Partner Lorensia
"All right. This is the mission His Holiness sent us. An otherworldly weapon has turned up, and there's no reason to assume there's only the one. So we're going to the place where you were shot, Sister, and asking around the area."
"Yes."
She was being polite enough, for the moment. The contempt underneath was impossible to miss. You don't talk to someone while filing your nails and refusing to meet their eyes unless you mean them to notice.
Still, it beat being cursed at to my face. She was never going to like me anyway, so keeping things strictly professional would do. Once I got competent at the work, we'd probably be split up regardless.
Right — someone had said I'd need a person who could heal me or throw up a barrier when I fought. It didn't have to be this woman. Do the job well enough and I'd earn a say; then I could ask to be paired with someone else. It might sound a little shallow, but her being a woman mattered. Honestly, I'd rather work beside a pretty woman than some hulking man.
…Not that any woman was likely to date me, now that I thought about it. Dating a woman while living in a woman's body would be difficult no matter how I turned it. I had no intention of dating a man either, so if those were the options, I might as well have something pleasant to look at.
I was off in that idle daydream when my partner scowled and started in on me.
"What is this? Are you staging a protest because you're from the back alleys? It's the place where you were hurt. You don't feel even a little reluctant?"
"Not really."
Strange woman. Have a traffic accident on the way to work and swear off that road forever? Of course a traffic accident and a shooting weren't the same thing. The first usually wasn't deliberate. The second was soaked in intent — someone had aimed at me and pulled the trigger. Even so, if I wanted to eat, what choice did I have? I did as I was told.
I was treating the whole thing as nothing much when my partner frowned for the first time.
"Is getting holes punched through your body just an ordinary day in the back alleys? You truly don't feel a thing?"
"No, I mean… you're talking as if I'm supposed to go there shaking and bawling like a baby."
"Have you never even heard of trauma? Hmph. I only said it because I was worried. If you fall into a panic the moment we set foot in that alley, it'll be a problem, so I was going to take the questioning instead. We can just switch roles with Brother Hamil."
So that was her idea of worry. Which meant Hamil was the one out questioning people right now, and she meant to snatch the work he was already doing so she could have the easy job. The nerve of it made me decide to play it cool. It wasn't even me who had been shot, not really, and I had no memory of it.
"It's fine. Start picking and choosing which jobs I'll take, and I won't even get my pay properly. I'll do as I'm told."
"…Is that how you grew up in the back alleys? No right to refuse — just doing whatever the people above you ordered?"
On my end, the line had meant don't you dare use me as an excuse to slack off. Suffer with me. Somehow my partner's voice had gone tight, as if something about it had caught her.
Had talking so bluntly made me sound pitiful? Odd. As for what she'd actually asked, I didn't remember anything about this body. You didn't have to come from the back alleys for it to be true, though. Childhood was the season when failing to do as your parents or your teacher said got you in trouble. The original owner of this body would have had it worse, if anything. It probably hadn't stopped at going hungry.
I'd been the same. Step even a little out of line with what Mother wanted, and there was no dinner that night. Thinking about it soured my mood all over again. What little I'd owned would have gone straight to her — the life insurance, too.
"Doesn't everyone grow up that way?"
The voice that came out had sunk on its own, dragged down by a memory I didn't want. My partner heard the answer and looked thoroughly displeased. She was quiet for a moment, then left one short word.
"…Lorensia."
I stared at her blankly until it dawned on me that she had just given me her name.
"Yes."
"…That's all?"
Had she wanted some other reaction to an introduction? Thinking about it, that was something we should have done the first time we met. Why introduce herself this late and expect a kind word? Even so, picking a fight while I was still learning the job seemed unwise. For the sake of getting along at work, I decided to say something nice. Ah. Making a living really was this hard.
"Hm? Well… it's a pretty name?"
"Not that. When I introduce myself, you're supposed to introduce yourself too, Sister Selenia."
"You already know my name. Do I really have to say it again? I'll say it, and you'll just snap that you already knew."
