"Congratulate me, little brother."
Minako looked tired. Perspiration dotted her forehead, dust from the archives speckled her blouse and skirt, and there were dark circles under her eyes. But there was also a smug look that Reverend Ohgami understood all too well; he'd first seen it when they were playing games as children and she was about to pull off some coup to achieve victory, and ever since it had invariably marked some triumph on her part.
"Oh? What is it?"
She held up a sheet of paper.
"It happens to be a list of the eight seals placed on the gods of Yamata no Orochi."
"You...how did you...?" he exclaimed, his face lighting up.
Minako grinned at him.
"Don't underestimate my research skills, Takeshi," she said with a chuckle. "After compiling the full list, I started eliminating sites at the university library, which the Orochi thoughtfully haven't destroyed yet. That pared it down to fourteen. At that point I came back here to the shrine archives to finish the job."
"Why didn't you start here?" Reverend Ohgami asked curiously.
"Two reasons. One, we don't have the details about the newer shrines, so no matter which place I started at there would be red herrings left over. Two, our organizational system is a bad joke. There's no easily arranged reference section or card-catalog database or really any kind of filing system. It was much easier to eliminate the overlap from there. But I'll do you one better. I know which one they're going to unseal first."
The professor shot her brother a grin, no doubt at the expression of stunned surprise he could feel forming on his face.
-X X X-
Kei Tsujimura wasn't happy. He'd looked all over Mahoroba for the Fifth Neck without result, and he could only imagine what the First's response was going to be. Damned princess, he thought. Who'd'a thunk even Orochi cares about birth? And what the hell does she expect, anyway? It's not like I've got some magic way to track him!
It buzzed at the back of his brain that he should know these things, that the Orochi should be able to seek out one another--and the priestesses besides.
Those damned seals! barked in his mind. Why did this always have to happen to him? Every time he managed to achieve something in his life he found obstacles set by others, walls blocking his ability and reason. He had no chance to succeed--hell, he didn't even have the chance to fail--when forced to comply with artificial limits put on him by others. He'd thought that would change when he'd awakened as an Orochi, but it didn't happen. Sure, he'd showed those bastards who'd snubbed him who was boss, but now he had completely different goals--and a completely different set of roadblocks.
At least this time there were other people working on the problem with him. Abe might have been looney over the whole end-of-the-world thing, but he did share a close connection with the will of the god that might tell him something. And Ozawa might have a stick up his butt and Reiko might be a princess who wouldn't know real hardship if it bit her on the ass, but the Seventh and First were both pretty smart. Maybe they could figure out some way to solve the problem?
Not bloody likely, he thought with a snort. No, if there was a way, he'd have to find it himself. If Kei had learned anything in his nineteen years it was that a man couldn't rely on anybody but himself when the chips were down. Whether it was a deadbeat father who ran off when he was two, a drunken mother who could barely wake up before noon, teachers who just wanted to maintain order in the classroom without giving a damn about actually teaching, cops who marked someone down as a lost cause before he was old enough to drink, or crooks who called a man garbage because he'd made his own way instead of being part of their family, other people who were at best in the way and at worst actively trying to keep you down. No, the First, Third, and Seventh would be as useless as the whore, the painter, and the psycho.
Just like I thought, he reflected as he reappeared in the shrine of eight gates, not a damn one of 'em's back. Abe was still playing least-in-sight and Ozawa and Akemi were still no doubt chasing him all over creation. No Hirata, either, so at least I haven't been running around after someone who was sitting here on his ass all along. The Fourth, too, had apparently given up on trying to solve the shrine puzzle--like she'd be able to--and gone off to whatever it was she did while alone.
Which was when he saw it.
What the--?
He sprang to the top of the First's prayer gate, landing easily on the broad stone top. At first, he barely recognized the form huddled there as Reiko at all. Her clothes were ripped and slashed, smeared liberally with blood. More than one wound was clearly visible beneath the slashes, and there were bruises on her face. The top of the torii around her was smeared with blood--dried blood. Which meant that she must have been like this for hours. How the hell bad was she hurt? Kei boggled. The power of the Orochi had kept her alive, like it had when the Lunar Bitch had stabbed the Sixth, but...
