What God Has Joined Together, Let No One Separate (2)

Tsunashi Tenka was a werewolf. Judged by physique alone, she ranked among the truly exceptional of her kind.

In the end, though, that gift turned to poison. It was not a power that should ever have been placed in the hands of an immature child.

In her elementary years she went berserk and wounded Akaba Akane's grandfather—the benefactor who, after a Holy Knight took her parents, had looked after her as if she were his own family.

It had not been her will. Among young werewolves, it was something roughly one in five or six went through when the full moon rose.

Even so, it rarely became a serious problem. A rampage in the years when one's strength was still slight could be put down bare-handed by a grown man, and failing that, the limbs were bound before nightfall on any evening the full moon was due.

Here, there had been a margin of error. The one who happened to be home was a single old man who could never have been called strong—and Tsunashi Tenka's strength was so great that she could tear apart, by main force, even a sacred straw rope wound with talismans.

Ordinarily that much would have been enough. A rate of growth that had already slipped the bonds of the ordinary, however, had made Tenka a creature those restraints could no longer hold.

If the place of her full-moon confinement had not been a storeroom near the main hall of Takaku Shrine—if the tiger spirit Sanmeedora had not, aghast, subdued her—something truly terrible would have come of it.

When she came back to herself, Tsunashi Tenka's waist had been gouged open, as if something had meant to cleave her upper body from her lower. One arm dangled with deep tooth marks sunk into it, and it was a miracle the peritoneum had been spared, so that her organs had not spilled free.

Tenka had grown up hearing that she was remarkably composed for her age, but in that moment the pain crashing over her left her no choice but to wail.

It did not last. For one thing, she lacked even the strength to cry for long. For another, the instant she saw the old man sprawled there beside her, her mind went white, and the tears dried up at once.

Belatedly, feeling returned to her fingertips. In a flash, the sickening sensation of her own claws raking and tearing his flesh replayed itself in her mind.

Perhaps because Sanmeedora had put her down quickly, no grave aftereffects remained, but Akane's grandfather still spent nearly two months in a hospital bed. Young Tenka, as one would expect, was shattered for a while and could not even eat properly.

After about a week she managed to get something down, but a long time passed before she could eat meat again.

The way she restrained herself on full-moon nights changed as well. She bound her limbs in sacred straw rope, wound iron chains around her whole body, and crushed herself beneath heavy stones.

For a child it was little different from torture, and the rest of the family balked, asking whether she really needed to go that far… Yet if she did not, Tenka felt she herself would go mad from the anxiety.

In the end the family had no choice but to step back and let her have her way.

"What an interesting child."

It was after the season had turned once that the Ohirume of that time—queen of the Onmyoryo, and head of the Association of Shinto Shrines—came to see her.

Why a person like that had paid the visit was a question even now. These days Tenka supposed that Akane's grandmother, a shrine maiden herself, had consulted some other spiritual practitioner, and that word of it had traveled up the chain.

At any rate, the old woman set a proposal before her: learn a way to control herself. It meant leaving for a foreign country—France, out at the far edge of Europe—but Tenka accepted it gladly.

It was not that she felt nothing of the hope that, if she grew further, she would never again wound someone precious to her. More than that, though, she simply wanted to leave. Blindly. If she was not with them to begin with, there would be no one for her to hurt.

The reason she had not already fled the house was selfishness—a child her age had no way to live alone—and the fact that she could not brush aside a kind family who worried even over someone like her.

If, however, a place were arranged where she could eat and sleep, then leaving was the obvious thing, even should she never in her life learn how to control herself.

And so Tsunashi Tenka boarded a plane bound for France.

Fortunately, she found many good bonds ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there as well, her master among them.

And that master's niece—the fellow disciple with whom she had trained in the martial arts—was none other than the Osean Lee seated here now, the girl everyone used to call Anri.

"I never thought you'd end up at Anathema too, Anri-chan……."

"I could say the same. You've been doing this kind of work?"

The two of them, having come into the ceremony hall, sat side by side and talked in whispers.

Neither had ever imagined they would meet again like this, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the same workplace—still less that they would only learn of it now, invited to a wedding while remaining ignorant the whole time until this moment.

"I heard she's in the third generation's debut group… You know her, Tenka?"

The woman on Tenka's other side asked it with her brow creased. The impression she gave was a fierce one, but knowing her temperament, it was less that Anri had done anything to displease her and more that plain puzzlement had simply surfaced, unfiltered, on her face.

Anri, who had no way of knowing that, flinched under the look and shrank in on herself.

"Ah, yeah. A kid I trained with while I was in France. She's Osean Lee, so—Anri-chan. It's from her name."

"You get spooked by something like this, and you sat an audition?"

