I Shall Come Forth as Fine Gold (2)
"An Apostolic Council...?"
Ninomae echoed the words back with a blank look, caught off guard by what Han Seoyeon had just brought up.
"Yes. It began as a gathering of the Apostles, convened to fill the seat left empty when Judas Iscariot was stripped of his apostleship, and it is also the assembly that furnishes the scriptural basis for the ecumenical councils."
"No. I wasn't asking for the academic version..."
Han Seoyeon had answered, and it had done very little to clear anything up.
"I mean—what is it, in the first place?"
"Exactly what it sounds like. A place where the Apostles are assembled to deliberate on various matters. As the representatives of every Holy Knight, they take up the incidents arising in nations across the world and decide how those incidents are to be met."
The churches of each country submitted agenda items, and an Apostle held the right to place an item on the agenda by their own authority. Every item was assigned a weight of importance, and once the sum of those weights crossed a set threshold, an Apostolic Council was convened.
"The Anatolia situation had already nearly filled the score, so... the rampage of certain Holy Knights inside Japan this time must have landed the finishing blow."
"Anatolia?"
Han Seoyeon set a finger to the newspaper lying on the table. The fingertip came to rest on a single article—
"Are you aware of the war underway in Anatolia at this moment?"
"I've caught snatches of it on the news a few times."
"The official announcement calls it a war between nations... In truth, it is a campaign to put down the rapid spread of vampires, and the mastermind who brought that spread about."
The vampire deluge the world knew as the Romanian civil war. The affair had seemed all but finished once Seoyeon's master, Giacomo—Apostle Thomas—intervened, only for the belated discovery that the mastermind had fled to drive it into an entirely new phase.
The vampire who escaped across the Black Sea onto the Anatolian Peninsula was swelling in number, angling once again for a resurgence. Not long ago a large-scale street battle had broken out and annihilated that Triage Team, and word had it that the activation of Seal-class measures—the deployment of an Apostle, in other words—was even under consideration.
"The matter of highest priority at this council will most likely be that one as well."
So saying, Han Seoyeon drew out a chair and sat down across from Ninomae. The bowl in her other hand was heaped with strawberries, their green caps already pinched away.
"I saw them on the way back, so I bought some. Please, have one."
"Ah, thank you."
Ninomae took one of the berries—still glistening, damp from a fresh rinse—and bit into it, and her face broke into a bright smile.
"But is it really all right for the Apostles to gather in one place?"
The question followed almost at once, her head tipping as though the doubt had only just occurred to her.
"An Apostle is the most important personnel a Holy Knight can be, right? If they all met somewhere and somebody fired a missile at them..."
"Would that be a serious matter?"
"...It wouldn't be serious, would it."
Ninomae accepted it on the spot and nodded. A certainty settled over her. Twelve of Han Seoyeon? What was something on the order of a nuke even going to do?
"But even if they themselves are safe, that isn't everything, is it? Apostles dropping out of the missions they're carrying all over the world seems like it would be plenty of a problem."
An Apostle was tremendously strong, and precisely for that reason the emptiness they left behind only grew larger. She couldn't help the worry.
"You need not concern yourself with that. It is what the Communio Sanctorum exists for."
"The communion of saints?"
"That is the correct official rendering in Catholic doctrine, yes. In this case, however, 'the fellowship of the holy' would be the truer translation."
Han Seoyeon smiled, just slightly, and took a strawberry for herself.
"In short, individual missions are entrusted to the organizations of each nation."
"That doesn't change the problem at all, does it?"
"It is fine. For the duration of an Apostolic Council, the only incidents that arise are those that can be resolved without the Vatican's support."
She tossed the berry into her mouth, and her finger came down once more upon the same article. A droplet clinging to the fingertip spread across the newsprint and soaked the words the peace of God.
"Pax Dei. A period of ceasefire under the Church's leadership."
