I Shall Drink No More (5)
The opponent was, unmistakably, of a higher order.
Even at the most generous reading, it came down to a former onmyoji who could hardly be called at the height of her powers after her injuries, set against a sitting Apostle whose margin would remain overwhelming even if one assumed both of them stood at their absolute peak.
Even so, she had not thought it entirely hopeless. Having come this far, a stubborn contrariness had risen in her against simply backing down.
For one thing, Han Seoyeon's armament was hardly complete. They were inside the company building, where firearms could not be used carelessly, and her own win condition amounted to nothing more than working a smartphone and sending a single file.
And so she had thought it would make for a reasonably fair fight.
Hubris.
She should never have made a show of what she was doing. Even if she were found out, she ought to have finished transmitting the file in secret first. Shoving her dislocated shoulder back into its socket, Momomomo Chisa regretted it.
At the end of her gaze, Han Seoyeon was deleting the recording from Chisa's phone. A suppressed pistol rested in her other hand.
The premise itself had been wrong from the start, so there had never been any chance of winning. Something in Han Seoyeon's head had snapped well past anything Chisa had anticipated, and she had drawn the gun without a moment's hesitation.
And this was the result. Chisa felt along her own stomach with a trembling hand and met the slick touch of blood. The bamboo she herself had raised through sorcery had snapped—and was buried, of all places, in its owner's abdomen.
"You had best not pull it out yet. I will treat you, so draw it then."
"Ah, thanks~ cough. Ah, but before any of that, get me the booze first..."
That she would ask for drink even now drew a brief look of sheer disbelief across Han Seoyeon's face. Even so, she handed back the whiskey bottle that had been rolling on the floor, phone and all.
Only after putting the bottle to her lips and draining it to the last drop did Chisa smile faintly and speak.
"Pwah... I asked a minute ago too, but was it really just that it was unbearably scary? Scary enough to pull a gun somewhere a civilian could walk in on you any second?"
"......"
Seoyeon, for her part, held her tongue.
"Even if Vampire-chan didn't want to sleep with you, and only gave herself up as a sacrifice for your sake... that's still something Vampire-chan chose, isn't it? The shape of it might be different, but it still means she treasures you enough to sacrifice that much..."
"...That is not it."
Seoyeon moved to hide the pistol inside her clothes once more, then stopped, and looked down at her own hand.
It is often said that the coming of firearms considerably eased a soldier's guilt over killing. Even now a great many suffer PTSD after seeing combat, yet it is probably true that the felt reality of killing is thinner than in close quarters, where one beats a person to death and the shock of it travels straight up through one's own hands.
From time to time, though, Han Seoyeon found herself wondering whether that account was really correct.
She still remembered with perfect clarity the recoil she had felt in her grip half a year ago, and the acrid stench of gunpowder. Even the smell of Ninomae Hitomi's brains.
That day, Han Seoyeon had killed Ninomae once.
And Ninomae had smiled, and pressed her head to the muzzle. It was an act born of faith—the faith that Seoyeon would never do a thing that could bring her harm.
"Looking back on it this way, I think I finally understand."
"Understand what?"
"What it is that I am truly afraid of."
To others, she had said it was the fear that Ninomae might accept a confession she did not even want. She had believed as much herself.
But that, it seemed, was not it after all.
What truly frightened her lay elsewhere: not even recognizing that it was a sacrifice.
"Do you understand? I am saying she is a person who will trust whatever I do, and follow it without question."
The feelings Han Seoyeon turned toward Ninomae were terribly twisted. But the feelings Ninomae turned back upon her were the same. No—depending on the angle, they were twisted even beyond Seoyeon's own.
"If I confessed, success would be certain."
Seoyeon recognized that fact. And she agonized over it.
To confess to a woman who trusted her without limit, and thereby force her own feelings upon her—would that not, in itself, already be a sin? The possibility frightened her, and with it came a considerable sense of duty. Ninomae believed that no matter what happened, Seoyeon would act in a way that benefited her, and so that trust had to be answered. She must never do anything that would be a burden to Ninomae, and that burden, of course, included pressing upon her emotions that would weigh her down.
The obligation had grown nearly obsessive, and she even caught herself wondering whether it was the guilt of the Christmas Massacre, still at work.
"Mmmn..."
Only then did Chisa seem to find something worth thinking on; she swallowed a groan. A second breath escaped her—urk—and the air alone carried a reek potent enough to leave one tipsy from the smell.
"Buuut doesn't that all assume Vampire-chan doesn't liiike Sister-chan?"
"...It is not an incorrect thing to say."
No—she still did not seem to be thinking of much at all. Seoyeon let out a sigh deep enough to be seen.
Chisa paid her no mind, and only grinned slackly through a face gone ruddy with drink.
