How to Fasten the Leash
That night.
A voice rang through the silent room.
The Saintess dropped to her knees at once.
"Yes, Lord Lumiel."
Silence held for a moment.
And then the god spoke.
The Saintess's eyes widened, just a fraction.
"No."
The answer came without a heartbeat of hesitation.
"She is a very fine blade."
Elena gave it without lifting her head.
The god's voice dropped a little.
Elena's eyelids stirred, ever so slightly.
"That may be so."
Elena smiled, slow.
"Then I need only tame her."
"I know."
"Yes."
Elena laughed, light as breath.
"She listens well. And when she must, she bows her head more meekly than anyone."
"No."
Elena considered it for a moment.
"If one means to handle pride, I do not think it should be crushed down by force."
"It should be enough to let her believe she is moving of her own will."
A short silence.
"The choices, of course, will be ones I make."
Let her believe she was choosing freely — and never learn whose hand had set the choices down.
The god laughed, low.
A moment passed.
"Then I'll make it real."
The room went quiet.
"Yes."
The other six were already beginning, little by little, to believe in the god. Follow the Saintess, and you received what you wanted. Pray, and power and reward came back in truth.
They knew the strength inside them was a demon's power, and still they were not afraid. They did not know it by the name of sin, and so they accepted it instead as a gift the god had singled out and granted them.
Only Altiera was different.
She allowed that a god might exist. She did not deny what divine power was good for. When the moment required it, she could bow her head more neatly than anyone and play the faithful believer to perfection.
That was all.
The god's voice sank lower still.
"……"
"……"
Elena did not deny it.
To Altiera, divine power and a demon's power came to the same thing in the end: power she could use. If it was useful, she used it. Nothing more, and nothing less.
"I will make her pray."
"Because she is told to."
Elena folded her hands neatly together.
"I will make her pray in order to use her own power as well."
"There is no need to command her to believe."
"It is enough to make the words leave her mouth."
"Not at first."
At first it would be to survive. Because she needed power. She would begin without so much as a handful of piety.
But.
"Ten times."
The same words, taken into the mouth.
"A hundred times."
And each time, grace would actually descend.
"A thousand times."
Repeated until it became a part of living.
"Someday, will a prayer that lived only on the lips not reach the heart as well?"
Elena did not hesitate for even a moment.
"Then she need only continue until it does."
"If a thousand times is not enough, then ten thousand."
A quiet smile spread across her face.
"Words have power. And so long as that child lives, there will be opportunity enough."
For a while there was no answer.
At last the god's voice came.
"Yes."
Elena blinked once. Then she quietly bowed her head.
"It is not pride."
"I have only said that what I am able to do, I am able to do."
Silence again. A long while later.
Elena did not answer.
"I will think about it when that day comes."
Elena's smile brightened.
"Thank you, Lord Lumiel."
The next day.
When training ended, Pierre called the seven of us back just as we were about to scatter.
On the floor of the training ground a magic circle had been drawn, gold patterns threaded through lines of blue mana.
"What is this?"
"A Holy Imprint."
Pierre said it as if it hardly mattered.
"Stabilizes a demon's power. Makes it stronger."
I looked down at the circle.
"You're strengthening a demon's power with divine power?"
"Asked the same thing, first time."
Pierre scratched his jaw.
"It works, so we do it."
That, apparently, was enough. Iresia was the first to step onto the circle.
"We get stronger, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then hurry up."
It must have been nice, being that simple.
Starting with Iresia, the others took the imprint in turn.
I was last.
"Get up there."
"This isn't something strange, is it?"
"What am I gonna do to you?"
"That is not reassuring."
I stepped onto the circle anyway.
Pierre reached out, and the gold pattern rose from beneath my feet.
—Vmmm.
A warm current swept through my body. Then a corner of my chest stung.
"……It hurts."
"Imprint's settling in."
"Did the others get this too?"
"Close enough."
Pierre was perfectly calm. There was no way to tell whether he was lying.
I stepped down off the circle.
Once the imprints were finished, Pierre handed each of us a sheet of paper.
Iresia held hers upside down.
"What's this?"
"A prayer."
"Don't want it."
"Recite it when you use your power and you get stronger. So they say."
Iresia's eyes changed at once.
"How much?"
