Molech and Fire (1)
"—I'm back."
"Ah, Shion."
Ninomae saw Han Seoyeon come in through the door and welcomed her with a smile.
"The bags are all packed."
"I'm sorry for leaving the tiresome work to you."
Han Seoyeon gave her collar a few brisk pats, then drew Ninomae into her arms and pressed their cheeks together, openly glad to see her.
"Don't be. You were out on business yourself, weren't you, Shion?"
"It was hardly anything I'd call a hardship. All I had to do was fix one person."
"Just... fix them. Mm. Right."
The words gave Ninomae a moment's pause, but she soon decided not to dig any deeper.
Didn't she say the person had been cut in half...?
When Han Seoyeon had come back from her short walk the night before, she had unmistakably carried the smell of a fight on her. She had returned without so much as a drop of blood on her clothes, as if to insist that nothing whatsoever had happened—but even she could not hide the scent of gunpowder.
An ordinary person would never have noticed. The Ninomae of the past certainly wouldn't have. But she had lived with Han Seoyeon long enough to have held her more than once after she came home from "work," and by that point she could tell gunpowder when she smelled it.
Under Ninomae's questioning, Han Seoyeon had at last been forced to confess what had happened on that walk. The mastermind behind Vampire Syndrome had tried to spark yet another incident. Among the Holy Knights of the region, there had been not only wounded, but dead. And because she had stepped past the line of what could be handled on site, the resurrection rite had been pushed to the following day—which was to say, today.
"Is that person all right?"
"Yes. There were some lingering aftereffects, but they were brought back safely."
Resurrection. No matter how many times she heard it, the word rang strangely in her ears. Ninomae gave a wry smile.
"Still, even with a power like that, you don't seem to get summoned around all that much."
"When you think about it, I can hardly raise every person who dies. Do that, and keeping society itself intact would become a problem—and above all, I have only one body."
"But a Holy Knight's work is facing hostile anomalies, so quite a few people get hurt, don't they?"
An ordinary death, the kind that could happen just as easily in the surface world, was one thing. But those who died on the hidden side, in the course of the Holy Knights' duties—surely there was nothing strange about bringing them back? That was the shape of Ninomae's doubt.
"Well, most of them are saved on the scene."
"...This miracle of resurrection. Can people other than you use it? Is it actually incredibly common?"
"I am not the only one who possesses a miracle capable of raising the dead, but such things are hardly common. If they were, the world would already be in serious trouble."
Then how, exactly, were people being saved on the scene? Ninomae tilted her head.
"Even science and technology, with anomalies set aside, can bring back someone whose heart has stopped, can't they? Add an anomaly's power to that—church divinity, especially—and the golden window generally extends to about ten minutes after death."
"Uh... that doesn't feel like a miracle at all anymore."
"That's because it isn't classified as one. Cardiac massage performed with telekinesis—if I had to give an example, the resuscitation is of that sort."
Conversely, when even those measures at the scene could not bring someone back, that was when Han Seoyeon was sent for. Hers was no miscellaneous anecdote of a power. It was rooted in the miracle of Lazarus, and so the golden window, at least, was considerably more forgiving.
"Anyway, shall we get going?"
"Yes. Let's."
Han Seoyeon smiled faintly and took the bag that was hers to carry. She would have liked to take Ninomae's as well, but Ninomae had firmly refused, insisting she would carry her own, and there was nothing to be done about it.
"Heading out now?"
"Yes, Mom. We're about to head back."
They stepped out of the room and ran straight into Ninomae's mother, Fumiyo, who happened to be passing through the hall.
"All right. Travel safe. Stop by again next time you have a moment."
"You've truly been far too kind to us."
"If anything, I should be thanking you, Shion. The house has been brighter than usual because of you. Keep looking after our Hitomi from here on, won't you?"
Fumiyo said it with a smile. She had seemed a little cold at first, but a few days under the same roof had shown her to be a gentle woman, the very image of her daughter.
"You come visit again too, Shion, if you get the chance."
"Yes. We'll be in your debt next time as well."
"And... your father asked me to pass this along."
"Dad did?"
With that, she handed her daughter something that had been leaning at an angle against one wall of the hallway.
"A canvas...?"
Ninomae tilted her head. It wasn't that she didn't know what it was. Her father's hobby was painting, and she had seen the things more times than she could count. She simply couldn't tell why one was appearing now. Was he giving them a gift to decorate the house with?
"...Eh."
Then she drew off the cloth covering it, and froze where she stood.
"Is it a character from an anime you like? I thought they were pretty girls, but..."
Two women had been painted there. The proportions were somewhat stylized, though, so they felt less like real people and more like characters out of a manga. The two of them wore pure white wedding dresses and held a single bouquet between them. Up to that point, there was nothing strange about it.
"You did say your parents didn't know, didn't you...?"
"They don't. They shouldn't..."
Han Seoyeon asked it in a murmur, and Ninomae answered with the corners of her mouth trembling.
The characters in the painting were far too familiar. Familiar, or rather—here, the word would have to be themselves. The women of platinum and silver: Mary Tepes and Sister.
"Is something wrong with the painting?"
"Ah, no. I just thought it was really well done... Ahaha..."
Her mother truly seemed to know nothing at all, so Ninomae fumbled her way through some vague reply. Fumiyo appeared to find the reaction a little odd, but she showed no sign of pressing.
