Shibon's Donkey (4)

Yugure Tama tended to leave a fierce impression. The model called Tama did, and so did the woman behind it, Akaba Akane. That this was a fairly objective judgment was plain enough from nothing more than the first impressions her genmates had given.

Those were the first impressions of the model, confirmed at the first group collab.

And those were the first impressions they mentioned on stream, after actually meeting her in person.

Contrary to the look of her, though, Akaba Akane was quietly the sort who looked after people. A childhood friend with a strangely ditzy streak was probably to blame. Because of that, when the Gen 1 members were asked again a year after debut, the impression they held of her in the present had changed a great deal.

Yugure Tama sighed, closed her eyes, and let herself turn over the old days.

…Look back all I like. Nothing but lunatics.

They were oddities so far gone that even the kindness of memory couldn't touch them. One of them, in particular. It was these girls, too, who had stuck her with the strange nicknames — Tama-mama, Tamamamama. Collab with her genmates long enough, and there were moments she genuinely could not tell whether she was among coworkers or running a preschool.

And...

The juniors don't seem all that different, either.

Sex ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jokes came flying without a moment's hesitation, the talk kept sliding off into things that had nothing to do with the subject, and each of them said only what she herself wanted to say... The Gen 2 juniors did not seem much different from the Gen 1 lot. How did President Nakabashi keep hauling in only people like this...

She held that complaint down inside her, and turned her eyes toward Mary, who was picking the cookies off the table and eating them beside Sister — Shion.

So Gen 2's stopper was this one as well. Tama felt a pang of sympathy for her. The sex-joke ghost and the mesugaki demon were disqualified from the start. Charlotte, the childhood friend, was such a natural airhead that she caught the tackles far more often than she threw them. The one who looked the most intact was the holy knight, but no. That woman carried a quiet madness in her too. Give her the slightest opening and she would run wild and tear off in some incomprehensible direction.

In other words, the only real hope was Mary Tepes.

"Hang in there..."

"Yes?"

"The path of the tsukkomi is a harsh one..."

"???"

Mary, of course, only met that look with the face of someone who had no idea what she was being told. Not understanding it anyway, she decided to go back to nibbling the cookie in her hands.

"Anyway."

After watching her a moment longer, Tama turned her gaze to Sister.

"Stream's over, and everyone looks worn out from getting up so early."

A sidelong glance. Her eyes shifted. Several of those in the car had already gone out cold. Still awake were Akaba Akane, Ninomae Hitomi, Han Seoyeon, Hyakurenno Yuri, and, more or less, the driver.

"No ears left to listen. Shall we get to the point?"

The rest of them, in truth, did not matter in the slightest. All that mattered was that the manager — who had no notion that anomalies even existed — was asleep.

"This trip was planned as an anomaly investigation, wasn't it."

"Who did you hear that from?"

Tama — Akane — tipped her chin toward Senjoji Chiyo, fast asleep.

"Ah. Yes. It isn't anything I particularly need to hide."

"What is it, exactly?"

"I'm told the shrine's spiritual power looks as if it has suddenly grown."

"That's... yeah. That is strange."

Perhaps that was only to be expected of a miko who served a kami. Akane nodded at once, as though already convinced, her fingers moving through the hair of Tsunashi Tenka, whose head lay pillowed in her lap.

"What about it is strange?"

The one who slipped into the conversation was Hyakurenno Yuri. With a house of that weight behind her, failing to know of anomalies would have been harder than knowing them — but specialized knowledge was another matter. She could hardly be expected to have it.

"Put simply, it would be like looking at Ninomae-san here a week from now and finding her chest had grown to twice the size."

"Shion-san?! What kind of comparison is that..."

"Twice, from here? Ah. Walking would be quite difficult, I think."

"Yuri-san, please don't seriously imagine it either!"

Ninomae's face had gone red, and the two of them chuckled.

"At any rate. What I mean is that this is plainly a degree of change nature does not allow. Well... theoretically, it sits inside the possible."