Damn! It's like she was taken apart, piece by piece!
"Reiko?" he asked hesitantly. "Hey, First, are you--?" He reached out to touch her shoulder. Shit! I'm so bad at this; I've got no idea what to say! Only when his hand tentatively brushed her did she react, first with a flinch that turned into a shudder, than by looking up. Reiko's face was a grotesque mask. It was covered in blood, but long streaks from tears cut through the crusted red-brown stains. "Damn, First, what happened?"
"First?" she said in an eerie, choking laugh that made Kei shiver. "I'll never be first...I'll always be nothing but a shadow to her..."
Her voice trailed off in choking sobs, and the tears began to flow again.
-X X X-
"Shouldn't you be in class?" Chikane asked, a little testily. Marika had stopped by to greet them when Himeko was released from the hospital.
"Can't think of why. Either you'll lose and the Orochi will destroy the world, in which case there's no way I want to spend my last few days listening to lectures, or you'll win and time will reset back to your birthday, in which case I won't remember anything I learn anyway and will just have to hear it all over again. So, I'm shamelessly playing hooky. Besides, if for some weird reason any of this sticks with me, what you're doing is better practice for my future than what I learn in class anyway."
Chikane arched an eyebrow. Himeko wished she could do that; she'd always thought it was a cool expression, not that she ever had occasion to use it.
"Don't you remember?" she told her sister. "Marika's going to take over Ohgami Shrine when her father retires."
"Unless I marry another priest who's better-suited for it," the green-haired girl added. "Or unless Aunt Minako decides to keep a guy for more than six months and their kid wants the job. I mean, I'm not going to fight tooth-and-nail for it. But it is the family tradition and...you know, I don't want to back out on tradition. Especially now that I know from the two of you that it isn't all a joke but something really important. Geez, I hope I don't forget that part!"
"The Ohgami blood," Chikane murmured.
"Huh?"
She surprised Himeko by smiling at Marika.
"I'd forgotten about that, that your father had been training you."
"Oh. Well, it's not like you and I spend a lot of time chatting over our life's plans, Tsukuyo."
"But why does that matter?" Himeko asked.
"It answers a question about something that's been bothering me."
"That's not an answer!"
Chikane grinned.
"Yes it is. You're just not asking the right questions."
Himeko pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Geez, don't be so mean!"
Chikane ruffled her hair. Himeko responded by tilting her head to one side, opening her eyes as wide as she could, and fluttering her lashes just a little.
"Oh, all right. I was wondering why she could see my sword when all the doctors and nurses apparently didn't notice it."
"The lethal puppy-dog eyes make even the iciest heart melt! Hey, wait--you thought I might be an Orochi?"
"We've only met two so far. That leaves six unaccounted for."
"But not Marika!" Himeko protested.
"Oh, I don't know," Marika teased. "After all, if the Lunar Priestess herself can be an Orochi, then anyone might be a valid suspect. Well, except Hikari."
"True," Chikane agreed.
"Um...not really," Himeko pointed out.
"Seriously, Hikari, what could ever make you want to destroy the world?"
"Well, if Chikane had really wanted to do it, I'd have tried to help her last time."
"I seem to recall you fighting very hard to stop that," Chikane said.
"But it's not what you wanted! What you were trying to do was to have me stop the cycles, and all you really wanted was a way we could be together!" She hooked an arm through Chikane's and leaned up against her shoulder.
"I wonder what the current Orochi really want," Marika mused, no doubt changing the subject because things were getting embarrassingly intimate.
"Honestly, I don't care," Chikane said, "unless it helps me to beat them. Whatever they want, it's not something I'm willing to let them take."
Above them, dark clouds swirled as if called by the prophecy of coming violence implicit in Chikane's words.
-X X X-
The Seventh Neck of Orochi scowled viciously, crumpling his empty drink cup in his hand before flinging it into a nearby trash can with an almost convulsive motion. Ozawa had been attempting to find the missing Third Neck; he hadn't expected to do so sitting at a table in McDonald's while eating lunch, watching the live news feed on a wall TV to pass the time.
