005
Her wrap-up was so sudden that I thought for a moment I’d lost track of her story─but indeed, I had somewhat of a clue about this, having heard about it from Tadatsuru.
A snake’s immortality.
It seemed only right for another immortal being, a vampire, to take over that faith─I even recalled hearing the legend of Hydra, the sea snake, regenerating itself again and again no matter how many times the heroic Heracles sliced through it.
It all checked out.
But.
It was also true that I had no idea how much Shinobu getting treated like a god, contrary to her wishes, had to do with Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─or rather, I had seen the two as separate, standalone stories until I heard what Tadatsuru had to say.
Because that meant Shinobu had already visited this town before, four hundred years ago─I’d never heard about that.
Had I not?
Really?
Hadn’t I already heard that Shinobu’s first thrall─Seishiro Shishirui─called this place home back in August?
If this was his home, that meant Shinobu had visited this area as well when she came to Japan four hundred years ago.
Yet she herself had never said anything like that, as far as I knew─I turned to face Shinobu, who held me in her arms, and this voluptuous woman looked at me with an expression now devoid of any childish innocence and─
“??”
Tilted her head to the side.
…Don’t go tilting your head.
It just made her look stupid, like she still hadn’t gotten rid of all her childishness.
She now appeared to be an adult, and she should have grown on the inside as well, but it seemed that your basic personality isn’t that easy to change.
The child is mother of the woman, I suppose.
It might be especially true of her. She was capable of doing something as unbelievable as erasing her own memories (and still leaving them restorable), so it was possible for her not to remember any bad memories that she wished she could forget.
“By the way,” Miss Gaen said, as if to add something extra. “The meager and dwindling Shirohebi Shrine-turned-Kita-Shirahebi Shrine managed to continue until it died out about fifteen years ago─we already talked about this before, right? That he, Miss Shinobu’s first thrall…that his ashes managed to return home, eating up all the bad things that had gathered on the shrine’s premises, god and all─that is when its replacement snake god died. Absorbed and acting to help his return. This too was a factor in what happened next, though.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not that easy to swallow,” I gave Miss Gaen my honest thoughts.
Actually, I wasn’t confident that I knew what she was talking about─maybe I still didn’t know anything.
It’s not like I had any doubts.
If anything, it all seemed to line up.
It was just that the feeling of it all lining up was a restless, nauseous one─I felt repulsed, as though I was being made to dance in the palm of someone’s hand.
Ononoki had said the same thing to me, but even if I was in the palm of someone’s hand, whose palm was it? Miss Gaen’s? Or Ogi’s? Or someone else entirely?
“To guess at how you’re feeling, you’re looking at it the wrong way around. The way you see it, Heartunderblade having visited Japan and having come to the town you live in seems like too much of a coincidence to be true─but a neutral party like me sees this situation coming about as a plain old necessity because Heartunderblade had visited this place. Of course, we can’t even be certain about that, either.”
“…”
Had I heard that before as well?
Shinobu came to this town because she’d been summoned by the ashes of Seishiro Shishirui─which made it inevitable, and my meeting Shinobu here rather than someplace else was likewise inevitable.
The look of any town was bound to see a total change after four hundred years, so even if Shinobu wasn’t so incurious, it’d be too much to expect her to notice this was the same place she once visited─there was no trace of the lake, after all.
“And it’s because of this that once we took care of him, her thrall, I wanted to install Miss Shinobu as the new god of Kita-Shirahebi Shrine,” Miss Gaen said, taking out the amulet she’d stuck into her pocket moments ago. “She’d been the one to replace the previously worshiped immortal water snake in the first place─so even in the sense of taking responsibility for that, she seemed to be the right woman for the job, or at least very suitable for it. In any case, the commotion in this town is never going to end until we fill in that air pocket. Mèmè just decided to put a lid on the garbage instead of taking it out, but as an expert who values prevention over investigation, I wanted to conduct some work on a more fundamental level. I wanted to contribute a pillar to the reconstruction of the fallen shrine─by placing in it a pillar of faith.”
