Elijah Must Come First (2)

"…Well. That's how it is."

"I-I see…?"

When Han Seoyeon finished, Sakuragi Honoka tapped the side of the chair beneath her with her fingertips. The world, she had just been told, was split into a surface and an underside, and beyond that veil there lived anomalies that stood clean outside modern common sense.

Honestly, it was not a story anyone could be expected to believe. Hear a thing like that out of nowhere, and how many people could simply nod and say, yes, of course? Even so, Honoka heard her out in silence. The first reason was that if Seoyeon had meant to lie, far more convincing lies had been available to her. The second was a quieter feeling: even if it was a lie, what of it? At school she was, in her own way, a club president. Honoka had grown thoroughly accustomed to indulging friends who suddenly started talking nonsense.

"…Heh."

More than any of that, there was a maid right in front of her, beaming ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as she pulled a bullet out of her own side. Honoka couldn't follow the talk of anomalies this way and that, but one thing was plain enough: this was no human living in the same world she did. The other one who had been shot, Ryuumai Fuu, wasn't smiling, yet she matched the maid in this—she picked at the wound without so much as a flicker of an eyebrow.

"It will be easier to believe if you see it yourself."

Once Han Seoyeon had confirmed that both bullets were out of their bodies, she pressed her palms together before her chest. Then she glanced at the two of them. The intent, most likely, was that they should show the wounds knitting shut.

"Even so, showing a gunshot wound to a kid isn't a very good idea, is it?"

"Hmm. You have a point."

Ryuumai refused the request. Put that way, it was clearly right, and Seoyeon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nodded along.

"My daughter hath but now died; yet come, I pray, and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live."

What she began to intone was the passage from the hour when Christ raised one and healed another. She closed her eyes gently, rose slowly from her seat, and went to them.

She parted her hands and laid them upon the heads of the women seated in the chairs. Sakuragi Honoka watched, blank-eyed.

"Um… you're healing their wounds?"

"Yes. That's right."

There didn't seem to be a lie in the answer. At the very least, the three people here believed without a shadow of doubt that this would close the wounds. The president was another matter. A little way off he was rolling a stiff neck—Wait. Hold on. Just for a second there, didn't that turn in a direction that shouldn't even be possible…?—and Honoka rubbed her eyes before she knew it. His face was impossible to read, so he could be set aside as the exception.

Did she truly possess some magic of that sort? Or was this company, in fact, a cult? While Honoka was briefly lost in the confusion, the first to move was the maid, Momomomo Chisa.

"Pardon me jus' a pinch, high-school girlie~"

"Yes? What do you—"

She offered nothing like an explanation, and simply began to chant something that sounded like scripture. She laced her fingers into a vajra mudra; then she tucked her thumbs inside, curled her hands into fists, and tapped Honoka's shoulders in turn. A moment later she clapped, a sharp crack—

"Wah—! Aaah?!"

Sakuragi Honoka's body began to rise, slowly, into the air. She flailed her arms and legs in a panic, then realized the struggle meant nothing and went still. She was still rigid with tension, but she had already grasped that no one meant her any harm.

"Sooo~? Ya believe me now, dontcha?"

"Ah—yes. I believe you. Go through something like this and you don't really have a choice."

From nearly six feet up in empty air, Honoka nodded with a perfectly serious face. Shove the evidence in front of someone like this, and denial stops being available.

"For the record, several of Miss Sakuragi Honoka's friends on the basketball team also belong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the hidden world. Mika Eru is a Holy Knight, the same as I am. Sasaki Kisaki is a vampire. Miss Yokohara Ren does not appear to be an anomaly herself, but given the circumstances, she almost certainly knows the hidden world exists."

"So everyone knew except me…? I mean, I always thought they were unusual, but still."

Was it Honoka's nerve that was strange, that she could file a combination like that under unusual? Or had the girls simply been exceptionally good at passing for ordinary? Han Seoyeon entertained the question for a moment, then let it go. She didn't have the room to think very deeply about it in the first place.

—The door of the conference room burst open.

On an ordinary day they would have turned to see who had come. Aside from one of them, no one managed it.

"Kyaaaah?!"

Honoka, still hanging in the air, had suddenly started to fall.

Fortunately, Ryuumai Fuu moved before she hit the floor. She caught Honoka as if gathering her into an embrace, bled off the impact, and in the same flowing motion set her lightly down. Everyone but Nakabashi Gyokichi had already shifted into a ready stance of their own. Had Ryuumai missed her timing, someone else among them would have caught the girl.

"…Everyone's physical ability is on a frankly absurd level, isn't it?"

"Ah. Professor Senjoji."

"Mm. So it is."

The one who had entered was Professor Senjoji Chihaya. She was a judge for the third-generation audition, an advisor to the company, and one of the people meant to be at today's meeting. Han Seoyeon, turning a beat late to confirm as much, inclined her head in a small bow.

She understood at once why Honoka had dropped. However much Momomomo Chisa was a drunk who went about with her mind left somewhere outside her body, a mistake like this was unlike her. Professor Senjoji Chihaya could not perceive anomalies. Even the notion of a situation one had no choice but to see meant nothing to her. Of course, that brain of hers being what it was, she had probably read the room and roughly guessed what had happened anyway.

Such as she was, Professor Senjoji strolled over at her ease, took the seat beside the president, and crossed her legs.

"It seems I was the last to arrive. We ought to begin, don't you think?"

"Well, I suppose we should. We'll start the meeting, so would everyone please sit down?"

