Lethal Weapon of Blasphemy
Firearms were laid out across the floor of the barely furnished living room. There was a large variety of sizes represented, ranging from pocket pistols to 58kg machine guns. There had to be at least fifty of them present, all the personal property of Sagara Sousuke.
Sousuke was running maintenance with his usual sullen expression and tight frown. He rarely cleaned all his firearms this diligently; most of them he barely used, after all. Some were mementos of old comrades, but there were also some he’d bought and found disappointing. Some were simply overkill for most of his purposes.
But nevertheless, he had to get all of his guns properly clean. Today was New Year’s Eve, after all. It was a time when one was supposed to get a fresh start to the year by getting their household (or closest equivalent) in order. Even for Sousuke, who’d grown up on the battlefield, this practice was common knowledge.
While he did battle with the firearms, he heard his nearby cellphone begin to ring. He answered it immediately. “Yes?”
“Hellooo, Sagara-kun? I’ss Tokiwa.” It was Tokiwa Kyoko, one of Sousuke’s classmates at Jindai High.
“Tokiwa? What is it?”
“Sayyy, you... you free t’day?”
“Not exactly free, but I’ll hear your request.” Holding the cell phone between shoulder and his cheek to keep his hands free, Sousuke continued to work as he spoke.
“Oh, ’sokay ’en? Cool. Got a kinda... favor t’ask. Can’t do it without ’cha. See, ’cuz ’sjust us girls right now, an’ we dunno what to do. C’mon, help out! Yeah... I really, reeeally need’jer help...”
Sousuke scowled in confusion. Kyoko is acting strangely, he thought, and stopped in the middle of polishing his high-powered .454 Casull revolver. “Has something happened, Tokiwa?” he asked.
“Naaah. Actually... yeeeah. Ha ha ha. Anyway, ’m thinkin’ it’ll work out, an’ we maybe just need a boy... ’swhy I called. Yeah. C’mon, you get it!”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” he denied politely.
“’kay! So just come and help! ’sfine, ’sall over soon! We’ll get... sooo many snacks. C’mon, Sousuke. C’mon down with us... tee-hee.” After adopting an overly coquettish tone, she suddenly burst out laughing.
“T-Tokiwa?” Sousuke asked worriedly.
It was then that her voice abruptly turned plaintive. “Look... I just...” She let out a sob. “I’m sorry. It’s just... you’re the only one I can ask. Please help. See you later. Please come.”
“Um, Tokiwa—”
“We’re at Arahaba Shrine. Arahaba,” she repeated, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Please... Please come... Sagara-kun.”
Click. Beep, beep, beep...
A shrine? he wondered. It seemed as though one of his classmates had ended up at a shrine while in some sort of disordered mental state, and needed his help. He didn’t understand exactly what she’d been trying to describe, but she had said he was the only one she could ask. A problem that only a master of weapons and battlefield veteran can handle, he pondered next. What could it be?
It must be very serious, he decided. An image of Kyoko—perhaps being held hostage in an evil cult compound—found its way into Sousuke’s mind. Surrounded by hundreds of mad cultists, her sense of danger addled by drugs, forced to play victim in some barbaric ritual...
“I must act,” he said out loud, and pulled a map of the city from his desk drawer.
Cleaning his firearms could wait. First, he had to save Kyoto from the cultists.
“Waaaoooh! I feel good, na-na-na-na-na-na-na...” Chidori Kaname hummed to herself as she swept away at the flagstones. She was in a region of forested hills not too far from the city, on the grounds of a small shrine that was surrounded by large zelkova trees. The sky was blue, and the air was clear and pleasant.
She was dressed as a miko, in the traditional white kosode and red hakama. Her black hair, which usually hung down to her waist, was tied up in a ponytail today. She’d gotten a part-time job here at the Arahaba Shrine, helping with cleanup during the busy end-of-year period.
“Great, all done.” Kaname bagged the fallen leaves and trash she’d swept up, threw them out, and then returned to the shrine office. She went in through the back entrance and found Tokiwa Kyoko, asleep by the kotatsu in the middle of the tatami floor. Despite her ever-present coke-bottle glasses and braids, she was dressed as a miko too.
“Hey, Kyoko,” said Kaname. “Still down for the count?”
“Ugh. Can’t drink a’more...” Kyoko mumbled in response, her words slurring.
