The Two Olive Trees and the Two Lampstands (3)
"A karaoke room... it's been a while."
Bansei Marin murmured it as she opened the door and stepped inside.
Hearing that, Ninomae tilted her head.
"You were an idol. I thought you'd have come to places like this all the time."
"Oh, come now. That's ancient history. It's already been more than ten years."
Bansei had been the leader of the girl group Vice Versa, VV for short, and that was part of why Ninomae had gone out of her way to pick karaoke from among so many options.
"What's a woman my age doing in a karaoke room?"
Bansei waved the idea off, insisting she wasn't used to it in the slightest, and gave a wry smile, as if to say it was strange for someone her age to frequent a place like this at all.
"Even so, you do sing quite often, don't you?"
"Well. That much is true."
The singing streams of Komori Sae, the persona she played, did make up a fairly high share of her broadcasts. Set beside her gen-mate Tsubasa, who kept her talent locked away no matter how the viewers begged and sang only when the mood took her, Sae was the type to show her voice off without holding anything back.
"Sae's singing is very much to my taste, actually."
"It's sweet of you to say so."
Bansei answered with a bright smile. Whether it was sincere or mere lip service, it was pleasant to hear.
"Is there anything you'd like to order?"
"Mm, not really... I'm watching what I eat, in my own way."
"I've started putting on a little extra lately, you see."
Bansei added it with an awkward smile.
"I wasn't like this when I was still active. Maybe it's the age. Eat even a little, and it sticks right away..."
"Ah! I understand completely. If I let my guard down for even a moment, it grabs onto my sides."
The two of them let the topic bloom between them for a little while, as if they truly understood one another. In truth, any third party listening in would have been aghast and told them to drop the act, given the figures they had. Still, whatever anyone else might think, it was a genuine worry to the two of them, and they were soon entirely of one mind.
...That they had lately taken to managing their weight with magic, of all things, remained a secret.
At any rate, once she had ordered from the drink bar over the intercom, Ninomae picked up the karaoke remote.
"Do you come to places like this often, Ninomae-chan?"
"It's been a long time for me too. My first time since middle school..."
From high school on, Ninomae had gone it alone, until she met Sister. Until she met Han Seoyeon.
"And with Sister?"
"Not with her, either."
Surprisingly, she had no memory of ever going to karaoke with Han Seoyeon. It wasn't an atmosphere Seoyeon seemed likely to enjoy, and Ninomae's own repertoire leaned so heavily into subculture that she had never been the one to suggest it first.
"Ah. There it is."
Even as she spoke, Ninomae found the song she had been searching for and murmured under her breath. It was the opening of a popular anime that had aired early that year, sung by a fairly well-known band. A bright electronic swing began to spill through the speakers.
"Anyway, since we're here, let's enjoy ourselves to the fullest!"
Ninomae smiled and took up the microphone.
In her VV days, leader Bansei Marin had been a considerable talent. It was not something one could dismiss as a story from more than ten years ago. Even now, Komori Sae was spoken of as a singer of real ability, and Bansei set out to prove that reputation, displaying her skill without restraint.
She sang in Bansei Marin's voice, and she sang in Komori Sae's voice. The showstopper was when she alternated between the two and carried a duet entirely by herself.
Everyone, of course, has a tone that sits comfortably for singing. Ninomae could sing in Mary's voice, but being able to and singing well were two different things. For her, the easiest place lay somewhere between her natural tone and the Mary voice she used on stream. Plenty of people sounded different when they sang than they did in ordinary speech, so on her broadcasts she used that in-between voice for the time being.
Bansei, by contrast, sang in precisely the tone she used on her regular streams. Holding a loli voice quite removed from her original one while she sang could not have been easy, and as a fellow broadcaster who knew exactly how hard that was, Ninomae had no choice but to be impressed.
"For the last one... shall we go with this, after all?"
Little time remained. Unless the track was unusually short, this would be the end of it.
"...I'm a little nervous, singing it in front of the original artist."
The name glowing on the screen read Vice Versa. In other words, it was Bansei's song.
"You'll sing it with me, won't you?"
"Of course."
Bansei answered with a smile.
There had been discord among the members, and that discord had carried them all the way to disbandment, but the good things of those days had not faded with it. Idol life had been hard, and the role of leader harder still, and yet singing on stage had been nothing but joy. She was comfortable enough where money was concerned. The reason she had started streaming anyway was nothing else: she had accepted a chance offer from the president of Anathema Production, met by accident, because a past more than ten years gone had not kept her from being utterly taken in by a pitch that billed them as virtual idols.
Seen that way, the songs of that time had remained memories after all.
Bansei drew one deep breath and lifted the microphone, so that even this last song of the day might be kept as a happy memory.
The twenty-first century might be steering toward a multicultural, global-village society, but unless one went looking for foreign media, hearing a foreign language in the course of ordinary life was no simple thing. The odds of hearing Italian in a secluded back alley in Japan would, needless to say, be vanishingly small.
"Seoyeon. Have you been well?"
Han Seoyeon had just finished unloading a bag the size of a guitar case from the truck. At the deep, weighty Italian from behind her, she turned her head.
"Master."
A Western man in a cassock stood there. Cardinal Marchisio, or Apostle Saint Thomas. His secular name was Giacomo Marchisio, and his true name, his baptismal name, was Bonaventura. The Crusher. Giacomo of the Eucharist. He Who Fell in the Wilderness. Franz Haber II. Boanerges. And, as certain Holy Knights put it with a joke folded in, the one among Han Seoyeon's masters who did not shoot beams from his eyes.
