The Difference Between the Bizarre and the Uninvited Guest
The difference between the bizarre and the uninvited guest. How does one safely assimilate? How does one completely slip free of suspicion? Where is the perfect blind spot, safe from the countless eyes of surveillance spread across every corner of Japan? What is the answer?
Hiding your appearance is the worst option. Disguising yourself is merely adequate.
Jinseong decided to exploit a peculiarity of the Japanese people.
Even in the modern age, Japan remained a country where the remnants of a rigid class system lingered. A clear, nearly insurmountable wall of social strata. This was the hallmark of nations that had never fully embraced democracy—Britain and Japan stood as prime examples. Britain maintained its layers through the invisible barrier of elite education, while Japan used surnames to define ceilings of power and status. A striking case was politics itself. In a so-called democratic society, Japanese politicians routinely passed their seats down through bloodlines. Their family names and the regional influence they had cultivated over generations made people accept that power was their birthright.
On top of that, Japanese culture had long normalized submission to the strong. People bowed instinctively to those who appeared powerful, viewing it as natural to become both the foundation and the pillar that supported such authority.
Truly a bizarre nation.
Once a class structure hardened, it endured regardless of shifts in raw power. Just as the warrior class could never easily challenge the imperial court or the emperor’s divine authority no matter how many soldiers they gathered, a deeply entrenched hierarchy became its own form of power—an intangible force. In the modern era the old class system had officially dissolved, the emperor had been reduced from a living god to a mere man, and the supernatural abilities that once reinforced these divisions had been released into the information age. Yet the invisible hierarchy remained.
A restaurateur’s child was expected to inherit the restaurant. A martial artist must pass down and refine their family’s techniques. An artisan had to transmit their craft to a successor. The succession of family trades—ka-gyo. The powerful had used the noble concept of “family business” to block ordinary people from rising, wrapping their control in pretty phrases like “the artisan spirit” to keep the ignorant firmly in their place as tools. This illusion had seeped effortlessly into the Japanese psyche until it became common sense.
Politicians naturally bequeathed their districts to their children. That was common sense. Professors passed their posts to their offspring. That was common sense. To succeed in life, one’s very bloodline had to be exceptional. That, too, was common sense.
And so the class system had quietly solidified, and the Japanese people had accepted it.
This was the power of class that Jinseong intended to use. To crush doubt with authority. To prevent questions from ever arising through sheer status. How convenient. Hiding or disguising oneself required constant personal effort to avoid detection. But once you possessed power, others would exert that effort for you. It went beyond freedom of movement—it altered your very mindset.
One question remained. How exactly did one obtain that power of class?
If you win their hearts, everything resolves itself.
Only the heart. The heart alone held the answer. When you asked with sincerity and shared your heart with others, what could possibly remain impossible?
"ॐ-"
The shrine was quiet. Yet this silence was utterly different from that of a Buddhist temple. It carried a gentle comfort, as though one were melting into the warm embrace of the divine. The stillness somehow stirred faint memories of a fetus floating in amniotic fluid; even birds that landed here refrained from crying out carelessly. Worshippers who came to pray were compelled to offer their respects in silence before leaving, subdued by an invisible pressure.
To Lise, however, this silence had grown unbearably tiresome.
“Haah…”
Saigo Lise was sick of everything. The empty shrine. The absurdly long staircase that drained her strength with every trip up and down. Her father, who nagged her endlessly about continuing the family tradition. And even the shrine maiden robes she wore.
She sighed, set her belongings down, and sat on the steps.
It feels like a collar around my neck.
Her life had been laid on rails from the moment she was born. Born into a shrine, trained as a maiden, destined to serve its god for the rest of her days. If she could at least become a priest it might have been bearable, but that path was closed to her. A maiden could not become a priest. That role would inevitably go to some unknown son-in-law brought in from outside—faceless, nameless, chosen for political convenience.
I’m so tired of this…
Even knowing that her position as a shrine maiden made her life unbearably dull, she could not easily cast it aside. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say she could not. The collar certainly choked her, but the name tag attached to it also served as a shield that protected her from external pressures. The fine clothes she wore, the good food she ate—all of it came from the shrine’s wealth. The respect she received locally came from the shrine’s prestige. The courteous treatment she enjoyed anywhere in Japan stemmed from the fact that she was the maiden of a well-known shrine.
If she threw that away, what would be left?
She was not intelligent like Airi, who had advanced to Waseda University. She lacked Mahiro’s talent that might have carried her into the entertainment industry. She possessed none of Shiori’s gift for martial arts, nor Rena’s aptitude for magic that had allowed her to study abroad. Nothing. The only things that made her special were that she was the daughter of a shrine and a maiden who served its god. Strip those away, and she would be no different from the countless ordinary citizens scattered across the country—perhaps even less.
I just wanted to rebel at least once…
That was why she had longed for a single memorable moment in a life whose tracks had been laid out for her from birth. She could not engage in casual romance—her purity had to be preserved—but she had wanted at least the sweet, innocent love one read about in books or saw in dramas.
