Destroy This Temple (4)
Han Seoyeon, back from the church, did not look particularly at ease. Even at a glance her manner said things had not gone well, and so Hitomi offered comfort first, though she didn't know the precise circumstances.
Even so, Seoyeon's expression hardly improved. She only burrowed into Hitomi's arms the way a child does when it wants to be spoiled, and buried her face against her chest.
This side of Shion is cute too, but...!
It wasn't a side of her that showed itself often. There were times she wanted Hitomi's body, certainly, but never anything so nakedly deserving of the word spoiled as this. Perhaps because the moment was so unusual, a maternal tenderness began to seethe up from deep inside Hitomi — fierce enough that she felt the impulse to offer her breast and let her nurse.
Of course, it wasn't hard to tell that this was not that sort of moment. So instead she patted Seoyeon's back, light and soothing, and spoke in a gentle voice.
"Thank you, Shion."
"...Thank me? For what?"
"But it's because of me, isn't it?"
Seoyeon's eyes went round, as if to ask what on earth she meant. Hitomi only smiled at her, soft and knowing.
"If this were something personal that hadn't gone your way — something that only concerned you — you wouldn't be reacting like this with me, would you? You'd put on a brave face somehow, just so I wouldn't worry over nothing."
But Seoyeon hadn't. She had laid the failure bare. She hadn't said so outright, and yet she must have known that if she carried herself this way, Hitomi would notice. If she was letting it show anyway, then the thing that had gone wrong was surely about Hitomi. That was why she looked so sorry.
"Now that I've said all that, I'd be embarrassed if it turned out I was just being self-important... I'm not, am I?"
"No... You're right."
At Hitomi's shy little smile, Seoyeon gave a small nod. Then, carefully, she told her what had happened that day — why she had gone to the church in the first place, and how it had all turned out.
"That thing, back then. Was it necessary?"
"At least those two seemed to think so."
Perhaps she simply didn't want to say, in her own mouth, that the thing that had attacked Hitomi had actually been necessary. But if those two were Abraham, the Great Prophet, and Elif Yazıcı, once a part of the Seven Sisters, then it was no longer a matter of subjective judgment.
It was an objective analysis — the sort of thing a hundred people out of a hundred would have nodded at and accepted.
"Then... maybe you don't need to worry about it so much?"
Hitomi gave a bitter smile, thought for a moment, and went on.
"It was necessary for the Church, and there were safeguards so no harm would come to me, right? Even I would refuse if someone told me to lay down my life for the order of the world, but..."
In the end, only a few houses had been wrecked, and not a single scratch had been left on her body. From what she'd heard, even if Hitomi had failed to respond properly, nothing truly dangerous would have come of it — so couldn't they simply let a thing already past stay past?
It was the reasonable view, granted, but not the sort of thing that comes easily from a victim's mouth. That she could say it at all was why so many people loved Hitomi, and why Seoyeon herself had fallen for her.
Even so, Seoyeon could not answer her with easy reassurance.
"But that night, Hitomi, you trembled the whole time you slept. You were soaked in cold sweat."
"..."
Her body had not been hurt at all. Her body, that is.
There had been safeguards, but Hitomi hadn't known that at the time. Of course she would have believed that, in the worst case, she might die. The fear she had felt in that moment was unmistakably real. One could say it had ended before she was injured, but that did not mean Hitomi had been fine. The nightmares had been frightening enough to show.
Even after Seoyeon soothed her and prayed, she had barely improved. Only once they hurriedly summoned a demon and buried the dream itself did Hitomi's face grow peaceful again.
"I know it's absurd of me. I've served as the Church's hands and feet and watched any number of sacrifices, and yet the moment you're involved, this is how I react."
It was a double standard in its purest form — one rule for everyone else, another for herself — and Han Seoyeon knew it. But she could hardly bear it. Badly enough that she wanted to overturn every last person involved, right then and there.
If Legate Boanerges had not been there — if the prophet and the genius had not said with one voice that it had been absolutely necessary — she really would have done it. She understood, at least with her head, that if they had gone so far as to risk making an enemy of an Apostle, then it had been to prevent a crisis worse than the scale of any ordinary scenario.