“Jeez, Kyoko. Who gets drunk off of one cup of sweet sake? You’re not just trying to skip out on work, are you?”
“’course not... ’m really sorry... an’ so... ’swhy...” With sluggish movements, Kyoko nudged the cell phone perched on top of the kotatsu. “Called for help...”
“Help?” Kaname echoed suspiciously.
“Yeah. Help... Asked ’im to come. ’ll be here soon...”
“What are you talking about? Did you call someone?”
“Yep,” Kyoko affirmed.
“Who?”
“Tee-hee... Your faaavorite person, Kana-chan...”
“Huh? What are you—”
Fwoom! Suddenly, the wall behind Kaname burst inwards, filling the room with smoke and wood fragments.
“Yeek!” Kaname pitched forward with a shriek, bowling over Kyoko and her kotatsu in the process.
Not a moment later, someone dove inside through the newly created hole in the wall. “Get down!” barked the figure, which was holding a shotgun.
The moment she heard the voice, Kaname sprang back off the floor and charged him fiercely.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said get—”
Smack! The Miko Punch landed and sent the intruder corkscrewing through the air before slamming into the floor. “I knew you’d pull something like this,” Kaname told them. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about my part-time job here...”
“Chidori?” Sagara Sousuke, dressed in black fatigues, pried himself up off the floor.
Kaname stood before him, legs spread and fists trembling. “You could give me a quiet New Year’s, at least! What the hell were you thinking?!”
“Well, everyone knows that the best way to infiltrate a room is to avoid the entrance and use shaped charges to blow a hole through an outer wall.”
Wham! The Miko Kick roared through the air, and Sousuke’s body hit the tatami mat again. “That’s not an explanation!”
“But given the situation, there was a significant chance that the cultists were using Tokiwa as bait to lure me out—” Sousuke tried to protest.
“Y-You...” The Miko Typhoon exploded. This was an unthinkably powerful move that sent the enemy spinning away at high speed, and Sousuke was quickly sent flying through a window and out of the shrine office altogether.
Kaname bowed deeply to the head priest, Hikawa Yoshikatsu. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said apologetically. “C’mon, say you’re sorry too!” She grabbed the nearby Sousuke by his neck and forced him to join her in bowing.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Politely!”
“I’m very sorry.”
He didn’t sound the least bit sincere, but the head priest, Hikawa, smiled pleasantly nonetheless. “Ah, I forgive you,” he said graciously. “It’s clear you were acting out of concern for a friend.”
Hikawa was a small man, just past middle age. He had a clean-shaven head, arms that were short but thick, and a big potbelly. It was the archetypal Japanese physique, and looked perfect in hakama.
Hikawa’s magnanimity took Kaname by surprise. “Oh... really?”
“Of course,” he returned politely. “And it doesn’t look like there were any serious injuries.”
“Th-Thank you!”
“But I’d like him to help out at the shrine if he could. Given the state Tokiwa-san is in, we really do need help.”
“Hahh... You want Sousuke to help?” Kaname asked.
“Yes, is that a problem?”
Internally, Kaname felt nervous: past experience told her the best thing to do right now was to send Sousuke away ASAP. “Well, you certainly could do that... but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ll do the work of two, so we should really send this idiot—”
“No, I’ll help,” Sousuke responded cleanly, sabotaging Kaname’s attempt to demur on his behalf.
“Oh, will you? I’d appreciate that very much,” Hikawa told him. “Chidori-san will tell you what to do. Is that all right, Chidori-san?”
“B-But...”
“Well, good luck. Sagara-kun, was it? Oh, and don’t enter the main shrine, no matter what. I told Chidori-san the same thing... Oh?” Hikawa had heard the phone ringing in the shrine office, and jogged away.
“Ah...” Left with no other choice, Kaname recruited Sousuke as her assistant. Kyoko was still asleep inside the shrine office, the hole now covered by a red-and-white-striped curtain.
The major purification ritual performed at every shrine had taken place that morning, so all that remained now were preparations for the evening’s festival. But the shrine wasn’t very large, so it wasn’t an especially big job. They’d burned the old hamaya arrows, prepared the newly received omikuji fortunes, readied snacks and sake for worshipers... all that kind of thing.
Work that would normally have been done before yesterday, like cleaning the shrine, was yet to be done. It seemed rather irresponsible, but not unexpected from such a small, local shrine.
