My Light and My Salvation (3)

"……."

Ninomae Hitomi cut the call short and checked the log. She was certain she had dialed the Church's emergency line, and yet the record insisted she had called back the very number that had rung her in the first place—as if some ghost had taken hold of her. The thought struck in that same instant. Gooseflesh rose over her whole body. She had always been badly weak where horror was concerned, and now that she herself had become the subject of the tale, her hands and feet began to tremble of their own accord.

She mastered herself almost at once. Nothing was to be gained by standing there and shaking. Even at horror games, Mary was the sort to scream herself raw and still find the way through. She walked into every trap on offer, true enough—but however frightened she became, not once had she simply abandoned thinking. This was no great difference from then.

No—if one cared to press the comparison, this was far better than a horror game in which all she could do was suffer. Hitomi gave a light flick of her hand, and the shadow pooled beneath the hallway lights wavered. From it, pure-white wings stretched long. They began at the tips; then the human back rooted to those wings took shape, and before long a blue-haired woman stood tall in the corridor.

"Is something the matter, Contractor?"

"…Yes. Very much so."

Shirase Hikari—third generation of Anathema Production, which was to say Mary Tepes's junior, a VTuber who had debuted only recently. In truth she was Osean Lee, the foreign worker pulling part-time shifts at a nearby café. And the Shirase Hikari standing here was another, born of the fame and the faith that future would bring.

Faith in Mary Tepes had bound itself to the original and made a True ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ancestor vampire of Hitomi. Hikari's case had instead built an anomaly wholly separate from herself. She was, besides, a demon contracted in Mary's name. Of the many demons Hitomi had bound upon becoming a True Ancestor, she had called this one both because the affinity suited the facing of anomalies, and because—among all those under contract—Hikari was the one she thought she might actually talk to.

"Wow. Is that so? That really is a problem… So, if I might ask, how far had you thought to go on the price?"

Hikari said it with glittering eyes, as if she had just spotted an opening. The sight reminded Hitomi that the character's roleplay came with a black heart written into the setting.

"The cost doesn't matter. Please—just help me as much as you can."

"……."

At the words that followed, Hikari's expression locked stiff. She had read Hitomi's reaction, and understood that this was no ordinary trouble.

"…What do you need me to do?"

The last time Hitomi had summoned her without warning and demanded cooperation this desperately had been half a year ago, and what had happened then was the Christmas Eve massacre. This was plainly not the hour to be scheming over what she might pry loose. Shirase Hikari set herself to cooperate in earnest, and watching her, Hitomi smiled faintly.

She had been born of a character tagged two-faced, and yet her origin was a VTuber all the same—an internet streamer who earned her living through her fans. Had she shown nothing but naked arrogance and greed, there was no world in which she would have been loved. Drawing enough popularity for a new demon to be born would have been impossible. And above all, the one who played that character was Anri. She never missed a chance to put on an innocent act and sweet-talk women, but Hitomi believed she was not rotten at the core.

"No—before that. What's the situation right now?"

"An anomaly is stalking me. It must have dug up my personal information. It called, and it kept pressing me—was I really Mary, was I really Mary. I hung up and contacted the Church at once, but something felt wrong, so I checked again. I hadn't called the Church. I'd called that number back."

"Sounds like a fox got its spell on you."

"…Yes."

Deciding anything alone, at this point, would not have been wise. She had summoned Hikari in part for exactly this counsel.

"I still don't know whether I'm truly possessed, or whether the problem is the phone."

"Then we deal with that first. Turn it off, and put it somewhere else."

"Right. That does seem better."

Hitomi powered the phone down and set a familiar to carry it far beyond the house. If the phone was the problem, this might already have solved a fair part of it…….

The problem was the chance that Hitomi herself had been bewitched, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was no longer in a normal state. If that were so, she could trust neither her senses nor anything coming in from outside.

"It rather brings Descartes's demon to mind, doesn't it."

Hikari offered the words with a bitter smile. By that same reasoning, the Hikari before her eyes ought to be doubted as well—whether she had even been summoned properly. But looking back, the opponent had not stopped Hitomi from placing a call at all. It had only seized the call. It could not suppress the act itself. And to her spiritual senses, the one drawn forth was unmistakably the Hikari bound to her by contract.

All of it could still be the enemy's trick, of course……. But if matters had reached that point, Hitomi had no hope left regardless. Inside Anathema Production she was reckoned the weakest hand at games of the mind. In a situation like this, without some external circuit bolted on to judge in her place, she would simply be led by the nose until it ended. And if the enemy was something that could control even her own drawing-up of anomalous power, then she had never had a means of resistance to begin with.

"First—no idea how much good it'll do, but let's start with a light purification."

Hikari snapped her fingers, and blue flame bloomed up out of Hitomi's body. Slowly it spread in every direction and swept once through the house.

"And scatter your familiars. Get word to the Church."

"What if they're blocked?"

"Still better than not trying. …No, wait. Don't send them to the Church. Fling them in every direction—so many that tracking all of them would be hopeless. Spray anomalies everywhere, and the Church won't have a choice but to move."

"All right. I understand."

Hitomi swept her arm, and for an instant her vision washed black. It was a curtain of darkness made of innumerable bats. The curtain drew aside in every direction, streamed the length of the corridor, and the moment it cleared the windows, scattered to the four winds.

"…What now. On the phone they told me to hide in the house and keep still, but the one who said that was the enemy, so this is probably a trap too."

