Epilogue
With the disappearance of the Holy Grail, all turmoil had subsided.
Simply put, peace had returned.
The director and other captains who had been collaborating with foreign powers were all taken into custody. Which foreign powers or countries they had been working with became classified information known only to the upper management. I didn’t particularly care to find out.
The Onmyo Bureau’s director position was taken over by the young Captain Shirakawa. With half the staff in custody, they faced a serious shortage of personnel, and she seemed busy every day.
Captain Shirakawa apparently wasn’t a typical modern boss. When she saw my resignation letter, she casually tossed it into the trash bin and said with an angelic smile, “Let’s keep working hard together.” All I could say was, “I’ll only help out occasionally~”
There was a good side to Captain Shirakawa becoming the director.
Her Majesty was certified as a zero-risk immortal and was declared innocent.
“I’m definitely stronger than her anyway. No problem, no problem!”
That’s what Captain Shirakawa said.
And so Her Majesty was registered on the immortal list.
[Elrain of British shop]
That became Her Majesty’s registered name.
Her Majesty was extremely displeased.
“Why must I be registered with a Japanese administrative agency? I am an independent nation. Treat me as a state guest. Also, I’m definitely stronger than Shirakawa. Absolutely.”
But there were good things too.
All the furniture and knickknacks from British shop that had been confiscated were returned.
Naturally, we reopened British shop.
Requests from the shopping district were as lively as ever. We’d mind the delicatessen shop, play gateball at the riverbank. Her Majesty must have realized it would be tough to play shogi with chess pieces, so she started reading a shogi rulebook.
Our pleasant days had returned. However—
“Madarame, there’s something you still need to do, isn’t there?”
Her Majesty said. Of course, I knew what she meant.
So one day, on my way home from school, I invited Hana-chan to go get something to eat together.
Hana-chan fidgeted saying, “If you had told me beforehand I could have—!” but she properly came along.
We took the train to the city center and had a meal.
As we were leaving, Hana-chan stopped on the pedestrian bridge.
The city buildings glowed against the night sky, with taillights of passing cars below.
At that moment, I took it out of my pocket and held it out to Hana-chan.
Hana-chan looked surprised for a moment, then exclaimed.
“Ehhh~!”
What I held in my hand was the Kuromari-chan plushie.
“I told you not to push yourself because it was dangerous…”
“But it was a precious gift from your father, wasn’t it?”
“It would’ve been terrible if something happened to you, Madarame senpai.”
Hana-chan said as she took Kuromari-chan with both hands.
“I have plenty of Kuromari-chans from my father, so losing one didn’t matter. Even if I lost it—”
Hana-chan’s hands firmly held Kuromari-chan.
“I’m not just putting on a brave face. I really do have many of them. My father was always too busy with work to really understand his daughter, so he just kept giving me Kuromari-chan plushies thinking I still liked them from when I was little, and it was always the same—”
Hana-chan began telling stories about Kuromari-chan.
How on Christmas when she was in elementary school, she woke up to find a large Kuromari-chan plushie by her pillow. How she received a Kuromari-chan pouch for her birthday that she still uses today. And how whenever she was happy about receiving a Kuromari-chan, her father would always look happy too.
“He always thought of me as a child until the end. It was always the same. To him, I was always a child, and that’s why he always loved me… No matter how busy he was with work, he never forgot about Kuromari-chan, but now, father is gone…”
Hana-chan’s voice began to tremble.
“Even though father was sick, he still sent me Kuromari-chan… This was the last Kuromari-chan… Father’s last… Kuro… uh, uh…”
“I’m facing the other way now.”
Hana-chan pressed her face against my back and cried for a while.
After she stopped crying, we took a little night walk until her tears dried.
“I’m frustrated,”
Hana-chan said with pursed lips.
“I completely fell for father’s trick and cried. He was definitely lying in his sickbed, preparing this present, smiling and thinking ‘My daughter will surely cry over this.’ That’s the kind of person he was.”
“I think your father would be happy.”
After walking for a while, we decided it was time to head back and got on the train.
We sat side by side on the seats.
Hana-chan looked sleepy, gripping my sleeve.
The rhythmic sound of the train.
Kuromari-chan was in Hana-chan’s hands.
It was the end of one case for British shop.
“Madarame senpai…”
Hana-chan mumbled drowsily, half in a dream.
“Thank you…”
I quietly responded so as not to wake her.
“It is my pleasure my dear.”
Well, the case had concluded perfectly, but unfulfilled promises needed to be kept.
Which meant tonight—
“Shirakawa, you have terrible fashion sense, you know.”
“I think Eli-chan’s is woooorse!”
It was a drinking party.
Her Majesty keeps her promises no matter who she makes them with. So we ended up having that drinking party we had once tried to have but couldn’t. Since Vice Captain Yanagishita obviously couldn’t participate, it was just the three of us.
