Days after the flower-viewing, now in March.
Rindo kept leaving Nadeshiko’s side to attend to calls from other divisions.
Eventually, he had to leave her entirely to go on a trip to Teito, Teishu.
“You will go to the Foreign Affairs Division?”
In the security meeting room of the Town of Autumn’s honden, Rindo hurriedly prepared for the trip, and Shirahagi lent him a hand while he asked his question.
“Yes, I’ll stop by after the paperwork. The person in charge seems to be there.”
“The situation hasn’t been very stable in Yamato or Kyokoku; we really want to avoid going there.”
“Yeah, and our insurgents have been calm for a while. The Agents’ fight with them in spring turned out to be a good deterrent. With that in mind, Kyokoku has also been proactive in fighting back, but it feels like the insurgents have the upper hand with how many deaths there have been lately. Do you remember last year? One of the Agents of Winter in Kyokoku died… They got kidnapped and tortured, their powers went berserk, and they took the insurgents down with them.”
“Yes…”
Shirahagi sighed. That had happened in January, Reimei 20.
One of Kyokoku’s Agents of Winter had been abducted.
Three days after the search began, the season had manifested at a large scale around an insurgent hideout; the whole area was frozen, and the Agent died in this disaster.
The incident had happened in an industrial zone, hurting both people and various businesses, and had become a major story in the news.
Although in Yamato, such headlines were soon overwritten by Spring’s return and the attack on the Agency.
Other Kyokoku Agents had died that year, too.
“The victim was about nineteen, if I recall correctly. Around my age. Poor thing.”
“Yeah…” Rindo nodded sadly before he realized. “Wait, hold on, how old are you, again?”
“Twenty. I started working when I was eighteen. It’s the fifth time you’ve asked me that, Lord Azami.”
Rindo brought a hand to his chin. “You’re so young…”
“You’re not much older, are you?”
“No, it just confuses my brain. You and Ms. Sanekazura don’t look your age at all…”
Sanekazura was a grown woman with the appearance of a young girl, and Shirahagi was a young man who had the appearance of an experienced adult. Rude as his observation was, Rindo was right.
“Please don’t say that; it hurts. I hear that I look like I’m in my thirties already.”
Rindo sincerely apologized before pivoting back to the topic at hand.
“Anyway, there do seem to be many abductions and deaths in Kyokoku. It reflects how aggressive the insurgents are…”
“Yeah. Even the insurgents don’t seem to care about their lives. It’s like…they don’t really kidnap the Agents for negotiations with the government; it’s as if they hate them at a fundamental level. There’s a religious element, too, so it’s a difficult matter to handle…”
Shirahagi didn’t seem to understand, so Rindo added:
“Yamato and Kyokoku both separate church and state, but Kyokoku has a deeply rooted monotheistic religion. Yamato is polytheistic, and generally broad-minded about religion, right? We have plenty of atheists, too.”
“Yes.”
“Monotheism accepts only one god, and anything else is like spirits or ghosts. In polytheism, we have multiple gods. The chiyorozugami concept is a pretty clear example of it. There’s a hierarchy of gods, but it’s not like one rules over everything. The Agents of the Four Seasons and the Archers of Oracle are gods incarnate, and their ancestors are the gods of the Four Seasons and of the Day and Night. The way the myth is transmitted differs from country to country, but that is the structure of the world. So in polytheistic countries, the gods incarnate are easily accepted as normal, but strongly monotheistic countries tend to reject the idea of other gods.”
“…I…see.”
It was an ambivalent answer. It was a hard concept for a young member of the Four Seasons bloodlines who had never gone overseas to grasp.
“As for how they see the gods incarnate, they think you are something else that’s beneath their one true god. Like spirits, don’t you think? The gods incarnate then become the Spirit Agents.”
“The Agents are spirits?”
“Yeah, because they’re separate entities from God. The problem is that the zealous monotheists—albeit a small, very small section of them—hate the gods incarnate.”
“Wh-why?”
“I think it’s because of how widespread the Church of the Living Gods is. They say, But can’t you see the gods that exist right here? The seasons, day, and night wouldn’t exist without them. Monotheism doesn’t make any sense.”
The Church of the Living Gods, as the name said, worshipped the gods incarnate. It was a large-scale religious organization with followers not just in Yamato but all over the world.
Shirahagi grimaced as he began to understand.
