Himeko slowly, lazily came awake, sleep receding gently like the tide going out. It was a pleasant, drowsy feeling and yet somehow something seemed wrong about it. The worry buzzed at her while consciousness returned, until she was almost ready to face Monday morning.
Monday.
That was it. She shouldn't be waking up naturally on a Monday! Where was the shrill beep of the alarm clock, or Chikane's insistent voice? What was going on?
She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the eyes of a pink teddy bear that was cradling a red rose and a folded slip of paper in its plush arms. Himeko rubbed the sleep from her own eyes and read the note.
Himeko,
I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person to say it, but since you don't have any classes until eleven I wanted to let you sleep. Shall we have lunch at our usual place?
Happy birthday,
Chikane
Himeko set the note down and sighed happily.
"Isn't she sweet, Mr. Bear? Or maybe Miss Bear, since you're pink?" She squeezed the stuffed toy. "Oh, you're almost as soft and huggable as Chikane. It had better be Mr. Bear; I don't want to hug any other girl." She set the bear back down, took the time to smell the rosebud, then got dressed. The last thing she did before she left the room was slip her gift for Chikane into her bag along with her books. They'd probably exchange gifts over lunch, but even if they didn't she wasn't going to leave it behind. "You never know what might happen!" she told the bear.
-X X X-
The dark sun was a serpent's eye. It looked into the hearts and souls of the humans that crawled like ants across the face of the world, sought out those whose hatred had corrupted them into something greater, whose rage made them stand out, whose despair had transfigured them. It found them, eight of them, and it sent its shining darkness into their hearts. They were the dark sun's extensions into the world, the necks that captured its prey.
And it would give them fangs.
Awaken.
Junichi Ozawa sat bolt upright in his jail cell. He could feel it, twitching beneath his skin like electricity along his nerves.
"Hey, man, what's wrong?" his cellmate suddenly asked. "You on a bad trip or something?"
Ozawa held up a hand, clenching it into a fist. The rage mounted within him, and as it did violet flames seemed to cloud his vision.
Those of despair.
Akemi Kuroda's fingers slipped as she ran the whetstone along the knife's edge, so that it dropped onto the table next to the three blades she'd already sharpened. The voice seemed to bubble up from the depths of her soul, whispering at her, but it was different than the voices she usually heard, stronger, cleaner.
It told her that the world was full of Kazuos. There were always more of them, breeding in the cracks, in the cesspools of humanity. She'd never finish the work of removing them. Not one by one.
Those of shattered dreams.
Keiichi Hirata's hand jerked as he heard the voice, smearing a swatch of paint across the work. Gah! It's ruined! echoed in his mind. The work he'd put into it, the painstaking effort was all gone. But what did it matter, anyway? This wasn't art or craftsmanship, it was like being an office drudge, all routine tasks to finish, only it was worse because it mocked him, mocked his spirit, mocked his hopes and dreams and everything he'd wanted to be. The world had looked at him and judged his craft to be worthless, that only in copying others could he be valued.
Who would want to live in a world like that? Who could tolerate it?
Those of Orochi.
Saori Takamine flung her cell phone onto the bed viciously. That was the fifth time, the fifth! These women were supposed to be her friends, damn it! They'd come from the same place, fought and clawed their way up, washed off the scum of the streets, painted and polished and won their way free, damn it! But now, not one of them would help her, introduce her to new clients, new hopes. Oh, they'd been properly apologetic, and Mina had even offered to toss a crumb or two her way in the way of routine work, but there was nothing in that. The unspoken message had been there, those words ringing loud and clear though never articulated: You're too old.
She'd thought she was free, thought she'd bettered herself, but now she knew better. It was the world that had plucked her up by chance, used her for a time until she'd come to believe it was due to something special in her, then thrown her away when it had taken what it wanted.
But now, the voice whispered, she knew there truly was something special in her. And it was the world that would pay.
Arise.
They'd been there at the funeral, of course. It was, after all, an obligation, and Yuujirou Abe's co-workers were very attentive to duty. Chief Executive Officer Nishida had attended in person to offer his condolences on behalf of the company.
Only the thought of the insult to his wife's spirit had kept Abe from wrapping his hands around the old man's throat and throttling every last hypocritical word from his body.
