragged a wicked, dreadful heretic like me away a long time ago?"
She said it through a mouthful of laughter, but this was different from anything Sugar had seen from her before. It was a sneer of naked arrogance, her mouth stretched nearly to her ears—split wide as a serpent's jaws, the face of a heretic who mocked the Saint and held the divine in contempt.
Sugar was not about to lose this exchange.
"You're pretty touchy about it. Sounds like you're scared after all."
"...Pardon?"
"You talk a big game, but have you ever actually stood your ground? Every time the Holy Knights show up, you turn tail and run without looking back, don't you? Don't you dare call running away a skill. It's just cheap."
"Hmm... and yet you don't have the power to stand against me either, do you?"
"Does beating an eleven-year-old with raw strength make you feel good?"
"What does age matter? The only thing that matters is the result."
"What a convenient excuse. Still, don't underestimate me too much. ...Ah."
"...?"
A short little sound of discovery.
Something rustled. Rubshi turned her ear toward it. It sounded like an object being drawn from a pocket.
What is she doing?
The whisper of fabric. The shift of joints. The beat of a heart. From less than three feet away, everything reached her.
Her pulse has quickened. She's a little tense. She took something out. She's picking it up with her fingers—
That was as far as the thought got.
A sound split the air—a sharp, slicing shhk—and something whipped past her left ear.
About the size of a coin... a pebble? It just embedded itself in the wall behind me. A crack a handspan wide.
And when she turned her sight on Sugar, the flow of mana—which had been churning restlessly only moments ago—had settled into a calm, orderly stillness.
Rubshi recalled what she herself had said earlier.
Unlike last time, the flow of your mana is all aflutter.
...She'd been pouring mana into it before she even walked in.
The audacious little girl had been preparing a warning shot from the very start. Charge the mana at the moment of attack, and Rubshi would notice the change in flow. So she had filled it to the limit before entering the parlor, then released it all in a single instant.
"There was a bug behind you. I took care of it."
She said it as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and a snort of laughter escaped before Rubshi could stop it.
"Is that so? What kind of bug was it?"
"The kind everyone hates. Big and black, and it loves the dark."
"That sounds like a metaphor."
She could feel Sugar's gaze boring into her—into the woman who had come from the shadows. When she said as much, Sugar scoffed.
"I have no idea what you're talking about..."
As far as Sugar was concerned, it was the unvarnished truth.
Never mind that she had caught the bug herself in the bushes of the back garden, taking a cue from the bathroom-bug incident. Never mind that she had deliberately released it and timed her attack for the moment it crawled behind Rubshi. Never mind that this was her entire body screaming the frustration of someone who could not get through with words alone.
She hadn't said anything that was technically a lie.
"I went to all that trouble catching it for you, and you don't even say thank you..."
"E-excuse me?"
"It was about to fly over to you, so I caught it... Now my feelings are hurt... What a waste of mana..."
"W-wait. Please don't be upset. Did you... did you actually just catch a bug for me?"
"Yes. Want me to put the corpse in your hand?"
So her hearing isn't quite that sharp.
Sugar had wondered if she might even pick up the sound of a bug crawling.
As Sugar gauged the distance to the wall by eye, Rubshi broke into a cold sweat. There wasn't a hint of deception in the girl's demeanor, and that was precisely what threw her.
"No, then why were you charging mana from the start—"
"Wow... You don't even believe what I say... And then you want me to join you, or whatever..."
"Ah, aaaah..."
"Yeah. That place of yours is definitely not happening..."
She murmured it with genuine feeling. Contempt. Condemnation. Those emotions, coming from a child, landed on an adult with remarkable force. Even a blind woman like Rubshi could feel the sting of them against her skin.
"S-Sugar. Please, calm down. I'm sorry I misunderstood. And thank you. The method was unexpectedly violent—no, that's not what I—anyway, I simply didn't realize it was an act of catching a bug."
"Save the excuses. Too late. My feelings are already hurt. It's over. Please leave."
At the refusal, sharp as a blade, Rubshi pressed her lips together. At a loss, she simply clasped her hands.
She fidgeted, seeming to wrestle with something, then lifted her head a fraction.
"...What can I do to make it up to you?"
She's actually taking this tack?
Sugar had been looking for any excuse to kick her out over something trivial. A simple pretext. She hadn't expected Rubshi to take it this seriously.
She looked at the woman with a faintly deflated expression.
Cunning, and yet in some ways almost innocent. Then again, this was someone who had spent a hundred years steeped in her religion, wandering around doing this and that. Maybe that tracked.
"...I don't suppose 'never show your face again' is on the table."
"No. Anything but that."
