Command, Precept, and Doctrine (2)
Thoughts have power.
It's not that words can become reality or that the world depends on one's resolve.
What I mean here is the law that governs the otherworld, where the thoughts of actual intelligent beings can influence reality.
From this perspective, the missionary class was the vanguard of imperialism.
They were not just agitators who incited ideological contamination in the spread of Christian faith.
They were also walking weapons that forged holy power in the crucible of doctrine.
Therefore, in non-Christian cultural spheres, they were always targets of persecution.
In a world where sorcerers harboring anti-national thoughts are born just by existing, the state naturally couldn't ignore them.
However, the Onmyoryo of the Edo Shogunate was too extreme.
Even across all of East Asia, there is no record of a single group using as diverse a range of monsters as the Onmyoryo did at that time. And they mobilized all those monsters to exterminate the Kirishitan.
They beheaded them with swords. Impaled them with spears. Turned them into arrow fletching. Shot them with bullets. Cursed them to death. Caused disasters to kill them. Starved them to death. Threw them to beasts as food. Pushed them into the maws of demons. Burned them to death with fire and drowned them.
For efficient use as offerings, they tortured them to death. Used them as talismans against curses to kill them. Offered sacrifices to gods, fought against Tatar and performed rituals to tear them apart.
They exterminated the entire clan, crushed infants who were still basically blood, cursed them before birth, and killed them before they could become believers.
The modern Japanese Church is the work of those who survived that hell. Descendants of hidden Kirishitan, a hill of ashes etched with terror and rage to the bone.
That's why their behavioral code is 'kill first' and 'kill before dying'.
With the advent of modernity, their violence has been somewhat suppressed, and moderate factions have emerged, but it was still routine for them to erupt whenever a gap appeared.
It was because of their tendencies that Tsunashi Tenka, Akane's childhood friend and a werewolf, survived alone and was raised by Akaba Akane, and that she went abroad to gain the power to protect those around her.
Of course, Akane didn't need to understand the reasons behind this. The ones who tormented Tenka were the ones who did it; what motive they had was none of her business.
"Ah, damn it..."
Especially if they were coming to crush her, she didn't need to care.
She wasn't a saint who would die from 'you had your reasons too'.
"Hifumiyoitsumunanayakoto..."
She ran through the mountain path, chanting spells, biting her pinky finger, and sprinkled the dripping blood on the nearby tree roots.
Three six-legged beasts resembling lizards crawled out of the ground and pounced, jumping onto Akane's back.
Immediately after, a tree far away fell. Behind it, a burly man appeared.
Priest robes, gloves with bells, and a shaved head. One of the two mad holy knights who invaded the shrine.
Mad. Yeah, that's what he was.
No matter how hardline the Japanese Catholic Church was, most of them still had at least some minimal self-control or judgment.
Because of the two representative monster holy knights being moderates, there was no sense of forced etiquette injection, but anyway, it meant they had some brakes.
So, those guys who, against the 'external dual-core etiquette injector', went all out were exceptionally crazy among the Japanese diocese holy knights.
'Real bastards who play with their lives...'
Such an evaluation was inevitable.
This time, Akane was the target, but according to their logic, they might have targeted Ninomae if necessary.
In short, they were the kind of people who, immersed in their beliefs, could attempt artistic suicide methods.
Unfortunately, it seemed that these guys wouldn't end their own lives today. Instead, they intended to personally crush Akane.
Akane muttered curses in her heart again, threw one of the explosion lizards on her back to the priest.
"Tsuzuno ko, light will shine!"
It exploded in front of the man's nose, causing a bright flash. Akane used that moment to change direction and leaped down the mountain slope.
This was all she could do: buy time and run away.
The strongest trump card for Akane, Sanmeedora no Kami, couldn't be used.
Originally, their goal was to kill the mountain god of Mount Koya, so who would deliver Sanmeedora right in front of them?
Although it was a surprise, she had been on the verge of being suppressed by the deity in one go. Against such a guy, sending out Sanmeedora even with a 2 vs 1 disadvantage was not a wise move.
Moreover, she herself had to protect him, which was truly difficult.
If she were captured, they would use her as a hostage to summon Sanmeedora. That is, suppressing the other side would also be a losing condition.
Truly, there was no answer.
Despite this situation, Akane couldn't give up thanks to only one hope.
She was confronting holy knights at the shrine entrance, sending a message to Han Seoyeon from her pocket. It was a haphazardly typed message on the keypad, full of typos.
Akane had left her position because someone came looking during the broadcast.
Han Seoyeon couldn't not be watching Ninomae's broadcast, so if she received an urgent message in that situation, she might guess what happened due to the visitor.
