Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh (2)

Her head throbbed. This was not a situation she could laugh off.

The doctor—Laura Groothuizen—had betrayed them? And she was cooperating with Hermes Trismegistus, of all people?

Han Seoyeon called back, once more, what Abraham had told her: assume the worst. This was certainly a situation that warranted it.

Madness alone was not enough to earn the name of the Seven Sisters. That required a talent past all argument. There was no one to whom the old saying fit more cleanly—that genius and lunacy lie a single sheet of paper apart.

Elif Yazıcı, who could take one report and from it predict events yet to unfold on the far side of the earth. The Necromancer, who had met the Church head-on again and again and still kept their identity hidden until the very instant they were brought down. Anna Anderson, who proposed the Secrecy Protocol and came within a breath of extinguishing every anomaly in the world. Professor Senjoji, capable of smashing that same protocol to pieces from its foundations. Mister F, who had reached the height of steering public opinion until anomalies were born exactly as he pleased. The hacker Black Rabbit, who treated the very concept of security as a thing that did not exist.

And Doctor Laura Groothuizen, the mad genius scientist of the popular imagination, made flesh.

Among the Seven Sisters, the finest mind was of course Elif Yazıcı Nino. But if one were asked to name the most useful, no one would dispute Doctor Groothuizen. Even in that company, her gift ran peculiarly to the practical. Had not Abraham-Delta themself come into being through her hands? In the work of fusing anomalous technology with the science of the surface world and setting it to use, there was no genius who surpassed her.

And so, for all the disasters she had caused, those who coveted that talent were far too many. The government of the United States was one of them, which was why Laura Groothuizen now pursued her research under the Department of Defense, her crimes pardoned in exchange.

Penal servitude, of a sort. She herself had been living quietly enough, satisfied that nowhere else on earth would pour money over a researcher so shamelessly thick.

...Or so they had understood.

Han Seoyeon pressed a hand to her brow. Had none of it been true? Had she only bowed her head to deceive the government and the Church, watching all the while for the chance to knife them in the back? The questions would not stop rising.

But... she isn't the sort to do a thing like that without a reason.

Seoyeon had met Doctor Groothuizen once before, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in person. The woman she had seen then was research-madness given human shape, and nothing besides.

That she might betray the Church was, at the furthest edge, conceivable. Betraying the United States was not. Where else in the world kept a research budget so indecently fat as that nation's defense establishment?

Then—surely the American government itself was not behind this? Vampire Syndrome, a terrorist design upon the Japanese home islands, wrought by the Anglo-American fiends...

She chased the thought that far, and shook her head. No. Even for her, this was too far.

And what mattered now was not the motive, but the result. Whatever Groothuizen nursed in secret was not hers to weigh.

If, however, the doctor was aiding Sasaki Kisaki, then it made a grim kind of sense that the vampire could keep running from the Church. The mind of Abraham-Delta, the very command of this operation, was leaking out as it formed. Under those conditions, failing to escape would have been the stranger thing.

Think. What, then, is the doctor actually after?

She was not a woman who would help a criminal for nothing. Given the time, she would sooner run one more experiment.

Which meant, conversely, that she was cooperating because there was something to be gained from Sasaki Kisaki—or from the already-fallen Hermes Trismegistus.

And at this moment, Sasaki's worth came down to two things: that she was a sample of Vampire Syndrome, and that she would hold something concerning the Necromancer's disciple.

Was it fair to assume the doctor had fixed upon one of the two? Then how would she move from here? And the answer this side ought to make—

"Shion!"

"...Ah. I'm sorry."

Han Seoyeon, sunk in a sea of thought, hauled her mind back to the surface at the voice beside her, and shaped a faint smile, as if to set at ease the Hitomi who was watching her with worry.

However startling the report, it was no manners at all to leave a person standing at her side while she drowned in thought alone.

"Um... should we stop the reception, even now...?"

Hitomi asked it carefully. She did not know the precise shape of things, only that something urgent had broken out. To count the reception as part of the wedding made the loss a shame—but she had no wish to dig in her heels with a crisis set before them.

"It's all right."

Han Seoyeon said it while lightly stroking her head.

"Let us let the reception go on as it is."

"But... this is urgent, isn't it? Urgent enough that they called you out so suddenly, just to hear a report..."

"Yes. It is urgent."

Seoyeon nodded.

"And it is precisely because it is too urgent."

"That... what does that mean?"

"It means that were I to move from this moment, it would already be too late to signify anything. Is that not so, Abraham?"

She turned her eyes to the smartphone in her hand and asked their view.

Unlike the text they had traded until now, a woman's voice spilled out. One screen would have been difficult for the two of them to share; this was a kindness, so Hitomi might hear as well.

That they had learned the culprit was drawing information through Abraham was, in itself, a good thing. With this, they could at least stand upon the starting line.

The problem was that the one who had uncovered it happened to be Abraham. Groothuizen, too, now knew that they had identified the true culprit.

Naturally she would have grasped that this side meant to act, and begun to move. It was as good as reading the future and acting upon it.