"Unbelievable... Fine. Just put it on your tab. You'll grant me one request later, whenever I ask."
"Within the range of what I'm capable of?"
"Yeah, well. Obviously."
"All right... We'll do it that way."
The woman agreed readily, then let out a long breath.
Whatever the truth of today's events, this girl would seize on any opening and refuse to let go. Giving her any more leeway seemed like a terrible idea.
What a bold child...
Even as the thought wearied her, her expression gradually brightened. Her "eyes" hadn't been wrong after all. A child like this was exactly what they needed.
She said everything that needed saying. She knew how to think on her feet. She had even managed to put someone in her debt. How did she manage to choose only the most maddeningly adorable things to say and do?
Rubshi wanted to take her away right then and there. To spread the gospel together, to travel and show her the world, to teach her magic, to laugh at her impulsive stunts. To tell her stories about the night sky. To raise her with her own two hands.
The thought was so delightful that a smile bloomed across her face before she knew it.
Watching that face light up so suddenly, Sugar could only rub her arms and recoil.
"...Well, I do owe you now. I suppose I should be going for today."
It couldn't be done by force. She, at least, had to keep her reason intact—
It was with that regret that Rubshi spoke. Today was a wash anyway. With things as they were, staying longer would accomplish nothing.
"Yes. Go."
"I'm already looking forward to our next meeting. Let's stay on good terms."
"We're good. Let's not see each other for a few years."
By then I'll have grown strong enough to catch every last one of you and send you straight to the Holy City.
Receiving that exceedingly warm farewell, Rubshi rose from her seat. She gathered her magic staff and the box—their positions already memorized from the sounds of them falling—and tucked them into her arms.
"Ahh... no deal again today..."
Even as she bowed her head to Sugar, she turned her attention to Tommy standing behind her.
Mana that had bristled in every direction like thorns, radiating hostility—only to settle the instant Sugar walked in.
I'll either bring them both, or I'll bring neither. One or the other.
Guessing at the nature of their bond, she bowed to him as well, then left the parlor.
The Orphanage Director, waiting in the lobby, greeted her eagerly.
"Ah! You're out... So, about the discussion...?"
Rubshi had entered the orphanage under a false identity, claiming there was a child she'd had her eye on. Normally the director would have sat in on a three-way meeting, but Rubshi's earnest request to speak with the child alone had been granted.
Clothes of obviously expensive fabric. The director's eyes gleamed in a way quite unlike her usual self, already spinning over the fee she could squeeze from this, as she hung on Rubshi's next words.
"Yes. The child's resistance is quite strong, as expected. But I've taken a liking to them, so I intend to take more time and get closer. Eventually their heart will come around... I'll visit from time to time. Please take good care of both children until then."
"Of course! ...Wait. Both children?"
Hadn't she only met with Tommy? Rubshi offered the bewildered director a gentle smile, then tap, tap went her staff against the floor as she left it all behind her.
Sugar came out after roughly covering the crack in the parlor wall—and the bug's corpse—with a scrap of paper.
It was a relief that Rubshi had withdrawn so quietly.
That woman. She actually seems to enjoy it more when I snap at her.
They were cut from similar cloth, and Sugar—who absolutely refused to admit it—shuddered with revulsion.
At any rate, it was settled for now. Rubshi was gone, and both of them were safe.
Which left Tommy, whom she had dragged along beside her. They had made it up to the attic, but she had no idea how to comfort him.
At first, her friend had stormed off, apparently sulking over a remark about not liking blondes. Then someone thoroughly infuriating had shown up and shaken an already upset heart even further.
She hadn't heard the details of their conversation. She only knew that Rubshi had needled Tommy, and that Tommy, furious, had shoved the box away. That was the extent of it. Whether magic had been involved or not, all that reached the window from outside was a low, humming murmur of voices.
Worried, she had been charging a pebble with mana while eavesdropping, and the moment she saw that scene, she had barged right in.
When she looked over, Tommy was crouched on the floor, tearing a newspaper into small pieces. His eyes were vacant as he ripped the paper scrap by scrap, manufacturing trash.
Things seemed more serious than she had thought. She drew a breath.
Steeling herself, she crept over and sat down beside him. She let her shoulder rest lightly against his, offering him her warmth so he wouldn't be afraid.
"Um... Tommy."
Where to even start. Apologize for the first thing that had happened, and go from there. She didn't know why he'd been upset, but if his feelings were hurt, an apology was in order.
"About what I said in the back garden earlier..."
But the words were cut short.
As if none of that mattered at all, he suddenly asked a completely different question.
The eyes that met hers were endlessly deep, and endlessly empty.