Mercy and Sacrifice (3)
"To put it simply, it was a divine descent."
The doctor, who had collapsed without warning in a bleed from all seven orifices, wore a wry smile once Han Seoyeon's treatment had taken hold, and spoke.
"A divine descent…? No—before that, are you all right?"
"I'm fine. It's a common reaction in this line of work. Among ourselves, we call it an 'overload.'"
Live with a power like this, and such things happen often. The doctor waved a hand and went on.
"If you say so yourself… Then, what does this divine descent actually mean?"
"Exactly what the words say. A god comes down into the present world for a little while. Ninomae-sama is a deity, is she not? And this one is a shrine maiden."
She looked from Ninomae to Han Seoyeon in turn. Ninomae nodded, as if to grant that she had been called something of the sort before.
"Put more simply, you might say a portion of Ninomae-sama's soul possessed her guardian."
"All at once, just like that?"
"I doubt it was all at once."
That had been Ninomae's question thrown back at her, but the doctor denied it.
"At the time, the two of you wanted to be together. Didn't you?"
"……."
"Shion-san……."
At the words that followed, Han Seoyeon's eyes and Ninomae's caught for a bare instant. Heat shimmered in that fleeting look, and the doctor made a point of ignoring it—psychometry had already left her quite certain of what they were to each other—as she carried on.
"The shrine maiden wished for the god to descend, the god wished to draw near the shrine maiden, and on top of that you danced, didn't you? Whom were you practicing in order to show it to?"
"Well… the viewers, of course?"
"And among them, the one whose face you know for certain?"
"…Shion-san, I suppose."
Which was to say that this dance, too, had been prepared for the sake of communion between god and shrine maiden. Come this far, even Ninomae of the folklore department could hardly fail to follow.
"So it holds as kagura?"
"Precisely."
"Even so, kagura is a dance performed on the shrine maiden's side…"
"But it's a dance the god dances along with her, isn't it?"
"…That's true."
Kagura is not merely a dance offered to call a god down, or to worship one. It is, in a word, to become the god. It isn't a matter of some wandering deity coming to possess her. In the instant the dance is danced, the shrine maiden is simply identified with the god—or else the dance itself is regarded as a fragment of the divine.
"Then that moment, when I suddenly saw myself as if from a third-person view—"
"That would have been your guardian's field of vision. A temporary sharing of the senses, one might call it. However……."
She broke off and glanced at Han Seoyeon.
"As I'm sure you know, this only follows if the guardian's sense of smell is absurd past all reason. That's why the overload occurred—the sensory excess. The body couldn't endure that sensation, and it broke."
A sense of smell on a level that would be recognized as meeting the conditions of an Apostle Candidate. Drive a thing like that into an ordinary person without warning, and of course they shatter. Ninomae nodded, convinced.
"Then what should we do from here on?"
"You can hardly give up dancing for the rest of your life, and you can't keep your guardian's nose stopped forever either… so there's nothing for it but for the body to grow accustomed. The answer is to repeat the descent until it's mastered, in as narrow and sealed a space as possible, keeping whatever scents might be caught to a minimum. It would also help if the two of you shared your senses while standing in the same place and breathing the same smells."
No need to prescribe any medicine, then. The doctor looked toward Han Seoyeon once more as she said it. The symptom hadn't come of any particular illness or curse, and so long as a cleric stood nearby to mend the damage, that was enough.
"Ah, yes. Thank you. Let's go, Shion-san."
Ninomae bowed once and left the examination room together with Han Seoyeon—and then realized something.
"…We even had tests run. The bill won't come to very much, will it?"
"Ah. That's all right."
Ninomae had asked it as if the hospital fees had suddenly made her anxious, and Han Seoyeon answered with a faint smile.
"You see, it's covered by insurance."
"Oh. Does the surface world's health insurance apply as well?"
"No. I simply took a policy out on you, Ninomae-san."
"…Since when?"
"A little over a year now."
At that, Ninomae's eyes clouded with bewilderment. That would have been before they had so much as moved in together—before even Mary's debut.
"As for why… well, it's you, Shion-san, so I can guess. But how?"
"Insurance concerning the hidden world can, as a rule, be taken out on an acquaintance's behalf. Someone who knows nothing but the surface world isn't permitted to buy coverage against disasters from the other side."
In short, it was a product aimed at anyone who kept acquaintances on the surface. The premiums naturally ran higher than the ordinary kind, and yet it was still considerably popular.
"Ehh… if it costs that much, cancel it and I'll take one out myself. No—why didn't you tell me about this until now in the first place?"
Now that Ninomae had come into contact with the hidden world, a proxy policy was unnecessary. Keeping it was no different from throwing money away.
"…Honestly speaking, I forgot."
It drafted itself out every month regardless, and the fortune she had piled up as an Apostle overflowed… in truth, she had switched that concern off entirely and gone on living. At those words, Ninomae's face grew even more incredulous.
So I really am going to have to take the money in hand myself…?
Faced with that utterly matter-of-fact attitude, the thought escaped Ninomae before she could stop it.