And one who reads the future and moves is no different from a prophet.

"Cassandra's Third Precept."

Then the counter was the same as the one used against a prophet. In this case, that meant ending it at a stroke.

However far the mind runs ahead, if the body cannot follow, there is no answering. Even witnessing the instant the trigger is pulled is no guarantee one can evade the bullet.

And so Abraham-Delta had reported the fact in the same moment they grasped it. Wary that the operation might leak through them, they had involved themself no further—but what would unfold from here was not difficult to foresee.

High command was not so dull as to miss that they had to move before the enemy could react. They would shift whatever personnel could be committed, and shift them as fast as it could be done.

In this case, that would most likely be Leviathan. Han Seoyeon nodded as well.

The 2nd Anomaly Response Special Task Force of the United States Navy in Japan. Leviathan, by the common name—or, in jest, the Marines Who Catch Ghosts.

The unit of which Rachel Evans stood as supreme commander, and the organization presently charged with the defense of the undersea research facility where Doctor Groothuizen resided.

There is, after all, no swifter seizure than the guards in the same building abruptly changing face and leveling their muzzles. If a faster method existed, one would have to send for the righteous Mr. Adolf, who put a bullet through the skull of the wicked Hitler.

Trustworthy in their present posting, and in their ability as well. It could be called the optimal choice.

"Then... does that settle it?"

"That, I cannot say. There is a chance of failure. Our opponent is a madwoman, and by now she will have secured every sort of classified intelligence."

"...Eh? What?"

Hitomi, who had been on the point of breathing out in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠relief, instead found a question mark floating over her head.

Hadn't the whole drift of it, until just now, been this and this, so there is no need to worry? To be told in the next breath that success or failure could not be assured was bound to leave her at a loss.

"Then this really isn't a situation for a reception, is it...?"

"If those who can move at once cannot answer the present situation, then it is already too late. What I can do—no, not I alone, but the people in this place—amounts to almost nothing, in any case."

If breaking off the event and rushing out would accomplish nothing, there was no need to spoil it. Han Seoyeon gave a light shrug, as if that were the whole of it.

"What is more, a rash commotion could become the greater problem. This many of the Church's senior figures are gathered here. Let the occasion collapse, and the Church's dignity suffers with it."

This was no ordinary matter. An Apostle had been serving as a listening device. Once a thing grew to this scale, one had to weigh not only the response, but the storm that would follow.

Better, so far as it could be managed, that the world conclude not that the Church had been driven back for want of strength, but that someone had simply robbed an empty house. Cancel a reception in full swing and make a fuss of it, and you breed nothing but anxiety and distrust.

Having said as much, Seoyeon let out a thin breath.

"I'm sorry, Hitomi. I have ended up laying a thing this heavy upon you. Even so—please, will you help me see it safely through, to the end?"

She knew it was no hour for smiling freely. She would have to put on brightness all the same.

A wedding with Hitomi: a thing that deserved to be blessed. She had not wanted, if she could help it, to spend even this gathering as a political instrument. The situation had simply refused to come along.

No one knew better than Seoyeon herself how much Hitomi had awaited this day. Even a happiness pure to the last degree would have fallen short of what she was owed, and here Seoyeon was, setting a burden like this upon her. The shame of it was nearly past bearing.

"...In joy."

She had been looking at Hitomi with that apologetic gaze when Hitomi, holding her eyes a moment, parted her lips.

"Hitomi?"

"And in sorrow. In health, and in sickness..."

For a brief instant she wondered what on earth was being said. Then Han Seoyeon knew, at once, where the passage came from.

"All my life, I promise to keep faith, and to love you and to honor you."

Having spoken that far, Hitomi shut her mouth again and looked at Seoyeon with force set in her eyes.

"Because we're married. A heavy burden is one we carry together."

"I'm sor—"

"Not sorry?"

"...Thank you."

"Hmph."

Hitomi set a finger to the lips ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shaping another apology and stopped them there. Only then could Seoyeon laugh in earnest—a short, soft breath of it—and give her an answer in return.

"That you are my wife, I think a true good fortune."

So saying, she drew Hitomi lightly into her arms. Hitomi let a pleased laugh spill free and laid her cheek against that chest, listening, with her ear, to the beat of Seoyeon's heart beyond.

"Then shall we change quickly, and go on with the reception? ...Darling."

"That form of address. You mean to see it through on that one?"

"Don't you like it?"

"...I wouldn't say that."

"Ehehe... see? I knew it."

"I really do think the color may be too bright..."

"It suits you, though? You wore an even more brilliant dress, so it's a little late to be shy about it."

"That's true, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but..."

"And we couldn't rent something else at this point anyway. Come on—let's go show everyone!"

Ninomae Hitomi smiled with everything she had, so the reception might be brought to its close, through to the very last of it, in a good atmosphere.

Political reasons, and all the rest of it—honestly, she did not care.

She only wanted this day, for Seoyeon, to remain in memory not as a day of disaster, but as a day that had been happy. Nothing more than that.