Your Judge (4)
“……I really don’t think this is a gathering I belong in.”
The man who muttered it had a fierce face and a frame to match, and the words were far too meek for either. Set beside his usual temperament, the reaction was stranger still.
“My, my. Still saying such things, Koube?”
The palm that clapped Assistant Inspector Koube Yosei smartly across the back belonged to a tall woman. She fell just short of a hundred and eighty centimeters — unmistakably tall for a woman all the same — but what caught the eye before her height were the fox ears pricked upright atop her head.
“Ace of Investigation Division Three. A man even that Han Seoyeon Margarita trusts with her work. Since the civil war the Onmyoryo has hardly enjoyed a glowing name abroad. Where else are we to find talent of this caliber?”
“Even so, that’s far too kind, Lady Ohirume.”
“Strictly speaking, it was too kind. Back when all three of the Great Evil Spirits were still whole, you might have been nothing more than an unremarkable onmyoji — but we lost all three of them overnight, did we not? In Our judgment, you are the finest card the Onmyoryo has managed to keep.”
And even setting that aside, he was bound up in the present crisis. The man who had moved at the heart of the prophet’s capture, carrying Han Seoyeon’s trust, was this very Koube Yosei.
“The future of Japan rests on you. I hear a rumor that even that Red Bishop has taken an interest in this affair.”
Leaning on the Church to steady the nation could not be helped, but the matter ought at least to be settled inside the bounds of the Japanese Catholic Church. At the words of the woman called Ohirume, Koube gave a small nod.
All of it had begun with the confession of the prophet they had taken this time. Kan’in Tomoe, prophet of Vampire Syndrome, had poured out everything she knew of the organization she belonged to. Whether it was truly for the sake of a book, as Koube had reported, or whether that was only an excuse and she meant to shave something off her sentence and save her neck, no one could say.
“If you ask me, it’s both. She has to stay alive if she wants to read the next volume.”
“Now that is an amusing hypothesis.”
In any case, the conclusion was that she had come forward quite cooperatively with the Church. They knew now that the organization’s aim was the collapse of the Secrecy Protocol, and they knew how its ranks were composed.
Sanjou Miyuki — a necromancer disguised as a holy knight of the Japanese Catholic Church. Sasaki Kisaki — a vampire who had lied about her age and was enrolled at Goroneto High School.
Naturally, the Church moved at once to take them both.
……And caught neither.
Sanjou Miyuki was found a suicide in her own home. Sasaki Kisaki vanished without leaving a trace. Koube and Ohirume had been summoned to the meeting on that crisis as representatives of the Onmyoryo, and the rest of the room, predictably, was almost entirely the upper ranks of the Japanese Church. For a mere assistant inspector, it was a proceeding guaranteed to turn the stomach.
“Well then. Let us go and have a word with the Jesus-peddlers.”
Ohirume, not worried in the slightest, grinned and flung the door wide. Well — she had the temperament for it, and the station for it. So Koube thought, privately.
“Oh, the Onmyoryo showed up too~”
“Japan really does look about one breath from being completely fucked, Koube.”
“……Ah. Mm.”
Her expression locked rigid in an instant. She had met the eyes of Mika Eru, waiting in the meeting room.
Not that she hadn’t known the girl would come. With Han Seoyeon absent from Japan, Mika was the holy knight whose strength came closest to an Apostle’s, and as Sasaki Kisaki’s classmate she was a central figure besides. It would have been stranger if she had stayed away. What was plainly abnormal was that that free-spirited woman had been here a full ten minutes before the meeting was due to begin. Nothing could have made the gravity of the moment feel more real.
“Whoa. That is one seriously rude thought written all over your face.”
“Because the thought I was having was, in fact, rude.”
“See, it’s that honesty that makes me like you, Amatchi.”
“My apologies, Shishigai, but I have no habit of chasing after women.”
“I go by Mika Eru now, you know.”
Even while they traded that empty chatter, Ohirume took her seat. Inwardly she was drawn tight with the weight of the affair, but she had no mind to show it outright. They were cooperating with the Church in the broad shape of things; it remained a foreign power all the same. Carrying that thin edge of wariness, she looked over the others at the table.
Archbishop Ibuki Hayato of Tokyo. Archbishop Ryuzaki Sanshi of Osaka. Gravekeeper Mika Eru. ……And the laptop set off to one side was surely the terminal of Apostle James the Greater.
Every one of them held a station that could not be dismissed. Which was to say, it was a small meeting made of nothing but such people — so small it almost seemed too small.
“I do.”
The one who had read her thoughts was James — Abraham-Delta. They went on, unruffled, in a synthesized voice.
“There is a strong possibility that Sanjou Miyuki is not the Church’s only traitor.”
Among the holy knights of Japan there existed an informant for Vampire Syndrome — or the culprit themself. That much had been known even before the operation to capture the prophet was carried out. A slight variable had slipped into the future Abraham-Delta first read, and tracing it backward had produced a result that could not be explained any other way. But Abraham went further, and raised the possibility of one more informant besides her.