"Try it and find out."
"You should've said that first!"
Where had the girl who'd hated it a moment ago gone?
Iresia turned the paper right side up at once. She stumbled through the prayer a few times, then took up her greatsword.
—Fwoosh!
Red energy wrapped the blade. It was plainly denser than before.
"Oh."
Iresia's eyes lit.
"I really did get stronger."
"Told you."
She looked extremely satisfied.
I glanced over the prayer I'd been given, and folded it in half.
"I won't be doing it."
Pierre's eyebrow twitched.
"Why."
"Why would I?"
"Because you'll get stronger."
"I'm sufficient as I am."
"……"
"I have enough to do just fighting. Must I recite a prayer on top of that?"
Pierre looked at me for a moment.
"You manage just fine the rest of the time."
"That is not the same."
Ordinary prayer was not difficult. You bowed your head at the appointed hour. You recited the set words at service. If you meant to live inside the Church, you needed that much acting.
Combat was different. This was my life on the line — the moment I fought with my own power. I had no wish to borrow that god's name on top of it.
A small stubbornness. Even so.
I don't have to concede this, too.
At least in the moment I used my power, I wanted it to be mine.
Pierre watched me a while longer, then shrugged.
"Suit yourself."
He gave in more easily than I expected.
I folded the prayer into my pocket and picked up the long gun.
"The hell are you doing?"
"You said I'd gotten stronger."
"Prayer's the condition."
"I beg your pardon?"
I was not going to read the prayer.
Surely not.
I shouldered the gun, sighted the target, and declared it the way I always did.
"Stronger."
……
Nothing happened.
"……?"
The blue pattern that should have spread along the barrel did not rise at all.
I lowered the long gun slowly. Just in case, I opened the King's Domain.
Focus. Draw the power up from under my feet.
……
Nothing came this time either. Not even a speck of blue light.
The imprint had not strengthened anything. The demon's power itself had been shut.
I turned my head, slowly.
Pierre's eyes slid off to the side.
"Instructor."
"What."
"Look at me."
"I am looking."
"At my eyes."
"……"
He still wouldn't.
"What did you do to me?"
"Strengthened you."
"Then why won't the ability come out?"
"The prayer?"
"I didn't say it."
"Then say it."
"I refuse."
"Then it keeps not working."
"……"
Ah.
This bastard was in on it too.
The others used their power perfectly well without the prayer. Only I could not.
I set the long gun down without a word.
"Where you going?"
"To see the Saintess."
"……"
Pierre didn't answer. That was answer enough.
I went straight to her.
The Saintess was drinking tea at her leisure.
"Saintess."
"Yes?"
"What did you do to my body?"
She set the teacup down.
"Your ability won't come out?"
"Do not pretend you don't know."
"Have you tried praying?"
Of course.
"Did you arrange it so I cannot use my ability unless I pray?"
The Saintess looked at me for a moment. Then she smiled, soft as ever.
"Try it once."
"Answer me first."
"Pray, and you'll know at once."
"You laid a shackle on my body as you pleased, and this is what you have to say?"
"A shackle?"
She tipped her head, just slightly.
"It's a strengthening."
"If I don't pray, the ability does not come out."
"If you pray, you'll only grow stronger."
"……"
She was genuinely good with words. She hadn't answered a single thing I'd actually asked, and still she made every line of it sound as if none of it were false.
"Undo it."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible."
This time there wasn't even a hesitation.
"……"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
I was angry. Truly.
Pretending to pray in the ordinary way, I could do as much of that as anyone wanted. I already did, because living inside the Church required it.
This was different. She had put her hands on my body as she pleased. Refuse the thing I had refused, and I could not even use my own power. It was control, plain and unmistakable.
And one thing more. If she could hang something like this on me whenever she liked, then the promise of freedom in five years — whether that was kept or broken — was something that woman would decide, wasn't it?
"This was not in the contract."
"A battle nun has to be strong."
"……"
From the start, the Saintess wore the face of someone who believed she had already won. She knew I would have no choice but to pray in the end.
That was what infuriated me most.
……
Refuse the prayer, and throw the ability away. Then die in front of a demon. That isn't stubbornness. It's stupidity.
I knew it. I knew it far too well, and that only made me angrier.
