“Weird how?”
“She wasn’t intimidated at all when Yukinari hit her. If anything...” Veronika frowned and stopped for a moment. “It was like... It made her try even harder to rile him up.”
Yukinari pictured Angela’s face. She had been bright red, her eyes shining, her breath ragged—there had been something strange about it. She had been trembling, but not from fear or anger. More like... excitement, almost. Truthfully, recalling the incident made him a little sick. In the moment, Yukinari had been agitated, angry beyond belief, and he hadn’t thought about anything that was going on. But now...
“She wasn’t insulting him just because he’s her enemy?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t think so,” Veronika replied, looking a bit perplexed. “That was joy, I’m sure of it. Although I don’t know if she herself noticed.”
“Joy...?” Fiona, Berta, and Dasa all looked at each other, mystified.
“I’ve run into a lot of different people in my mercenary work,” Veronika said. She let out a breath. “There are some out there who... Well, they enjoy certain stimuli that people normally don’t.”
“What does that mean...?” Berta whispered, genuinely stumped.
“Mercenary work attracts a lot of people who aren’t welcome in polite society,” Veronika said. “Strange people, people who aren’t very easy to get close to—they’re the rule, not the exception. Especially ones who have specific preferences related to... ahem. That part of their bodies. Some prefer partners of the same sex. Others can’t get off unless their partner is way younger or older than they are.”
“Ah... Now I get it.” Fiona nodded knowingly. Dasa and Berta were listening to Veronika with evident interest.
“Then of course,” she said, “there’s the people who want to do it with their own sister.”
Veronika’s offhand comment tugged at something in Yukinari’s heart.
Where he came from, strong feelings of love or attachment to an older or younger sister—especially romantic feelings or sexual desire—were popularly known as a “sister complex.”
Hatsune...
Amano Yukinari had grown up under rather unusual circumstances. Neither his mother nor his father had been home often, and for as long as he could remember, he and his older sister had had only each other. So the first thing Yukinari thought of when he heard the word family was not his workaholic father nor his cult-member mother, but his sister, Hatsune.
Typically, the first “other” that human children recognize in their worlds is their mother. This is why the mother is such an influential presence for most children, the first object of their burgeoning love. But the first “other” Yukinari had acknowledged in his world was his sister.
She was the one who understood him best, the member of his family he loved the most. That was why, as the flames roared around him in the last minutes of his life in his prior world, he took solace in the fact that at least he and his sister could die together.
And yet...
I’m the only one who ended up here.
His beloved sister was gone.
He, and he alone, was alive here, blessed with friends in this new world. Sometimes he even felt guilty about it.
“Lord Yukinari...”
Berta hesitantly called his name, bringing Yukinari back to himself. “Huh? Oh, Berta, what is it? What’s wrong?”
The girl who called herself Yukinari’s “shrine maiden” looked at him with pleading eyes. “Lord Yukinari, do... do you prefer ‘unusual stimuli’?” She had the same apologetic tone as ever, even as she approached this most sensitive subject.
“Huh? Wh-What brought that on...?” He felt just a tiny bit panicked, maybe because he’d been thinking of his sister until that very moment. He supposed there was no way Berta could have known that. He didn’t even think she knew that he’d once had a sister.
“Oh. I just— I thought if I knew what you liked, Lord Yukinari... I might... be able to offer it to you...”
“You’re already offering me what I want. You’re doing fine.”
“Yes... but...” Berta seemed more worried, more displeased, than usual. And beside Yukinari, Dasa seemed to be having an odd thought...
“Yuki...” She suddenly clenched her fist as if in resolution. “It’s all right.”
“Uh... What is?” He had a bad feeling about this.
“I don’t care if you... prefer something strange. I’ll try... my best.”
“You don’t have to try anything. Wait... try what?”
“A slap...?” Dasa moved her right hand as if to pantomime hitting something. Despite her lean frame, she had surprising strength, and a slap from her looked like it would hurt.
“I’m really not into that kind of thing.”
“Is that... right?” She looked puzzled.
Veronika had been watching the exchange with amusement. “Well, the interrogation didn’t get us anywhere,” she said. “But that girl ought to at least be useful as a hostage. I say we just keep her in that room for now.” She seemed to be trying to bring the conversation to a close.
“For now? How long is that?” Fiona asked. She probably wasn’t entirely comfortable having one of the enemy in a room directly under the house. Yes, Veronika was guarding the prisoner, and all of Angela’s weapons had been taken away, but even so.
“I don’t know. It will depend on what our enemies—on what the Church does.”
“I don’t suppose we should send an emissary from our side to negotiate with them.”
“I appreciate your consideration for my comrades, but...”
Veronika frowned. Some of her fellow mercenaries, as well as the merchant who was their employer, were still captive in the town of Aldreil. Part of the reason they’d kept Angela alive and captive was in the hope that they could trade her for Veronika’s friends.
“But I’m pretty sure this is the first time the Church has ever seen a town they couldn’t overpower, despite the use of two separate guardian saint statues. The missionaries left in Aldreil are probably pretty confused. There’s some possibility they might even hesitate to report to Church headquarters. But whatever the case, I think we buy ourselves more time if they don’t know exactly what we want.”
“I see,” Fiona said, nodding in agreement. Whatever stance Friedland took vis-à-vis the Church after this, it would be best to make sure they had enough time to prepare the town.
“I assume the Aldreil garrison is well aware that we have that woman hostage. If they have any interest in an exchange of prisoners, they aren’t likely to kill my friends or employer.”
Angela was the scion of a powerful noble family; before her capture, she had been vice captain of the Ninth Missionary Brigade. There was no question she was someone important, and the Church would presumably want to get her back if it could.
“In other words, we’re okay for a while, huh?”
“However long that is.”
“Is that good by you, Yukinari?” Fiona looked at Dasa, Berta, and then Yukinari in turn, and none of them objected.
“Sounds like we have a plan,” Yukinari said with a shrug.