At Gyokichi's word, those who had been on their feet returned to their places. Along the way Ryuumai shook out her shaggy hair—she had at least tied it up, after a fashion, but the tie had snapped in the middle of the fight—and shards of glass pattered to the floor.

"I said this before Chihaya arrived, but… yes. The four of you gathered here are the ones selected in this third-generation audition. Aside from your own results, today is probably the first you've learned who else passed."

Naturally, the company had told each of them only whether she herself had passed, and had not said a single word about the other third-generation members. Seeing their prospective genmates for the first time, then, would have been today, with all of them in one room. All of them, that is, except a certain duo that made a person question the president's sanity for putting them together at all.

"You will debut together as the third generation, and from here on you will likely be the business partners who end up tangled with one another most often."

That he didn't reach for the word he usually used—comrades—was probably out of regard for the bad blood between those two. Whatever they felt about each other, they were business partners in the end, so they ought to restrain themselves for the sake of the business. A warning planted in advance, most likely.

…Or not? Maybe he isn't thinking anything at all.

If he were the sort to issue that warning beforehand, wouldn't he have said something the moment someone caved a skull in with a bottle? The thought crept up, and Han Seoyeon did her best to ignore it, forcing the charitable reading.

"And what we are here to discuss is the characters with which the lot of you will debut."

Thump. Gyokichi said it while striking the table lightly with his palm.

"Of course, not everything will be settled today, so there's no need to feel burdened. For now it is quite enough to say, without overthinking it, what you want to do. Please speak freely."

The corners of his mouth, twisted up all the way to his cheekbones, arranged themselves into a smile.

"First, I have brought the concepts you wrote down as your preferences when you applied. …The results were rather amusing."

He held out the papers he had set at his side. A glance from Seoyeon confirmed they were the application forms from the audition.

"Ehhh, bein' a matched set with that moron makes me sick…"

"Look who's talking. And Behemoth? How do you hand the drinkkeeper's role to an addict who lives soaked in alcohol?"

"A beer bottle playin' the fish is even funnier, aintit~?"

"Since when was that the arrangement. What, you thought I never learned to swim while I was working the Triage Team?"

And on the strength of that alone, Momomomo and Ryuumai started growling at each other all over again. The warning from a moment ago seemed to have had no effect whatsoever.

"…It isn't too late, even now, to change who debuts, is it?"

"Mm. Seeing as they're going at it to that extent, wouldn't it be perfect to simply swap Behemoth and Leviathan?"

"No, that isn't the sort of problem you solve by—"

"Ah. True enough. Behemoth was originally the male role, so if we aren't careful the official setting might end up deciding the pairing's top and bottom for us. Even so, I do think swapping them suits better."

How in the world was this person so calm? Only moments ago they had watched, with their own eyes, what had literally been a fight to the blood. It was a serious problem even as things stood. If the two of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them debuted and then fought like this, how did he intend to handle it?

"They aren't the sort who will take it if you try to control them. I can't put them down by force every single time."

"No. In fact, we probably won't need even Miss Shion's strength. I only brought you today just in case."

Despite Seoyeon's concern, Gyokichi shrugged.

"If one of them causes an incident, we cut her and have the official side push a ship between the other one and Tsubasa. That would do."

And the moment he said it, the voices of the two women—who had been a breath from lunging at each other—stopped dead.

The thought the pair arrived at in that instant was perfectly identical.

Cause trouble, and he's sticking that bitch on the young lady?

The young lady getting something filthy on her is bad enough—but if that bitch gets to swagger about it, I think the rage would actually kill me.

"—You see? Why wouldn't they be perfectly controllable?"

"…That you are still merely the president of a VTuber company must, after all, be this country's good fortune."

Where did the nerve come from, to threaten two legends of the old Onmyoryo as if it were nothing? Then again, this was the same man who had declared he would make even Seoyeon, an Apostle, debut in virtual—and then actually done it. His way of thinking clearly occupied somewhere up and off on a diagonal.

Well. Whatever.

Han Seoyeon discarded the thought almost at once. If the odds had improved that Hitomi's company might get through this without an incident, that was enough. She sighed, and spoke again.

"I'll secure permission for the Behemoth concept. Leviathan vanished from the world long ago, so you should be free to use that one as you like."

"I'd be grateful. It would be a great shame to give up a pair of demons set as a married couple who love and hate each other."

"So Leviathan and Behemoth are settled, are they? Well, they are the two most captivating figures in Jewish myth, so they could hardly be left out."

At Seoyeon's words Gyokichi nodded, satisfied, and Professor Senjoji made a note in her booklet before turning her gaze aside.

"What remains, then, are the magician and the angel. Those, too, are indispensable to Jewish myth. I would like to grant the requests as written, if we can. What do you think, Gyokichi?"

"Isn't it fine? Two demons and one angel. Add a magician with something of a Solomonic feel, and it seems exactly right."

"Mm, mm. Just so. Then I shall have to sketch the detailed settings—"

"Um, wait, just a moment?"

The one who raised her hand to ask for the floor was Sakuragi Honoka, silent until now.

"If the group is made up of demons and an angel, and my role is something like Solomon, there's really only one arrangement that comes to mind…?"

"Ah. That's right."

As if some uneasy thought had suddenly occurred to her, she asked it in a trembling voice, and Gyokichi smiled and nodded.

"You are to be the leader of the third generation, Miss Sakuragi Honoka."

"……Are you serious? Among those people?"

"I'm serious. Among those people."

Somehow, Honoka couldn't help thinking that the smile resembled a cultist's, standing before the sacrifice.