Everything he'd done was for nothing. He'd worked hard, believing himself part of a family of colleagues, men and women doing their best for one another and each other's families, the urban equivalent of how farmers or fishermen would pull together in rural villages to ensure the welfare of all. But they weren't a village. They weren't a family. They were the hired minions of old men bloated on greed who lied to them to extract more value without having to compensate them for it.
But it would change. The dark sun that had taken fire in his heart told him how they could be made to pay. The users in power. The drones who connived at their own slavery. The whole, stinking world that had taken everything of value from him.
Destroy the Solar Priestess.
"Damn, Kei, you look like you've been through the wringer," the girl--Kei Tsujimura thought her name was Eriko, though he wasn't certain--marveled. She didn't know the half of it; he was stiff and sore all over besides the ugly bruises and the only reason he hadn't needed a trip to the hospital was because Mori's thug knew exactly what he was doing, was an expert at his craft.
"Don't worry, babe. Let's just say the important parts are all working, if you get my drift."
She wrinkled her nose.
"Yeah, right. Maybe one day when you don't look like something the cat dragged in. You think I want my friends to see me hanging with a guy that looks like he's from some zombie flick?" Maybe-Eriko sniffed, spun, and walked away from him. Her stiletto heels made her hips swivel, but they seemed to intentionally mock Kei, taunting him with what he couldn't have. Yet another person saying they were better than he was, that he was some piece of trash they found useful, just like that girl had when she'd been hot and looking for action a month ago. But he didn't belong; he was only worth their attention so long as he was useful, and when that moment passed it was good riddance to Kei.
Well, maybe it was time to change. The holier-than-thou assholes who used him and tossed him out, it was his turn to show them that he was the one that didn't need them!
Destroy the Lunar Priestess!
-X X X-
"Happy birthday, Miya-sama!"
"Happy birthday!"
"Congratulations! Happy birthday!"
It had been that way the whole morning for Chikane. A good three-fourths of her fellow students in each class would offer their birthday wishes either before or after the class started. She politely thanked each of them for their kindness. Some offered gifts, but these she demurred, as she had since junior high. Accepting, she felt, would create a level of intimacy, imply the existence of a connection that she didn't feel or want. Chikane was polite about it, though; she didn't want to hurt anyone, either, and there were probably some whose feelings were sincere.
And it wasn't as if she could announce that she was seeing someone to chase away the infatuated.
She slipped her notebooks into her satchel and checked her watch. She was running behind, but still would be able to make it to the fine arts building for her music class without having to sprint across campus. It would be undignified, a crack in her armor, and she hated that. The perfect Miya-sama could keep people comfortably at bay, but ordinary Tsukuyo Asamiya wasn't so good at that. Sometimes she envied Himeko her free and easy ways, the honesty with which she accepted her own feelings.
Chikane turned towards the door, but another girl blocked her path between the rows of desks. They were the last two people in the classroom; the girl had obviously waited for the rest of the class to clear out before approaching her. Chikane's heart sank.
"Mi--I mean, Tsukuyo? Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"I'm running late for my next class, Reiko. Can it wait until after lunch?"
She knew Reiko Himemiya, of course. Chikane had been a little curious to learn that the Himemiya family had a daughter within two months of her own age, an odd coincidence given her past life.
Reiko bit her lip.
"It won't take long," she said quietly and a little defensively.
Chikane gave in. If Himeko could sprint to classes without getting uptight over it, so could she.
"All right. Is it about tonight's party?" No doubt Reiko was footing a large slice of the bill.
"Sort of, but not really, though." Reiko took a deep breath. "Tsukuyo, I know that I'm not the most beautiful or charming girl in the school. I mean, you'd be a far better heiress than I am. Whenever Father introduces me to someone important, I just want to hide behind a potted plant."
That was, unfortunately, the truth.
"Reiko," Chikane tried to be supportive, "you don't have anything to be ashamed of. You're a good person in your own right: earnest and generous, a good student..." She racked her brain for compliments and came up short. She just didn't know Reiko well enough to say anything worthwhile.
Reiko sniffled a little.
"Th-thank you, Tsukuyo." Apparently Chikane's meager offering had meant something, which was perhaps the saddest part of the whole conversation. "It's just that next to someone as beautiful and good as you--"
Chikane shook her head.
