Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh (5)

He opened his eyes slowly. Strength would not come into his body.

"You're awake."

He was still trying to take stock of the situation through vision that had yet to clear when the voice reached him from close at hand. Rolling only his eyes that way, he found a familiar woman seated on a folding chair. Han Seoyeon Margarita.

"The vampire. Sasaki Kisaki."

"She escaped."

At those words the man—Han Jihan—tried on reflex to push himself up… and the strength went out of him again, and he crumpled back down.

"From the circumstances, it appears you took a direct hit from the main battery. That you survived is a miracle."

Hearing her, Han Jihan somehow forced his badly trembling arm to move and felt along his own teeth. The canines, grown sharper than usual, were unmistakable under his fingers.

"How long was I down."

"Two days."

Two days gone, and the vampirization still lingered to this degree. Then he truly had come within a single step of his last breath. So judging, Han Jihan gave his body back over to the bed.

Time spent resting was time wasted, of course… but he knew that sometimes even this was necessary. He was a man who had always flogged himself past his own limits, and yet this once his body was in a state where hunting vampires was simply impossible, no matter what he did.

That Han Jihan had become a vampire meant precisely that.

Only when there was truly no chance of survival by any means whatsoever did he turn vampire. Among the innumerable contracts he had sealed with demons, there was one of this kind. When it activated, his flesh could draw on a vampire's vitality, and he had saved his life by it more times than he could count.

To enter such a contract by any ordinary path would have demanded a staggering price. It was, in short, the sort of pact that slips you one more coin at the moment of certain death, and a thing like that could hardly come cheap.

…Of course, had Han Jihan been an ordinary man, the infamy of the Vampire Slayer would never have spread so far.

The surge of vitality that came with vampirization was, for him, nothing more than a side effect. From the very instant the contract was first struck, Han Jihan had never once paid a price for it. The whole thing had begun from a conception bordering on madness: if I become a vampire in the instant before I die, then one more death among vampirekind can be added to this world.

Which meant that the amplification of life just before death—the prolonging of it—was the side effect. No. Rather, it was a factor working clean against the contract, keeping it from ever being properly fulfilled.

And so the Vampire Slayer, Han Jihan, James, had come by a vitality bordering on the infinite at a price hardly different from free. Once the wounds that had nearly killed him healed in full, he was no longer "on the verge of death," and so, by the contract's own terms, he returned to his original human body.

Even the demon on the other end of the bargain, back when the pact was first made, could hardly have expected it would be exploited (?) to this extent. But once the hook was in, there was no getting free. That, too, was the fate of the demonic breed.

"I don't remember anything from right after we collided."

"Yes. Allow me to explain briefly."

Recognizing that her father's gaze was a demand for an account, Han Seoyeon drew a small breath and went on.

"Are you aware of the weapon under development at that undersea research facility?"

"No. I don't know."

For his part, he had only gone because the vampire he was chasing happened to be there. Weapons and the rest of it had not concerned him in the slightest. Of course, from here on he intended to concern himself. That ship was no longer an ordinary ship. It was a ship with a vampire aboard.

"It isn't something that has been formally named. It was being developed under extreme secrecy, so there was almost never any occasion to call it by a name."

There was, to be sure, an official project designation set apart from all that… but it was a top-secret project, and so people usually referred to it at a slant, borrowing the name of the unit stationed there—"that thing of Leviathan's," and the like.

"So I'll just be calling it the Battleship Leviathan, more or less."

By rights this was a name one ought to have refrained from, given the risk of confusing it with the Leviathan Unit…….

"The greater part of the Leviathan Unit's personnel, and the greater part of the researchers who took part in developing the weapon at the undersea facility. Together with them, Dr. Laura Groothuizen and Sasaki Kisaki. All are presently presumed to be aboard the Battleship Leviathan."

Of that unit's survivors, every last one except Colonel Evans had stabbed this side in the back and climbed aboard the ship. They had become a single mass anyway, so calling both of them Leviathan presented no problem at all.

"At any rate, as for the Battleship Leviathan… to put it as simply as possible, it is a space battleship. According to Colonel Evans, operations beyond the thermosphere were never even considered… but since it isn't that the ship is incapable of going out there, we may ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as well treat it as a space battleship in practice."

A colossal aerial warship coursing the firmament and pouring down bombardment. There was little wrong in simply calling a thing like that a space battleship. At the very least, judging by the way the Doctor herself had flown off the handle insisting that "a space battleship has to have a warp function," she was clearly thinking of it in those terms.

…Right. Warp.

"It is a weapon fitted with its own internal power generation, free to teleport about at will while carrying out bombardments."

She was only putting it into words. And yet even she, the one giving the explanation, was driven to a hollow little laugh, as if she herself found it past believing. There was no need to think it through at any depth; one had only to look at what they had done the moment they seized the ship. They had raised a middle finger square in the Church's face and—though they chose a relatively thinly peopled stretch of it—succeeded in raining bombardment down upon the mainland of the United States itself, and then strolling clean away.

