Fear Not (1)
Condensation beaded thick across the glass of cola. The girl in the school uniform drew a long pull through the straw, then set the drink down on the table.
A moment later, her fingers reached for the french fries.
Hair dyed a bright yellow, idling in a fast-food joint, she looked every inch the girl who lived to play—and yet her nails, surprisingly, were cut quite short and neat, without a trace of ornament. There were two reasons for that. One was that her work was simply not the sort of thing long nails could survive.
"I apologize for calling you out like this. —Mika Eru."
Han Seoyeon spoke the name as she took her in.
Mika Eru Michael. No one who heard it would mistake it for a given name; it was an alias, meant to hide a cursed one. She was getting through her studies well enough these days, but her true occupation was holy knight of the Church—a capable one who had received the name of Gravekeeper, a monster who had once climbed as high as Apostle Candidate.
Had she been only a little older back then, or had she borne a miracle even slightly more suited to a holy relic, the one now called Bartholomew might well have been someone else. That was the assessment Han Seoyeon always held of her. Of Mika Eru.
"Hm? Nyaah— class let out early today anyway, so?"
"You did not have plans to spend the time with your friends, I hope? I have been told that students ordinarily do such things at a time like this."
"I can handle that myself, so you don't gotta worry about iiit. More to the point, what are you, my guardian or something, Natacchi? Why are you even worrying? You're seriously so funny."
"…In practical terms, I have served as your guardian on more than one occasion."
Han Seoyeon offered the protest, only for a french fry to stop her mouth at once.
Watching her obediently munch it, Eru changed the subject.
"Sooo, what's this about? Let's be real—you never set the plans yourself, Natacchi. Not unless it's work."
She sounded genuinely puzzled by it.
Han Seoyeon was quiet for the briefest moment—letting a hesitation of her own show, perhaps—and then she spoke.
"A consultation, I suppose. Yes. That is what this is."
"Oooh hoo hoo. A rare chance to hear that ice-cold Natacchi say something weak? So what iiis it? Love advice? It's love advice, right?"
"Uh, uuum… that may not be entirely wrong……."
Eru's eyes sparkled as she leaned far forward across the table. Once Han Seoyeon had reluctantly agreed, that gaze only burned brighter.
"The truth is, well… it seems I have come to like women."
"……Eh?"
It did not take long, however, for bewilderment to enter that stare.
"Eh, so that's, like… a Natacchi joke?"
"No. I am quite serious, for what it is worth……. Even you, Eru, have not often been asked for a consultation of this sort, I imagine."
The other reason Mika Eru kept her nails short was that she frequently took women to bed. In short, she was a lesbian. That was precisely why Han Seoyeon had chosen her to consult—but being gay did not mean one was necessarily surrounded by other gay people. And even if one was, there was no guarantee one had fielded a great many consultations on the subject.
"Even so, was it too sudden?"
"No, no, that's not it. Sudden? It's kinda the opposite, y'know…?"
"The opposite?"
Eru answered while scratching at her cheek with a fingertip.
"I mean, it's more like… mm. This consultation is way too late……. Weren't you already going out with that busty squirrel-chan?"
"Busty squirrel… no, I believe I know whom you mean… but we are not in that sort of relationship."
"Ah, aaah. Then that? Like, friends with benefits, or…?"
"I hear Miss Serena tried to take that as a fan name, only for the company to reject it. At the very least, it has nothing to do with me."
"Eeehh……."
Mika Eru only grew more baffled. They're not dating? Really? After carrying on like that?
"Or rather, if you're coming for advice now, you only just noticed your own feelings… like, recently?"
"Yes, well… it was only yesterday. Late at night, so it has not even been a dozen hours……."
"……This really is a Natacchi-style Korean joke, right?"
"I am serious."
Another short silence fell. Han Seoyeon gave up on further excuses and simply took another french fry.
"So… you really were just plain friends, and you did all that and said all that…?"
"I believe physical affection is entirely possible between friends as well."
Eru heard her out, then tapped the glass with a finger.
"Fine. We'll say that's true. But from what I hear, that girl is even trying to indulge your fetish, isn't she?"
"Well, there are people one wishes to accommodate, even if it takes a little effort…"
"This and that are not the same thiiing."
She narrowed her brow, just slightly, and went on.
"Doing a nice thing for a friend isn't weird. But a pair that fondles each other because they want to satisfy the other person? You don't call that friends."
"……No. Not to that extent."
"You didn't?"
Han Seoyeon looked away. It was not as if she had nothing to feel caught by. In its place she picked up the cup and, without so much as using the straw, began to chug the cola.
"Aaah! Hey—Natacchi, don't just drink my cola whenever you feel like it!"
She kept gulping all the same.
"Meaning you just hadn't realized it till now, but your heart was already pretty far gone——."
"Uuuum……."