"Prefectural police today reported that the body found last night behind the train station in the town of Mahoroba has been identified as that of Yuujirou Abe of Kyoto, age 41, a former employee of Niishida Advanced Design. Sources within the department confirm that they are treating the suspicious death as a homicide, and are further looking into possible connections to the recent terrorist attack that left over a dozen Niishida executives dead. No arrests have yet been announced in that case, which some have speculated is connected to the Himemiya Financial Group, which had recently acquired Niishida in..."
"You're looking angry," Akemi observed as she returned from the washroom. Ozawa gestured at the television screen.
"What...that's Abe!" she gasped.
"Dead," he agreed. "Let's go."
"Yes, we should tell--"
He shook his head.
"No, I don't mean go back. Just somewhere more private, where we can talk without being overheard."
That was not to say that he wasn't willing to lash out, to destroy everyone within range if, say, someone had recognized his face and started screaming for the police. It was just that such actions were a distraction to his goals; sowing random chaos for its own sake held no appeal for him. Destruction would come at the end of it all, once the priestesses were dead and Orochi summoned. While he understood how some of the others had required the visceral pleasure of settling their personal scores at once, Ozawa himself did not. For him, it was enough to know that the rot would all be blown away in the purifying wind of Yamata no Orochi.
Or maybe he was fooling himself. Maybe it had nothing to do with a disciplined will and goal-oriented mind. Maybe it was just that he didn't know the names and faces of those who'd wronged him.
They left the restaurant and walked down the street, then turned up a side lane that led away from the shopping district. Within a couple of blocks they were walking past neat little houses all in a row behind which, no doubt, suburban families lived. Were they in blissful ignorance of what was to come? Or were they, too, living out their own misery, their hearts yearning for ultimate destruction the way those called by Orochi were?
"Surrounded by people and yet alone," Akemi said. "How different it is from the city, where every breath of air is choked with someone else's sweat."
"The air may be cleaner," Ozawa decided, "but the people are just as foul." The First Neck had grown up in Mahoroba, after all, and had ended up as malice-wracked as any of them.
Akemi was silent for a moment, then apparently chose not to extend the conversation, instead returning to the relevant point.
"So, Abe is dead?"
"That's what the broadcast reported," Ozawa agreed. "They said he was found last night behind the train station. Since he'd had a job, a family, a place in society, I'm not surprised that the police were able to identify his body. What they couldn't know is how he was killed."
"As Orochi, we can't die so long as we are sheltered by the power of our gods," Akemi agreed, speaking not only from knowledge but personal experience. "To kill Abe, his murderer had to first disrupt the Shadow of Hi no Ashinazuchi, then strike his supernaturally-enhanced body down. One of the priestesses, no doubt."
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps?"
Ozawa rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"The last we saw of Abe, he was remaining within the shrine of Orochi to commune with the dark god while we searched for the shrines sealing our gods. There is no guarantee this is all that he did, of course. For one example, he may have been given the location of the Solar Priestess, went at once to confront her, and been destroyed for his haste. But if he did remain within the shrine bounds..."
The clouds above were as dark and threatening as those that swirled endlessly above the gates of the Orochi.
"The priestesses wouldn't be able to follow. Is that what you mean?"
"Yes. And besides the priestesses, only a fellow Orochi would have the power to kill one of us."
"But who? And why?"
"It's pure speculation at best. But now I understand Yamata no Orochi's anger at our last gathering. It was not at the speed of our progress, but at Abe's death--and possibly at the treachery of his slayer."
"What do we do?"
"Watch carefully. Do not leave ourselves unguarded. And strike when the moment is right. Thus far I have been content to follow the First's lead, but now it is clear that I take a more active role. The Necks must unite to accomplish their purpose rather than running to and fro willy-nilly."
-X X X-
Hirata could taste the storm on the wind, the heaviness like water in the air that seemed to cling to his body, the ozone of electricity against his tongue promising lightning to come. Yes, a storm was brewing over Mahoroba, and he would be at the eye of it.
