Chapter 13 — The Price That Must Not Be Forgotten (3)

When you look at the legends of many-headed snake-monsters, they almost always describe creatures that dwell by the water.
The gist of those tales is the same: the snake poisons the waters and wreaks great havoc, until some hero at last subjugates it. And the reason is simple. From the very beginning, the slaying of a many-headed snake stands in for the work of flood-control.

‘It’s easy enough to picture. Water overflows the main river, splits off into branch-streams and side-channels, and from that you get the image of a snake sprouting many heads. Damming the channels to ward off drought and flood matches the cutting away of the snake’s heads. And since polluted water breeds every manner of disease, even the venom falls into place.’

The imagination of so many people ends up birthing the yokai into reality, and every time a flood-control work fails, the yokai’s power grows stronger.
So a region where a powerful serpent-yokai has appeared is, by that same token, a region that has suffered greatly from floods.

“Guji Mochizuki, the calamity Hotenshi-no-Kami sealed away. It would have been flood-disaster, wouldn’t it?”
“Bingo.”

That night.

Seated on a chair set out on the rooftop of the shrine’s shamusho, Shin Hweein gazed down at the river flowing just below the hill where the shrine stood.

“Even so. To think the Nine-Headed Dragon had been sleeping under this very land all along. Truly… I almost wish I could grab my father in the next world by the collar.”
“He wouldn’t have known. Had he known, he would never have scolded his sons and daughters for letting Hotenshi-no-Kami’s divine power weaken.”
“Quite so. Still… it’s a relief. I won’t take him by the collar, but I would like to meet him once. I must tell him our shrine is all right now.”

It wasn’t as if any particularly important conversation remained between them.
He had slept a while, and when he woke it was already night. Wanting fresh air, he’d gone looking for a suitable spot, and Makoto had simply come and found him there.

“Hotenshi-no-Kami’s power could weaken again at any time, so don’t lean entirely on the god. Keep training your spiritual power. As soon as I have the right abilities ready, I intend to come back and deal with the Nine-Headed Dragon… though when that will be, exactly, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Honestly, Grand-Master, you don’t need to worry about a thing like that. Now that Lord Hotenshi-no-Kami’s divine power has come back, the blessings granted to us have multiplied too.”

He’d been telling the man for a while now that the divine power had not, in fact, “come back.” What on earth was he going on about? Shin Hweein turned to look, and Makoto thrust his face right up close, telling him to look properly.

“You see, originally we soaked ourselves in Lord Hotenshi-no-Kami’s overflowing yang-energy while we drilled our spell-work, so my skin got burnt pitch-black, right? But once my body got better at absorbing that yang-energy, my skin cleared up this much. Look, Grand-Master. Look up close, I said!”
“It’s dark anyway, I can’t see a thing. So quit shoving that overbearing face of yours into mine.”
“Overbearing face?!”

He’d certainly noticed that both siblings had skin tanned like farmers under a stinging sun. He’d put it down to the country-folk life, but to think it was Hotenshi-no-Kami’s power.
Shin Hweein cast his mind back over the moments Makoto had unleashed that power, and nodded. I see.

But their transformation still made no sense to him.
That Hotenshi-no-Kami should be weakened by Shin Hweein’s existence was a law of nature.
If so, then the shrine-priests who served the god should likewise have weakened. They had not. Which meant the cause of their strengthening lay not in Hotenshi-no-Kami but somewhere else.
And the only other thing that had happened to them lately was working alongside Shin Hweein to handle this crisis, and forming a contract…

A contract?

‘Surely… surely not? If that’s so, then the fact that the slip began to show me the Sojy at this very point…’

Having arrived at a conclusion he could scarcely believe himself, Shin Hweein hesitated over whether to share the hypothesis with Makoto, and in the end shut his mouth on it.
If even he thought it sounded like wild speculation, how would anyone else take it?

“Mari was so overwhelmed she actually tried to do a thank-you bow while you were sleeping, Grand-Master, can you believe it? She’d never once let on that her burnt skin was her own ability falling short, but she sure went hunting for cosmetics, you know… caught her earlier looking at herself in the mirror, crying out of sheer emotion. Sniff.”

At the sight of Makoto wiping his own eye-corners while telling him his little sister had been crying, Shin Hweein gave a small huff of a laugh.

“You love your little sister a great deal.”
“Of course. There is no older brother in this world who does not love his little sister.”