Considering that doing even one of those two things would ordinarily get a person's limbs shattered, one could guess just how outrageous a weapon it was. Merely being able to choose one's battlefield at will was already tremendous, and here that was being carried out by a monster that fully earned the name of space battleship.

"Countermeasures?"

"Apostle John has moved, together with the prophets."

"The Preacher. Nino."

But had there truly been no response possible, the Church would never have allowed the Battleship Leviathan's development to begin in the first place. That they had not stopped it was because they possessed means of their own. If the trouble was that ignorance of when and where the enemy would come handed over the initiative, then one had only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to read that action in advance.

Ordinarily that was a domain Abraham-Delta could have handled alone and with ease……. Unfortunately the Doctor's defection had overlapped with it, and the situation had turned somewhat murky. Even if this side foresaw the future and laid countermeasures, should those countermeasures be passed along to the enemy as they stood, the other side had only to act in some other fashion.

And so what had been committed in Abraham's place was Apostle John—the Preacher, Elif Yazıcı Nino.

Prediction developed far enough cannot be told apart from foresight. Her existence was as good as the proof of that proposition. That Han Seoyeon had come to Han Jihan's sickbed even now was likewise because the woman had predicted the hour he would wake. Several seers had been attached to her—not of Abraham's caliber, but able to read the future—so picking out the Battleship Leviathan's next warp destination would be no great labor. Which was why Yazıcı, having taken one plunge into the Pacific and come back alive, had been thrown in at once.

"Knew you'd be here."

And before long the door of the hospital room opened. There were not many people who would walk into Han Jihan's room like this, without so much as a knock. Speak of the tiger, they say, and it comes. Thinking so, Seoyeon turned her head.

A dark-skinned woman, grinning wide and lifting a hand in greeting. Her arms were free for the moment, but the garment she wore was unmistakably a straitjacket, and from the headphones covering her ears music leaked out loud enough to be heard beyond them. Apostle John. Elif Yazıcı.

"How did the operation go?"

The moment she had confirmed who it was, Han Seoyeon asked. She had gone straight to the point without a greeting, but Yazıcı much preferred it that way. And indeed, hearing her, Yazıcı drew up the corners of her mouth and smiled.

"Failure."

The answer that came back was no good either.

"Were the forces insufficient?"

At that reply Han Seoyeon knit her brow and pressed her again.

The Church was powerful, certainly, but it was not invincible. Sometimes it failed. Sometimes it lost. The enemy's equipment, in particular, was nothing ordinary. Because Han Jihan had fallen on them, they had fled without managing to mount their armament in full—and yet even so, the specifications were of a level one could never afford to dismiss.

"No, we missed them. They never even came to the predicted spot in the first place."

"…Is that true?"

But the account that followed left her no choice but to be still more astonished. Put another way, it meant that even Elif Yazıcı, with her mind fully set to the work, had been outplayed in a battle of wits.

"Deceiving you, Yazıcı—even the Doctor couldn't manage that, could she?"

"I don't lose to the Doctor, not even then. Oh, and I'm not saying I got taken by Sasaki Kisaki, either."

If not the Doctor, then—surely she hadn't actually been fooled by Sasaki? As if she had read in advance that Seoyeon would think exactly that, Yazıcı shrugged and spoke.

"Know how you win at Old Maid against a psychic who can read your thoughts?"

"All of a sudden? Hmm… by cheating, perhaps?"

"Against someone who can read even that."

"If you put it that way, there is no answer at all, is there?"

"What do you mean, no answer."

So saying, Yazıcı smiled again. This time, though, a little bitterness seemed to seep through it.

"You shuffle the cards without looking at them yourself."

If not a single person's intention had gone into it, then however great a psychic—even the Preacher John herself—she would be unable to read it. At those words Han Seoyeon went blank for a moment. Only for an instant, but it was the face of someone who had not quite understood.

"…Are you serious? They did a thing like that in their right mind?"

"Hey. Measuring a madwoman by the yardstick of common sense—what are you doing? She stole the Leviathan in the first place because she isn't sane."

"That's… ugh."

Nothing worth offering in rebuttal came to mind against Yazıcı. Even so, Seoyeon could not help but be thrown, for what the woman had said amounted to the enemy warping at random, off to anywhere at all.

No—but there really is no other way to beat this person in a contest of wits…….

However she turned it over, it was madness. But it was also true that it was the only method.

"Short of dragging in the Necromancer herself, is this the best there is…? Truly?"

She was so dumbfounded that a laugh spilled out of her on its own. A strategy that deserved to be dismissed as garbage—and yet it was the most effective strategy there was, and it had actually worked. Seen this way, it almost felt rational. To so much as contest Yazıcı on even terms, one would have to bring back the already-dead Anna Anderson, or the Necromancer at the least.

