Batman-Style Negotiation

Silence's request had not exceeded Kal'tsit's expectations. She nodded in assent.

"Don't worry, she won't mind."

"But if you insist, Silence, I'll do my best not to tell her it's saliva."

That was Kal'tsit's promise.

Silence let out a breath of relief. The sun had already risen beyond the horizon, and the warm morning light looked like a sunset in her eyes. She yawned, then, after receiving Doctor Kal'tsit's approval, cut off the communication and stretched her neck.

She still couldn't sleep.

She had to inactivate the remaining saliva samples first, so Lightning Empress wouldn't taste anything unusual.

Come to think of it, Warfarin could identify a race by tasting biological fluids. Silence had not met many vampires, but perhaps over her long life, Warfarin had drunk too much blood and acquired the skill through experience.

Warfarin had said that although every race's blood was the same bright red, each tasted different.

Silence had no idea what the differences were.

They all tasted bloody.

Her tongue instinctively disliked that flavor.

The inactivated saliva still crackled with a few electric sparks, but it was much better than before. She had no idea what it would taste like.

She shook her head and yawned.

After removing her round-framed glasses, her usually cold eyes looked somewhat vacant from being out of focus. Silence's face took on an adorably dazed expression completely unlike her nighttime demeanor—a sign that she was about to fall asleep.

She lay on the large bed in Lungmen, neither happy nor sad.

Until someone knocked on her window.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

The sound of knuckles striking glass.

"Who is it?"

Silence instinctively rolled over and murmured as if in a dream. Outside the window, Hoshino blinked and instinctively replied:

"Knocking on my window."

That shout startled the groggy Silence awake. She sprang up, rubbed at her sticking-up hair, and searched the room for her glasses. Hoshino crouched outside the window, quietly watching her performance, making sure not to smash her way in.

Since it was daytime, Hoshino had brought Silence some flower tea.

The tea's crisp, cool aroma forced her to perk up, returning her to the calm researcher who considered everything rationally.

"May I ask some questions?"

Silence asked first. Once she received an affirmative answer, she began her steady barrage.

"First, how did you meet that child?"

"I picked her up by chance."

Hoshino replied calmly, "All encounters and reunions in this world happen without reason. They are always so sudden."

"Please don't use mystic nonsense to confuse the issue."

Silence cut her off.

It was highly effective.

It was the first time Hoshino had been interrupted so bluntly. In the past, whenever she spoke poetically as a shrine maiden, she could always play the role of a life mentor. But this time was different. Hoshino had met Silence, a rigorous, cutting-edge scientist.

She spoke with data.

Hoshino could only describe her encounter with Lightning Empress in more concrete terms. Fortunately, Terra was chaotic, and she had once been both a screenwriter and an online novelist. Making up a passable backstory was more than easy enough for her.

She painted a vivid picture.

"It was at a power plant. Sarkaz attacked the place. Carrying a blade, I made my way through mountains of corpses, with flames burning behind me. I followed the sounds deeper inside and found an opaque metal incubation chamber."

Silence lowered her head and took notes.

Hoshino continued, "I touched the resin-glass surface and saw violet lightning darting about inside with my own eyes. I pulled my hand away, then saw a pair of tiny hands press against the handprint I had left behind, sliding desperately as though yearning to touch me."

"Yearning to touch someone?"

Silence stopped writing and looked up, repeating the words.

Things spoken in such a calm tone were the most moving. It made one sigh that she really was a little angel.

"Then I saw a pair of violet eyes inside. She secretly watched me from within, like a timid little deer. All she wanted was someone to high-five or hug her. I happened to be someone who wasn't so afraid of pain, so I took her with me."

That concluded the story.

Though it was very moving, it had not included a single real location or time. Hoshino was a very seasoned storyteller.

There were no logical problems.

She wanted to ask where the shrine maiden had come from. If she had lived so long, why had no legends of her spread across Terra? By all rights, someone like her should have shone like a beacon, each appearance like a shooting star streaking across the land.

"I can't reveal that."

Hoshino smiled and sighed, as if there were some great secret behind it. "People of the shrine have their own harmonious code of conduct."

"A code of conduct?"

"That's right. I can be conspicuous enough to draw everyone's attention, or quiet enough to hide in the deepest parts of a crowd, whenever the need arises. Think carefully—when you entered the shrine to examine that child, my departure did not alert anyone..."

Hoshino was telling stories again.

The old days... Just a few days ago, Hoshino had taken a shower and been ready to finish her work. Who the hell knew she would be transported to Terra with the Valkyrie System?

And as for leaving... at the time, she had transformed into Lightning Empress and stripped naked to undergo a physical examination.

It was all a con.

But that was fine. The point of a con was to make people believe it. A thoughtful look appeared on Silence's face; she was not far from being convinced.

She only needed one final push.

Hoshino had learned a trick from Batman: always control the rhythm of a conversation.

She should be the one to decide when it ended.

And never leave through the front door.

She rose and walked to the window, opening it and letting the wind pour into the room. The instant Silence looked up, Hoshino leapt straight down. By the time Silence focused on the space ahead, the shrine maiden had vanished, leaving only the scent of cherry blossoms spreading through the room.

She had left.

As though she had never been there.

Yet the warm tea on the table and the fragrance lingering in the air asserted her presence at every moment. That presence was so overwhelming, as if every inch of the world had been thoroughly invaded by her.

Silence lowered her head and stared at the options Doctor Kal'tsit had left for her. After hesitating, she crossed out the one labeled "Recruit into Rhodes Island."

Her brows drew together.

The pencil waved through the air as she thought for several seconds, then crossed "Go to war" off the paper as well.