Chapter 6. Friendship and Relationships (9)
Chapter 6. Friendship and Relationships (9)
People use the word "pure" in many different ways.
When it's used for a very young child, it's a compliment, but when the subject is an adult, the story changes—that was what Chae-eun thought.
The feeling Chae-eun had when she first met Anna was exactly that.
Pure.
Chae-eun herself had only just become an adult, but she still knew at least a little about the world.
She had been trained by her father, and by following him around, she had been able to learn a little about how society worked.
After the Gate Disaster, the shape of the world had changed. On the surface it seemed to run the same as before, but the social structure had been reorganized in many ways by the newly risen forces of Hunters, Heroes, and the Church.
If you lived an ordinary life as just a member of those groups, you wouldn't notice much, but Chae-eun, who had received early education of her own and encountered various cases along the way, could see things—only a very little, but she could see them.
When she first met Anna, Chae-eun thought Anna was being used by the Church.
She knew Anna possessed Holy Power in her own right, and she knew that it was widely rumored among Hunters. But Anna seemed to know far too little about the ways of the world.
Anna was struggling in her own way to break free of the Church, but in the end, that too was a naive story.
The Church needed a Saintess. Naturally, the more "candidates" there were, the better.
Since the appearance of that person, who could be said to have nearly founded the Order more than ten years earlier, numerous Heroes had been produced, and Hunters rivaling those Heroes had emerged—yet the Church had still not produced a single true Saintess. The mere fact that there were many people who could rise to such a position was itself a kind of justification.
In a sense, it was only natural. The position of "Saintess" was different from that of the Pope, which had been established from the beginning as a role that had to exist within the Order.
......The reason Saintesses and Saints came to be called that was the same as the reason Heroes came to be called Heroes. The words had settled into place before anyone knew it, after those people saved countless lives and taught countless people, until everyone came to call them that.
The difference was that the Hero title had systematized those conditions early on. Mainly under government leadership, as the face of government power.
Hunters followed after that.
A government organization that had existed systematically from the start. And the Hunter Association, which followed the form of a "company" or "foundation."
On the other hand, the Church—though it followed the form of religions that had existed before—had in practice to be built up anew from the beginning.
The existence people accepted most unnaturally was the Order.
That was why the Order had to claim various parts of society, if only to survive. It had actually acted that way, and the form it had created by struggling for over a decade was the Order of today.
There were still a great many people in society who regarded that Order as a thorn in their side.
That was when Anna appeared.
"......Why do you keep staring at me?"
"Hm?"
"You've been sneaking glances at me for a while now. Is there something you want to say?"
"Uh......."
Those clear eyes looked straight at Chae-eun.
Anna seemed to think of herself as thoroughly jaded, but Chae-eun could not see any such side in Anna at all.
Rather, she looked like a kid who knew nothing about that sort of thing, clumsily imitating it based only on appearances.
......The proof was that even while rebelling, she ultimately kept to the most basic rules and never crossed the line.
Before she saw Anna seriously use Holy Power, Chae-eun had thought Anna was trying to use the Church. The perception of Anna outside the Church was that she wanted the position without taking on the responsibility.
After seeing Anna in person, she had then thought the opposite—that the Church was using Anna.
She had assumed Anna was just a kid being used. That someone this pure could draw out more Holy Power than others.
How pure must she be, not even making deals with the Church the way other Saintess Candidates did? Maybe her power wasn't special—maybe she was only so widely rumored among Hunters because she would willingly heal anyone who came to her.
The fact that there were people trying to pull Anna away to the outside had probably fanned that thought as well. That they thought of her that way because she seemed that easy to handle.
So perhaps what Chae-eun had first thought—"Should I help her a little?"—had been a gaze looking down from above.
"?"
Anna tilted her head to the side. As if she truly had no idea why Chae-eun was avoiding her eyes.
......Was it only natural that she didn't know?
After learning that Anna could use such Holy Power—no, actually, after she began to think that Anna's very existence might surpass any clergy who had come before—
Looking straight into those eyes had become a little embarrassing.
Anna, who saved people simply because they were people, without a shred of doubt.
Anna, who said the power was not her own, because there was someone who had given it to her as a gift.
.......
Maybe, when she saw someone who simply thought the right way, she had been the one calling them "pure."
Maybe, when she saw someone who was simply upright, she had called them pure—that is, naive.
Calling an adult "pure" is sometimes a roundabout way of saying "stupid."
"Heh."
Seeing Chae-eun avoid her gaze, Anna laughed.
