Son of the Dawn (4)
Kitayama Maya, first-generation VTuber of Anathema Production. Her real name was Sakuragi Oka, and her actual trade was illustrator and doujin artist.
The anomalous part of her, if one had to name it, was this: oni blood had skipped a generation and come back out in her, and she stood over six foot seven. Easygoing to the bone, she went through her days with her eyes all but shut.
"I heard Sakuragi-san was originally from the surface world..."
When Hitomi learned, out of nowhere, that this acquaintance belonged to a secret society, the first thing she felt was sheer disbelief. Until not long ago Sakuragi Oka had been entirely a person of the surface world. Her sudden declaration that she was a Freemason had been enough to fluster even Han Seoyeon, so there was no way Hitomi could simply accept it.
"Mm~ I joined recently~"
"How on earth did that happen?"
"They sent me a message on social media?"
Was that really an acceptable way for a secret society to make contact? Hitomi pressed a hand to her forehead.
Then again, nothing said a secret society was forbidden from using the conveniences of surface society, and if you had no personal contact on file for the illustrator Sakuragi Oka, that might well have been the only way to reach her...
"Until now she was a resident of the surface world, so we left her be. Truthfully, though, she was never an odd choice to recruit." Han Seoyeon added it with a wry smile.
As a broadcaster she had settled into a reasonably stable place, and she wasn't even a former celebrity—and still, cases where the person behind the persona was the more famous of the two were uncommon. Sakuragi Oka, standing right here, was one of those uncommon cases.
Consider the Freemasons' vision of grappling with the anomalous through works of creation, and she was precisely the sort of talent they would want to draw in. Her physique could back it up as well. Train her properly, and they might even put her to use as muscle.
"Even so, I never expected an offer to arrive this quickly, or for her to join this quickly."
"But it looked like fun," Sakuragi answered, beaming.
Then she slowly lifted her head and looked up at the demon hanging from the ceiling.
"So the Lucifer-chan you're handing over to us is that one? I heard she used to have a male body."
"By her own account, she changed her form in order to escape."
"Heeh~ Is that so."
She eased her eyes open and studied Lucifer, bound in rope.
For a spiritual being such as a demon, changing one's appearance completely was a serious matter. No anchor existed in this world to define the self with any certainty, and so a change of form led directly to a change of essence. Depending on how one looked at it, that was no different from death.
To put it with only a little exaggeration, what Lucifer had done was a decision on the order of killing herself and being reincarnated in a new body. It meant she had wanted to flee badly enough to go that far... and in the end it had come to nothing. She had been caught at once, and now she was being dragged off.
"How did she get caught?"
"She hid in a coffin to make her escape, and that coffin was discovered by Professor Senjoji."
Professor Senjoji cannot perceive the anomalous. In the hidden world, where anomalies of every kind run rampant, contradictions arise often—and this was a rule that took precedence over any such contradiction.
Lucifer's present form was the anomaly itself, with neither horn nor wing nor tail concealed. Being shut inside a coffin would hardly have changed that. Senjoji Chihaya must not see her, and the most effective way to ensure it was for Lucifer never to come out of the coffin in the first place. And so the coffin itself had warped, and would no longer open in front of Professor Senjoji.
From the perspective of Lucifer, whose perfectly sound coffin had suddenly become a restraint, it was a turn of events unreasonable enough to make her lose her mind. But then, dealing with a lunatic had always been an unreasonable business.
And so Lucifer, having only just won her freedom back at Chiyo's house, went on a rampage—and was subdued at once by the insurance Philotanuss had put in place beforehand. The moment she had any room, she would surely harm humans, so the contract existed to protect at least Hitomi, the contractor he had taken a liking to, and the people around her.
That the means of control written into the contract happened to be that, of all things, left one itching to object... and yet there was a side of it that made sense. This was Philotanuss of Lust, one of the three Brat Demons. Of course it was.
"So you're taking her right away?"
"Yep. I brought a car to haul her in~ Oh, but just in case, could you come along?"
"Of course."
Seoyeon had come with preparations of her own, but the one they were dealing with was who she was. At the words Sakuragi added, she nodded. Until the handoff was certain, it would be safer to go with them.
Having answered, Seoyeon turned her head and looked at Hitomi.
"And you, Hitomi? What would you like to do?"
"Mmm, would it be all right if I came too?"
"I don't see why not."
"If it's a field trip for Hitomi-chan, you're welcome anytime~"
"If that's what you say."
At that answer Hitomi smiled, bright and small. She was curious, for one thing, and more than that she would much rather be with Seoyeon than stay in the house alone.