"I'm not that good a person. I've done many things that I regret. Hikari could tell you about them, the many times I've taken the wrong path. You know what the Christians say about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions." She stopped herself firmly. Gods, she was becoming maudlin, and Reiko didn't want to hear her whine.
"Hikari could, huh?"
That's odd, Chikane thought. It almost sounded like...
"But then, why should I be surprised?" Reiko went on. "Everything is always about her, isn't it? Everyone has always loved you, ever since we were children. You were always a gentle light shining on all of us, lifting us out of the darkness of our petty, commonplace lives. But we were nothing to you! Our names, our faces memorized by rote, but you never accepted our love in return, only allowed you to worship you from afar. Only Hikari could come close to you, to shine any light back upon your life."
It poured out of Reiko in a torrent of frustration, her jealousy and thwarted desires crashing over Chikane with an almost physical force. It actually made Chikane flinch away from her.
This malice and despair I feel from her...it feels like...
"To everyone else, to me, you were just like your name, as cold and remote as the moon!"
Something dark flickered in the depths of her eyes.
"Or should I say, Lunar Priestess!"
"Orochi!" Chikane gasped, flinging herself aside as Reiko's palm swung towards her. It was just a girl's wild slap, but her hand crackled with violet and black lightning.
"Yes!" Reiko shouted, clenching her fists. "Finally I have the strength to express my feelings, to let you know the pain you've caused me and everyone else who cares for you!"
"I didn't ask for your feelings," Chikane snapped. "You're the one forcing them on me."
"Didn't you? Always so composed, always carrying yourself with such grace and poise and perfection? How were we supposed to feel when a goddess descended among us?"
Chikane snarled.
"So this is why you've fallen into darkness, Reiko? Because you've built an illusion of me up in your mind and you can't stand that there's a difference between your fantasy and my real feelings?"
"I've loved you for years!"
"You've loved nothing but a dream of your own ego!"
Reiko screamed, then slapped her hand against the edge of a desk, launching it up across the room. Chikane barely dodged in time and the desk crushed itself to a shower of splinters against the wall from the force of the impact.
There's a plan, Chikane. Make her mad at you. Why hadn't she thought about this possibility, not Reiko specifically but that some Orochi would appear? Was she that content with the ordinary life she'd shared with Himeko these nineteen years?
She needed a weapon, a plan, something. The crackling violet and black energies were playing freely across Reiko's body now, and a shape seemed to be manifesting in the air around her, a translucent image of an armored knight with rotting wings, a long, straight sword clenched in its fist.
"Do you recognize it, Lunar Priestess? The Shadow of the god, Take no Sukunazuchi. Can you stand against its power, Tsukuyo?"
Reiko held up her hand, and the Shadow flowed and coalesced into her palm, the translucence becoming solidity as it formed itself into a jet-black sword, its blade long and straight, the quillions curving like horns.
Chikane bolted for the door, but Reiko whipped her arm up in an arc, light bursting from the blade and blowing a chunk out of the wall.
"No, no, you can't leave. This is our party, a dance for just the two of us. I've been nothing up until now, but in the end I'll be the last thing you'll think of."
Chikane was afraid she was right. The willingness to fight was one thing, but against the Orochi, what could she do? The black sword might not have had the sheer physical intimidation of the mecha-like metal titan from Chikane's memories, but she'd already seen what it could do.
Reiko charged, slicing down in a powerful overhand swing. Chikane pivoted aside at the last second, hooked her foot against the Orochi's ankles, and pushed Reiko hard in the back. She went stumbling past, crashing into the teacher's desk and then falling over completely. Chikane turned to run, when she was stopped by the echoes of a feminine voice in her head.
Awaken.
Memories bottled up within her. memories she knew well but that nonetheless came to life, replaying in her mind the final confrontation with Himeko, her own relentless desire to die and Himeko's equal, no far stronger refusal to let her, Himeko's "I love you"s echoing over and over as she wielded them like weapons against Chikane's doubts and fear.
Maidens who shine upon the mortal world's night and day, awaken.
A heat seemed to burn from Chikane's back, between her shoulder blades.
Solar Priestess! Lunar Priestess!