Anna had been like this for the past few days. Until now, the situation had repeated over and over: Chae-eun teasing Anna, and Anna getting annoyed. But these days, Chae-eun had developed a weak spot.
Anna hopped off her own bed and ran over to the bed where Chae-eun was lying.
Then she thrust her face close.
Hair as lustrous as if woven from gold spilled down beside that face. Unlike Chae-eun's hair, neatly cut short, Anna's hair was quite long.
That hair tickled the tip of Chae-eun's nose.
Before a sneeze could escape, Chae-eun gently caught both of Anna's cheeks in her hands.
"Pff,"
Maybe because her cheeks had been grabbed right at the moment she was about to say something, Anna made that ridiculous sound again.
Soft and smooth. A texture that felt like she wore no cosmetics at all. And yet she looked like this.
Was this the kind of moment when people used the phrase "bestowed by God"? Chae-eun felt just a little jealous.
"Let go!"
Anna squirmed as she said it, so Chae-eun released her.
It had its effect, though—Anna backed away a little.
"Every time, you just grab people's faces like that."
Watching Anna glare at her as she spoke, Chae-eun hesitated for a moment.
Hmm, the sound she made every time she got grabbed, and everything else—it felt like catching a small animal, so she kept ending up doing it.
......Come to think of it, the height difference wasn't actually that great, so Anna wasn't really someone who deserved to be called a "small animal." Chae-eun just felt that way.
Anna still looked somewhat pure. Recalling what had happened a few days ago, she did have the ability to resolve things decisively the moment she thought she had to do something—but even her reason for it, that there was no one else who could do it, bothered Chae-eun a little.
The "purity" Chae-eun now thought of when she looked at Anna was no longer that kind of "pureness."
It was a purity that worried her in a slightly different sense.
"That Sacred Object you handed over."
"......Th-that name is a little embarrassing."
"There's no other way to describe it, is there?"
Anna did not argue further with Chae-eun's words.
The chocolate Chae-eun had eaten could also be called a Sacred Object, strictly speaking. If they were Church people, even if someone gave it to them to keep, they probably wouldn't know what to do with it.
No, of course, there would always be people inside trying to extract some "practical benefit" from it.
And people like that would think of using Anna—
"Anyway, I heard that because of that Sacred Object, an important item lost its power."
"Ahh."
Anna shrugged and plopped down onto her own bed.
"That's not a problem. The Mana stored in it wasn't the important part—the stone itself is what matters."
"......Really?"
Since no one had ever dared to use that Mana Stone carelessly before, it was only natural that they didn't know.
And the same went for that Sacred Object.
"I'll make two Sacred Objects and give them to you. Then they'll be satisfied too, won't they? Seeing as they never even imagined something like that would happen, their research probably hasn't progressed much."
"......."
Chae-eun sank into thought for a moment, then spoke.
"You said it happened because Holy Power can pass through walls, right? People don't know that well, so they thought they only needed to block the visible light."
"Right?"
"But wasn't it actually just because your Holy Power is strong?"
"Huh?"
At Chae-eun's words, Anna's eyes went round.
"I mean, wasn't the reason Holy Power was blocked before just because it was weak?"
"Huh?"
"No, think about it. Even sunglasses have ratings. Some block almost all sunlight, and some don't. Didn't your Holy Power just overpower whatever was blocking it because it's strong?"
"......."
Anna's expression went a little blank at that.
"I... don't think so?"
"Why, didn't you receive a revelation about that part?"
"......."
Seeing that she couldn't answer, it certainly seemed that way.
And Chae-eun narrowed her eyes slightly at Anna's reaction.
So that was it.
Anna was pure. Pure enough to think that because she could help others, she had to help.
If someone tried to use Anna, Chae-eun, who was beside her, could stop them. For now, she had both the justification and the power to do so.
But what if.
What if, as Anna said, the Being Above was using Anna?
Anna denied the existence of God, yet ultimately followed that being's guidance. If that guidance meant sacrificing herself, how would she react?
If doing so would prevent something terrible—
Thinking that, Chae-eun felt strange.
A complicated, subtle feeling that was hard to explain.
Chae-eun thought that maybe she had actually grown quite fond of this being called Anna.
Enough that if Anna suddenly disappeared, she would feel something hollow.
That was a little strange.
Because until now, Chae-eun had felt that kind of emotion exactly once.
"?"
Seeing Chae-eun looking at her seriously, Anna tilted her head.
Faced with that clear gaze, Chae-eun ended up averting her eyes again this time.