It wasn't as though she usually followed along on Seoyeon's work. But this time Seoyeon had been the one to bring it up, so even if Hitomi came, it probably wasn't the sort of matter where she would be in the way.
"I see. In that case, this Lady Lucifer shall decline!"
"And why, exactly, do you assume you have a choice?"
"I don't want to... I don't waaant to gooo...!"
"Shion...? She really is an incredible demon, right? She's started crying."
Watch that face crumple and the tears pour, and one had to wonder whether this was truly a being once called one of the Five Demon Kings. At Hitomi's words, Han Seoyeon could only smile wryly once again.
"She was always an extremely self-centered sort, yes... but I suspect she's like that largely because of the conditioning she was put through while she was locked away. I can't be certain. This is the first I've seen her since I was cleaning up after the civil war in Sheol."
Her opponent had been that ultimate weapon raised against Lucifer, so it didn't seem entirely strange that she had been reduced to this. Word had already reached them that Lucifer was being worn down little by little, and then, around the last time the Apostles were convened, she had been kidnapped and imprisoned outright...
"...The Freemasons are all right, aren't they?"
"They're fiiine~ It's just that one member of the Supreme Council is a liiittle unique."
Hitomi's expression darkened at Seoyeon's explanation, but Sakuragi answered in the same easy tone that everything was fine.
Seoyeon was tempted to challenge whether a little was really the word for it. There was no need to make Hitomi anxious, though, so she decided to let it pass.
"Shall we head out, then?"
"I'll get that down first. ...Hitomi, if you would."
"Yes. I'll bring her down now."
"Th-that?! What disrespect toward this Lady Lucifer—mmph!"
At Seoyeon's request Hitomi gestured, and shadows stretched out from all around to enclose Lucifer. Then, like a soap bubble, she drifted slowly downward.
"Nyeh?!"
The bubble, once it neared the floor, burst with a pop and spat out what it held. More precisely, it roughly flung Lucifer—bound in rope, reduced to a caterpillar—onto the floor.
Leaving her there, Hitomi headed up to the second floor to change for going out. Kind as she was, that kindness did not, it seemed, extend even to someone who had tried to kill an acquaintance.
Han Seoyeon changed just as quickly and came back, hoisting the still-sprawled Lucifer onto her shoulder. Hitomi returned a little later, neat in a white blouse and a long skirt.
She had even put on a baseball cap, something she rarely bothered with. Most likely she had decided there wasn't time to tidy her hair before they left.
And so the three of them stepped outside. The large truck idling directly in front of the house was surely the transport Sakuragi had mentioned.
"Oh? Sakuragi-san, you can drive a truck too?"
Hitomi tilted her head as she asked. She had never heard anything of the sort.
"Ah. I left the driving to someone else~ When I said we were going to Hitomi-chan's, they insisted they had to be the one to do it."
"Because of me? Hmm...?"
She had only just learned what kind of organization the Freemasons were. She didn't know who belonged to it, so even hearing that, there was no one she could place.
She was still only puzzled when—
Yip!
"...Wah?"
A short cry that sounded as much like a puppy's bark as a baby's wail. An instant later, something small and fluffy butted her just below the chest and was gathered into her arms.
She caught it on reflex, and soft fur pressed against her palms.
Only after craning her head and twisting her body this way and that could Hitomi make out what was clinging beneath her chest.
"Huh? This child is definitely..."
"The one from Mary Shrine."
A little fox that had originally lived at Takaku Shrine, under Akane's care, and had been moved for a time to Mary Shrine after an attack by radical Holy Knights. Even after Takaku Shrine was restored, it had settled in and become the shrine's beloved little mascot.
Friendly with people, and a cute baby fox—an absurd combination, and thanks to it the little thing often turned up on visitors' social media. Mary Shrine's undisputed ambassador. Honestly, it would be no exaggeration to say at least a fifth of the visitors came just to see this one.
Considering that Mary Shrine was, in practice, an Anathema merch shop as well as a pilgrimage site for fans, the fact that people who weren't fans at all made up a fifth of them was by no means a small number.
At any rate, this was a child who had been growing up showered in that kind of popularity and affection... but it was no anomaly, only an ordinary animal. There was no world in which this little fox had taken the wheel because it wanted to see Hitomi.
Which meant it had to be someone among the people who worked at the shrine...
"It's been so long, Big Sis!"
"We'll take you there in comfort!"
"...Wait. Why are you here?"
…Not a someone. A something.
A two-headed bear welcomed Hitomi with a great, booming laugh.
A long time—no. It hadn't been. Ten minutes after learning where Sakuragi Oka belonged, Ninomae Hitomi's head was spinning all over again.