The man known by all those names lightly resettled his brimmed hat and looked at Han Seoyeon.
"It's been a long time. Have you been well yourself, Master?"
"Of course. Aside from my knees starting to ache whenever it rains these days. Must be the age, I suppose."
Giacomo offered it as a joke and smiled warmly.
"Ah, and now that I think of it, there was one more thing that makes it hard to say I've been well."
He spoke again, as if it had only just occurred to him.
"There was the matter of nearly taking an anti-tank weapon from a disciple I'd missed."
"...I did hide it. For what that was worth."
Han Seoyeon planted herself so as to stand between the bag on the ground and Giacomo.
"A rocket launcher, in Japan... that couldn't have been easy to come by. Did you arrange a connection with the military?"
"Who can say."
While the two of them spoke, a man in a padded jacket came down the alley, picked up the bag as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and disappeared off somewhere.
"If I followed that man, would I find my answer, Seoyeon?"
"Well. Probably, yes."
The faces they turned on each other were calm. Just as Giacomo had prepared himself to kill Han Seoyeon should it come to that, Han Seoyeon had prepared the same, and both of them knew it, and still they met one another smiling.
"I'm weak, you see. Without borrowing the strength of modern arms like these, I'd be in a difficult position. A handicap, you might call it?"
"It's because you go around talking like that that they hung the name Shameless Margarita on you..."
Ask whether the person called Han Seoyeon was overwhelmingly strong, and one could only tilt one's head. What filled that lack was her creed.
For a Holy Knight to be recognized as a Gravekeeper, they were required to set forth a motto, akin to the episcopal mottoes borne by certain clergy: a maxim as a Christian, and as a Holy Knight. Unlike ordinary priests, however, Holy Knights who took force of arms as their virtue were often without any gift for letters, and so it was not uncommon for a Holy Knight's motto of office to be made not by the knight, but by someone else, who took words they had once spoken and dressed them up.
Han Seoyeon's motto had been one such case.
Giacomo had been the one to do that dressing-up, and so he remembered the day with perfect clarity. Asked what her maxim was as a Holy Knight, Han Seoyeon had answered without the slightest hesitation.
The next day, Han Seoyeon summoned a demon.
Giacomo also recalled that the person who ranked first in personal purchases of consecrated grenades out of Antioch was none other than Han Seoyeon, and he looked away. Honestly, she was his own disciple, but win or lose, she was not someone he wanted to fight. All the more so because, even in the midst of this, the truly frightening part lay somewhere else entirely.
"I'll apologize for this much, Seoyeon. The mission was drawn up with killing you and your friend in mind."
"No. I understand."
The Church paid very close attention to the personal ties of its Apostles. There was even a saying, only half in jest, that went so far as this.
Better to drive a fist into an Apostle's own face than to lay a hand on someone precious to them.
The latter ends with you smashed flat in the counterblow. The former sets Scenario I in motion.
"And it's all right. I was certain it would pass without any real trouble."
"But there was a chance, however slim, that it wouldn't have?"
"Impossible. The Lord I believe in does not do such things."
Han Seoyeon answered with a faint smile. Her eyes, however, were not smiling.
"Even so. What if He had?"
Giacomo held the corners of his mouth stiff, and asked all the same.
No hesitation. Was there anyone else the words a madwoman with clear eyes suited so completely? Giacomo pressed a hand to his brow.
If there were a god who would let Ninomae Hitomi die, would it not be better for that god to die instead? She carried a deep faith, and she said it as if it were nothing at all. Well. More than half of those called Apostles held ideologies warped in just this way. Han Seoyeon was hardly exceptional among them.
"...You really do take after Han."
"I can't shoot beams from my eyes, though."
That was not what he had meant. At the unexpected reply, Giacomo broke into a rumbling laugh.
"I'll be on my way. I'll likely stay in Japan for a few days."
"Has something come up?"
"Nothing of the sort. Just sightseeing. A matter on the Romanian side was only just settled, so I've a bit of room to breathe."
A sort of vacation, one might say. He added it with a smile and turned. Han Seoyeon climbed back into the truck.
"If the chance comes, I'll see you again, Seoyeon."
"Take care, Master."
The farewell ended there. Han Seoyeon drove the truck toward the church, to return the one she had borrowed. The engine rattled on down the road.
Unexpected meetings, however, seemed to have no intention of ending with Giacomo Marchisio alone.
"Oh. Ninomae?"
"Shion?"
Passing a bus stop, her eyes happened to meet Ninomae's some distance off. She must have just parted from Bansei and been waiting for the bus home.
"Are you heading back?"
"Yes. Just this moment."
"Get in, then. It's a rental, so we'll have to walk from the church, but it's close to home. It should be fine."
Han Seoyeon settled Ninomae, who had come over at a quick trot, into the passenger seat. The truck's door sat a little high, and Ninomae hauled herself up with a small heave of effort.
"...Hm?"
She had been watching that climb with a faint smile when, all at once, Han Seoyeon blinked.
"Eek—?! Sh-Shion?!"
A heartbeat later she leaned in toward Ninomae, and the sudden closeness made Ninomae start. A face all but buried against the nape of her neck left no room not to be flustered, and by the time Seoyeon began to sniff, Ninomae's ears had gone hot.
"Mmm..."
But when Seoyeon drew back a moment later, a thoroughly ambiguous look had come over her face. Or was it bewilderment? It was uncertain enough that even Ninomae, who had thought she knew her well, could not be sure.
"I really may have to suspect a demon has latched onto Anathema Production..."
"Pardon?"
"No. It's only something on my end, so you needn't concern yourself. Let's head back for now."