On the day of the party plans:
Intel reached the Onmyo Bureau that Kuromari-chan was riding a city bus. Yanagishita and the First Unit rushed to the scene. They stopped the bus, evacuated passengers, and searched it—only for a planted bomb to detonate.
Yanagishita survived that. She called Captain Shirakawa to report. But gunshots rang out mid-call, followed by a loud splash, and the line went dead.
Later, Onmyo Bureau responders found the bus ablaze by the riverside and a bloodstained railing. Forensic tests confirmed it was Yanagishita’s blood.
She’d likely been shot mid-call and fell into the river. Near the estuary, her body may have washed out to sea—it was never recovered.
Captain Shirakawa was the one who told me this.
“I was in a meeting, so I was unharmed. I should’ve gone with them. If I’d been there, I could’ve protected them.”
Days after the incident, I was summoned to the riverside walkway where it happened.
Shirakawa had just returned to Tokyo. Instead of her usual white uniform coat, she wore a black suit—mourning attire.
“I’ve been meeting the families of my team.”
She looked exhausted.
“This kind of work… it’s hard.”
“We don’t know for sure Yanagishita’s dead yet,”
I said.
“Missing allies always show up at the best moment to steal the glory. I know how this goes.”
“You’re kind.”
Shirakawa had visited Yanagishita’s family home.
“I’d heard stories, but it was so… ordinary. A father, mother, younger brother.”
Yanagishita had chosen public service over corporate life after college—to support her family. She’d passed the national civil service exam, joined the police, then transferred to the Onmyo Bureau after they spotted her potential during training.
Her childhood room still held stuffed animals she’d loved and a badminton racket from high school club days.
Shirakawa had picked up each item, flipped through yearbooks on the shelf.
“Hard to believe now, but she was a real tomboy back then.”
She stared at the river.
I had nothing to say.
After a while, Shirakawa straightened.
“I’ll wallow in this after securing the Holy Grail. I never imagined anyone would dare target the angelic guard.”
“The Grail’s even more valuable than I thought…”
“It guarantees a nation’s prosperity for a millennium.”
Not just immortals were after it.
“Foreign governments too. Unofficially, operatives are already here.”
“What if another country gets it?”
“A well-behaved one? Fine. But we can’t let it fall to a dominant power, criminal groups, or extremists. The Grail’s power is absolute control.”
“It’s too big for me to grasp.”
“You’ve already experienced it, Madarame.”
The missile strike on the Metropolitan Government Building? Definitely not Japan’s doing.
“It’s a human organization. Domestic or foreign, official or underground—who knows? But they have the resources to fire missiles.”
That’s how fiercely factions were fighting over the Grail, Shirakawa explained.
“But I was optimistic. With named angels’ protection, we don’t take damage from mere explosions. Not even missiles.”
Yanagishita, blessed by Sandalphon, survived the bus blast and called Shirakawa. But then she was shot, bled heavily, and fell into the river.
“This is dire. There’s no record of a high-tier guardian angel’s protection being breached.”
Captain Shirakawa said.
“If this continues, the order between humans and immortals will collapse.”
“What can hurt an angel?” I asked.
She listed them:
“Supreme demons. Pureblood vampires. Century-old witches. Cain’s descendants. Van Helsings. Rabbinical golems.”
But Shirakawa suspected something else entirely.
“Madarame, did you know there are multiple Holy Grails?”
“What?”
“Any relic with energy potent enough to rewrite the world’s laws is called a ‘Grail.’”
Each had its own history.
“The one loose in Tokyo likely belonged to a specific immortal.”
The Onmyo Bureau had investigated its origins since tracking Kuromari-chan.
“This immortal once wielded immense power. But no longer.”
“Who?”
“I can’t speak the name.”
Captain Shirakawa says.
“That immortal is better off forgotten. They lost power because the world forgot them.”
Letting them regain it was unthinkable, she stressed.
“But now, they have that chance.”
“Their original Grail?”
“They’ll claw for it. They won’t tolerate interference from angels or demons.”
Then she said what I didn’t want to hear.
“At Yanagishita’s bloodstain, we found revolver casings. The gun was identified—an early Colt. Inefficient, obsolete. Only a collector would use it.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because you have a righteous heart. I can sense these things.”
