Editing Hyouketsu Kyoukai no Eden:Volume 5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

[Asterhythm].

Returning to her own room, Ymy staggered to and collapsed on the sofa.

“……I-I made it back.”

“Good work today. How was the dinner party? I heard that all the head chefs in this hotel made a full course meal with everything from the menu without discretion for this day.”

Yuragi was looking over a large amount of documents on the table.

After the noon touring ended, it was finally time for the evening dinner party. A good three hours had passed and she had been keeping watch over the room during that time.

“……I was nervous and couldn’t taste anything. It would’ve been great if I could have had Ishtar-san eat in my place.”

“Ishtar ate many things from the carts while walking at noon after all.”

The person in question shook her head with a smile.

Her seat was also prepared in the dinner party but she had just sat there smiling from beginning to end and hadn’t laid a hand on any food.

“Also, it would’ve been problematic if something had been mixed into the food at the dinner party. Even if the hotel’s cook-san has no such intentions, I have to at least consider the possibility of poison in the food.”

“Ehhh!? Say that earlier!”

“Ymy-sama is a guest so you can’t very well refuse the food that you’re offered, right? Ishtar is an extra so it’s fine if she doesn’t eat.”

“……W-well.”

That’s true but wouldn’t it make somebody suspicious if they’re told that twice?

“That’s why Ishtar didn’t eat. She also considered poison testing by eating ahead of you but that would serve no purpose if the poison was of delayed effect. Rather than having both of you eat and both of you going down, if Ishtar at least is still fine, then she can look over Ymy-sama. Forcing you to expel the poison and such treatments are her specialty.”

“……I understand.”

“Right? Though I thought it would be fine nine times out of ten.”

She continued on with an indifferent tone.

……I wonder if that was the reason when she was eating while walking at the carts at noon.

Maybe she never had the intention of eating at the dinner party from the start.

“Ishtar-san is quite the outstanding individual.”

Yuragi shut her notebook and smiled.

“Ymy-sama has returned so it’s about time I also return to the Governmental Sector. I’ll be here at nine tomorrow morning to greet you.”

“……The assembly starts at ten, right.”

Forming a fist with her fingers that seemed like they would start shaking, Ymy let out a deep breath.

The former old parliament would be attending from the Governmental Sector’s central division. From {{furigana|Tenketsu Palace|Sophia}} would be the General Affairs Bureau Chief and his private secretary. At this place that was specifically for politics and negotiations, she wondered whether she could really fulfill her role.

The Governmental Sector-owned ‘''island with no map''‘. The mysterious experiment facility and Yuugenshu breeding water tank that Sheltis’ group had discovered there ─── even though they had to cross-examine them about the goal for that.

“It’ll be fine if it’s Ymy-sama. Well then, I’m off.”

Yuragi replied with a calm tone and bowed. She saw off Yuragi who walked out the door with a leisurely pace.

“Ymy-sama, you don’t seem like you’re going to be able to sleep tonight, huh─? Is your heart racing?”

Ishtar removed the cloth wrapping her spear with a swoosh.

“……I was also told that by Meimel.”

“Ahaha, if this was I’sa-chan, then I’d hug her tight and say, ‘''It’ll be fine─''‘. I wonder if the Priestess-sama wants to do that.”

Beneath the ceiling’s lighting, the spear sparkled by reflecting the light. Pearl-colored metal ── it was a strange material that was rarely used for Guards’ weapons.

“Umm……Ishtar-san.”

“What is iiit? What could the Priestess-sama be interested in─?”

While sitting down in the chair, the Cadres Guard leveled her spear horizontally. There was something about her that had been bothering Ymy since she’d met her.

“Ah, well, you really like your little sister-san.”

“I’sa, you meaaan? Yes, she’s Ishtar’s only family in any case.”

“What about your other family?”

“There are none─. Ishtar and I’sa have been alone since a long time ago.”

A family of just the two of them with no parents or relatives.

“I-I’m sorry……”

“It’s not something Ymy-sama has to apologize for, you know? And look, I’m carrying pictures.”

She rustled her breast pocket and pulled out a single picture.