"Or maybe they said it on purpose, counting on you to think exactly that."

"U-ugh……."

Hole up, or flee outside. Which was the right answer, and which was the trap the opponent wanted? There was still far too little to go on for any sure reply.

"…I'll trust Seoyeon's preparedness."

And with that, Hitomi settled it. Whenever she worked as a Holy Knight, Seoyeon prepared more than the work required. A residence put together by her own hand would surely have some measure of countermeasure against anomalies. Hitomi did not know what the enemy was aiming at, but this place had to be far safer than the world outside. So she judged, and she went into the bedroom and locked the door. She pressed talismans into the cracks of the frame, and near the threshold she scattered a good half of her holy water.

"……!"

It was around then that the thud came. At the vibration, as if the whole house had sounded, Hitomi hunched in on herself. The noise did not end with once. It was the sound of something being struck, hard.

"The front door… isn't it?"

"From the sound of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, probably."

Hitomi asked it in a shaking voice, and Hikari nodded. The noise was coming from the first floor. Soon after came the crunch of something being smashed. The front door, Hitomi thought, had been destroyed. In that interval Hikari's eyes seemed to flash; blue flame appeared, pierced the wall, and vanished. But before long she sighed and lightly rubbed her brow.

"Doesn't seem to be getting through."

Perhaps because of the angel in her setting, what Shirase Hikari's power could burn was limited to things stained with impurity, defiled, or otherwise unholy. They had confirmed as much last Christmas, and Hitomi had felt it since, whenever she borrowed those flames to strip filth away.

"At this rate, talismans and holy water probably won't do anything either… Are you confident in a fight? I have a feeling you're going to have to handle this yourself."

"Myself……."

The thudding footsteps drew steadily nearer. Hitomi swallowed, then thrust her trembling arm straight out. From the shadow, a sheathed sword rose slowly into the air. Of course she was afraid. Her head was a tangle of why any of this was happening. But she could not stop thinking. She must not. She was someone who played action games often enough to know: freeze with a helpless uh—uh before a pattern you didn't expect, and the only thing waiting after was the game-over screen.

Even she knew how much she still lacked. Even so, she called first on everything she knew, everything she had to hand. She roused every contract she had ever made, and she recited every invocation she could remember—as fast as she could, fast enough that she was nearly out of breath. A ridiculous thought flickered past: she had never imagined the vocal lessons, the rap lessons, would help her like this.

It was only a moment, truly. Behind Hitomi a black, sticky fog began to rise, and across that mass, mouths started to grow.

She held her breath a moment, set her hand lightly upon the hilt she had drawn to her hip, and slowly closed her grip with strength. She had never thought she would swing a sword at someone she could not even name, but this was no time to be choosy about means.

If it comes to it, I'll use what I was taught—that time they spared a moment to train me…….

Now the footsteps had come right up to the door. She had locked it, but this was an opponent who had already broken through a metal entry; the lock would do her little good. And if Hikari was right, it was an open question whether talisman or holy water would answer at all. With a crunch, and just as she had expected, the door was ruined far too easily. Iron and wood twisted; the panel crumpled; and with a ghastly screech, the door came open.

The instant that enormous shadow entered her sight, Hitomi drew and cut. She turned the scabbard onto her target, set her thumb to the guard, and drew the seated blade; from one flank she pulled the hilt through a small arc, and that was all. Her arm moved faster than her mind could recognize the will to cut, as though the sword had moved of itself and were only leading her arm along. The motion could not properly be seen. In the blink of noticing, it was already over, and only the blazing crescent of its path lingered behind, late as an afterimage.

She saw the intruder's shape only afterward. A man who looked to stand a little over two meters—and yet the muscle on that body had swollen to an uncanny degree, and the face, too, was twisted into a wrong shape. The hulking grotesque was missing one arm, and the waist had caved in, the rest of him left dangling. A beat later, both of them understood that this was the work of Hitomi's strike.

The grotesque looked bewildered. He seemed to have looked into Hitomi after a fashion, and those very findings must have left him unable to imagine she would come at him like this.

"Ha."

But then he grinned, a nasty, sidelong thing. It was a smile that stirred a strange revulsion merely to look upon. For a single instant the blow had carried force enough to flicker the river of the dead across the eyes… but to loose it again in succession would be too much. The man knew that. One of Mr. F's masterpieces: a weapon that launched into violent acceleration, borne along by every manner of spell and miracle. To bring its true power to bear, it had to rest inside the scabbard, and an invocation had to be spoken with every swing.

"M-M-Mary Tepes. Right? I'm right, aren't I? Yeah? The one Margarita holds precious—precious—Ninomae Hitomi……."

Hitomi hurriedly moved her shadow and wrapped it around the blade. There was no time to seat it in the scabbard again; this would have to serve in its place.

"T-Tell me. Sarah Groothuizen. Who is Sarah? Give me the information. We have a right, to know……."

But even if the scabbard could be improvised, the work of reciting the invocation still remained. The man came on toward Hitomi at a slow, pounding tread, his face twitching as if in spasm.

It was then that he caught sight of the black monstrosity at her back. What in the world is that? There was no time to dwell on the question. The answer bared itself. The innumerable mouths budding across that mass began to chorus, in a dreadful voice.

"No, does this even make sen—"

By the time he understood that it was a sword's invocation, the third slash was already following through.