“Your reason.”
“It is, I suppose.”
Word that the prophet had been captured had leaked. There was no other way to see it. Had Kan’in Tomoe at least died, one might have considered a dead man’s switch — a signal sent by death itself. Instead she had cooperated with the Church and walked into custody on her own two feet. One could also guess that her divulging the information had itself been a kind of trigger: that if internal secrets were leaked, word of it would be passed along automatically……
“Earlier — you mean she killed herself before the prophet had even spoken?”
Then it was all the more certain. Besides Sanjou Miyuki herself, there existed a channel that could draw information out of the Church.
“And so Sasaki Kisaki understood that her identity had been exposed, and ran.”
The one who added this was an old man with narrowed eyes — Archbishop Ryuzaki Sanshi.
“In Sanjou Miyuki’s case, she likely judged that fleeing would be pointless, and took her own life.”
“To cut away all hope merely because the Church has noticed you…… No. For an organization built on dependence upon its prophet, there is nothing strange in it. And the soul?”
“Completely annihilated. They will have considered even the possibility of resurrection.”
Ohirume seemed to sink into thought for a moment, then nodded. Perhaps they had decided the cause was hopeless the moment their key figure was taken. The annihilation of the soul was plausible enough as well; the other party was a necromancer of real skill. She had brought any number of souls back herself, so it was hardly strange that she would fear being revived and put to the torture. But then, abruptly, Ohirume tilted her head.
“Still, something is a little odd. The name Sanjou Miyuki — it feels familiar, somehow……”
According to the report she had received beforehand, the woman was a holy knight of nearly the lowest rank. It was a name that might not even have reached Assistant Inspector Koube’s level, let alone a station like Ohirume’s. By all rights she ought to have heard it for the first time only after this incident……
“She is the daughter of Chief Priest Sanjo Yusuke.”
“Sanjo…… Sanjo Yusuke…… Ah! Of that Onitake Inari!”
Only after Koube murmured the reminder at her side did she grasp why the name was familiar. The incident in which a man who did not believe in the gods had become chief priest, and the god had nearly starved to death — a spirit meant to keep anomalies sealed, reduced to that state. An absurdity, and one Ohirume remembered. Had Bartholomew not happened to go investigate that shrine, it would very nearly have become a disaster.
“So that daughter was a holy knight. ……Wait. Then that man lived on as a chief priest who knew nothing of anomalies, even with a holy knight for a daughter?”
“Ironic, but yes, that is how it came to be. What matters, however, is not that……”
Ryuzaki laughed softly and shifted his gaze to Abraham’s terminal, as if to leave the rest of the telling to them.
“Would not leave your mind? What was it?”
Even in the moment she laid the story out for Abraham, Han Seoyeon had not solved that question. Abraham, too, had let it pass at the time, thinking it was probably nothing. But if the Sanjo name was surfacing again here — and if it concerned a necromancer — it could not be passed over a second time.
“You mean she was possessed?”
At some point, Sanjou Miyuki was killed on Mount Oe — mentally, or spiritually. Physically, however, Sanjou Miyuki’s body did not die. Another soul simply took her place. And so the dead came out of the mountain, but no corpse did.
The “environment in which one could not learn necromancy” meant, of course, a level capable of bringing about Vampire Syndrome. The chance that she had stumbled across some strange magic certainly existed, but reaching a realm of this caliber could safely be called impossible. And so they had arrived at the conclusion that the “Sanjou Miyuki” behind it all might not have been Sanjou Miyuki at all.
“……Well. That is not what matters now. Whether the thing inside that body was Sanjou Miyuki’s own soul or someone else’s, its annihilation has already been confirmed.”
It was Archbishop Ibuki of the Tokyo Archdiocese who cleared his throat and turned the topic. He tapped the tabletop with thick fingers that suited those large hands.
“Rather than a target we can no longer catch, and have no reason to, it would be more proper to speak of the other one. Would you not agree?”
“Archbishop Ibuki is correct. What is urgent now is whether we can at least capture Sasaki Kisaki.”
At Archbishop Ibuki’s words, Archbishop Ryuzaki nodded as well and added his agreement.
“That much is certainly true.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
The two who had come from the Onmyoryo conceded the point as well. If what had been said was correct, then Sanjo was beyond revival — beyond Han Seoyeon, and beyond even that Necromancer. Instead she turned her gaze on Mika Eru. A look that asked, from the standpoint of a former classmate, whether she knew anything.
“You knew she was a vampire, of course?”
With Archbishop Ibuki, it did not stop at a look.
“Well, yeah? If I didn’t even know that, I’d have to hand the Gravekeeper name back.”
“And that she lied about her age.”
“Knew that toooo.”
“……You knew, and you left her be?”
A glare. The archbishop stared her down, but Eru only shrugged.
“I just thought she was a pervert who wanted to go uwah-uwah through school life with a bunch of high school girls. And in front of me, that’s all she ever showed.”