The Saintess lifted her teacup again.
"Just try it."
"……"
"It may not be as unpleasant as you think."
I sincerely wanted to hit her.
The next day.
I stood on the training ground again. A long gun in one hand. The prayer in the other.
The Saintess stood behind me, looking thoroughly pleased.
I unfolded the paper. I prayed in the ordinary course of things; there was no reason a few lines should be hard to recite.
And yet my mouth refused to open, to a strange degree.
Ordinary prayer was an act. Bow your head when you needed to, recite the set words, and that was the end of it. This was not that. If I wanted to use my power, I had to do it — because of a rule that woman had written on her own. The difference rankled.
Even so, in the end I opened my mouth.
As my voice left me, golden lines rose in the empty air. One line. Then another. The further the prayer went, the more intricate sacred script and geometric patterns layered over one another and gathered around the long gun. It was as if some unseen hand had spread a blueprint on the air and begun assembling it, piece by piece.
As the verses continued, the gold seeped into the barrel and along the sights. It felt less mystical than unpleasant. Less as if I were praying, and more as if I were working some device by a procedure already decided.
The golden pattern completed itself around the long gun. The muzzle was already trained on the target — and beyond the target, farther still.
I drew the result I wanted in my mind. Farther. Stronger. More precise. My finger found the trigger.
Only the last word remained.
—Bang!
The shot cracked the air. In an instant the golden pattern was sucked into the muzzle, and over it a blue authority laid itself down. Gold and blue became a single trajectory and lanced straight.
It pierced the first target. It punched through the wall behind that as well.
And then—
—Boom!
It stopped only after boring a hole in the rock outside.
"……"
I looked down at the smoking muzzle. I hadn't said it. And yet it was exactly as I had pictured.
Pierre's mouth fell open. I couldn't find words either.
Only the Saintess smiled, wide.
"Just as I thought."
"……Just as you thought about what?"
"Altiera really is special."
A few more tests made it clear. When I used the prayer together with my power, the amplification was unusually greater than the others'. Nearly double. Sometimes more than that.
I had the least faith of anyone, and the greatest effect from prayer. Truly unreasonable.
I looked up at the sky.
……Are you mocking me?
There was no answer. Instead the Saintess's voice came from behind me.
"From now on, you mustn't skip the prayer."
"……Yes."
"Well done."
Something hot rose in my throat.
That day I learned one thing for certain. Even without faith, you can pray. If refusing might get you killed — all the more.
And so time passed. We trained, we were hurt, we prayed, and we trained again. We swung swords and fired guns, studied theology and magic, and learned how to wield a demon's power.
As the days went on, prayer became a natural thing for the other six. It had begun as a way to grow stronger, a way to earn rewards — perhaps simply because the Saintess liked it. But from some moment on, it had drawn close to genuine faith.
Not for me.
I must have recited it more than a thousand times. I knew that something calling itself a god truly existed; I had met it with my own eyes. But acknowledging that a thing exists and worshipping it are entirely different matters.
Still, I prayed. In training, and because I had no wish to die once real battle began. Each time I called on my power, it felt like giving one tug to the leash the Saintess had fastened on me. Even so, I had no intention of dying for no better reason than that I hated the leash.
And then, before I knew it, I was fifteen. Eight years had passed. Five remained.
It was the age this world counted as adulthood, and the day we became battle nuns in truth.
For the first time we stood side by side not in training clothes but in black habits, each of us holding the weapon eight years had made familiar.
"Unnie."
Golieta caught my sleeve.
I couldn't have said when it started. We were all the same age, and yet somewhere along the way I had been made the eldest. If someone made trouble, I stopped them. If someone was hurt, I hauled them to the infirmary. If something was needed, I was the one who ended up asking Pierre or the nuns. It seemed to have settled into place on its own.
Even Iresia, after the King's Domain had put her down hard, at least stopped claiming she stood above me. I had never particularly wanted the place.
"What."
"I'm hungry."
"Hold on a little."
"Do you think there'll be food inside?"
"We're going to see the Saintess, and that's your first thought?"
"Yeah."
Not one thing about her had changed.
That was when a pattern I had never seen caught my eye on Golieta's shoulder. The same mark was on mine.
Seven.
The number alone sat wrong with me.