As the two were carrying buckets of cold water toward the main shrine building, Kaname cast a dubious glance in Sousuke’s direction. “What are you up to?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You clearly don’t feel guilty at all about what you did, but you still offered to help,” she clarified. “That means you’re up to something.”
“I’m not up to anything,” Sousuke protested. “It’s just that something’s amiss at this shrine, and I thought it would be dangerous to leave you two here alone.”
“I explained this all before, remember? Kyoko’s fine; she was just drunk.”
“I’m aware of that. My issue lies elsewhere. Namely: why is the security at a so-called ordinary temple so strict?”
“Huh?”
“On my way here, I declined to ascend the stone steps to the front gate in favor of coming in through the back forest... but said forest was full of traps,” Sousuke explained. “No one without training like mine could have made their way through.”
“Traps? For the love of...” Kaname sneered at him, then looked around her. The grounds nearby were the image of peace and quiet. She (unsurprisingly) saw no sign of the traps Sousuke had described. “There’s nothing here. It’s all in your head.”
“It is not,” he insisted. “It was the strictness of security that convinced me that Tokiwa must be a hostage here. Something is wrong at this temple.”
Kaname scowled. She knew this was just a part-time job, but she still felt responsibility as a miko. “Sousuke,” she gently admonished him, “this isn’t a temple, it’s a shrine.”
“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. A shrine is a divine place, so you can’t say such awful things about it. You’ll end up cursed.”
“By the gods, do you mean?” he asked.
“Exactly,” she told him. “In particular, this shrine venerates Susano-o, God of War. You could end up bringing down the moon itself.”
“A moon with an orbit that unstable would have fallen long ago,” Sousuke observed.
Kaname rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever, don’t listen to me. Just don’t cause any more trouble, okay? One more incident and I’m fired for sure.”
“But there really are traps—”
“Would you drop it already?!” she demanded. “The head priest here is a really good guy. He’s not a trap-setting weirdo like you!”
Just then, completely out of the blue, a man’s scream echoed out of the forest. They heard leaves being shaken off of trees and saw a young man in a leather jacket fly up three meters into the canopy above. He was dangling from a tree, a rope around his ankle, the result of a clever trap set in the nearby forest.
“See? Like that one,” Sousuke said with utmost calm.
The man kept screaming as he swayed side to side like a pendulum.
Kaname watched for a moment, feeling stunned. Then she asked, “Did you set that one?!”
“No,” said Sousuke. “It was there when I arrived.”
“No way. So, who’s that guy?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s my son,” said the head priest, Hikawa, who had joined them at some point. “He majored in Shinto studies at Kokugakuin in hopes of taking over the business, but he fell in with a bad crowd and gave in to debauchery. He left home, dropped out of college, and now only occasionally comes by, trying to steal things he can sell off.”
“Uh-huh...”
“I’ve given him any number of lectures,” the high priest told them, “but he never listens. It’s been no end of trouble.”
“Hence the traps?” Kaname asked with a deflated air.
“Yes. Is that unusual?”
“No... I think it’s just fine,” she responded casually.
“Damn you, you stupid old geezer!” Hikawa’s delinquent son screamed and wept as he looked down at them. “Let me down from here! Don’t just watch like a smug asshole! You hear me, dammit?!”
Hikawa let his son’s abuse wash over him impassively. “Please, Katsuhiko,” he replied calmly. “It’s time you learned: no matter how many times you try, you will never steal the shrine’s treasure. Such blasphemy will only earn you divine retribution. Just like now!”
“That trap wasn’t divine!” the younger man howled. “It was you!”
“Pipe down, boy. New Year’s Eve is the perfect time for repentance. Leave your disorderly lifestyle behind and greet the new year as a new man.”
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think I’ll leave you there until your soul can be purified by the first dawn of the new year,” Hikawa decided.
“H-Hey!” The younger man tried to protest this treatment, but Hikawa only turned away and left his son dangling in midair.
“Wait! Hikawa-san!” Kaname tried next. “You can’t really mean to leave your son like that, can you?”
“I certainly can,” he told her. “Don’t listen to anything he says, now.”
“But he’ll freeze overnight!” she protested.
“Which will be a good learning experience. If one little trap were enough to fix him, he’d have been fixed a long time ago,” the old priest said in a whisper. “Just forget him and go back to work. And as I’ve said many times, don’t enter the main building under any circumstances. Such disobedience could invite disaster, even for a sweet girl like you.” He said the last line with strangely severe tones.