"So to sum it up, it's a girlish little worry! 'I'm scared the person I like won't like me baack!'"
"...Pardon?"
Something was off. Seoyeon stared at Chisa with a vacant look.
Picked apart, there was nothing incorrect in it—and yet it was a summary she would rather die than call right.
"It is not that simple a problem—"
"It is that simple a problem."
Seoyeon, halfway to taking her to task in a voice gone flat with disbelief, found herself speechless at the retort. The gaze that met her own had been set down sharp, unlike usual, thick with an air that said she meant it.
"...Speaking from experience?"
The question slipped out unbidden, for a faint sorrow had threaded that alcohol-soaked breath—and because this was Han Seoyeon, who knew, if only from the records, the past of Shuten-doji the onmyoji, a designated person of interest of the State of Japan.
"Heh, who knooows? ...Oh! It's time for the stream to staaart!"
But Chisa dodged the answer and hurriedly launched Etube.
"I will keep it in mind."
"Huuuh? Keep what?"
"Nothing."
When the other had shut her down that firmly, Seoyeon had no thought of digging.
"Simply that I am sorry for attacking you a moment ago."
"S'fine, s'fiiine~ If you're really sorry, buy me a drink next tiiime... hic."
Seoyeon sighed once more, even as she healed Chisa's wound. Then she looked around.
...Whatever she chose to agonize over, the wreckage around them would have to be cleared away first.
"So that was the worry you were carrying, Miss Ninomae."
"Yeees... well, I suppose so. Ah! This—to Miss Shion..."
"Of course I have no intention of telling her. That would hardly be courtesy toward someone who confided her troubles in me."
The studio where the second half of the broadcast was to be held. Standing before the motion-capture cameras, Ninomae carried the conversation on in a whisper.
Yuri's question had come flying in so suddenly it was almost startling: You like Shion-chan, don't you? Jolted, her face flushing scarlet, Ninomae never even got the chance to deny it, and her true heart was laid bare.
And so, somehow, the whole thing had turned into something resembling love advice, just a little earlier. No—strictly speaking, it had become less a consultation than a delighted Yuri digging into this and that...
"Miss Yuri, I didn't expect you to like this sort of thing...?"
"Surely there isn't a woman alive who dislikes a story of budding love?"
That they must already be together and had simply never gone public; what the occasion had been that made her aware of her feelings—Yuri had unleashed a veritable barrage of every question imaginable. Never having expected this young lady to love talk of romance quite so much, Ninomae had worn an awkward smile.
And of course, the subject that could not help but surface was precisely why, then, she had never confessed until now.
It was a natural question from Yuri's side as well. These were hardly people about whom one might suggest taking the relationship slowly and seeing how it went—this was Han Seoyeon and Ninomae. Watching two who could not live without each other—Yuri did not know they had literally died, and killed, once already—carry on as they did, one could only tilt one's head.
And the answer that came back concerned Seoyeon's twisted feelings. Honestly, even Ninomae thought it had halfway entered the realm of faith, and she was certain that a Seoyeon like that would, the instant she confessed, set her own will aside and accept.
Were Yuri later to hear from the maid that Han Seoyeon had raised the very same point, she would not have been able to hold back a wry laugh—but at least for now, that was not the case.
"It isn't a worry most people would ever have, but... mm. If it's Miss Shion, I suppose she might."
Yuri said it while scratching her cheek. Seoyeon's worship of Ninomae was a fact she knew perfectly well herself.
To be regarded as an Apostle's VIP meant precisely that. Only when one possessed both the will and the ability to make an enemy of the world for that single person were they treated as a trigger for Scenario I.
"She grants me all the skinship I ask for, and yet I still can't be sure of Miss Shion's heart."
This was a person who would fight the entire world if Ninomae asked—would she really be unable to give a kiss when asked for one? Friendship and worship, mingled into something sticky and clinging, cast their shadow over everything else. That was why Ninomae could not bring herself to certainty.
"But Miss Shion initiates the skinship with you sometimes too, doesn't she?"
"No. That could simply be her matching my tastes, and on Miss Shion's side the feeling runs close to worship, so... you know. The kiss of peace, and all that. They say a kiss was originally a symbol of affection between friends..."
"About that."
Yuri, having opened so, went on—adding that it was strictly her own personal view.
At the words that followed, Ninomae's eyes went perfectly round.
"......You're right? Huh?"
That look called to mind a seeker in the instant of enlightenment. It also called to mind a slightly vacant fool.
"Huh? Wait, could Miss Shion actually be interested in me for real...? Huuuh...?"
"That you're only realizing it now is, from a third party's standpoint, the remarkable part."
"No, but, that's... Miss Shion is... huh? Huuuh?"
"Uh, uhhh? W-wait a moment. Huuuh...?"