A magnificent declaration.

He remembered that when he’d first been reunited with Shin Myeongin, he had felt outright killing intent toward her. So he decided he himself must simply be the odd one out, and he wanted to ask Geum Moa whether every pair of siblings really was like that. As it happened, though, she was off with the other shikigami, saying she’d reinforce the formation he had carved around the honden.
They’d been together the whole time, and now that they were apart for even a moment, calling her over right away would only have her preening insufferably again. So he didn’t.

“Ah, Guji Mochizuki. The heads of those criminals. Could you hold off a little longer before you hand them over.”
“I’m not in any hurry, but… why? You’re not planning to use some weird sorcery on them, are you?”
“Be at ease, it’s nothing like that.”

There were things to extract, but nothing to inject.

When Shin Hweein answered flatly, Makoto put on a relieved face. Then, as if something had just occurred to him, he leaned his head in again.

“More importantly, Grand-Master, there’s some advice I’d like from you.”
“…I suspect it will be a useless conversation, but go ahead.”
“How do I get popular with women?”
“A useless conversation indeed.”

Shin Hweein went back through all the reasons Makoto was so mistaken about this.
The reason Shin Myeongin kept needling him was, surely, that she dimly saw the shadow of her real older brother in him.
The reason Yun Juna was making approaches was, needless to say, that Yun Jinseong had ordered it.
And Geum Moa… that was a karma carried over from a past life.

‘Tch. I’m the one being knocked around by useless thoughts here.’

He recalled something Geum Moa had said to him earlier, while he was still reeling from the curse, and Shin Hweein let out a thin sigh and shook his head.
What she had said was not that she didn’t mind his past. It was that she liked the him she had watched all the way from his past. He must not misread it.
For her, denying his now would only mean denying his then.

Either he himself came to accept and overcome his past more naturally.
Or Geum Moa came to give her heart to Shin Hweein for some reason other than the one carried over from a past life.
Short of that, the relationship between the two could not, and must not, progress.

‘And that moment is certainly not now. The fox-of-flame is trying to deceive me with clever words. I must not let myself be swept up in them.’

Earlier had been particularly dangerous.
Even knowing her heart had not changed by so much as a hair since the day they’d sworn the Three-Year Pact, hadn’t he very nearly been swept clean off his feet?
He was on the verge of feeling outright gratitude toward the one who had laid the lust-suppressing curse upon him.

“I’m being serious, Master. I’ve got nothing holding me back now, so I can approach her properly! …Miss Ghost-Sword Maiden, I mean.”

While Shin Hweein was setting his own mind in order, beside him Makoto was inflating his delusions.
Knowing perfectly well where this love-struck heart of his for Yun Juna had come from, Shin Hweein checked that his mask sat properly, and then, with peace of mind, settled in to despise the man.

“It pains me to tell you this, but if you are sincere then it pains me all the more. Better to give up early. She will most likely be married off according to the will of her elders, in a politically-arranged match.”

He could not say exactly what Yun Jinseong’s intentions were, nor what Yun Juna’s were in obediently following him, but Yun Jinseong would, if he could, want her married into one of the White-Blood Eight Houses.
And remembering the inferiority complex Yun Juna had shown toward the direct line of the White-Blood Eight, perhaps she herself wanted it as well.
Of course, for her child to belong to a direct line, she would have to marry whoever was slated to inherit the house, which narrowed the pool of candidates considerably.

“An elder of the White-Blood Eight would naturally hate a Japanese, then?”
“Astonishingly, among Aeshin’s upper echelons there are quite a few people still locked in nineteenth-century thinking, running their own private isolationist policy. And toward Hwa-guk all the more so.”
“That’s not easy…”

Tsk. Clicking his tongue and muttering to himself, Makoto soon lifted his head with a resolute expression.

“I’ve decided. I am going to become a Korean!”
“That is not easy…”

Tsk. This time it was Shin Hweein’s turn to click his tongue.

“Today, watching you, Grand-Master, I realized something. A man’s life only takes on meaning once he becomes popular with women! Just you watch. I, too, will seize love, exactly like you, Grand-Master.”
“I don’t want to watch.”

He sighed and was rising to leave when his phone buzzed.
He opened it to find an incoming call through the messaging app he used, and a video call, at that.

‘Why through the app… ah, that’s right. The signal had been cut off.’

