Like the Dawn Light, Like the Latter Rain (3)
"So, to sum it up……."
Senjoji Chiyo's head was pounding something awful.
An unexpected accident the day before had wrecked the plan. Originally she hadn't even meant to let Anri stay the night, and so Anri hadn't come prepared to sleep over either. Simply having her here this morning, instead of being alone, was already a considerable variable—and yet.
"Not cosplay, not some shapeshifting trick. You're telling me she's the actual Shirase Hikari? As in, this Anri-chan right here, the real body?"
"Yes. I am the real Shirase Hikari, you see? Though strictly speaking, I am the original. Mama made this foreign young lady's avatar while the impression of the form I descended in last Christmas was still fresh upon her."
"Mama. You mean the illustrator?"
Chiyo asked it again, and Hikari nodded.
"Which is to say, I'm the original."
"You snuck in like a rat to steal faith off me, got yourself caught, and now you're spouting nonsense?"
Anri snorted at her and said it bluntly. At that, Hikari flared and shouted.
"Th-that's a legitimate exercise of my rights! All I did was take the faith I was owed, as the original!"
"And a person like that comes creeping in on tiptoe?"
She did, at least, seem to truly believe she was the original. Otherwise she never would have come bursting out in a fury—How dare a fake lose her virginity before I do?!—forgetting altogether that she had been hiding, trying to skim the faith away on the sly.
But even if Anri had not been streaming for very long, she had grown rather attached to her persona as a VTuber. To be told, flat out, that she was a knockoff and a counterfeit was hardly going to sit well.
"Oh, right. If you really think that's a legitimate right, then say it. Taking a cut of the faith I earn on stream—that's just a tax, isn't it. Go on. Say you're going to collect your taxes. Fair and square."
"……."
Honestly, she must have felt a prick of guilt herself, because Hikari was struck speechless.
It was already common knowledge in the hidden world that Apostle Matthew, M&Z's monstrous tax collector, was inside Japan on various business. To announce, on the strength of something that might not even be true, that you meant to skim off "taxes"? Safer, frankly, to be the man who stood before Philotanuss and declared that from this moment he would be intruding upon the yuri. With Philotanuss, at least, there was a chance of being forgiven by the loss of one's lower half rather than one's life.
"Both of you, calm down. I don't think that gets solved by arguing it out in here."
To Chiyo's ear it sounded like nothing so much as the chicken and the egg. Fighting here was not going to produce an answer, and she doubted a correct answer even existed; she had only meant to cool the air before it overheated.
"So, Hikari-chan. What on earth did you come to collect faith from Anri-chan for in the first place? I'm no expert, but people don't usually go this hard, or this fast, do they?"
"Mmm. Well, you see……."
Hikari hesitated, but she seemed to judge that she could not lie in this situation, and in the end she confessed plainly what she had been through.
"My contractor—that is, Mary Tepes—went to the sea with several others. You knew that, yes?"
"Yeah. I knew."
Of course she did. A sketch protesting Why are you leaving just us behind?! had been the main event of yesterday's stream.
"The truth is, that was in order to fulfill the contract she made with me. A contract with a demon, after all. She couldn't very well not pay the price."
"And the contract was?"
"…To give me a feast for the eyes."
"What. Don't tell me you saw that view of paradise?! You cheap little—!"
"Excuse me—you already slept with her, so what are you saying?! That's my line!"
"……The conversation isn't going anywhere. Would you please calm down?"
Seeing them like this, Chiyo couldn't help a wry smile even as she held them back. Their natures really were alike.
"So? Keep talking. You went on the trip with them?"
"Ah—no. Not that. I was peeking from a little distance, in familiar form."
"I see. And that's all? Just that doesn't look like it would be much of a problem……."
"I-I wasn't satisfied with it, so after I materialized, I snuck in where Miss Hyakurenno was showering… and I nearly died."
"Well, yeah. That would kill you. Are you an idiot?"
"But…! Heaven was right there…!"
She did not explain what had happened in between, but it was not difficult to picture. Caught by Momomomo Chisa, or Ryuumai Fuu, or both, and beaten to the very edge of death.
"Mm. So… you came for faith, hoping to recover even a little faster."
"That's right. I checked, and yesterday's stream seemed to have had quite a number of viewers…"
She had tried to slip in for that, realized what Chiyo and Anri had gone and done, and come bursting out aghast—which had brought them to the present. Whatever else was unclear, an impulsive temperament was beyond doubt.