Even the cold cola did not easily cool the feeling of having been struck dead center, and a groan slipped out of her.
"…So then, what am I supposed to do?"
"What do you mean, what should you do? Just be honest with your own heart, duuuh."
"But this is not the sort of matter resolved by feelings on one side alone."
So saying, Han Seoyeon let out a sigh.
She had realized what she felt for someone. She liked her. If possible, she wanted it to grow into a romance. But if one could date another person on liking alone, the world would already be nothing but couples. Love, by its nature, only meant something when it ran both ways.
"There is no guarantee the other person's heart is turned this way, after all……. I cannot even swear that Miss Ninomae is inclined toward women……."
"……."
This time it was Eru who fell silent.
Does Natacchi really believe that? Is that why she's acting this way…? She had said only a moment ago that their relationship could not be explained as friendship. As if that observation had applied to Han Seoyeon alone. If either one of them had felt nothing more than simple friendship, the whole thing would have fallen apart long since. Well—looked at a certain way, it felt less like pure romance and more like something with a fair measure of worship and faith stirred in.
Mm! But maybe I should leave it alone after all! This way looks way more fun!
Eru promptly changed the air between them and grinned. What did it matter. If anything, leaving the two of them be for a little while seemed likely to make for a far more entertaining situation.
—Her name was Mika Eru. She was a woman whose character, in a different direction from Han Seoyeon's, was no fit for the clergy.
"…What is the meaning of that smile?"
"Hm? Nothing. Just do your beeest~"
"I cannot say I am entirely convinced……."
Han Seoyeon sighed once more.
"So, will you hear the consultation?"
"If you just act like usual, won't it be fine? The way I see it, she seems into women too, so time ought to sort it out."
"…Mmm. I am not sure that counts as especially helpful advice."
"Hey now. You don't believe me? I'll have you know this is Eru-chan, with tons of experience in same-sex relationships?"
Han Seoyeon closed her mouth again. In an argument, I know because I've done it was an invincible logic, and she had no way to refute it.
"As usual… yes. I will take it under advisement, for now."
There was nothing for it but to concede that much. Han Seoyeon nodded, reluctant air and all.
Eru had, of course, decided to leave the two of them alone for a while and watch—but that did not mean the advice she had offered was wholly meaningless. Both of them had simply failed to recognize their own hearts; the way they behaved already looked like nothing but a couple. It was, quite literally, a problem that would resolve itself with time if they simply went on as they were.
Even so, I won't get in someone else's way just for my own fun. Muttering as much to herself, Eru chuckled and opened her mouth again.
"Sooo, the other piece of business?"
"Business?"
"If this was all, there was no need to call me out in person. A message asking for advice would've been plenty, riiight?"
A smile that seemed to beam from narrowed eyes. And yet a sharp color had seeped into it. Indeed—had she been nothing more than a playful schoolgirl, the seat of Gravekeeper would have been utterly out of reach.
"…It concerns the Vampire Syndrome."
"Aha… that."
The Vampire Syndrome. The name given to the chain of incidents that was also the reason Han Seoyeon had come all the way to Japan. The virus itself was, of course, effectively dealt with. So what she meant was not the incident as such, but the hidden hand behind it.
"Hermes Trismegistus."
"Yes. Precisely."
Hermes the Thrice-Great. An organization modeled on the legendary alchemist known as the author of the Emerald Tablet. The figure was so famous, however, that any number of other groups had taken the name as well, and so—unless one was speaking of official records—it was quite often called the Vampire Syndrome, simply to tell them apart.
"Why those guys?"
"It seems we have managed, at last, to find a lead."
"…For real?"
The danger of Hermes Trismegistus—of the Vampire Syndrome—lay in nothing other than its secrecy. A monster that, even from the Church, still concealed every one of its members. Hidden dragons quietly whetting their blades while keeping their identities sealed from the world were surely plentiful. But a being that could commit terror on a grand scale and still hide itself this thoroughly was exceedingly rare. And so what Han Seoyeon had just said was more than enough to catch Eru's interest.
"At the time it was merely a hypothesis, and even now it is not one hundred percent confirmed… Do you remember what happened when we met recently?"
"Uh, you mean when we clashed to pay off that debt to Hachiman Daibosatsu, right?"
"Yes. That occasion."
Han Seoyeon nodded.
"It happened because the debt owed to Hachiman Daibosatsu was greater than our calculations. I thought about it then."
She lifted her head a little, glanced at the warm-toned lights hanging from the ceiling, and went on.
"Why had something like this happened at all? I could not help but turn it over."
Why, exactly? After she had gone home that day, Han Seoyeon had spent some time examining the point.
"And I confirmed it. There had been no error in the calculation."
"You're sure about that?"
"The Oracle's analysis is in as well, so the reliability is high."