"Ngh…!"
Ah. Mistake. I was supposed to be humoring Lorensia, within reason. I'd sunk so deep into the suffering of the office junior that my real feelings had slipped out.
Lorensia glared at me as if she'd been wronged, but she didn't actually argue. Apparently I'd been too right. They say a woman's grudge can lay frost even in midsummer. This was starting to look inconvenient. Leave it like this and she might put a bullet in my back later.
In my previous life, the worst of it would have been office politics grinding someone down into human garbage. In a fantasy world like this, fists and blades sat closer than the law — and knowledge of firearms was already being tightly controlled. She could shoot me while we were confiscating guns, report upstairs that I'd died a sudden miserable death, and no one would blink. I needed to watch my mouth.
"Let's just go do the job. You don't seem to like me much either, Sister Lorensia, so wouldn't it be better to finish quickly and each go do our own thing?"
To get out of the moment, I needed to remind her that we'd met as colleagues on official business. Lorensia would know the work mattered more than personal feelings. Yes, I'd misspoken, but I didn't think it was enough to earn a real grudge — just enough to gut my favorability in one stroke. Keep it professional, and the worst of it would be a little awkwardness while we worked. Without personal feelings in the way, we might even be more efficient.
No after-work dinners once the job was done. No being dragged out on weekends. I should have drifted at the edges of the company from the start. All those company dinners, all that watching the boss's mood — how exhausting it had been. Back then I'd thought that was just how everyone lived. Give up on being favored by the people above you, and it was astonishing how comfortable things became. I'd just make a good impression on the Pope. Work hard, eat well, and live well here.
"…Hmph. Fine. Let's go. To the alley where you were hurt, Sister Selenia. If you get there, go into shock, and piss yourself, don't look at me."
"It's just a back alley. What kind of shock would I even—"
The grumble came out on its own. Had whatever happened to this body really been traumatic enough for all that? It couldn't have been anything besides being shot. For instance…
No. Just imagining it was unpleasant. I'd check that on my own later. For now I simply waited for Lorensia to get up. She had to lead; I was following.
She drew her legs in once, then kicked them straight, and the recoil popped her up off the bed. She might have been my senior, but the sight was pure child. The height, the baby face, the flat chest — generously, maybe fifteen. People from the West showed their age early, so she might have been even younger. The thought of a kid that small working as an Inquisitor made me feel sorry for her all over again. From now on, no matter what came out of her mouth, I'd tell myself it was just an undergrown child whining.
Maybe the sudden shift in posture did it. A book slipped from Lorensia as she stood and hit the floor with a soft thump. It wasn't large, and it wasn't thick. An Inquisitor's manual, maybe?
"Ah— th-this is…! It was just lying on your bed, Sister Selenia, and I must have lain on it and brought it with me. I was absolutely not trying to sneak it off to read!"
Red-faced, she snatched it up and held it out to me. From the outside I couldn't begin to guess what it was. Listening to her, though, it was clearly my diary.
"Right. Well. Sister Lorensia would hardly steal anything. You're not from the back alleys, like me."
"Nnh—! As if I ever would!"
The reaction screamed caught trying to peek at someone else's diary. Honestly, though, who could resist? You're about to work with a former back-alley delinquent — of course you'd be curious. Then a diary turns up. I'd have wanted a look too. Of course, if it were my own diary being found out, I'd be furious. What I meant to do wasn't much different from Lorensia, though.
The original owner of this body… Ugh. Calling her the original owner felt wrong. Just Selenia. Referring to her that way wouldn't make me sound as if I were talking about myself in the third person. Anyway, me reading the diary Selenia had written and Lorensia reading it amounted to the same thing. I couldn't very well tear into her for it. Besides, thanks to Lorensia, I'd found my room, and even my bed.
"All right. Then let's go. You won't want to keep looking at me either, Sister Lorensia, so let's finish the job and see to our own business."
I tossed the diary under the bedcovers and followed her. I wanted to read it this very moment, but the work came first. I'd look at it alone when I got back.