Kaname couldn’t figure out why this man was so protective of the main shrine building. Did it contain some very valuable treasure? She admitted to being slightly curious but, intimidated by Hikawa’s attitude, she simply said, “All right. I won’t,” and nothing more.
Leaving the dangling prodigal son behind, Kaname and Sousuke went back to their work.
“But...” Sousuke said quietly.
“But what?”
“Which is the ‘main shrine building’ Hikawa told us not to enter?”
“It’s there, right in front of you.” Kaname pointed at a modest building with a gabled roof. Built of white cedar, it was about the size of a slightly upper-class suburban home.
Sousuke nodded meaningfully. “I see,” he said. “And that is where the shrine’s treasure is hidden?”
“Yeah... why do you ask?”
“The building contains an array of anti-theft devices as well, of a greater complexity than the ones in the forest,” Sousuke told her. “Multiple traps, activated by electronic sensors. Not quite cutting-edge, but even a professional would struggle with them.”
“What, in there? Really?” Kaname eyed the building suspiciously. It looked pretty normal to her, but Sousuke seemed to know better. “I think you’d have to be a psychic to know something like that...”
“No, merely observant. But what kind of treasure requires that degree of protection? I’m extremely interested to know,” he admitted. “There must be more to it than mere monetary value. It could be something dangerous.”
Kaname folded her arms thoughtfully. “Geh... Look, I’m curious too. But it can’t be that big a deal, can it? Probably an old mirror, or a sword or something.”
“A sword,” Sousuke mused. “A weapon, then. Possible.”
“A weapon?” Kaname scoffed. “Come on...”
“When I fought in Cambodia, guerrillas frequently stored weapons and ammunition in temples,” Sousuke insisted. “If there’s a powerful weapon stored here, as well... that would explain the strict security.”
“It would not!”
“A small but powerful weapon of mass destruction... a chemical weapon, perhaps,” he speculated. “Like a tank of VX gas, meant to be used as a last resort.”
“What kind of Japanese shrine venerates a tank of poison gas?” Kaname muttered.
But Sousuke ignored her and said, with utmost seriousness, “I really should search inside. If I’m right, I’d like to retrieve it and send it to Mithril’s Merida Island Base for disposal.”
“Um...”
“It would be for the best,” he insisted. “There’s nothing more dangerous than religious fanatics with chemical weapons.”
“The only dangerous thing here is the way you’re talking,” said Kaname, but greasy sweat was starting to rise on her forehead.
Ignoring her distress, Sousuke began to scrutinize the main temple building. He seemed determined to go in.
“Hey... wait a minute!” Kaname snapped back to her senses and shouted at Sousuke.
“What’s wrong, Chidori?”
“The guy just told us not to go in!” she told him. “And there’s no way a chemical weapon is in there!”
“But—”
“I said no!”
Cowed by Kaname’s glare, Sousuke nodded hesitantly. “Ah... If you insist.”
“Good. Now, stop thinking and get to work! Got it?” Kaname walked off.
Meanwhile, Sousuke did as he was told. First, he polished the stone monument near the main building with a rag. And when that was done...
“Hey, buddy.” Hikawa Katsuhiko, still dangling upside-down, called to Sousuke from the forest. “Mind lettin’ me down already? My leg hurts. I think it’s gonna come off. Please.”
Ignoring him, Sousuke focused on his cleaning.
“Hey, talk to me!”
Sousuke remained silent.
“You loyal to that old man just because he’s payin’ you? If so, you’re a real dumbass. That batty old bastard’s a total skinflint. You could make more at the local supermarket! And he could pay you more, he just doesn’t wanna. Hey, you hear me?”
Sousuke did hear him, but he still didn’t respond. He didn’t explain the fact that he wasn’t actually getting paid, either.
“His house and car are pieces of shit and he got his TV used twenty years ago. He’s a moron. He could afford a way better lifestyle if he sold that treasure in the main shrine building. So just ignore that old penny-pincher’s orders and—” It was at that moment that Sousuke turned back and looked up at Katsuhiko. “Oh? You comin’ around?”
“Actually, you mentioned the treasure in the main shrine building,” said Sousuke. “Do you know what’s in there?”
The hope in Katsuhiko’s eyes dimmed for a moment, but then he reconsidered. “Ah... yeah, I do!”