And so Seoyeon could do nothing but hesitate like this. She was Ninomae Hitomi's wife, and at the same time an Apostle of the Roman Catholic Church.
Of course, if she ever had to choose between Hitomi and the Church, she would choose the former without fail. If the Church had to fall so that Hitomi could live, Seoyeon would bring it down with everything she had. But this time, the difference in the weights was simply too great.
Hitomi had been hurt. That was true. But hers was only a wound of the mind, and what sat on the other pan of the scale was chaos on the scale of the world.
Reason told her that no matter how much she loved Hitomi, this was the right course. Even if the choice had been left to Hitomi herself, she would surely have chosen the side where she suffered a little. She was that kind of person. And that was why Seoyeon couldn't find her footing, and only sat there at a loss.
"Couldn't you just overwrite the bad memories?"
"Miss Shirase Hikari?"
What poked its head down from the ceiling in that instant was an angel with hair the color of clear water.
Shirase Hikari. The demon in an angel's shape who, not long ago at the beach, had tried to steal a look at Hyakurenno Yuri's naked body and come within a breath of being annihilated.
"So you were on Earth."
"Ah, well, I'm in the middle of stocking up on faith, one way and another..."
"Ahaha... so that still hasn't fully healed, I see."
To be fair, those two had once been regarded as the greatest fighting power in Japan. Retirement had blunted them, and their injuries had left them weaker, but even so, a single demon was plainly overwhelming force. Had Hitomi and Yuri not stopped them, it would have been no surprise if she had been erased on the spot.
"So. What exactly did you mean just now?"
Seoyeon put the question to her.
"What I mean is — Riddikulus!"
"...?"
Hikari cleared her throat with a little ahem, then suddenly jabbed a finger and shouted it. Seoyeon could only stare, utterly at a loss.
"Oh — Harry Potter, right? The spell for dealing with boggarts, if I remember."
Hitomi, by contrast, seemed to have caught the reference. She clapped her hands together as she said it.
"What's a boggart?"
"It's a magical creature from the novels. It can transform into whatever the person nearby fears most. The spell you use against it is exactly what Miss Shirase just said."
"A spell? What happens if you recite it?"
"A ridiculous image gets laid over the fear. A giant spider turns into a spider slipping around on roller skates, that sort of thing."
Only then did Seoyeon roughly catch what Hikari was getting at, and she nodded.
"Of course, by itself that might not be enough. Personally, I don't think overcoming fear with humor alone is an easy thing."
Hikari said as much.
"Then what are you proposing?"
"You'd have to use an emotion much stronger than humor."
Stop circling and get to the point. Seoyeon looked at her with that meaning plain in her eyes.
At that, Hikari grinned, formed a ring with the fingers of one hand, and pushed a finger of the other straight through it.
"..."
"..."
Seoyeon was too appalled to find her voice, and Hitomi's face flushed a brilliant red.
"These days you don't find many people who are actually afraid of the eight-foot ghost — that towering specter from the old stories. The image of a tall, beautiful older sister has been pasted over it too thoroughly."
Hearing it put that way, though, Seoyeon had to admit the theory wasn't entirely wrong. That, certainly, would be a powerful image.
"So! The Apostle over there plays the intruder, corners the Contractor, and then — forcefully, onto the bed!"
"...You just want to watch that yourself, don't you?"
And Han Seoyeon saw straight through to the truth.
She could not have been the only one doubting whether a method like that would even work. Hikari herself clearly had no real confidence; she was simply steering them toward a scenario she wanted to see. And what if recreating the assault only backfired? Seoyeon was about to tell her to drop the nonsense.
"...Hitomi?"
She would have, if Hitomi, beside her, hadn't quietly tugged at the hem of her clothes.
Seoyeon turned toward her in puzzlement, and Hitomi — face still blazing red, eyes darting everywhere but at her — spoke.
"Th-that's separate from whether it would work or not... I kind of want to try that sort of play too, so, um, ah... would that not be okay...?"
"..."
Seoyeon swallowed.
"Shion."
"...Yes. Hitomi."
"I know it's a little late to bring up something that's already over, but that 'KWAANG' really wasn't it, was it?"
"D-don't laugh, please...!"