When sneaking abroad undercover, carrying a phone as-is made one easy to track, so Geum Moa had used her sorcery to block the device’s communication function.
That the Wi-Fi was nevertheless still alive. Just how deep did the world of sorcery run?

— Hey, your phone’s been dead this whole time, I was worried!

The instant he pressed the answer button, Ham Seoyeon’s face filled the screen and she shouted at him. Then, catching her mistake, her expression shifted and she muttered a small “Sorry.”
Watching her expressions flick past, Shin Hweein let out a low laugh and replied.

“No. I should be the one thanking you for worrying.”

— Ugh… I kept calling and you wouldn’t pick up, so just in case I tried through the app. You’re not somewhere weird, are you? Nothing big happened, right? You can’t go and die in some place I don’t even know about. Not before I’ve repaid my debt.

“By the way, why a video call?”

— I figured I’d only feel reassured if I could see your face.

“I’m covering it with the mask, you know.”

— Hm? Ah, er, right. I am, but the General can see right through that now…

When she explained the reason as though it were nothing of consequence, Shin Hweein was taken aback all the same.

“She can see through even across a screen? Truly worthy of one of the Twelve Olympians of Greece.”

— Yeah, well, she’s something else. But are you really okay? Myeongin said it was over a long time ago, but did you get hit by some other attack afterward?

“It’s a long story for the phone. Someone might overhear, so let’s talk face-to-face.”

— Let’s do that. Should I come to your lodging? Should I head over now?

“Right now is difficult. Tomorrow, separately… come to think of it, is something going on with you?”

He’d only asked because she seemed oddly on edge, but Ham Seoyeon went pale and waved one hand wildly through the air.

— Aah, tomorrow! Okay, okay. I’m totally fine! The gut went off without a hitch, and a bunch of places grabbed me for interviews. I’ll even be on the nine o’clock news!

“That’s good to hear. A shame I couldn’t watch the gut in person, though…”

— Hm? …Ahem, oh, really? A video of the whole thing from start to finish has gone up on MeTube, so you’d better watch it and submit a viewing report.

The fact that she could even joke about it meant nothing was really wrong, it seemed.
After exchanging a few more words with her and promising to meet tomorrow, Shin Hweein ended the call.
When he turned around, Makoto was right behind him, staring at him with a chilling expression that startled him for a moment.

“What is it.”
“Another woman… and an incredibly pretty one at that…”
“Hm? …Ah. She’s a friend.”
“That’s exactly what the protagonists of harem stories always say, damn it!”

Hurling tears about, Makoto sprang up and dashed off, only to whirl back and shout at him.

“Mari said she’s going to dance the kagura, so at least stick around for that before you go! Damn it!”
“…What a funny man.”

* * *

There are many reasons one offers up dance and music to a god.
Gratitude that the god has watched over the offerers.
A prayer offered up in difficult times, in hope that the god will help.
A festival staged as display, to keep the god from being forgotten and to stir up faith in the people.

The kagura offered today was for invigorating Hotenshi-no-Kami’s energies, after the formation had been laid to keep the Nine-Headed Dragon’s seal from slipping loose.
At the center stage of the kaguraden erected within the shrine precincts¹, Mari stood quietly. She wore a robe with brilliantly colored long sleeves, quite unlike the miko outfit he’d seen earlier in the day, and her skin truly did look paler than it had then.

“Our Mari’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“…She’s certainly cute, but she is still a child. Her temperament is sharp enough that, in time, she’ll bring home a fine groom on her own initiative. Spare her your needless interference. Carry on like that and you’ll be the resented one before long.”
“Geh.”

Apparently struck where it hurt, Makoto did not retort, but fell to muttering about kids these days and the rising average age of marriage and the share of singles. Shin Hweein decided to let him stew, and, spotting Leon at the corner of the stage with a stringed instrument held to his chest, blinked once.

“That instrument. A biwa… no. The biwa as somewhat altered in Hwa-guk?”²
“Yep, that one’s been handed down for hundreds of years too.”
“Why is it in the hands of my thrall, then?”
“Honestly, I was supposed to play it, but he said he knew how, and Mari shoved it right into his hands.”

Which presumably meant Makoto was unspeakably bad at it.
Shin Hweein, who had a fair read on the man by now, didn’t bother saying so out loud and took a suitable seat. Whereupon Geum Moa, appearing out of nowhere, smoothly claimed the spot beside him.