She had even commissioned an institution that specialized in analyzing matters involving anomalies. It was fair, then, to treat the assumption as a highly reliable one.
"But if Natacchi didn't miscalculate, then…"
"It means there was a variable that fell entirely outside our premises. And so far as I know, the only factor capable of producing an error of this magnitude, whose full shape is still unknown, is the Vampire Syndrome."
"Riiight~ figures it'd be that——."
Eru wore a look of understanding. She could roughly guess where the story was headed.
"In other words, someone among the masterminds is closely tied to the god Hachiman."
"If the report I checked is right, there's a good chance the masterminds have some way of getting information that'd be classed as ESP… Mm. I more or less get it."
ESP. Put simply, a supernatural ability that was not physical. Without some power of that kind, they could not hide their identities to this degree. That was the Church's conjecture, Han Seoyeon's included.
"So there's a prophet among the masterminds."
"That is correct."
"And you brought out a guess like this while talking about the god Hachiman, which means, of course—"
"Yes."
Han Seoyeon nodded. Then she checked their surroundings with a glance. She had already confirmed there were no other customers, but given the weight of what she was about to say, the motion came without her thinking.
"There is a strong possibility that the masterminds include someone of the imperial house. Hachiman Daibosatsu, together with the great deity Amaterasu, is one of the imperial family's principal guardian gods."
A remark that could all too easily amount to an insult against the imperial house. Even a denizen of the hidden world, if they were a citizen of Japan, was not someone to whom one carelessly let such a suspicion be heard. No—reverence for the imperial house ran, if anything, stronger in the hidden world. Wherever one went, the origins of a king were difficult to sever from those of a priest, and by the nature of the hidden world, such bloodlines were bound to wield the power of genuine anomalies. Precisely because it was a lineage that truly held power, respect for the throne was often greater among them than among the people of the surface world, who had nothing but tradition to lean on. And yet it was that very bloodline that had turned the arrow of suspicion their way.
"You're suspecting the princess, or something?"
"Ah, no. I misspoke a little. I am not suspecting the current imperial house."
Han Seoyeon said as much and waved a hand.
"If the current imperial house were directly involved, there is no way the taxes I pay in Japan would have failed to shift dramatically. If the problem is tied to only a single divine being, then a collateral branch that has already undergone demotion from imperial status is far more likely than the main house."
"Then the suspect's one of the twelve former branch houses, the old miyake, huuuh. …Oh, but Natacchi. These days the going phrase is 'departure from the imperial register,' not 'demotion from imperial status,' you know?"
"Ah. Right. I forgot."
Collateral lines of the imperial house that had laid down the name of royalty. As a rule, "former imperials" or "former branch houses" meant the twelve families that had left the imperial register after the war. And it was precisely such houses that Han Seoyeon suspected.
"Even the main imperial house does not especially possess spiritual power in the modern day, but blood is blood, and there is no telling where a mutation might appear."
"Mm-hmm. If you're talking about a prophet in Japan, you kinda have to start by suspecting imperial blood, riiight."
In the nations of the East in particular, prophecy and rite were often the prerogative of the royal house. One could not help but suspect that bloodline.
"Since you brought it up, you brought a write-up of everything you've looked into so far, riiight? Hand it over. I'll dig around on my side too."
"I would be grateful if you would."
Han Seoyeon promptly drew a sheaf of papers from her bag and passed it to Eru.
"…Huh?"
A light skim, however, and Eru tilted her head.
"The Chrysanthemum Glory Friendship Society? I mean, as a social club for the old imperials, it's the surest route there is—but how are you even planning to investigate?"
"By pure chance, an occasion has arisen for me to form a tie with imperial blood. If I ask that person, we should be able to look into it somehow."
"Whoa… that is actually incredible, Natacchi?"
Eru murmured as if she were genuinely impressed. Apostolic rank aside, a personal connection to royalty was bound to be surprising.
"In any case, once the investigation has gone a certain distance, I intend to submit it as an item before the Council."
"The item's importance… that'd come out to at least sixteen points, I bet."
"Do you remember what the total importance of items raised so far comes to?"
"Mmm, probably a hundred and eighty, or a hundred and ninety."
"…It will likely convene within the year, then."
The condition for an Apostolic Council to be declared was a cumulative agenda importance of 208 points, which put them roughly twenty points from the limit. Han Seoyeon gave a bitter smile and looked up at the ceiling once more.
"Then, shall we move along to the next subject."
"Hm? There's one more?"
"Yes. I brought three matters to consult on, after all."
At Eru's question, Seoyeon nodded, her expression terribly serious. Caught up in that atmosphere, Eru grew solemn in turn.
"—There is a prejudice that high school girls go mad for dessert. By any chance, is there a cake shop nearby you would recommend?"
"……Hm?"
"I am serious. Truly."
"Uhhh?"