"…Any chance the Necromancer is at work in the shadows?"

And then, abruptly, Han Jihan murmured it.

"The Necromancer? Ah, true enough, there's no telling how many disciples that troublesome woman scattered. Maybe she laid a final bomb away through them, just for this moment."

Was there not the old tale, too, of the dead Zhuge Liang routing the living Sima Yi? One could not say for certain that no scheme had been prepared to provide for what followed her death. If it was that vicious Necromancer, it would be no strange thing for her to pour out every last ounce of her strength, even in the act of dying, for the sake of inflicting one more blight upon the world.

"No—looking at your face, that isn't the sense you were asking in, is it?"

But partway through the answer, Yazıcı's eyes went round. For her, it was a considerably rare expression.

"I was asking whether the Necromancer might still be alive."

"Master? That woman was annihilated completely, soul and all, was she not?"

"I know. But…"

"Looks like you ended up seeing something there."

Han Jihan, lying in the bed, gave a small nod. At that, Yazıcı closed her eyes for a moment, as though sinking into thought.

"……Ah."

And before much time had passed, she opened them. At the same time, though, her slightly parted lips did not close for a good long while.

"The Doctor said she was Sanjou Miyuki. Sasaki Kisaki objected that the soul had been extinguished, so possession was impossible—but the Doctor told her that insisting it must be so was nothing more than a fixed idea."

Yazıcı already had the look of someone who had grasped it, but Han Jihan took the trouble to explain calmly what he had seen. It was an explanation for Han Seoyeon's sake.

"So… this is what you're saying, isn't it? If Sanjou Miyuki was able, by some method, to possess another person, then the Necromancer—likewise said to have had her soul extinguished—might also still be alive somewhere in this world, by the same method……. By possessing someone?"

Han Seoyeon murmured it. She could hardly match Yazıcı for speed of thought, but an Apostolic Seat was not a thing one won at the card table.

"It isn't possession."

And with that she mussed her own hair and stared down at the tiles of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the hospital floor. That those eyes should tremble so—Han Seoyeon was seeing it for the first time in her life.

"Then what is it…?"

"Data."

Memory, and self, and personality. Or every miscellaneous thing besides. Pure information, dependent on no anomaly of the sort a soul was.

The Necromancer's body had died. Her soul had died as well. But if that information alone lived on, and was being carried forward?

Was such a thing one of the living, or one of the dead? Could it be regarded as the same individual? Philosophical argument of that kind did not matter. What mattered was not which claim was correct, but how the Necromancer thought.

"Sanjou Miyuki wasn't the Necromancer's disciple. She was the woman herself. At least, she believed that of herself."

She had the Necromancer's memories, her self, her arts. And so long as she defined herself as the Necromancer and moved according to that doctrine, then—at least from the standpoint of the Church, which had to answer her terror—it was no different from the Necromancer herself being alive. Then everything was explained.

"……My God."

Han Seoyeon covered her face with her palms. She had confronted the Necromancer's malice any number of times before. Most notably, the time the woman had cut in midway through the resolution of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠China scenario and cast ash across the whole of it. The initial plan then had been for Han Seoyeon to resurrect the citizens made into offerings of human sacrifice, and thereby cancel the rite.

That they had failed, and swung their course toward igniting a Chinese civil war, was because the Necromancer had intervened and turned those citizens into undying beings. Han Seoyeon had earned the title of Arbiter because the saving of people and the killing of them lay in her hands—and yet even she had her limits. She could not bring to life again what was already living.

The situation now was exactly the same as then. However much it was Han Seoyeon—no, whoever it might be… how was one to kill a person already dead?

Without meaning to, Han Seoyeon recalled the verse of prophecy that had come down to Abraham at the Apostolic Council. If Sanjou Miyuki was the Necromancer, and if she had possessed the Doctor—if those two minds and that malice became one and turned against the Church—then certainly it would fully deserve the name of calamity.

"That isn't the problem."

Whether she had read that heart of Seoyeon's yet again, Elif Yazıcı shook her head and let out a sigh.

"If it's a pseudo-possession that runs on information, rather than a soul…"

"Then just how many 'Necromancers' are there in this world?"

Information can be copied. Unlike a soul. The reason the researchers and the men of the Leviathan Unit had banded together with such uncanny unity to commit their betrayal became comprehensible in an instant.

If one could only draw one's own answer out of the philosophical dilemma of whether it was truly the same person—or simply ignore that dilemma altogether…

Then that Necromancer, of whom it was no overstatement to say she was the worst in all of history, had gone and obtained eternal life by way of eternal death.

"…O Lord."

What in the world was to be done with a situation like this. In a voice carrying a considerable and unfeigned sincerity, Han Seoyeon found herself calling upon the Lord of Heaven.

No answer came.