If only that thug hadn’t appeared…
Even that small wish had been shattered from the start. While dressed in her prettiest clothes and mustering her courage to visit the city, she had been accosted by a violent rogue. The man, who appeared to be a martial artist, had tried to lure her with coercive and aggressive tactics, attempting to lead her to a hotel. Even when she refused, he persisted with stalker-like persistence. His pursuit grew increasingly violent as evening fell and the time came for her to return to the shrine.
In the end she had no choice but to reveal her divine power and identity. Not only had the martial artist been unrelenting, but as darkness gathered he had grown steadily more aggressive. She had genuinely feared she might suffer serious harm if she remained silent.
She had only meant to reveal her identity to make him withdraw quietly, but the man had proven far more foolish than she anticipated. He had failed to sense the divine energy she emitted and dismissed her claim as a lie meant to drive him away. Left with no other option, she had called for help from those around her.
Her father, of course, had flown into a towering rage. He lodged a fierce protest with the man’s dojo—the Yatao Garo Style—and demanded punishment. Thanks to his dual status as a respected local figure and the head of an ancient shrine, revenge was carried out swiftly. The martial artist who had troubled Lise was essentially exiled, dispatched to Korea on assignment.
Yet after that incident, any hope of rebellion was crushed. Whenever she went out, escorts followed. Attempts to experience the things she saw in dramas were blocked on the grounds that they would damage her dignity. Only through sheer stubbornness had she managed to keep her hobbies of watching dramas and films. That was all.
“Huu…”
She rose to her feet, once again feeling the suffocating weight of the collar that bound her. A collar she could not remove. Perhaps one she would wear for the rest of her life—
“No.”
She shook her head fiercely, casting off the darkening thoughts. Then she began climbing the tall staircase once more. Thanks to her earlier rest, the ascent was not as exhausting. She passed beneath the red torii gate.
The moment she crossed the boundary separating the mundane world from the sacred ground, the gentle divine energy that usually welcomed her and invigorated her spirit…
“Eh?”
…did not appear.
The energy that should have flowed around her like a warm greeting, the power that always lifted her vitality upon crossing the torii, was nowhere to be felt.
Is the god sleeping?
Puzzled, Lise walked along the sando toward the main shrine as usual. She intended to offer the village’s tribute upon the shintai.
“Excuse me. Are you the shrine maiden?”
There, she encountered a strange man.
“Yes?”
He was quite tall—nearly a full head taller than her. Despite his height, his frame was slender, and his well-tailored suit clung to him so naturally it seemed like a second skin. For some reason, Lise thought he resembled a rabbit.
“The priest instructed me to tell you not to allow anyone inside. I’ve been waiting here to relay that message. In the meantime, he asked if you could organize the ema in the divine storehouse.”
The rabbit-like man spoke to her with perfect courtesy.
Is Father performing a ritual?
Lise did not doubt his words. It was not uncommon for her father to enter seclusion and perform calming rites when someone had angered the god. The odd absence of divine energy after she passed the torii now made sense—if the god was upset or sulking, that would explain it.
“I understand. Did you wait here the entire time just to deliver that message?”
“Yes. Ah, please don’t worry. It hasn’t been long.”
“Still, I feel terrible for making you waste your time…”
“Not at all. I am simply honored to have been of even the slightest service to the shrine.”
Lise felt a flicker of interest in the man. Perhaps it stemmed from her longing for deviation—something about him seemed different from the people she saw every day. Especially his rabbit-like features, which gave the impression that even a small act of rebellion in his company would not lead to disaster.
That was probably why she noticed the wrongness so late.
The man’s features. The harmless rabbit-like face. The excessively courteous demeanor. The atmosphere that screamed safety so loudly it felt unnatural. All of it had dulled her judgment.
“The divine storehouse?”
Only after she had turned her back to him and taken several steps did the strangeness finally register. Lise slowly turned around to look at the man.
He remained standing exactly where he had been, still wearing that innocent expression, watching her. She asked him again.
“What exactly did the priest say?”
“He asked you to organize the ema in the divine storehouse.”
Lise’s father was an extremely strict man. At the same time, he was the very model of a proper priest and believed more than anyone that names carry power. Because of this, she had never been allowed even to use nicknames for her friends. Would such a man really refer to the building as the “divine storehouse” and casually speak of organizing ema?
“…Our shrine keeps the ema in the ema hall, you know?”
“Oh, is that so? I was simply repeating what I heard…”
The man scratched his head with an artlessly innocent look. But Lise was no longer fooled.
“Father would never speak that way.”
A man who despised careless naming would never refer to a shrine building by the wrong term. Lise took a cautious step backward, gathering her divine power. Yet the energy refused to respond, as though something were blocking it. Greatly alarmed, she glanced rapidly between the main shrine and the man.
“Why? What seems to be malfunctioning?”
In Lise’s eyes the man still resembled a rabbit. But now… he no longer looked harmless.