Ninomae knew of that medieval institution, if only in rough outline. Folklore was a discipline that could hardly be peeled apart from history or archaeology, and even the games she liked to play were the sort stocked with characters drawn from history.
"And this is the very keystone that allows the Communio Sanctorum to hold."
Nothing occurred that would require an Apostle to intervene, nor the Holy Knights under the Holy See's direct command. The Church had ordered that it be so. And so an Apostle could leave their post in one region or another without any great trouble coming of it.
"The conclave, the ecumenical council, and the Apostolic Council. These three assemblies—the ones at which the Church proclaims the Peace of God and activates the Communio Sanctorum—must never be interfered with. They are no different from the Church's reverse scale. The one place that must not be touched."
Han Seoyeon smiled bitterly. An old matter had risen, unbidden, to mind.
"On these questions the Holy See has always given warning of 'retribution that mobilizes every capacity at its disposal,' and in certain actual cases, that is precisely what was carried out."
What she was remembering was, of course, one of those certain cases. Seven Apostles, committed to the mere sweeping-up of a single underground organization—the memory of it had never quite left her.
"And so, for the length of the council, even the criminal organizations of any real name keep quiet. No. Rather, there are no end of cases in which they volunteer themselves as vigilantes, terrified a spark might leap their way."
There was, therefore, nothing to worry about. Ninomae, having heard the explanation, still looked faintly unsatisfied, but she nodded.
"Then you'll be going to Vatican City, Miss Shion?"
"Yes. The schedule has not been issued yet, so I cannot be exact, but it ought to be about a month from now. Late May into early June... They will most likely arrange it so the dates do not overlap."
"Don't overlap? With what?"
"Shutan's debut was in May, was it not."
May, in other words, was the month set aside for all manner of special broadcasts marking the second generation's first anniversary. The Church would surely adjust its own calendar so as not to get in the way of that. Miss a broadcast that important over an Apostolic Council? Han Seoyeon was the sort of person who might very well boycott the council instead.
...In truth, if it actually came to that, it was in her nature to swallow her tears and attend in the end. But having the other version of her known to the outside world had its uses. The Church took care, of its own accord, to step lightly.
"Which is why I thought I might ask."
Having talked her way this far, Han Seoyeon broached it carefully.
"Once the anniversary schedule is finished, would you care to go on a trip abroad with me? When an Apostolic Council is convened, one is permitted to bring a companion."
"A trip?"
"Yes. The council is not scheduled so tightly that we could not set a few days aside for sightseeing in Italy, though of course..."
If Ninomae did not want to, there was nothing to be done about it. Han Seoyeon tacked the hedge on, and yet—
"I'd like that. Let's go. Together."
...How was anyone supposed to refuse, when turning her down would leave her so obviously, unmistakably wilted? No. Even setting that aside, a trip with Han Seoyeon was something to welcome with both arms thrown wide. An overseas trip, no less—something she had never once experienced. If anything, she ought to have been the one begging for it.
"I've been Japan-born and bred my whole life, so this would be my first time abroad."
Ninomae said it, and smiled.
"..."
"W-why are you looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong...?"
Han Seoyeon was staring straight at her face.
"Miss Ninomae. You are aware that one must remove one's shoes to board an airplane, are you—kh!"
"I am not that much of a hick!"
A moment later a shin caught her beneath the table. Retribution, and entirely earned.
"...Um. Did that hurt a lot?"
And then, true to form—if anything was Ninomae, it was fretting over her immediately afterward.
"It hurts exactly enough that it would heal at once, were Miss Ninomae to feed me a strawberry with her foot."
"Haa... so you're saying you're fine."
There was, of course, no world in which she believed nonsense of that sort. Worrying had been a loss. Ninomae let out a sigh as if to display the fact.
"...Miss Ninomae?"