Chikane swayed as the visions released her, but Reiko was up and coming at her again, sword held low in a thrusting position. Chikane clapped her hands together, catching the blade. She could feel a hideous cold radiating from Reiko's weapon, but a gentle warmth seemed to be keeping it from her hands. Chikane twisted the blade away and down, then released it and drove the heel of her hand into Reiko's face, breaking the girl's nose and sending her reeling back. Chikane bolted for the door, but another scream from Reiko had her diving and rolling aside in the hall as another burst of violet energy pierced the air where she had been.
Running wasn't going to be enough to shake off the Orochi, Chikane realized, but now, perhaps, she had a weapon to use. The awakening had quickened something within her as it had been quickened within Reiko.
"Ame no Murakumo no Tsurugi! May the moon's light capture this place within its radiance!"
A pale light sprang up, blocking the doorway just before Reiko reached it; she rebounded off it as if it was a wall--which for all intents and purposes it was; Chikane's invocation had bound the classroom as a sealed space within a barrier.
Unfortunately, there was no way the barrier would hold Reiko for long, not while she wielded the power of Take no Sukunazuchi. She lashed out against it and tiny white lines threaded through the pale light, radiating out from the point of impact like fractures in a glass window. Chikane ran for it, bolting down the hall and into the stairwell, stopping on the second-floor landing and enclosed the third floor within a second barrier. She then continued down the stairs at a dead run and crashed through the doors at the bottom leading out onto the sunlit campus. She then turned back, and though the effort brought on a stabbing pain behind her eyes she created yet another sealed space, this one encompassing the entire building. With luck, she could get far enough away, out of sight so Reiko wouldn't see her by the time she broke out of the last bounded area.
She couldn't afford to waste any more time with this fight. Even as an awakened--no, partially awakened--priestess, she wasn't likely to win one-on-one against Reiko, and there was something more important she needed to be doing anyway.
Himeko.
More than one head turned as Chikane wove her way between students at a full-tilt sprint. Just a few minutes ago she'd actually been worried about that, about looking foolish or undignified while doing this very thing, yet now she did it without hesitation. If the Orochi were coming after her, the Lunar Priestess, then they would be just as eager to destroy the Solar Priestess. Himeko might have been adequate in battle with a priestess's sword in her hand, but beyond that her martial skills were nowhere near Chikane's. She had to get to Himeko, to protect her.
Who am I trying to fool? she thought ruefully. Even if Himeko had been the greatest warrior in history, Chikane would still be doing what she was doing then. The desire to protect wasn't based upon some logical analysis of risks, but came from her heart.
The twins knew each other's class schedules, so Chikane had a fairly good idea of where she'd find Himeko: somewhere between the foreign-language lab and the applied sciences building. She took a sharp right around the central fountain, nearly crashing into a knot of upperclassmen. One jerked back suddenly from the near-contact and his canned coffee spilled, splattering across the front of Chikane's shirt. He started to apologize, but she didn't so much as wait to brush it off and say it was her fault, but wove through the students and kept right on going, leaving them shaking their heads in disbelief.
-X X X-
"And then she said what? Man, that's cold!" Uetake laughed, rubbing the back of his head.
"Oh, yeah," Kajiyama replied. "Dude's usually about as thick as a brick, but he got the message all right. Looked like he wanted to melt through the floor!"
The two boys were classmates of Himeko's in her calculus section; they'd met on the way to class. They were nice enough, but she was feeling terribly embarrassed since they'd started discussing how Chikane had turned down--publicly, sharply, and very throughly--the attempt of another boy to ask her out.
"I'm...I'm very sorry for your friend," Himeko offered.
"Geez, Hikari, don't apologize," Uetake said. "Guy got what was coming to him."
"But his feelings must have been badly hurt."
Kajiyama laughed sharply.
"Oh, man, that just makes it worse! He gets shot down in flames and the girl's sister feels sorry for him!"
"But--"
"Hikari, you're a nice kid, but this is a matter of pride as a man. You do not approach a girl like your sister with a weak game and cornball lines. It makes all of us look like chumps," Uetake explained, somewhat melodramatically. "Cheesy pick-up lines only work if the girl was into you to begin with. Guy makes an honest try from the heart, it's a different story. We've all been there. But you do your thinking from somewhere a little south of there and it blows up in your face, hell yeah we're gonna point fingers and laugh."
"I guess if you put it that way," Himeko said tentatively.