"Back then I just… hammered it into my own head really hard, and somehow…?"

Nearby, Guroyuki Sui muttered as if the whole thing were past belief. Anri must have passed because she had stayed perfectly composed even in front of that lineup—and yet here she was, wilting before an ordinary person. A shrine maiden was not, strictly speaking, an ordinary person, but relatively so; faced with this, disbelief was the only reasonable response.

While they were still talking, the hall staff closed the doors, and a voice rang out over the speakers. At the front, Senjoji Chiyo stood at the emcee's lectern in the corner. She pushed her glasses up once, then brought the microphone back to her lips.

A small clearing of the throat caught on the microphone.

Senjoji Chiyo, carrying the address on, drew a light breath and spoke.

The doors opened, and a Western man dressed all in white walked in alone.

He came down the aisle between the guest seats, split left and right, at a dignified stride, and bowed at the waist before the altar. This was a ceremony hall rather than a true church, so the altar cloth and the sacred vessels had simply been laid upon the existing officiant's platform.

Set beside a real sanctuary, it might have looked a little makeshift, yet no one who saw it offered a word of criticism. If anything, they watched him with their breath held tighter than at the weddings of any ordinary church.

"Hey… that's the Pope, isn't it…?"

"Wait, hang on, let me look this up……."

The stir was especially great among the company staff who had come as Hitomi's guests.

Most of them had only brushed the hidden world when the regulations surrounding Anathema Production changed. Until not long ago they had known nothing but the surface, and though they had heard that Han Seoyeon occupied some tremendous position, it had not yet felt real.

No wonder. By now they were used to her, and the image they held went no further than this: a woman who looked terrifying beyond belief, and who, once you actually knew her, was an otaku helpless before how much she loved Mary. Tell them she was someone truly extraordinary in the service of the Church, and it still would not land.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Into the middle of that, a pope one might only expect to see on television walked out as if it were nothing at all. They could hardly help being thrown. This was not even a wedding held in a church. It was a ceremony hall—and a wedding between two women, at that.

When Pope Dionysius II stood at the altar and gave the guests a small bow, Chiyo drew another deep breath and took the ceremony up again.

A moment later, the two men seated in the front row stood. Han Jihan and Ninomae Hajime—the fathers of the two brides.

They offered one another a light bow, each lit a candle in the stand beside the altar, and returned to their places. Having confirmed as much, Chiyo went on; she had grown nervous herself for no particular reason, and she spoke with her fists clenched tight.

"The brides will now enter. Guests, please welcome them with your applause. Bride Han Seoyeon Margarita, Bride Ninomae Hitomi… enter."

A moment later the doors of the ceremony hall opened, and two women appeared, arrayed in wedding dresses.

Bodies wrapped in pure white. Neither of them was the sort to wear fluttering clothes often, and perhaps because of that, the impression they gave was strikingly new.

The two brides came in side by side, hands held tight, and at their appearance the guests began to applaud.

Unused to the dresses, they looked a little uncomfortable as they walked; even so, they smiled, and waved lightly to the guests in greeting.

An uncanny smile sat on each face, tension and expectation stirred together—and still they came on toward the altar with confident steps.

At the center, chairs had been set out for the two of them. A wedding in the Church's rite was bound to run long, and no one could very well keep the stars of the ceremony on their feet through all of it.

They did not sit just yet. Pope Dionysius II looked at them once, pleased, and made the sign of the cross.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—"

"Amen."

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all."

"And with your spirit."

"Brothers and sisters. Here today we offer to the Lord the holy nuptial Mass of two beautiful brides, Han Seoyeon Margarita and Ninomae Hitomi. Before we worthily celebrate this holy nuptial Mass, let us call our sins to mind, so that we may fittingly celebrate the mystery of salvation."

A brief silence fell. Not everyone present was Catholic, but they all had the sense to keep still, and bowed their heads lightly.

Han Seoyeon, too, lowered her head a little and closed her eyes, and Hitomi glanced at her, then followed.

"Lord, have mercy on us."

"We have sinned against you."

"Lord, show us your mercy."

"And grant us your salvation."

"May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life."

"Amen."

When the exchange with the faithful among the guests was finished, the priest devoutly folded his hands.

"Come. Let us pray."

He prayed alone for a short while, in silence, then opened his arms and began to pray aloud so that everyone could hear.

Unlike everything he had said until now, the prayer was offered entirely in a foreign tongue, and Hitomi could not understand a word of it.

"Amen."

Fortunately, the prayer was not very long. Precisely because of that, Hitomi missed the moment to say amen, and while she was still flustered, Seoyeon gave her a faint smile and whispered that if she wasn't a believer, she didn't have to say it.

At last, the Sacrament of Matrimony was about to begin in earnest.