Though I was turned down, Miss Gaen said teasingly.
She acted like she was just teasing me, but it was still no laughing matter… I’d done an immeasurable amount of damage by refusing to allow her to turn Shinobu into a god.
“If you’d gone through and laid it all out like this from the start…” I began to say, but even if she’d laid it all out, I doubt I’d have returned the favor by giving her Shinobu.
And not because Shinobu─wasn’t cut out to be a god.
In fact, she had lived as a god in the past, though for only a short period of time, and as a false one. Still, you could say she had what it took.
I just didn’t want to make Shinobu a god, that’s all.
Restoring peace to the town would mean nothing if it meant having to make Shinobu into a god against her will─my selfish logic went.
And that selfish logic still applied.
Miss Gaen could lay it all out, but I would just pick up and go home─even after hearing her words now, I didn’t want to make Shinobu swallow her amulet.
“Right, Koyomin?”
“But in that case, what are you going to do? Or…why bring this all up now? If you know that telling me won’t do any good─”
“To put it plainly, because it’ll do some good now─Koyomin. Why don’t we take a quick break here and just state our opinions out loud?”
“Our opinions? State them?”
“You could say our goals, if you want. Or our sense of them.”
“…”
I recalled what Hitagi said the day before.
That there’s nothing scarier in the world than someone whose goals you don’t know.
That described Izuko Gaen to a tee─but was she saying she’d come out and state those goals of hers?
I couldn’t have asked for more─so much so that I felt wary. We weren’t in opposition or anything, so why did our conversation have to take place on such pins and needles?
As far as I knew, Miss Gaen wasn’t my enemy.
When I heard the explanation she gave next, though, I started to understand.
This was that explanation:
“I think that’s where the two of us don’t meet eye to eye─and it’s not as if Miss Shinobu and Mayoi Hachikuji are on the same page, either. We’re talking like this, face to face, but we aren’t here to come to an agreement. I included you in this plan expecting one of those miracles that you cause…but I can’t deny that you might bring about further disasters in the process. After all, when I left the question of what to do with Miss Shinobu, just li’l Shinobu at the time, in your hands, it seems like we ended up with an unrelated middle school girl getting turned into a god.”
“…I can’t argue with that.”
In other words, it seemed Miss Gaen was the one who really wanted to know the goals, or the true intentions of an opaque character.
No, she knew everything, and that had to include something as simple as my true intentions─so she must have wanted to get me to say it.
What she must have wanted to say─is that I needed to live up to my words.
“Then I’ll say it… My goal is to…”
But as I tried to put my thoughts into words, I had to confront my own goals. What would have to happen─to create an outcome I’d be happy with?
“For now… It has to do with Hachikuji and Shinobu’s situations. Hachikuji, in particular. She might even get swallowed up by the Darkness if we don’t do something─I wanted to ask you. Is it possible for someone to pass on to the afterlife twice?”
“It’s not impossible, but she’d probably just end up in hell again, the way she did the first time. She may even have a charge of desertion added on top─Avīci might be taking it a little far, but I can’t guarantee that she’d get off with just another trip to children’s limbo.”
What would satisfy you as far as that goes, asked Miss Gaen.
I of course couldn’t abide Hachikuji getting sent down to hell again─it was beyond the pale, something I couldn’t disagree with more. What then? Did I need to consider getting engulfed by the Darkness as a better outcome than going to hell? There didn’t seem to be a path to satisfaction as far as this matter went…
“Well, as I told you already, I do have a plan in mind for Mayoi─so why don’t you tell me your concerns about Miss Shinobu next? What exactly do you mean when you say you want to do something about her situation?”
“Well… You know, you see the way she is now,” I said, pointing backwards at Shinobu.
The complete form of Shinobu Oshino. The way she is─the monster she is.