Suddenly, there was a loud boom, like a clap of thunder or a firework going up. Their conversation forgotten, the three students looked around in confusion and shock like everyone else near them was.
"Hey, over there!" Uetake said and pointed to where a plume of black, inky smoke was rising like a dark stain into the sky.
"Man, was it a gas leak? Some kind of bomb?" The two boys drifted off, trying to get a better look.
The memories struck Himeko like a fist clamped around her heart, of a previous birthday when violence had erupted at her school, heralding the return of the Orochi. No, it can't be...
"Himeko!"
Her head snapped around in the direction of the voice.
"Chikane?"
Chikane was sprinting towards her at a dead run.
"Come on, Himeko; we have to get out of here!"
"Chikane, what's wrong?" Her hair was wild and askew, her clothing rumpled, and a large brown stain was splashed across the front of her blouse.
"Reiko is a Neck of Orochi! She attacked me in the classroom after Japanese literature."
"What?" Himeko squeaked. "I don't understand! Reiko..."
"Reiko Himemiya. Maybe it runs in the bloodline, somehow. That's not important, though. What matters is that we have to get you out of here now, before she or one of the others comes after you."
"Then that explosion..."
"I trapped her in the building so I could get away. She must have broken out. Come on, Himeko; we need to get to the Ohgami Shrine. It's protected by barriers that will prevent them from being able to sense our location."
Himeko shook her head, bewildered. This wasn't making any sense at all. It wasn't that she didn't understand about the Orochi, of course; the concept she understood. But the feeling was missing. The last time, even while she'd had no idea what was actually happening, she'd been aware of something, a kind of feeling that bound herself to the attacking Orochi and to her fellow priestess even before she'd actually known that Chikane was the Lunar Priestess. The shared destiny that encompassed them all created a link between them that she'd felt even if she hadn't understood it.
This was different. Himeko now had knowledge of what the Orochi were, of their goals, and of her own role as Solar Priestess, but the feeling was gone, the emotion. Everything was strictly operating on an intellectual level, and it confused her.
Chikane had taken her by the hand and was all but dragging her towards the entrance to the campus, intent on getting her away from the Orochi. She clearly didn't have any of these problems, but for Himeko, the questions had to be answered..
"Chikane, wait!"
She dug her heels in, pulled them to a stop.
"Himeko, we can't stand around here. Reiko could be after us any minute now."
"Well, I don't see any giant robots stomping through the trees right now, so I think I deserve an answer!" She shut her mouth quickly, slightly ashamed of losing her temper in that fashion, but it did work because it brought Chikane up short. She hesitated a moment, and when she did speak her voice was quiet, almost cowed.
"There wasn't any 'giant robot' or anything like that. It was just her, although she was surrounded by a dark aura that she called the Shadow of Take no Sukunazuchi. That's the name of the god of the First Neck."
"But still, you beat her?"
Chikane shook her head.
"No; all I managed to do was run away. If I hadn't awakened as Lunar Priestess I wouldn't have ever done that; I just kept stacking barriers in her path."
Himeko's eyes widened.
"You...awakened as Lunar Priestess?"
"Just in time. I understood that Ame no Murakumo calls to us in response to the Orochi Necks being awakened, but that gap of time...wait, Himeko, why are you asking? The call is to Lunar and Solar Priestess together, so you must have..."
Himeko shook her head, her puzzlement mounting.
"No, that's why I'm so confused, and..."
As usual, Chikane got to the answer first, and the sudden fear in her expression told Himeko that it wasn't a good answer. Chikane's fingers flew to the slight V-neck of Himeko's shirt. It was a modest dip that barely exposed below the hollow of her throat, but Chikane changed that in a hurry, tearing it open nearly to her belly button.
"Chikane! What are you--" Himeko yelped, but the shocked, almost fearful look on her beloved's face stopped her. "Chikane, what is it?"
The Lunar Priestess's hand trembled as it came to touch Himeko's bare skin just above the start of her cleavage. Himeko looked down at herself, trying to see what Chikane was looking at.
"The...the sun symbol," Chikane said. "There's no mark there." Her eyes lifted to meet Himeko's.
"D-does this mean," Himeko stammered, "that I'm not the Solar Priestess?"
--
Any similarity between Chikane's incantation and anything even vaguely resembling a genuine Shinto prayer is obviously a colossal joke at my expense.
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