"Mmm. Still, it is pretty, so..."
Set aside the blood tie to the artist, and it was basically the feeling of having received high-quality fanart. She ought to just be happy about it. That was how Ninomae persuaded herself.
"Um, ma'am. If it's possible, could you ask Father whether he might also paint a Charmea version..."
"Hm? Charme—? Well, I'll pass it along, at least."
"No, wait a second. How are you stuffing your personal desires into a moment like this, Shion?!"
Of course, even in the middle of all that, a certain depraved fandom of one was busy extorting fanart. It was not the important problem.
"Hehe. When it comes to that, at least, Shion is always completely sincere—"
"I know, I know..."
Ninomae answered the voice coming through her headset with something like a lament.
For the first time in a while she had dropped into Anathema Production's server on Prasava, and she was stacking blocks and talking with her second-generation classmate—Serena to the rest of the world, Chiyo to her.
"In the end I actually got that painting, you know? And then my dad really went and painted one and sent it. Honestly."
"Oh? I heard you got back from your parents' place a few days ago... Your father paints awfully fast."
"I think he does, yeah."
And so two paintings were currently hanging in Ninomae's streaming room. She turned her head to look at them, gave a wry smile, and went on.
"Have you been doing all right, Chiyo?"
"Yeah. More or less. I just got past a rough patch, so I'm resting easy."
There was no need to ask what the rough patch had been. Serena Razania's live concert had been only a little while ago. It was obviously that.
"You worked so hard. I watched the concert."
"Hehe. I'm glad you say so. Feels like the effort was worth it."
Hearing that, Chiyo chuckled, plainly satisfied. She had never been much accustomed to physical work to begin with. It was easy enough to imagine how hard she must have pushed herself for the live.
"You've got a live coming up soon too, don't you, Hitomi?"
"Yeah. My birthday's at the end of February, so the concert itself will get pushed into March."
Even so, the preparations were already underway. Ninomae smiled, just a little wryly.
"The lessons and all that—are they rough?"
"Ahaha... Honestly, kind of. And on top of that, it sounds like they're putting out a new song to go with the live."
The one mercy was that Ninomae was a magician under contract with a demon. Strengthening her body with magic and recovering her stamina with magic as she practiced put her at a far better starting line than most.
"I'm pretty clumsy myself, so I get a lot of help from my familiars."
"I really am jealous of that. Maybe I should contract a demon too..."
"I think you're better off not. In my case, the other party was doing me a favor, for one..."
Philotanuss had come to make a contract with Ninomae because a subordinate demon had gone berserk and she had come within a breath of being kidnapped. It was a kind of compensation, in other words, and even then, according to Han Seoyeon, the rate at which faith was exchanged came out merely even. If a contract made in apology looked like that, it was obvious how bad a deal an ordinary demon contract would be. Honestly, she didn't want to recommend it to anyone she knew.
"Mmm. Still, if I were the one to bring it up and broker it, maybe something could be worked out..."
"I was only joking, so you really don't have to worry. If I actually went and contracted a demon and turned into an anomaly, I can't even guess how hard my sister would work me."
Professor Senjoji Chihaya of the folklore department, who also happened to be Ninomae's academic advisor. On the surface she was an expert in the field; on the hidden side, she was a researcher of anomalies on a level no one else could match. She already worked Chiyo hard enough under the excuse of field surveys and the like. If her little sister herself became an anomaly, there was no telling how she would be run into the ground.
"Traveling around with Shion is fine, but I draw the line at being summoned off alone to be used for experiments and measurements."
"So going around with Shion is all right, then."
"A trip with a beautiful woman? I'd pay for that."
"...I think this every time, but you really are far too honest about your desires."
"I consider it one of my few virtues."
At that attitude, Ninomae found herself wearing a wry smile yet again.
"......"
But then, as if some thought had flickered past, she was quiet for a little while.
"...You like women, don't you, Chiyo."
And, carefully, she opened her mouth.
"Yeah? If I said otherwise now, you wouldn't believe me anyway."
"Ahaha... That's true."
The answer came at once. She was someone who didn't hide this sort of thing to begin with, so it was only natural. And because of that, Ninomae hesitated a moment, then went on.
"Have you ever... struggled with the fact that you like women? Worried about it, or anything?"
"...Mmm. So that's it."
Hearing the question, Chiyo's mood shifted a little. But a moment later she murmured, as if she had caught on.
"—Hitomi. You need someone to talk to, don't you?"
"...Yeah. Something like that."
"Then let's close the game first. If we run into the other members in the middle of a conversation, it'll get awkward."
Ninomae was a little flustered, but she did as Chiyo said. If she was honest, she had meant to lay the groundwork and ease her way in bit by bit—but Chiyo, being the senior in this, had seen straight through her at once.
"Actually. If you've got the time, why don't we meet face to face? Can you come outside right now, Hitomi?"
"Yes. That's fine."
"Then I'll come to you. It's cold, so wait inside. I'll call when I'm nearby."
"You don't have to go to all that trouble..."
"I'm coming because I want to. I just don't want you worrying over something like this, Hitomi."
"...Thank you, Chiyo."
Ninomae smiled, just a little.
"Then I'll head out right now."
With those words came the chime of the voice chat ending.