After entering the bar and sitting at a table, Her Majesty and Captain Shirakawa began competing to see who could hold their liquor better.
“I don’t get drunk from mere alcohol.”
“I’m fine too since I’m smart. Big brain metabolism.”
With that, the two exchanged intense glares and began drinking rapidly. Though both were certainly strong drinkers, the way they gulped it down like water meant that, naturally enough, they got drunk.
“Shirakawa, your face is red.”
“Director~”
As the bartender placed a bottle of strong-looking alcohol on the table, I kept refilling their shot glasses.
The two had even started arguing about clothes.
“White coats are, you know, usually worn by problematic women.”
“Whaaat~? Black gothic lolita is much more problematic!”
“Black is fine, black is. Kuromari-chan is cute, right?”
“The protagonist is Yurumari-chan~!”
The two continued drinking and carried on with their cat fight.
“Hey Madarame, this one’s a dangerous woman.”
“Madarame-kun, don’t follow this kind of woman.”
Eventually, they both collapsed face-down on the table.
“Huh? Wait, what?!”
I shook both their shoulders. But neither Her Majesty nor Captain Shirakawa showed any signs of waking up.
“Don’t tell me I have to carry them both home~?”
At a loss, I rested my elbow on the table in exhaustion.
“I guess I’ll wait a little longer…”
I sipped my juice, waiting for the two to recover.
And I remembered how Her Majesty hadn’t even glanced at the Holy Grail.
I spoke to Her Majesty, who was breathing softly in her sleep.
“I guess Her Majesty isn’t lonely anymore.”
The table where Her Majesty and Captain Shirakawa were slumped together was a round table.
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In the end, the three of us left the bar when morning came.
We walked along the seaside road, watching the sunrise.
Her Majesty and Captain Shirakawa each held a plastic bottle of water, looking miserable.
In the clear early morning air, two hungover creatures and me taking care of them.
I guess this is how things will be from now on.
As I was walking with this thought, Captain Shirakawa suddenly looked up at the sky and said:
“It would have been nice if we had the Holy Grail.”
“For the thousand-year Kingdom?”
“That too, but more for this, this.”
Captain Shirakawa pointed at the sky.
“?”
I tilted my head in confusion.
“Madarame-kun, can you not see it?”
As Captain Shirakawa said this, Her Majesty spoke up.
“Madarame can’t see it.”
“I see, then I’ll—”
Captain Shirakawa brought her palm toward my eyes. But Her Majesty slapped her hand away.
“Don’t mess with my subject.”
“Madarame-kun is my subordinate though~!”
The two started squabbling. Their dispute extended to me.
“Hey, Madarame, tell her. Say you’re not interested.”
“Madarame-kun likes me better, right~?”
It felt like I was super popular, which made me think, this is fine!
I wished they would keep fighting over me forever.
But—
“What’s wrong with the sky? I’m really curious!”
“Oh, right, that’s what we were talking about.”
Captain Shirakawa had been pulling Her Majesty’s cheek, but she let go and said with a somewhat serious expression:
“If we had the Holy Grail, I thought we might be able to do something about it.”
“Do something about what?”
When I asked, Captain Shirakawa said.
What Captain Shirakawa wanted to fix using the Holy Grail was—
“The Apocalyptic War.”
The moment Captain Shirakawa uttered those words.
I was definitely looking up at the clear blue morning sky. But—
It reversed in an instant.
The sky became dark and heavy. It wasn’t that night had fallen. The sky, filling my entire field of vision, was covered. Covered by—
It was—countless missiles.
They were suspended in mid-air, in a position where they seemed about to rain down on the ground at any moment.
If all of these fell, surely buildings, people, everything would disappear.
“This is the truth of the world,”
Captain Shirakawa said.
“Our world, you know, has actually already ended. We’re just postponing it for a little while longer. That’s the truth.”
Captain Shirakawa had apparently been searching for a way to do something about this situation.
The final war of good versus evil, prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
“Did Your Majesty know about this?”
“Yes.”
Her Majesty replied nonchalantly.
“Then, wouldn’t Your Majesty’s Holy Grail have been necessary after all?”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“You’re quite relaxed about this.”
“I had planned to do something about it eventually. I can’t let my territory and citizens get hurt.”
“…”
“But I don’t have much power. And that Holy Grail won’t take shape until a thousand years from now.”
Then Her Majesty looked at me with an unconcerned face.
“I’ve been with Your Majesty long enough to understand. But isn’t that a bit too reckless? No matter how hard I try, the scale is—”
“Madarame, you will end the Apocalyptic War,”
Her Majesty said with her usual forceful voice.
“In the name of Her Majesty, the Fallen Angel.”
TLNOTE : There’s one chapter left
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