Faded away by a large amount of time ── it was a picture showing the two blonde sisters.

The older sister was around over ten years old with a bright and cheerful air about her. The younger sister was still four or five. Compared with her older sister, she was more feeble and her expression was darker, leaving a timid impression.

“It’s a picture from almost ten years ago─, and this little girl is I’sa-chan.”

“……Are you possibly carrying that all the time?”

“Of course! I never let it off me!”

She gazed at the crumpled photograph dearly.

“I’sa-chan used to have a weak constitution long ago and would immediately get a fever, you know? On top of that, she was very spoiled and would cry while saying, ‘''It’s lonely when onee-chan isn’t here!''‘ when Ishtar went out to get her medicine.”

“……It’s somehow a little unexpected.”

.

“''My name is I’sa. Pleased to make your acquaintance.''“

.

Ymy’s impression of the Regular Guard I’sa was completely the opposite.

A shinryoku practitioner that had become a Regular Guard in their teens and had a promising future. Her manners were good and she was calm with an understanding of the duties of a Guard.

“But she’s become really outstanding now so you should also be reassured as her onee-chan, right?”

“Mm─ that’s……well……I wonder.”

That was really unexpected. Just when she thought that a flat-out agreement would come immediately, she went silent with her spear held against her chest.

“Well, that’s that. Okay then, once more to fix the mood!”

She once again leveled the spear horizontally while seated on the chair.

She thought she would do something but she just stared into thin air with her spear readied. For Ymy who was unlearned in martial arts, it was an unknown action that couldn’t be identified as training.

“U-um. That is”

“This? I’m just maintaining my feel for the spear─; see here. I asked Meimel-sama to add a new shinryoku seal here so the spear’s weight changed.”

The figure of an azure spiral was carved into the spear’s handle.

It was a formal seal that would defend against a Yuugenshu’s mateki as well as destroy the crystal at the center of their bodies.

“……Would that change much?”

“Mm─ well, '''about forty seven hundredths of a gram, I guess'''?”

Ymy completely didn’t understand the meaning of Ishtar’s words for a moment.

……0.47 grams?

A change in weight that didn’t even amount to more than half a gram. A weight that wouldn’t even amount to a slight amount of dust stuck together. Rather, it would be okay to write it off as a measurement error rather than calling it a change in weight……no, to begin with, is it possible to even notice such an exceedingly small difference?

.

“With great reverence and dignity do I carve my name. That’s the path I’ve chosen, Priestess-sama?”

.

A moment.

Her red lips whispered something…………or so she felt.

“Huh? Is so─mething up, Ymy-sama?”

“Eh……ah, umm.”

Putting her hand on her chest, she blinked many times and then Ymy looked at Ishtar.

“Y-you said something just now, didn’t you? Sorry, saying it that quietly and so fast……”

“Nope─, Ishtar didn’t say anything─”

H-huh. She didn’t say anything?

That shouldn’t……I certainly thought she said something. Also, she seemed like a completely different person for an instant but……that was also a misapprehension?

“Rather than that, Ymy-sama, is this fiiine?”

“Eh?”

“See, didn’t you make a promise with Monica-san and Kagura-san that you’d go to the baths together? You said you’d contact them after you returned from the dinner party.”

“Ah……ahhhhhhh, I-I forgooooot!?”

The hotel being reserved also meant that the large bath was reserved.

Without concern for status as a Priestess or Guard, they were going to chat while leisurely warming up with just the women ── that promise as well had flown out of her head due to the relief of having finished the dinner party.

“I-I wonder if it’s still fine. I wonder if everybody’s waiting for me……”

“If you’ve got time to worry, run, run!”

“R-riiiight!”

Holding a full change of clothes, Ymy flew out of the room.

“Oh my, oh my, how rushed.”

Looking on at the Priestess that had burst out of the room like a bullet, Ishtar softly loosened the edges of her mouth.

“……Now then, the assembly starts tomorrow─. It’ll be great if it goes well, I won’t say anything. But if not───”

With her pearl-colored spear held out horizontally, she quietly got up from the chair.

“I wonder if there will be a show of force?”

.