The grilled-fish house was called Nishino Uranai.
Places that call themselves restaurants come in many kinds, and no small number of them aim squarely at the residents of the hidden world. The most common accommodation is the private room. Surface restaurants offer those readily enough that, from the standpoint of someone opening a shop, it can be tried without much of a burden. Depending on the establishment, more than a few go further still, putting modern technology to work so that everything from the order to the serving is settled with no one on staff at all. It is a service for those whose bodies are inhuman in form, or for the sort of monster that influences its surroundings unless it holds itself in check. Akaba Akane, who counted a born werewolf among her childhood friends, knew a great many shops of exactly that kind.
"Um, b-but… why is it always this place when we eat out…?"
"What. Why. You got a complaint?"
"N-no… I was just curious……."
Hina mumbled it in a small voice, then closed her mouth again. They had come often enough that the food was, without question, exceptional—but visit the same restaurant time after time, and it is only natural to want, at least a little, to try somewhere else.
Akane studied that reaction and muttered, barely above a breath, "Grilled fish… it's good no matter how many times you have it, isn't it……."
…A cat?
It was nothing like her usual cutting air—a sulk, purely catlike. So this really was a food she liked a great deal. And it was, strangely, cute. Ninomae smiled, just a little.
Even so, Akane's chopsticks never paused. With thoroughly practiced hands she stripped the flesh from the top of the fish, then carefully lifted the bones and drew the whole skeleton free. In under a minute she had separated bone from meat entirely, and with perfect ease she traded plates with Hina.
"What? Can't you get the bones out either?"
"Ah, n-no. I'm fine."
Ninomae had been staring blankly, and the question came with a sidelong glare. She shook her head in a hurry and set to filleting her own share.
Her gaze went, at last, to the seat beside Akane. Natsugahara Hina had taken off her beak mask, baring pale skin. The moment their eyes met she flinched, and covered her own with hands that shivered and shook.
"I-it, it's really gross after all, isn't it…?"
Those eyes were dyed a dark crimson through and through. Not the inverted eyes of some demonic race out of a comic—wholly, flatly, a single color.
"Ah, no. I actually think that's rather charming… in its own way."
"Charming… hehe. A-Akane-chan, I knew it, Shutan really is an angel…!"
"Don't pull. You'll stretch my clothes."
Han Seoyeon nodded along, vigorously.
"Ninomae-san truly is an angel, I'll grant—ghk."
"What kind of nonsense is thaaat…!"
An elbow drove into her side, and she folded face-down over the table. Hina, who had stayed tense the whole while even if only by degrees, let a soft puff of laughter escape at the sight.
Seeing the tension over there loosen a little, Han Seoyeon quietly turned the conversation.
"Come to think of it, isn't it the first generation's third anniversary about now? I heard you're holding a group live together……."
"Y-yes. The one who's truly busy enough to die is Akane-chan, since it landed right on top of her birthday……."
Both the first generation's debut and Akaba Akane's birthday fell in March. In other words, she had two events to prepare within a single month. The group live marking the third anniversary, at least, was shared among many, so any one person's share of it was small… but that brought difficulties of its own, between group numbers that had to be fitted together and the weight of what the viewers expected.
"A-and even in the middle of all that, you came along to my checkup… I'm really, really grateful… hehe."
Hina's voice was still dreadfully small and shaking, but she mumbled the words on as if this, of all things, she was determined to make herself say.
Han Seoyeon nodded. Yes—this was precisely why the woman was acting as the first generation's leader in practice. The leader by concept was Rokumondera Aki—Hina herself, seated right beside her—but between her personality offline and a position, even in the virtual, a little too ambiguous to call leadership, it didn't quite hold. Brimming with a peculiar excess of confidence, only to be swept along by the others and dogpiled in the end: that was the part she played, the first generation's mascot, or perhaps its sandbag. In being the weakest among her cohort, she could be called not unlike Mary. Early in her broadcasts, the verdict on Mary had even been "Aki, now installed with intellect and refinement."
"Anyway…! What I'm saying is, Akane-chan is a dedicated mom build!"
"Quit talking nonsense."
"Guh—"
Hina had been rapping her plate with her chopsticks, pouring out a passionate little speech of her own, when Akane's palm landed square on the back of her head.
"I-it was a compliment……."
"Well… looked at closely, it's rather ambiguous as a compliment. A bit much to say to a woman still so young."
Of course, what she actually thought was that in this case Akane had merely grown shy at being praised. Those words, Seoyeon swallowed back down.
"Th-then… someday, I'll become a good mother…?"
"That hasn't changed in the slightest, has it. At the very least, make it that you'll become a good bride."
"No, Shion-san. That one just turns into a cliché flag line all on its own, you know?"
While the talk bounced cheerfully back and forth, Akane snorted, tore off a piece of the fish skin and all with her chopsticks, and put it in her mouth. As if to say they could chatter all they liked.
"S-still, you don't exactly look unhappy about it, Akane-chaan…… ack!"
Even so, Hina—who had tactlessly tacked on one remark more—earned herself a flick to the forehead.