That Which Exists for the Sake of People (2)
Ask where the heart of Japan lies, and a hundred people out of a hundred will name Tokyo—some because they actually have their reasons, and others because it is the capital, and so they offer the name without a second thought.
Even so, a place like that cannot have every last corner of it be the center. A city may be the capital of a nation and still be bound to possess its tucked-away spots.
The place Han Seoyeon led Ninomae to was one of them: a secluded alley with an oddly dusky feel to it, though the hour was broad daylight. Old signs hung all around, announcing some office or other. No—she forced a charitable reading on them, telling herself that by the look of things they were ordinary businesses after all. She made the attempt. That was as far as it went.
Then her eyes met those of rough-looking men who stood drawing hard on their cigarettes, paying no mind at all to anyone passing by, and Ninomae pressed in closer still, as if she might burrow into the shelter of Seoyeon's back.
"Is it really here?"
Ninomae had every reason to be uneasy. She did get her answer from Seoyeon—yes, this was the place—but the sense that something was off still outweighed everything else.
Someone who played mahjong in a tucked-away spot like this... if that were all, then honestly she would have to concede a great deal of ground, and yet it would still fall within what she could bring herself to accept. A gambling fiend, though? That was far too awkward a word to hang on the description of a great person worthy of respect. People who came to back alleys had their reasons, and so did people who liked mahjong. Put the two together into someone who played gambling mahjong in a back alley, however, and nothing came to mind but a thoroughly ugly impression.
No. Even setting that aside...
Ninomae swallowed.
Anyway, if that person is in here, then we have to go in, don't we...?
She stared at the old building and swallowed again. A sticky darkness coiled around the stairs leading underground, stirring a clammy dread.
"Are you worried?"
"O-of course I am. I've never been anywhere like this."
"In truth, a place of this degree is not genuinely dangerous, but..."
Seoyeon said as much, then let the end of the sentence trail away.
A spot that at least bothered to hang out a sign claiming to be a place for mahjong was, comparatively, on the better side. The genuine article disguised itself as an ordinary office and admitted only those who arrived by someone's invitation. She simply judged that explaining as much would do little to ease Ninomae's worry, and so she kept it to herself.
Instead, she laid an arm lightly around Ninomae's waist.
"I am here, am I not?"
"...M-mm. If you held me a little tighter, I might be all right?"
Ninomae tipped her head against her with a soft thump. At the sight, Seoyeon let out a small breath of a laugh and did exactly as she wished. She pressed a kiss to the crown of that head, then spoke again.
"Shall we go in?"
"Yes. Just standing out here forever isn't much better either... and in the end, I'm the one who made up my mind to follow you, Shion."
The two of them started down the stairs. The damp, musty smell peculiar to basements rose to meet them, and when Seoyeon pulled open an iron door that looked considerably old, the stench grew stronger still. Liquor and cigarette smoke tangled together into something foul, and Ninomae frowned before she could stop herself.
What had been set out inside was a handful of mahjong tables. In its own way, the room seemed to have assembled the proper look of a parlor. According to the brief explanation Seoyeon had given on the way down, the place presented itself, on the surface, as offering rated mahjong within legal stakes.
"Eek!"
At the sound of the door, a considerable number of eyes turned their way. Three tables were already full, and there were several more people besides. Most of them wore such rough looks that Ninomae let the sound slip out on reflex.
A wordless question seemed to hang for a heartbeat. Then, almost at once, those gazes returned to where they had been.
It was a relief, as far as it went... and yet the atmosphere was strange. They had only turned because the door had opened so suddenly, and once they confirmed who the visitors were, they had no further business and went back to what they had been doing. Their expressions were too odd for it to be taken as simply that. If anything, they looked as though they were gritting their teeth and doing their utmost to pretend they were not interested at all...
...Ah.
And then Ninomae remembered just who was standing beside her.