Only natural, I suppose?
The Shirase Hikari here was a demon born from the character of Shirase Hikari, the third-generation talent played by Osean Lee. Naturally she reflected only a portion of the real Anri's personality, and that portion was bound to show itself in a form considerably exaggerated for the sake of an entertaining stream.
"Anyway. Maybe I'll ask my sister about this part next time……."
"Your sister. You don't mean Professor Senjoji?"
"Yeah. When it comes to this sort of thing, she's the biggest expert among the people I know."
"I would say that sentence holds on a worldwide standard, not merely 'the people I know'…?"
Was it really all right to put it so lightly? Anri asked it back with a stiff face. From the moment one bore the name of one of the World's Seven Great Madmen, even the most conservative count meant there were at most six people above her.
"Anri-chan. I'm sorry, but could you go a little easy on her where the faith is concerned? Setting the rest aside, she's Hitomi-chan's familiar too, isn't she? I think we'd better help her recover as fast as we can."
"Nnngh… If Senjoji-san says so, well, I suppose there's no helping it."
"You wouldn't even listen to me……. It's the sex-bond, isn't it? It is the sex-bond!"
Anri sighed and nodded, and at that suddenly softened attitude Hikari jabbed a finger at her all over again. Confirming the reaction, Anri felt a strange little superiority, snorted at her, and said:
"This reply is invisible to forever-alone virgins."
"You…?!"
Of course, if it came to a real fight of raking at each other's insides, there was no world in which Anri lost. Whatever form her streaming took in the future, she would not be broadcasting with a web forum left open, waging keyboard wars. However freely Anathema Production liked to let its talents run, they would certainly kill that pitch. Which meant that Shirase Hikari, as a character, was bound to be clumsier than the original at keyboard battles and forum-crawling—and if their natures were similar, it was easy to predict exactly where to press in order to get a violent reaction back.
"L-let me in on it too!"
Hikari took one step closer as she said it. Anri drew the Chiyo beside her into a light embrace, as if to keep her, and glared.
"And just where do you think you're coming?"
"A-Anri-chan…?"
Chiyo's face warmed faintly pink at that approach, but Anri was too busy glaring at the 4D model to notice.
"Y-you have a harem fantasy too, don't you? Right now's your chance, you know?"
"Yeah. That's true."
"See?!"
"But more than that desire, I'd like your mood ruined. Why should I give up a one-sided advantage?"
Honestly, Anri did not like the Shirase Hikari standing here. Whether it came of a difference in how the character had been read, or of simple self-loathing, even she could not quite say; either way, it was strangely unpleasant. So there was no chance she would throw away a card that let her take the high ground and mock the other one-sidedly. Someone else might wonder what sort of advantage that even was, but to people like Anri, one experience and zero experiences were a very great difference.
"Well. If you admit you're nothing but my knockoff, and then get on your knees and beg…"
"If I beg, you'll let me?!"
"No. I won't."
"Oh, for—…!"
Anri let out a soft, scornful little laugh at the blue-haired girl lunging in, convinced she had seen an opening. Had she herself been in that position, she would have knelt without much hesitation at all. If the price of a night with two beauties—a little embarrassing to say of herself, but Anri had considerable confidence in her own looks—was to get down on her knees, then she, too, would have acted without a moment's pause.
"Kuh—just you wait!"
"People who say 'just you wait' aren't scary. Anyway, bye-bye──."
An odd woman had come barging in and fouled her mood, but after shaking her down this thoroughly, Anri felt a little better. She smiled brightly and waved at Hikari, who flapped her wings and flew out the window.
Chiyo, still half-gathered in those arms and gone the full red of a ripe persimmon, murmured in a voice shrinking down to nothing.
"Um… Anri-chan…? Could you, uh, let go now…?"
"Ah…? Aaah?! I'm sorry?! I forgot!"
Only then remembering that she had been holding her, Anri startled as well and quickly put distance between them.
The awkwardness, which had seemed for a moment to loosen while they dealt with the angel who had burst in out of nowhere, filled the room all over again. It was the sort of disaster that came of glass cannons—creatures meant to trade attack and injury, to give and to take—simply crashing into each other at point-blank range. The delicate air would not be leaving for some while yet.
All the two of them could do was pray that, on stream at least, this strange current would not show.