"There you are. I was getting tired of waiting."
The black hawk opened its beak and let loose a keening cry. The one on whose shoulder it perched reached up and gentled it, stroking its shadowy feathers.
"Yokusemi no Mizuchi is restless, too. Perhaps he should be your Shadow, rather than mine," the Eighth Neck reflected.
"Ho no Shuraizuchi suits me fine. It goes with my nature."
"As all the gods do with their bearers. These calls do not come by accident," Hirata's companion agreed.
"So, all your watching and waiting has paid off, then?"
"Patience is a weapon. The best time to destroy your enemies is when they believe they are acting of their own free will. Reiko chose to attack the Lunar Priestess out of emotion, not foresight, and paid for it."
"I thought it was just luck she got away."
"Not her first attack. I'm referring to last night."
"Last night?"
"Dear Reiko felt the need to appear to her former crush. I believe it was out of some craving to show off how much she'd grown and changed since becoming an Orochi. It, shall we say...did not go well. With a few cutting remarks the Lunar Priestess goaded her into a fight and then proceeded to carve Reiko apart. Now that she has awakened to her true self she is no longer so weak. Before, she was as strong as one of us without our gods. Now, she is as strong as one of us with our Shadows, and quite certainly more skilled than most."
"Is Reiko alive?"
"Barely. Though by now no doubt her body has largely repaired itself." The Eighth Neck smiled. "As for her mind, well, we'll see. I must say that Tsukuyo Asamiya would make an excellent Orochi. Such calculated cruelty is rather impressive."
Hirata felt his gut churn.
"And we're--"
His counterpart laughed, and he wished that he had some of his fellow Necks' confidence. Hirata was certain that unlike Reiko's veneer of strength, a newly gained and therefore fragile thing, the Eighth's confidence was an old friend.
Which was why he'd chosen to throw his lot in this alliance, rather than with the other six.
"Please keep calm. But I have to say, I admire your intuition. We do in fact have to confront her. What we do not have to do is kill her or even force a retreat. We need one thing and one thing only: her blood."
"Her...blood?"
"Exactly. That is the key. I really can't think how we could have overlooked it for so long."
"I don't understand," Hirata admitted.
"To unseal the ultimate power of Orochi, it is necessary to ritually shed the blood of a pure priestess. These eight seals that inhibit us now are only lesser versions of the same seal, the same magic from the same source. It is barely possible that multiple Orochi, perhaps even all eight, could break the seal through sheer power, but to unlock it requires the blood of a priestess. Spill her blood, and we have the key to break the seal."
"Even so, it's dangerous..."
Hirata flinched and fell silent when the other Neck's gaze turned scornful.
"I'm sorry," he apologized.
"No; your concern is valid, particularly as I just spent the time to impress upon you how frightening an opponent the Lunar Priestess can be. If you intended to fight her one-on-one to the death, your concern would be more than justified. Which is why we aren't going to do that. We will fight together, two against one, and by luring her into an ambush we can guarantee that we get what we want."
"An ambush? But how can you bait her into doing what you want?" Hirata was starting to feel bothered by his own confusion. The gap in terms of knowledge was simply too broad for the artist to fool himself into thinking that he was the Eighth's partner or ally. He was the other Orochi's minion, no more, his purpose solely to provide additional power to carry out the Eighth Neck's plans.
But how is that different from following the orders of the First or Seventh, except that Reiko and Ozawa lack the Eighth's wisdom? There's no shame in listening to those with actual knowledge, only in submitting to fools.
So he listened patiently to how the Lunar Priestess would be brought to sow the seeds of her own annihilation, and the world's doom.
-X X X-
Thunder rumbled from the clouds outside. Chikane glanced out the window and saw the way the clouds swirled cruelly. There was a storm threatening, she thought, a harsh one that made what Reverend Ohgami was telling her somehow fitting.
"I wish that I could say that there would be a respite for you, after the ritual of unsealing and your battle with Reiko Himemiya yesterday, but--"
Chikane waved his concern away.