“What is it, then?”
“Well... Lemme down and I’ll tell you. Heh heh.”
Sousuke’s right hand was out in a flash. A knife tore through the air, cutting through the rope that held Katsuhiko up and letting him fall to the ground head first.
“Ah... ow!” He fell hard onto his back, limbs splayed out around him. As Sousuke swiftly approached him, Katsuhiko picked himself up, rubbing his aching back. “S-Some moves you got there...”
“I let you down,” Sousuke told him. “Now, talk.”
“The treasure, huh? It’s worth a ton. As for how much it’ll fetch... I dunno,” said Katsuhiko. “The old man says it’s off limits. Radioactive.”
“R... Radioactive?!” Sousuke froze up in terror.
“Yeah, so he won’t sell it. You think it’s weird too, huh?”
“Have... Have you seen it yourself?” Sousuke grabbed Katsuhiko’s shoulders, and his intensity left the other man a little dazed.
“Uh, I just caught a glimpse of it once... It looked kinda like a pot or a barrel... wrapped up in a sturdy sack. About this big.” Katsuhiko held his hands out to the width of two soccer balls.
Sousuke felt a chill run up his spine. “An SADM,” he whispered.
“A what?”
“It’s short for ‘Special Atomic Demolition Munition.’ It’s a miniature nuclear bomb that can be triggered remotely,” said Sousuke, speaking to himself in the tone of a narrator. “It only weighs about twenty kilograms, but its power is 4.5 kilotons... about half the payload used on Hiroshima.”
“Huh?” said Katsuhiko, “What are you talkin’ about?”
“There were rumors that during the 80s, US forces attempted to bury SADMs in East Germany, and a few went missing over the course of the operation,” Sousuke continued. “Perhaps one of them fell into the hands of the priest here somehow...”
“Uh. You okay, man?” asked Katsuhiko, waving a hand in front of Sousuke’s face.
Sousuke ignored it and peered cautiously at the main shrine building. “Do you know the layout of the main building?”
“A little,” Katsuhiko admitted. “But Dad’s got some pretty serious security installed. It’s not safe to get close.”
“I can take us through. Just show me where to go.”
Katsuhiko perked up at this. “Sure, glad to have you. How about a 70-30 split when we sell the treasure?”
Sousuke was about to tell him that selling it was out of the question, but quickly reconsidered; it would be better to play along for now, and after confirming that the treasure was really a nuclear bomb, to convince the other man then.
“Very well,” he said briefly. “One moment.” Sousuke left for a while, then returned with a backpack he’d previously stored in the shrine office. He withdrew from it a pair of multi-purpose goggles with a satellite datalink function, which he activated. “Let’s go.”
“S-Sure...” Katsuhiko agreed uneasily. Then the two men steeled their nerves and climbed over the fence into the shrine building.
“Hikawa-san. When should we have dinner?” Kaname asked, entering a room of the shrine office surrounded by bookshelves. The head priest, Hikawa, was writing names of worshipers on fuda.
“Oh? Ah, let’s have it a bit early,” he decided. “Something simple is fine.”
“Very well. Should I make some for your son?”
“No need.”
“But...”
Noticing Kaname’s reticence, Hikawa smiled. “I appreciate the concern, but there’s really no need. Just prepare dinner for four.”
“If you’re sure...” Kaname straightened up and looked at the framed picture on the desk. It was a black and white photo of a well-dressed couple in their forties, smiling. “Is that your wife?”
“Yes. It’s been fifteen years now since we lost her to cancer,” Hikawa said with a note of emotion. “Ever since, it’s just been me and my son in this shrine... and I didn’t know how to fill the mother’s role. I only knew how to scold him.”
“Ahh...” Kaname said tactfully.
“The way he’s turned out is my punishment for that. I don’t know why he’s so desperate to steal the shrine’s treasure, though.” Hikawa set down his brush and let out a long sigh.
“Speaking of the treasure... Is the main shrine building really filled with traps?” she asked next.
“Chidori-san, I told you not to go in there.” Hikawa glared dangerously at Kaname.
His intensity forced her to gulp slightly. “I-I wasn’t going to,” she told him hastily. “But So— er, Sagara-kun said he was interested, so... If it is, I’ll tell him to be careful...”