That did not, however, amount to a refusal of Han Seoyeon's wish. Carefully, Ninomae set her hips against the table and sat. She did not truly think this would make the pain go away. But the guilt over the kick to the shin—deserved though it had been—met a cooler calculation: thought through properly, wasn't this a chance to tempt her?
Still seated, she hitched herself along. Her destination was directly in front of Seoyeon. From the edge of the table she let her legs hang down, and in the space while Han Seoyeon was still flustered, she swiftly laid both of them across her shoulders.
"...Hehe. You didn't actually think I was going to feed you with my foot, did you? If so, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
Giggling under her breath, Ninomae picked up a strawberry in her hand and pushed it into Han Seoyeon's mouth.
"The legs Miss Shion likes so very, very much—today, please enjoy them with your eyes alone."
She added it with a mischievous smile.
But even with Ninomae all but inviting her to look her fill, Han Seoyeon's gaze could not settle, stickily, on any single place. It only trembled.
What rested on her shoulders was the stretch running from ankle into calf. The left and right of her vision were, inevitably, walled in by the line of those calves and by the soft, plump thighs they led into. What convinced her there was nowhere at all to put her eyes was that a posture like this could only frame the other woman's crotch dead center in her sight.
Whether Ninomae had intended even this and done it on purpose, or whether she had been so preoccupied with Han Seoyeon's leg fetish that she had simply failed to consider the part that actually mattered, there was no telling. It was a mercy the loungewear was a pair of shorts. Had it been a skirt, the composition would have been a genuine disaster.
"Hey."
"Ghk—?!"
"Why on earth is your head swiveling around like that? Hold still, please."
Whatever her intention had been, Ninomae did not appear to care for the sight of Han Seoyeon whipping her head this way and that. She drew her legs in, pressing from both sides until the face between them was fixed in place. Han Seoyeon, flustered, lifted her gaze, and their eyes met. Ninomae flushed, shy across the cheeks, and laughed an ehehe anyway.
"Hyah—?!"
And so Han Seoyeon moved at once. Part of it was that the pretty sight had made the pounding in her chest impossible to endure any longer. Part of it was a profane impulse—the want to twist that innocent, guileless smile out of shape.
She wound her arms around Ninomae's waist and pulled her in hard. The motion buried her face, quite naturally, in the other woman's crotch. Ninomae startled, and the startle only made her curl her legs in. They tangled around Han Seoyeon's head and squeezed, and so, contrary to anything she might have meant, she had only trapped her there and kept her from pulling away. And when, held like that, the nose pressed to her lower body began to sniff and nuzzle about, this way and that, Ninomae's face went scarlet all at once.
Not the fresh, bashful flush of a moment before. The look of someone so embarrassed, and embarrassed again, that she simply could not bear it.
"—Wait, what the fuck?"
"Ah."
It was right around then that Akane, only just home, dropped the parcel in her hands.
At the thud, Ninomae's gaze snapped around. The two women's eyes met. ...Han Seoyeon, too, peeked out from beyond Ninomae's thigh and turned her gaze that way.
"...S-sorry for interrupting. Thinking about it, living with me around must've made it hard for you to get any relief. I'll find some other place and clear out as fast as I can."
"N-no, it's not! This isn't—it isn't like that?!"
"Love each other sweetly from here on out."
"I'm telling you we weren't doing anything weird!"
"Right. So this doesn't even rank as weird, then... I really have no sense at all. If this is a 'normal occurrence' and I'm only seeing it for the first time now... no. Have the two of you just been hiding it well?"
"Aaaaah! Miss Shion! Miss Shion, say something too...!"
"Is that so... Nothing, you say. So with me, it was merely playing with fire... No. Yes. It is fine."
"Why are you going into villain mode here of all times?! The one in front of you right now is Ninomae, not Mary!"
"But Miss Ninomae's cute even when she isn't Shutan."
"...Ah. Th-thank you. ...Ehehe."
"...This is a protest telling me to stop freeloading cluelessly in a newlyweds' house and get out already, isn't it?"