While I called her Shinobu Oshino, she was in fact now the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade herself.
Which meant losing her current certification as a harmless being─forcing her to once more face experts in the field of vampire slaying as she walked through a whirlwind of blood.
That─was not at all something desirable for this woman who’d grown suicidal after tiring of such a life…or so I’d decided for her on my own.
I didn’t know how Shinobu felt about it, though.
Maybe she saw it as an improvement over living sealed inside my shadow as a little girl─in fact, it’d only be normal if she did.
She did seem to be in a good mood since returning to form.
At the same time, there was something perilous about it─after all, she did have a terrifying amount of influence in her full form. She could destroy the world in ten days.
Miss Gaen, at least, wouldn’t overlook it.
And─the bigger problem than Miss Gaen would be Yozuru Kagenui, the master of Yotsugi Ononoki, that corpse doll she now held in her arms. There’d be nothing happy about the news to a woman who detested immortal aberrations─but wait.
She’d gone missing…
“I’m also worried about not knowing where Oshino and Miss Kagenui are,” I said.
Though Hanekawa already seemed to have an idea as far as Oshino, I couldn’t say the same about Miss Kagenui… The girl who only knew what she knew probably wouldn’t be able to find a woman she’d never met.
“Would you not be able to start life as a college student with a fresh slate unless you cleared up those questions as well? Assuming you do get accepted. Only focused on what’s right in front of you, just as always,” Miss Gaen added with a laugh. “But I’m jealous. Jealous more than anything. I feel like I’m living my life pretty free, but I can’t escape my position─so I can’t say anything that free. My goal is to bring peace to this town. As I’ve said again and again, I want to bring stability to this spiritually disturbed town. Nothing more.”
“…”
Her goal was so grand that it could seem devoid of any human emotion─but small minds cannot wrap themselves around the truly great─and Miss Gaen’s words seemed to be proof of that.
Then again, after speaking with her for this long, even I started to get at least a glimpse of how she really felt─bringing stability to an entire town must have been on the small side as far as goals went for her.
“I mean, sure. I want the town I live in to be at peace, too, but…I’m not someone grand enough to set something that out as a goal for myself. Thinking about my friends and family is the most I can do.”
“And I’m saying that’s what poses a danger to me─but we can come to an agreement there. This time, at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“You say you’re worried about your friends and family, but you only ever care about others. We can come to an agreement here because you don’t pay any mind to yourself,” she said─she seemed relieved, but I didn’t know what that relief meant.
Myself? I didn’t have to worry about my body, now that I’d settled the issue of it growing vampiric…
“I know this might seem stubborn, but to stubbornly make sure─you don’t oppose me subduing this town in general, do you? In fact, you’d help me out if the conditions are right, won’t you?”
“Yeah, of course I would─”
“What about you, Miss Shinobu?” Though I was still mid-reply, Miss Gaen shifted her attention and spoke to the beautiful blond holding me in her arms, Shinobu Oshino. “What are your goals? What are you thinking right now, Miss Shinobu? What do you want to do?”
“I merely obey my master. If he tells me to cooperate with thee, then I shall─and if he tells me to oppose thee, then I shall,” Shinobu answered without delay. She was certain. She didn’t waver, the way I did─but something about her…
“Something about you makes it seem like you’re more loyal to Koyomin now that you’re an adult, Miss Shinobu. Doesn’t it? I can’t say I expected this. The most likely outcome to me was that you’d slaughter him now that your link is severed, along with your master-servant relationship.”
That was the most likely one?
I’m sure that meant Miss Gaen had put together some kind of way to prevent that from happening, but it was scary to hear her put it out there.
“Kakak. ’Tis not as though the relationship of master and servant exists only by way of blood─but anyway, expert. If ye would allow me to speak my own desires. If it were possible,” Shinobu said.
Close to my ears.
“I’d much prefer it if ye could turn me back into a little girl.”
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