“I do have security devices installed inside, but as long as you stay out, it’ll be nothing to worry about. Do not approach the main shrine building under any circumstances. Is that understood?” he said firmly.
Kaname nodded. “O-Of course I won’t. I’ll go finish dinner, then. Excuse me.” She left the room quickly, pretending she didn’t feel his eyes boring holes in her back.
Hmm... it really is strange, Kaname thought. Hikawa-san’s usually so friendly, but he becomes a different person when you mention the main shrine building. Sneaking in there might lose me more than just my job...
Her stomach dropped as she suddenly recalled how Sousuke had been acting before. She’d left him on his own for over an hour now. Deciding she should probably check in on him, Kaname left the shrine office building behind.
The main shrine building was, in fact, filled with security devices; there were invisible infrared lasers, pressure sensor floors, vibration detectors and high-sensitivity microphones. Intruders would be neutralized with tasers, wire net launchers, and tear gas. These were professional-grade devices, and they didn’t run cheap.
This really isn’t natural, thought Sousuke as he worked hard to deceive, deactivate, or evade each of the sensors in turn. He also marked the places he’d stepped with magic marker to make sure Katsuhiko could follow behind. “Don’t step anywhere except the places I’ve marked,” he urged him.
“R-Right,” said Katsuhiko. “Got it.”
Sousuke had messed with the systems’ wiring as well, so there were now little holes all around the shrine’s floor and walls. He’d considered interrogating the head priest directly about the nuke, but judged that to be the more dangerous option. If the man thought the jig was up, he might press a hidden remote detonator switch, and then...
That would be the end of it, Sousuke speculated grimly. He, as well as Kaname and Kyoko, would be instantly obliterated as the shrine grounds were reduced to a crater in the mountainside.
He had to defuse the detonator in secret before something awful happened.
Following Katsuhiko’s guidance, Sousuke at last reached the building’s innermost chamber. At the center of the sparse wooden floor sat two simple boxes: one was as tall as a child, and the other was quite a bit smaller.
“This is awesome... I’ve never made it this far!” Katsuhiko said in awe.
“Quiet,” Sousuke ordered. “And if you have to breathe, breathe towards the entrance.”
“How come?”
“There are sensors mounted behind the boxes, too. They’re capable of detecting even the minor amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by humans.”
“Crazy old man... thinks the world revolves around him,” Katsuhiko muttered.
Sousuke tugged at his sleeve again. “Which is the treasure in question?”
“The big one’s just got an ordinary rock inside, so it must be the small one.”
“Then we’ll open that one first,” said Sousuke, stepping over a knee-height laser. Katsuhiko followed and was about to step over it too, when...
“Sousuke! What are you doing?!” He suddenly heard Kaname shouting at him from behind. She was standing outside the main building, glaring at them through the entrance.
“Chidori!”
“Wah...” The surprised Katushiko lost his balance and ended up triggering the laser with his foot. “Damn...”
In that same instant, a black taser popped out of the ceiling. Krrsht! Its prongs sparked with electricity, which fired at Sousuke and Katsuhiko.
“Eek!” Katsuhiko collapsed, his hair standing on end. Sousuke reflexively leaped back to dodge the blast...
But that action, too, triggered one of the sensors. Whump! A wire net fired out of a gap in the wall. Sousuke couldn’t dodge this one, and ended up being pinned against the opposite wall. Sirens began wailing, as well.
“He told you not to come in here! I’m so fired now! This is all your fault!” Kaname cried, despite her surprise at the sight of the dangerous traps.
Sousuke, now held in place, replied, “Desperate times called for desperate measures.”
“What the hell kind of desperate times—”
“What’s going on here?” came the distant voice of Head Priest Hikawa. The sound of footfalls on gravel approached the shrine building.
“No...” Sousuke whispered. If he learned they were inside the building, Hikawa might trigger the nuke in desperation. Sousuke had to neutralize it before that could happen!
In that case... Sousuke made a decision. Despite his mostly immobilized state, he plucked a grenade from his chest pocket and pulled the pin with his mouth. “Chidori, I’m going to destroy the nuclear mine! Take Tokiwa and get as far away as you can!”
“Huh?”
“Destroying the external detonator will prevent a nuclear explosion, but the nuclear material will still contaminate the shrine grounds,” he yelled urgently. “You have to run!”
“Um... You’re not really making sense,” Kaname told him.
“Farewell, Chidori. I’m so glad to have known you.”