Of course, this was purely wishful thinking.
It was unknown whether Han Seoyeon checked the message while watching Mary’s broadcast. Even if she did, it was a message typed without properly looking at the screen, so it was questionable if the content was properly conveyed.
Realizing that Akane was in a situation needing help was also one of the difficulties.
And even if all this was satisfied, it was questionable how long it would take for salvation to come. It would probably take quite a while. Han Seoyeon and Ninomae's home was in Tokyo, and this side was in Kanagawa.
Yet, clinging to this thread of hope was because if this possibility didn't exist, there truly would be no escape route.
If she didn't think this way, she would have given up completely. So Akane kept running.
She kept running, but...
"I'm done for."
She checked the figure of a woman walking leisurely towards her from the other side and made a sour face.
Her breath was already at the brink of running out. She didn't even have the will to speed up.
However, since she couldn't just run away, Akane picked up the remaining two explosion lizards in each hand.
And threw them alternately. To make it hard for them to respond, she alternated them.
"No, really."
Kwaang! Like before, there was a boom and flash, but Akane's expression didn't brighten.
The woman who had been carrying her swung the sword she was holding and casually threw the lizards over her shoulder.
The place where the explosion and dust rose became far behind where the priest was standing.
Against guys who explode with just a slight shock, what kind of trick is this? Although Akane had no energy left to be amazed.
'Ah, this is hopeless...'
Her body no longer had strength. Akane stared at the approaching priest while inwardly resigning herself.
"Have you finally given up? You are really tenacious..."
The feeling of hot heat came to her skin at the moment the blade was about to come towards her.
She turned her head casually and saw something dark flying quickly. It passed by Akane's side in an instant, swallowed the priest, and shot up greatly.
Purple fox fire. Akane's eyes widened upon realizing its identity.
And the widened view was blocked by something again.
A clump of yellow fur.
Akane peeled off the fur clump stuck to her face.
The young fox in her hand yipped happily for some reason.
'Big uncle brought it! Good job?'
Her round eyes seemed to be saying that.
Of course, it was her imagination. Just as Akane couldn't understand the beast's speech, this fox couldn't understand human speech either.
She had just come to save the miko of the mountain god who was in crisis at the right time.
"Aaah...! Kuku..."
"Damn it. How tough."
But the one she was facing wasn't an ordinary person. The sight of a man burning all over, holding a sword and staggering towards her, was pure terror.
To a miko serving the mountain god, the sacred mountain is literally her front yard. That is, entering this mountain was like jumping into the maw of a monster.
Even though she knew that, coming to attack Akane meant she was either an exceptionally stupid monster or had extraordinary skill.
This ambush was only to buy time.
...But now, that moment of time buy seemed sufficient.
As Akane was about to gear up to run again with her exhausted body whipped, something fell from the sky with a thud.
The two confronting each other froze in place. Because the fallen thing was a human.
The man in military uniform, due to the impact of the fall, had twisted limbs and died, spitting blood.
The second fall came before the understanding followed. Another corpse lay on the ground.
"Kuku, this..."
Akane still had difficulty grasping the situation, but the priest side, noticing something, showed a look of despair even after barely extinguishing the fire.
The arm patches on the two corpses' arms were from the First Commando Unit.
But the additional purple patch that caught her eye was V.D. Special Parachute Training Completion.
Via Dolorosa, or Victor Delta. The meaning of that was very simple.
High Altitude No Opening (H.A.N.O.). In simpler terms, it was an authentication mark that, regardless of using a monster's power, allowed high-altitude parachute jumps without a parachute.
Of course, it was impossible to fall to death even after receiving such certification. More precisely, at this point, there was only one HANO airborne unit on Earth that assumed falling to death.
Thud. The twisted limbs of the soldiers began to return to normal. Their dormant hearts began beating again, and their stopped breaths exhaled once more.
The revived soldiers advanced forward and blocked the way between the priest and the miko, turning their backs to this side as if trying to protect them.
And beside Akane, someone landed lightly.
"It's fortunate that you weren't too late."
Her sanpaku eyes were not just fierce but eerie. Dark circles deeply set. She gave a faint smile.
"Akaba-san, are you not injured?"
At that moment, or rather, only then, Akane's legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground.
"...Akaba-san?"
She sat on the floor without saying anything and grabbed one of Han Seoye's legs and hugged it. She didn't have the time to care about dignity or anything.
Han Seoyeon looked momentarily surprised, but soon bent her waist and patted her shoulder repeatedly. Until the trembling of that body subsided.