“On the other hand, the monotheists say, No, the ‘gods’ you worship are just spirits that serve our God. Humans that die and get replaced can’t be divine. In the end, it’s not about who’s right or wrong; it’s about the differences in interpretation that make it difficult to coexist. Some monotheists also accept other religions and believe that tolerance isn’t wrong…”
But it was a complex issue. History has always shown that differences in ideology bring conflict. It was unavoidable.
“…I don’t know how appropriate it is to use the term, but it sounds like the makings of a religious war.”
“It pretty much is. Actual blood has been spilled on both sides… I personally think it’s best to just mind your own business and let others be, but I’m not very devout to begin with.”
Shirahagi blinked. “You have no faith, Lord Azami?”
It was a shocking thing to hear from a Guard of the Four Seasons. Rindo corrected himself. “I worship the gods of the Four Seasons, of course, but I don’t really try to follow any doctrine in my day-to-day like other people do…”
“Ah, in that sense, I am the same. I believe in the Four Seasons, but I don’t follow the doctrines like my grandparents once did. I clean the household shrine, but I don’t do all the prayers.”
“That’s what I mean. As someone who’s also lived overseas, I’m far from what you’d call a true believer. If you asked me who I believe in and worship…it would be Nadeshiko. But that’s not enough to make me deny other religions. Different people all over the world have different interpretations of our reality, and that’s my opinion on the subject.”
“That’s the answer I would expect from you. I would say the same for me.”
Rindo was surprised. “Really?”
“Yes. I’ve experienced Lady Nadeshiko’s powers firsthand, after all.”
“…Oh, right.” Rindo responded with a hint of sorrow.
“I’m able to walk again thanks to her.”
But there was no grief, flattery, or exaggeration in Shirahagi’s words.
He had been crushed by the rubble after the attack on the Autumn villa.
To make things worse, he had been a rookie still in training, so he didn’t understand what had happened at first. It was hell when he regained consciousness, and he could only wait for rescue.
Rescue took time, and when he finally got to a hospital, he was told his lower body was paralyzed. Shirahagi had been lucky to escape with only his legs damaged; others caught in the attack still hadn’t woken up at all.
However, few people would accept so easily the violent tragedy that had befallen them out of the blue. When his mother visited, and he saw her tears, he had felt a bottomless well of helplessness.
She had given birth to him, kept him healthy, and raised him with care.
There was no taking back the pain of breaking her heart.
Shirahagi spent days wallowing in despair during his stay at the hospital in Tsukushi.
Then Nadeshiko showed up at the hospital connected to the Town.
He had only ever given her short greetings, having only ever seen the little goddess from afar.
The young princess bowed. “I am sorry to have dragged you into this.”
Her small body looked even smaller.
The details of the incident hadn’t reached Shirahagi’s ears, given his low status, so he was surprised to see her alive.
He considered saying she must’ve had it worse, but he thought that might be too rude.
Before he could come up with something to say, Nadeshiko said she would heal him, not pausing to wait for his reply. Shirahagi couldn’t understand what was happening before the godly miracle of Life Putrefaction filled his body and knocked him out.
Nadeshiko was gone by the time he woke up, and he realized he could feel his legs.
After some rehab, he was sent back to the Town along with the others, still in a daze. His mother fell to her knees when she saw him walking back home.
After she finished weeping joyfully, she told him to be thankful to the goddess.
What she’d done for him was quite literally a miracle.
Nadeshiko had cured many others, too.
Shirahagi was only one of those she’d healed.
But for him, Nadeshiko was the only goddess.
So he hastened back to his goddess’s side.
“I’m not the only one who adores her. My mother does, too. Whoever thought a god incarnate would heal the wounded?”
Most people who’d worked in the villa had already quit; so someone who would return, motivated by such a pure feeling, was a godsend to Rindo as he began looking to reorganize.
So Shirahagi rose to become a close aide.
“Yeah, she can’t do that all the time… Using her divine powers tires her out, and we have to take leylines into account. She made a special exception for the gravely wounded. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Yes. The experience made me realize who I serve. It taught me to be Lady Nadeshiko’s retainer.”
“I see…” Rindo was impressed.
I haven’t really done much for my juniors, he thought, and he decided to rectify that a little.
“…I’m glad to hear that from a fellow who serves the same lady.”
“Yes.” Shirahagi nodded, looking his age for once.
Rindo slapped Shirahagi’s back in an expression of love for his junior.
After Rindo was finished delegating everything he needed to, he left the meeting room with Shirahagi.
Nadeshiko had been told about the trip beforehand, but they headed to her room in the honden to say good-bye.
He knocked, and the door opened immediately to reveal the girl and her dog, as if they had been waiting right on the other side.
Sanekazura leaned into view as well.