— Stretch your knees out a bit more. There, that’s it.
— Krrng?

Flame-tail, too, gave his knee a couple of thumps with his tail, then climbed up to settle on it, and Neuldam poked its head out from Hweein’s hair.

— Kyu.

Apparently fired up by the competition, Arong appeared in his bear-cub form as well and stuck himself fast to Hweein’s shoulder, until the whole arrangement resembled some keeper at a zoo. Watching it, Makoto made a face of pure disbelief.

“You’ve had that many shikigami summoned this whole time? They say the onmyoji of the Eumyangcheong grind their teeth whenever they hear of the Shin family’s shikigami arts. I see it really is true.”
“I won’t say whose shikigami arts are superior overall, but in maintaining shikigami, the Shin House’s arts are unrivaled.”

Just then Leon, who’d been fiddling with the biwa, caught sight of them and gave them a grinning wink, one eye closed.
What he was about to play was, in a manner of speaking, sacred music. Could it really be all right for a vampire to be the one playing it? Then again, when you thought about it, the music was ultimately being offered up to Shin Hweein’s past-life self, so there was probably no problem.

“He’s a man of many talents.”
“My, but you yourself are accomplished across every instrument too, aren’t you, young master?”
“All I can really do is study and read books, so in my spare time I just played whatever instrument fell into my hands. Set beside proper professional musicians, I feel sorry for them.”
“Hmph. Young master, you really ought to feel sorry for them.”
“Hush. It’s starting.”

Just as there were over eighty thousand shrines in Hwa-guk, each enshrining a different god, the kagura offered to those gods varied tremendously.
Among them, the famous ones often used masks and stage costumes and unfolded like a staged play. A valid method too, in the sense of drawing many guests and acquainting them with the god’s majesty and history.
But the kagura Mari now danced, to the lyrical biwa melody Leon plucked, was for Hotenshi-no-Kami alone.

In her dance, which joined human and god directly, without obstruction, one could feel, with no further explanation needed, her heart toward the god she served, and the god’s heart turned back toward humankind.

“…Lovely.”

For all that she was still so young, her expressiveness reached a level that drew involuntary admiration.
From the solemn cast of her face, to the soft fluttering of her steps like a butterfly’s wingbeats, to the disciplined tips of her fingers, there was not a single point that felt half-formed.
This had to be the first time they’d ever played together, and yet Leon’s playing and her movements aligned crisply, beat by beat. Each of them, surely, must have reached a master’s level.

“E-heugh.”

Beside him, Makoto was overcome, tears streaming down his face.
It wasn’t quite a moment to be crying over, Shin Hweein thought. But for him, a guji, there was probably more there to feel.
The melody of Leon’s biwa, too, grew more dignified and beautiful the longer one listened, to the point that calling himself “a noble of the night” seemed not so far off the mark.
To Hweein’s ear there were a few slight shortcomings, but even so, this would be no discourtesy to the shrine.

“Hooh.”

The dreamlike interval ended before long.
It was the first time Shin Hweein had ever watched a kagura up close, and not knowing the etiquette, he’d been wondering whether it was all right to applaud. But Makoto beside him was clapping hard enough to shatter his own palms, so he decided he might as well clap too.

“Thank you, everyone! Brother Leon’s playing made my dance come out so much better! I almost want to swap him in for our own Big Bro!”
“Thank you for the kind words, my lady. I think the fact that this stage holds a connection to my lord made the playing come out better too.”

Trading smiles with Mari, Leon returned the biwa and came back with a rather pleased look on his face, then said to Shin Hweein,

“Wasn’t that pretty good, my lord? Though actually, I’m best at the piano.”
“Indeed. That would suit you.”

He gave a small laugh and rose from his seat.
There was a reason the back of his mind had kept itching with a faint, tickling unease while he watched the beautiful kagura, and now he realized what it was.
Having seen Hwa-guk’s religious dance, the feeling that he should now see Aeshin’s religious dance was tickling at him.

“Young master, that is a disease.”
“All the same, the viewing report still has to be submitted. Come. Now we really shall be going home.”
“Viewing report?”

Perhaps it was true that after the kagura the god’s energies had grown stronger. Even the mists of the night sky cleared away, and a bright moon showed its face.
Would Aeshin’s moon shine as bright as that?
It surely would.
And soon enough, with his own two eyes, he would see.