"You mean she had surgery, or had implants put in, or she's a different person who only looks the same... that sort of thing?"

"So please get off the subject of chests!"

Seoyeon went on.

"Learning what phenomenon intervened is therefore Professor Senjoji's commission. And if, past that, some means straying from the proper way was used, then cutting it down is a Holy Knight's duty."

"So you really were a holy knight. When Chie told me, honestly, I thought it was a joke."

"Well. The odds of being picked up by a clergyman while you're walking down the street are quite low. ...I didn't expect to be seen through quite so quickly, though."

"You keep her employed, as well. She must be quite capable, then?" Han Seoyeon asked her.

"Her skill, at least, is solid. By her own account, she used to be an onmyoji."

"Hm. She was with the government? That is a genuine surprise."

"Hold on. An onmyoji doesn't have to be government, does she? By that classification, even I'd be one."

"Had she only said onmyoji, perhaps. But if she said former... no. Let's leave it here. Ninomae-san can no longer follow the conversation."

So saying, Seoyeon looked at Ninomae, seated beside her.

"Ah, no. I'm all right..."

"It isn't even a conversation we have to have. There's no reason to leave Ninomae-san out of it on purpose."

"...Thank you for being considerate."

Ninomae dipped her head obediently and offered her thanks. Honestly, it had been just about the moment she was starting to lose the thread of what they were saying.

"Right, then. Cutting to it. The talismans you asked for before."

"Oh. Thank you."

"Poured everything I had into these, on a night the full moon was up. Use them sparingly."

With that, Akane drew a sheaf of papers from her bag and held them out to Han Seoyeon.

"...I really am sorry about last time."

"Wasn't that already a closed matter? You weren't hurt anywhere, so don't trouble yourself over it."

They had both come out unharmed, hadn't they. Han Seoyeon smiled faintly and gave a small shrug.

"For crying out loud... So that's why that painfully kind Mary sticks to you, all fond like that."

"F-fond of me? Th-that isn't — it isn't like that..."

"I don't know how you took what I just said, but I meant like. Not love."

"Ah. Yes. I see..."

Mary, who had gone shy at Akane's remark, came to understand that Akane had not said anything bold at all — that it had only been her own misunderstanding — and let her head sink lower still, shyer than before.

What is this adorable creature.

Watching her, Akane forced back down the maternal instinct rising to a boil inside her. She settled, instead, for stroking her childhood friend's hair.

"Anyway. Looks like we're here, so wake the kids up."

"You rented this entire inn?"

Ninomae murmured it, her voice unsteady.

She had known it was an expensive inn. She had searched it up beforehand and confirmed as much. But a photograph and the thing itself, met with the eyes, were feelings of a very different order, and her lips gave a fine, involuntary tremor.

It was not especially large, and it was not showy. If she reached for a word, it was tidy — even a little plain. And yet that was precisely what made the air feel expensive. An atmosphere that arrived through the skin.

"You don't have to let it weigh on you. I'm the one paying, anyway."

Someone else seemed to be shrinking as well — the manager, and for an entirely different reason than Ninomae. A company, taking support from one of its own VTubers... She decided not to pay it much mind.

"W-welcome."

And the one who had frozen was not only on their side.

The proprietress who had come out to receive the party could not hide the tremor in her voice, and bowed her head. She was tense in her own right. Wealthy guests sought the place out in numbers, and now and then even a celebrity came; that was the level of the house. She had never once received a guest of this order.

Heir to a corporation on a scale that defied sense. A genuine kazoku noble — old blood — even. No. Judge by blood alone, and what ran in her veins was not the blood of the nobility at all. It was imperial.

However dear the stay at a hot-spring inn, this was still only the sort of place Professor Senjoji could book without a second thought. Hardly somewhere the truest of the true would ever come.

"At this point she's just a dinosaur that walks around..."

"Akane-chan, dinosaurs walk around to begin with, you know?"

"Damn it. Just get the gist."