As a child, she’d attended church, felt angels’ presence. She’d always been sensitive to people’s morality.
“Your jokes are a front, Madarame. Deep down, you’re a dreamer who’ll do the right thing.”
It didn’t feel like praise.
“If the Grail’s going to that immortal, we should destroy it.”
“Can we?”
“The Grail’s form is transient—raw energy. Shatter that shell, and the energy disperses. It’ll take a millennium to coalesce again.”
“I don’t really care about the Holy Grail.”
What bothers me is the revolver cartridge found in Yanagishita’s pool of blood.
“Of course, what I just told you is just one possible scenario.”
Captain Shirakawa says that, but—
“What if that possibility turns out to be true?”
When I ask, Captain Shirakawa answers with an unnervingly flat expression.
“We hunt that immortal.”
And then, despite her slender arms and her righteous, saintly appearance, she adds:
“I’m actually pretty strong in a fight.”
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT gadgetizedpanda.net
I don’t know much about Her Majesty.
Even though we’ve been together ever since I was picked up at British shop, Her Majesty is immortal—there’s so much time in their life I don’t know about.
It’s entirely possible that, deep down, Her Majesty is actually cruel, a truly wicked immortal.
“Ancient immortals are all devious.”
I recall what Rabbi once said.
But the Her Majesty beside me was the same as ever—snacking, playing around, nitpicking about manners. Still, there was one small change.
“We won’t be taking any requests from the shopping district for a while.”
That’s what they declared. When I asked why, Her Majesty replied:
“Hana’s request is taking too long.”
In other words, she wanted to focus on the Holy Grail.
“Your Majesty, if you had the Holy Grail, what would you do with it?”
One night, while we were watching a football match together, I decided to ask. Her Majesty likes international football too.
“If I had the Holy Grail, I could build a nation.”
Her Majesty kept their eyes on the screen.
“My thousand-year kingdom.”
“What kind of country would you make?”
“Three-day weekends.”
“You wouldn’t even need the Holy Grail for that. Just run for office and your government would win in a landslide.”
“I am Your Majesty, not a prime minister.”
In the end, it felt like I’d been neatly dodged.
What is Her Majesty, really? The question I had once given up on came creeping back.
I used to think I didn’t need to know. I’ve always been the type who doesn’t care much about origins—whether it’s people or things.
But at this point, I can’t help but wonder.
“Rabbi, what is Her Majesty, really?”
I asked them one day at tailor,
when I went to pick up Her Majesty’s new spring coat.
“Like I said before, I don’t know Eli’s true nature.”
Rabbi, as usual, was inspecting some fabric just delivered from Italy.
“But one thing’s for sure—Eli only recently gained the ability to wield power as an immortal.”
“Really?”
“It was after meeting you, Madarame. Before that, she was just an immortal who couldn’t die—no special abilities whatsoever.”
That lined up with something I’d heard before.
“Her Majesty once told me, ‘The more loyalty you pledge to me, the stronger I become. And in turn, the stronger the power I can grant you. We’re a perpetual motion machine.'”
“That’s clearly not a perpetual motion machine.”
Rabbi scoffed.
“You’re the starting point. Everything begins with you.”
Then, as if seeing right through me, rabbi added:
“I heard two more angel squads captains were recently killed.”
That was undeniably abnormal. Normally, the angel squads—blessed with divine protection—should be untouchable.
The Onmyo Bureau people were reportedly on edge about it.
“Both were shot with revolvers. As you know, this shop deals in such weapons, so the Onmyo Bureau’s investigation unit came by to ask questions.”
Then, Rabbi mentioned the dates of the shootings.
“Both at night. Were you with Eli then?”
“Yeah. We live together, after all. She was throwing controllers after losing a game.”
A lie.
On both nights, Her Majesty had gone out alone—once for ice cream, another time craving late-night ramen. It was unusual, so I remembered. Normally, she’d just use Madarame Uber.
“…I see. So you were together.”
“Yep. Well, I’ll be going now.”
I left the shop with the coat in hand.
Even then, I refused to believe Her Majesty would do something like that. We were supposed to be a pop, catchy duo.
I liked it that way.
But—
Then came that night.
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