“Uh, much appreciated... Wait, what?”
Just then, Hikawa appeared at the door, his face tense and pale with fear. There was no more time to lose.
“Run! Now!” Sousuke shouted, throwing the grenade at the wooden box from across the room.
“Hey! What are you—” Kaname blanched, and Hikawa gasped...
Blam! The hand grenade’s explosion blew the box apart.
The weapon was destroyed. Sousuke closed his eyes, preparing for the incoming radiation. In a life full of so much death and destruction, he thought, I’m just glad I could spend my last moments preventing a nuclear explosion. Sousuke’s eyes remained closed for a while as he waited patiently for death, until...
“Hey!” said Kaname, poking at his head as he remained stuck to the wall.
Hikawa must have disabled the security devices, because he was now inside the room and helping his son to his feet.
“Why didn’t you run?” Sousuke asked. “The radiation from the nuclear material—”
Kaname poked him in the head again. “Nuclear material? Radiation? What are you talking about? And why’d you blow up the shrine’s precious treasure?!” She pointed at the destroyed wooden box. There was no sign of the remains of a nuclear mine, just a few old albums—scorched, battered, and full of holes.
“Is that the shrine treasure, then?” Sousuke asked.
“Eh? Huh...” Kaname approached the box in confusion and picked up one of the tattered albums.
Sousuke finally managed to extract himself from the net and curiously peered over Kaname’s shoulder at the album in her hand. The pictures within were of a young man with a pompadour and sunglasses, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. One was of him in a provocative pose, standing with similarly-dressed comrades, all laughing at the camera. Some had them piled into a sports car, bashing vending machines with steel pipes, peeing on signs that read ‘no public urination’...
“Dad... what is this?” asked Katsuhiko, who had apparently regained consciousness, as he looked at the albums from the side.
The old priest winced. “Well, I suppose the secret’s out now,” he lamented. “These are pictures from my youth. That’d be over thirty years ago now, of course.”
“That’s you, Hikawa-san?!” Kaname said in shock.
“Yes... I was reckless and foolish then,” the older man said. “I wanted to stick it to my father, so I hung out with a bad crowd. I was a hopeless hoodlum, but then I met my wife, and... Katsuhiko, when you were born, I resolved to go straight.”
“...”
“Are you surprised, my son? I wasn’t cut out to be a priest at first, either. But... that kind of lifestyle can’t continue on forever. People get old, if they don’t die before they get there. There’s more to living than money and expensive things... I’d hoped to show you these albums when you came to that realization yourself, but...”
“D-Dad...”
“Do you understand a bit of how I feel now?”
“Yeah. I... I had no idea,” Katsuhiko admitted.
“Yes, yes...” The old man patted his son’s shoulder lightly. There was a new warmth between the two of them now. But...
“Wait a minute,” Kaname muttered.
“What is it, Chidori-san?”
“Look, I’m sorry to interrupt the heartwarming wrap-up, but why are there picture albums in the shrine’s treasure box?” she asked. “What’s the real treasure?”
“Ahh. The original treasure was a hand drum passed down from the Muromachi era, but...”
“Was?”
Hikawa gazed into the distance. “I sold it because I needed money.”
Kaname collapsed with a thump, which sent the beat-up picture album flying.
“I initially installed the security system to protect the shrine treasure... but I got a little obsessed with it,” Hikawa admitted. “I ended up racking up some serious bills.”
Sousuke nodded along in perfect understanding.
“I didn’t have a choice, so I sold the drum. But I didn’t like leaving the box empty, so I put something inside I didn’t want anyone to see anyway. I mean, since we had the security measures in place.”
“H-Hikawa-san... Have you ever heard of ‘missing the forest for the trees’?”
“I have. What about it?”
Kaname sighed and slumped over limply.
Sousuke patted her shoulder. “It all worked out, Chidori. It wasn’t a nuclear bomb after all.”
“And I’m closer to my dad than ever before,” Katsuhiko pointed out.
“Yes, and now that my secret is out there, it’s like a weight has dropped from my shoulders,” Hikawa told her brightly. “Isn’t it funny, the way life can be?”
Father and son smiled happily. Sousuke nodded in agreement. The three of them each seemed satisfied in their own way.
“You... You’re all blasphemers...” Kaname alone just stood there, eyes downcast, trembling in a mixture of rage and disappointment.
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