An Apostle. A monster in human skin, the sort who looked as though she could put down every person in the room without so much as blinking, even granting that all of them were bodies long seasoned to a life of blades. It was only the way she ordinarily looked that let one forget it. Han Seoyeon was that kind of being.
"Mm. I doubt everyone here belongs to the hidden world, but... it seems they were given word in advance."
Seoyeon looked them over one by one, then murmured low enough for only Ninomae to hear. She had already sent word to the man who managed the establishment that she intended to visit today. He had evidently told his subordinates how they ought to conduct themselves, should a woman of this description appear.
"Who are we meeting?"
By then Ninomae had steadied enough to ask.
"Do you see, over there?"
"Ah... so that's her."
Seoyeon indicated a table some distance off. Four people sat at it, a game being underway, but somehow Ninomae felt she already knew which one.
Aside from herself and Seoyeon, who had only just come in, the only woman in the room. Black hair with a curious gray cast to it, tied up only roughly into a ponytail. All she wore on top was a single loose black tank top. May was the season when the weather began, little by little, to turn warm, but the first thought was still that it was far too thin.
A good deal of muscle clung to the arms left bare. It was considerable for a woman, yet far more eye-catching than that were the scars, and there were no small number of them. Above both elbows, marks ran the whole way around, as though the flesh had been sewn back together with thread.
Next, her gaze traveled downward. Seeing the length on the right, she thought for an instant that they were shorts; looking to the left, they were unmistakably long pants. An eccentric fashion of mismatched lengths... it was not. Ninomae soon found that the woman had tied a knot in the right leg of the pants. In short, the place where a right leg ought to have gone was closed off halfway down. Only belatedly did the crutch propped beside the table come into view.
At that point, even Ninomae could roughly guess what Seoyeon had meant by hero. That woman was, beyond any doubt, a veteran who had lived through the battlefield more times than one could count.
"Ryuumai Fuu. She was the commander of an international armed medical support unit, commonly known as the Triage Team."
"Ah. Medical support... armed? International?"
Ninomae had started to picture some legendary medic who had saved any number of lives, then caught herself on the strange combination of words.
"Well, in short, an organization of the hidden world whose purpose is the protection of civilians in every sort of disaster. Pulling out people isolated in the midst of a catastrophe, escorting medical personnel bound for an active front. They are a little... mm. They are a little very unparticular about their means and methods."
Because of that, the organization had been elevated nearly to divinity on the front lines, and even limited to the hidden world, nicknames for them had spread far and wide. The Angels of the Black Armband.The Doctors' Mercenary Corps.Not a screw or two loose—every screw missing but one or two.
"...They're incredible people."
"Yes. They are people who stake their lives and throw themselves into death's way."
Hearing the explanation, Ninomae murmured it in admiration. If one could not pay respect to people who spared no thought for their own lives in the hope of saving others, then who in the world was left to admire?
The fact that she herself was included among those people seemed to have slipped her mind entirely. Seoyeon said nothing at all, and only tightened, just a little, the arm she had around her.
Ninomae's reaction made plain that she still did not understand the intent. She did seem quite satisfied, though, and leaned into Seoyeon all the more.
"So her having come back to Japan now means..."
"Yes. Most likely exactly as you have guessed."
Ninomae glanced at her right leg. Or, more precisely, at the empty place where a right leg ought to have been.
"She lost the leg in the course of a mission in the Middle East, and so she is retired."
From the sound of it, the organization demanded a physique beyond that of any ordinary soldier. With an injury of that degree, she truly could not have remained. Ninomae nodded, then went on.
"She's family of that soldier we saw before, isn't she?"
"...I find myself thinking this every time, but your memory is remarkable. You are correct, Miss Ninomae."
Say the soldier from then, and there was only one person it could mean. Between the two of them, they had only ever laid eyes on a single soldier together. On the day of Mary Tepes's birthday concert—the first time a divine possession had taken hold, and the recoil had set her staggering—Seoyeon had gone so far as to call in a helicopter in her rush to find Ninomae. The soldier who had accompanied her then had likewise borne the name Ryuumai, and Ninomae remembered, too, that an older sister had come up in the conversation with him.