"There will be respite enough for me when this month is over," she pointed out. "Until then I shall simply have to try my best. We both have our duties, after all."
He nodded.
"That of the Ohgami being to support the priestesses in their work, as we have in this case--though it is all bad news, I fear."
"But that I can do something about."
He nodded again.
"I hope that it is possible."
"So what is it?" she asked bluntly.
"While we still have made no progress concerning the identity of the Solar Priestess, we have been able to learn more about the seals on the Orochi gods. Minako was able to discover the location of the shrines which seal them."
"I'm impressed by Professor Ohgami's research skills," she said sincerely.
"The problem is, if we are correct, the Orochi will move to break one of those seals tonight. Timing is important as we move through the month; if they fail tonight it will be another three days before they can try again to unseal a shrine through proper ritual." He paused and stroked his chin. "My fear is that should they succeed even this once, then ritual and timing won't matter."
Chikane nodded back.
"I understand. Not only would it mean that one of the Orochi would be fully free, but if that one is willing to work with the others he or she could simply tear open the shrines through brute force. It's a miracle that the seals have continued to exist this long"--a miracle, or a testament to the purity of Himeko's spirit that the world she built wouldn't have enough malice to shatter those bonds--"so it's impossible that they could last against the full power of an Orochi god. But even one would be more than I could face, alone and without the power of Ame no Murakumo."
"That was what I thought."
"But if there are eight shrines, do you know which one they'll start with?"
"Minako thinks that they have to start at one end of the chain or the other, with Take no Sukunazuchi or Yokusemi no Mizuchi."
"Is it necessary that the corresponding Neck be the one to perform the ritual?"
Ohgami thought about that.
"I honestly can't say, though it certainly sounds reasonable."
"In that case, we'll begin with the seal for the Eighth Neck's god." She found herself smiling as she added, "I don't believe Reiko will be in any condition to perform rituals tonight. I presume that Professor Ohgami was able to identify which shrine was which?"
"Thankfully, yes." He took a folded list from his kimono sleeve, checked it, and gave her the address.
"I'd better leave now, then," she said. "May I borrow your car, Reverend?"
"Of course."
"Thank you. I'll go tell Himeko."
She turned to leave, but was stopped in mid-motion by the priest's sharp voice.
"Tsukuyo! You can't be thinking of bringing your sister with you?"
"What?"
"She was just released from the hospital today! She's in no condition to be going out and fighting Orochi."
"No, I--"
"Please, I--" he cut her off, then sighed heavily, letting his head sag. "Tsukuyo, I'm not saying this as a priest or as an Ohgami, but as a father. I know that Hikari is your twin sister, and that beyond that fact you share a bond I can only begin to understand from past lives, but she's also my daughter's best friend. Through that I've come to know and care for her. I'm just afraid that if you keep trying to act as if she still is what she used to be that next time she won't be as lucky as she was yesterday."
She turned away from him so she wouldn't have to see his face, his concern both touching and appalling.
What she used to be.
Every time she tried to set it aside, it came back to her again. Chikane was going to go out and fight the Orochi, and she could barely see the point, not when the ruin of her existence stared her in the face.
"Why are you saying this to me? Why not to her?" she asked softly.
"Because she follows where you lead. If you didn't ask, she wouldn't go along into danger."
Thunder rumbled again, this time accompanied by a bolt of lightning that cast the room in stark white for an instant. Chikane found her lips curving upwards in a smile heavy with irony.
"You really don't understand us at all, do you?"
She began to walk towards the door.
"Tsukuyo--"
Chikane stopped, resting her head on the jamb and looked back over her shoulder at the priest.
"Don't worry, Reverend Ohgami. I'm not going to have her come along. I'm only keeping a promise to tell her what I'm doing tonight. She won't let me protect her from that knowledge, you see."
He looked at her, obviously confused.
"As for the rest of it, I agree with you. I should have been protecting her all along."
After all, hers is the only happiness I'm fighting for.
The prospect of Chikane's own happiness seemed as remote as the moon itself and like it, utterly hidden from view.
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