Even so, she hadn’t known the girl was a mastermind of Vampire Syndrome. Mika Eru added as much.
“……Enough. There’s no point in saying any more.”
“Glad you know me so well~”
There was no way she had truly known. That was Archbishop Ibuki’s judgment. Mika Eru was not, even so, the sort of person who would wreck her duty that thoroughly. ……Enrolling in high school under a false age was problem enough on its own, but given how slack her line ran on anything erotic, she had surely just decided it was fine.
“……And besides, I didn’t think she was the kind of kid who’d do something like this.”
Another reason he did not press her further was Eru’s own reaction. She wore the same light tone and vacant smile as always, but her eyes had been full of gloom for some time now. From her side of it, she had been betrayed by someone she had believed, in her own way, to be a friend. Ibuki Hayato had never once been called good-natured, but even he had no wish to condemn a student sitting in a mood like that.
“Ahem…… In any case, share whatever might help the pursuit, to the fullest. You aren’t thinking of shielding her merely because she’s a friend, I trust?”
“Obviously not. I don’t do that kind of thing as a holy knight.”
Mika Eru said it at once, flat and certain. She had no intention of covering for a terrorist.
“……But before we move in earnest, I want one last chance to persuade her.”
“Persuade? Sasaki Kisaki?”
“Yeah. Actually, her LINE is still added. I haven’t contacted her even once since the incident, so I wouldn’t tip her off.”
There was no knowing whether a call would be answered. Even if it was, there was no knowing whether persuasion would take. But if there was even a sliver of a chance……
“I’ll try to talk her into turning herself in.”
Convenient for the Church, and for Sasaki herself — who was likely to be caught regardless — a way to shave even a little off the sentence. Mika Eru set that on the table.
“……If it is only a matter of making contact, there should be no problem, yes?”
“Well, that much is true……”
The two archbishops looked somewhat reluctant, but if it went well it would plainly be of help, and so they accepted her proposal before long. Even if the persuasion failed, it would not become a serious problem.
“Thanks. Then I’ll try a voice call right now.”
Mika Eru dipped her head in light thanks and drew a deep breath. Then, carefully, she touched the screen. The call she placed was, of course, to the account registered under Sasaki Kisaki. The odds of it being answered were vanishingly small to begin with. She knew that, and still she caught herself clinging to a pointless hope — perhaps that was simply what people were.
“S-Sakisaki?!”
And when the call truly connected, Mika Eru’s eyes went wide.
“No, that’s — it’s about that, actually.”
Eru swallowed.
“I was thinking maybe you ought to turn yourself in……”
“So I’ll put myself on the other side of the scale.”
From the other end came a voice touched with curiosity. She seemed willing, at least, to hear what this was about. A positive sign, if one were being generous. Eru hurried on.
“It’s embarrassing to say it myself, but I think I’m an excellent holy knight. I’ve even been an Apostle candidate……”
“A lot of people rate me as someone who could become an Apostle within ten years.”
No — in truth, ten years were not even necessary. If an Apostolic Seat merely fell vacant, there was a high chance she would receive an apostolic name on the spot. The woman called Mika Eru was a talent of that caliber. She drew in one long breath.
“You could be the woman who’s slept with an Apostle, Sakisaki.”
“I fell for it completely, Sakisaki. I never once thought you’d be doing something like that behind my back. But then I got to wondering — was every last bit of it really fake?”
The good she had shown on the surface might all have been an act. The darkness the anomaly called Sasaki Kisaki had been hiding was too great for Mika to believe, without reservation, that any truth lay among those bright points. But the flaws she had revealed — those, at least, touched Sasaki’s true nature, did they not? That was what Mika Eru had thought.
“Sakisaki’s a total pervert, and the type who can’t stand not bragging that she slept with a woman like this. So I thought, maybe the motive was something along those lines.”
“If that’s really it, then even if you pull off your goal, sleeping with an Apostle is a feat you may never know whether you can manage. I can leave that one to you.”
Under ordinary circumstances, it was persuasion that made no sense at all. But if the other party was a twisted person, the terms changed. Just as Kan’in Tomoe had sold her life for a single book. If this was the woman who had been Kan’in Tomoe’s colleague, and the woman Mika Eru knew, then perhaps — faintly — there was a chance she would climb aboard the offer. Eru had bet on that.
“Right?!”
And when that possibility began to come into view, Mika Eru could no longer hold her feelings down.
“Five. I’ll do it within five, no matter what. If you’ll just turn yourself in, Sakisaki, I’ll swear to anything.”
Creak. Eru’s hand clenched hard around the phone.
“Yeah. So I can do pretty much anyth—”
“……Huh?”
And silence fell.
A moment later the silence broke, on the flat tone that announced the call had ended. When even that died away, the room sank back into quiet.
“Hahaha.”
Mika Eru laughed, bright as daylight.
Crack. The phone in Eru’s hand crumpled.