The remark surprised Seoyeon a little. Ninomae had always been someone with a good memory, but that had been, quite literally, a name that had only brushed past.
"Ah. I really thought this one was safe."
While they were talking, a sigh drifted over from the table. It was the voice of the woman with the ponytail, Ryuumai Fuu, murmuring to herself. She seemed to have lost. Seoyeon did not know the rules of mahjong, but she gathered as much from the reaction.
"Are you finished?"
"Huh... wh-whaaat?"
When Seoyeon spoke, Ryuumai's head turned. Her right eye swept Seoyeon up and down. The left, unmoving, was an artificial eye, just as Seoyeon had been told. The right eye, though, was rich with feeling, and the moment it registered who Seoyeon was, the pupil blew wide enough to make out with the naked eye.
"Are you... Bartholomew?"
"Yes. I am."
"Whoa. Of all the places to meet you. No, this isn't the time—I should introduce myself as well. I don't believe we've met in person. I'm Ryuumai Fuu."
"Of course. I know you well."
She abandoned the tiles she had been straightening and turned her body fully around, and Seoyeon took the hand she offered and shook it.
"Huh. You know me?"
"Were you not the commander of that Triage Team? Of course I know you. It is an organization I respect, in my own way."
"Good heavens. What an honor this is. I'll have to call the team and tell them."
Ryuumai grinned. The face itself, scarred as it was, leaned a little fierce, but her expressions were so varied that she hardly left an impression of being frightening.
"Uh, and she is...?"
"That's—I'm Ninomae Hitomi. I'm Shion's... her, well. Her lover."
Ninomae hesitated a moment, then added it as if she had made up her mind. At the word lover, Ryuumai's eye widened again before settling back.
"I never would have thought Lady Bartholomew had a lover. Today really is nothing but one surprise after another. Ah, but the two of you suit each other wonderfully. That's not empty flattery—truly. A fine gentleman and a fine lady. No, a fine lady and a fine lady? Anyway."
"Ahaha, thank you. For saying so."
Whether she meant it from the heart or not, it was not an unpleasant thing to hear. For no particular reason, Ninomae hugged Seoyeon's arm tighter still.
"......Hm?"
But then she seemed to catch some sense of wrongness, and tilted her head. She turned to look up at Seoyeon's face, right beside her.
"Shion."
"What is it?"
"Just now, Miss Ryuumai was surprised. She said she never thought she'd meet you in a place like this."
"Yes. She certainly did."
"Didn't the two of you arrange to meet?"
That was the question. Had there not been talk of a rendezvous at eleven-thirty, or something of the sort? And yet no matter how she turned it over, Ryuumai's reaction was not one that would come from a person with whom a meeting had been set in advance.
"Ah. You mean that."
Hearing it, Seoyeon nodded, as if she only then understood the source of Ninomae's unease.
"To be precise, it was not Miss Ryuumai with whom I made plans. More specifically, I spoke with the person who had an appointment with her, and arranged to join that meeting."
"Then the person she was originally supposed to meet..."
For Ninomae, it was only natural that the question should go on. But the question was never allowed to finish.
BANG!
"Eek!"
The door flew open all at once. It did not merely swing wide—it slammed into the wall with a crash, and Ninomae could not help but scream. Who in the world would commit an outrage like that in a place that already looked this dangerous? Startled, she whipped her head around.
"C'mon ouuuut, you dummy who went and got your leg chopped off all stupid-liiiike!"
...Well. She had known who it was even before she turned.
Standing before the door thrown wide was a maid, thoroughly drunk.
"...This is someone else's shop. Please show a little courtesy, Chisa."
"Sorrryyy, miss, I'll be more careful next tiiime~"
A moment later, the woman who had been standing behind her let out a sigh. ...As one couldn't help feeling every single time, she was a master with a truly hard lot of it.