Ex Uno Omnia, Part I

“Sh—Shunji-kun…!”

Merry and Justo should really have counted on Murphy’s Law in this situation, doubly so since they had jinxed it by spelling out everything that could go wrong. But now here they were: Noe had broken containment, and the “elephant” (and he truly did look like an elephant, what, with his massive frame, thick brow, and two white braids that went down his shoulders) had entered the room at the worst possible time.

“Wh—What’re you doing here, Shunji-kun?” asked Merry nervously.

“You told me you were treating Sachiko here, Anjos,” answered this Shunji, glaring at his partner.

“Mmyeah, she’s doing good, but…wh—what are you doing here right now…?” Merry fidgeted all over as she asked this. It did not take long for Shunji to put two and two together, and single out the actual elephant in the room. He grabbed Noe, who was about two-thirds his size, by the collar of the bathrobe she had on and dragged her towards him.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“I—I’d rather not give my identity…” began Noe meekly, before Merry jumped in.

“She’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa cousin! Of, uh, one of the sisters here! Yeah! She just came to help Sachiko-chan!”

Shunji’s expression did not change one bit.

“Did you alchemists forget about the onryo following her?”

Justo and Merry traded nervous stares. Leonor slipped out of the room while she still could.

* * *

“…So,” began Shunji, addressing Justo directly, “you saw that this girl was possessed by an onryo, and instead of notifying any of us, you thought it was a good idea to try and handle it on your own.”

Justo, Merry, and Shunji had all taken chairs now, with the latter confronting the former two. Noe was still standing, unsure whether she actually belonged in this conversation or not.

“Out of all the clichés for a mage to fill, hotshot should not be one of them. Especially when it places your partner in harm’s way.”

Justo could not stay silent. “Look, in my defense, Sachi was—”

“SHOW MY SISTER SOME RESPECT, YOU LOW-MINDED, HALF-ASSING SATSUMAN!!” bellowed Shunji. Justo backed down for a moment.

“…In my defense, Senpai was as eager about this as I was, if not more so. You know she’s been itchin’ to prove herself as an onmyoji, don’tcha, o-ni-i-sa-n?”

“Bah,” exclaimed Shunji. “The only way she’d prove herself in my eyes is by dropping all that idol singing nonsense. If she wants to spend the rest of her life doing the bare minimum for the Bureau, then fine. But in that case, it’s your job to know her limits, Ijyuin; not to enable her delusions.”

“I think it’s high time y’all got ‘er a new partner, then,” countered Justo. “I don’t believe in holdin’ anyone back, especially myself.”

“You and every alchemist, it would seem. As for you, Anjos,” he said, turning to Merry, “I never thought you’d be such an enabler to the extent that you’d try to hide your wrongdoings from your own syzygy.”

“I—I couldn’t just leave her, Shunji-kun!” came Merry on the defense. “If we harmed her, it’s only right we help her. Noe, what do you think? Are we in the wrong here?”

Noe stood still for a moment, clearly unwilling to answer one way or the other. Then, turning her eyes to the floor, she answered.

“…I just want someone to explain all this to me.”

“There, you see?!” boasted Merry. “She wasn’t refusing us!”

Shunji stared at his partner incredulously.

“…Did you hear a single word she just said?”

Noe could not keep her frustration inside her anymore. With a deep breath in, she lashed out at the whole room.

“If you all wanna help me so bad, the least you can do is explain what the hell is going on here! Every time I think I’m finally gonna learn who you all are and what you’re gonna do about my problem, I just get weird terms and traded insults thrown in my face! At this rate, and I’ve said this a dozen times before, but at this rate I’m gonna take this elsewhere!”

Shunji was the only one unfazed enough to answer her challenge.

“…We’re one of the few who can help you in your—”

“Oh, shut up!” Noe snapped. “I can think of at least a few people better than some delinquent who’s in the same school as me—like, I dunno, the Church?”

“Hey, Noe…” cut in Justo. “He’s not a Catholic, just so y’know.”

Noe harrumphed and crossed her arms. “I knew that. So, can one of you explain all of this to me? Or what, is it classified info?”

Shunji’s face tensed up and, for the first time, turned a light shade of red. A capillary was probably about to burst somewhere beneath his snow-white hair.

“Ijyuin… Did you…”

Justo gave a sheepish laugh. “M—Might’ve slipped out at some point.”

Shunji threw his head into the backboard of his chair and let out a deep, guttural groan.

“Sister!” he called out. Leonor promptly slid the door open and entered the room again.

“I have a name,” she emotionlessly protested.

“Leonor-san. Fetch me the contract before I lose my mind here.”

“Oh, and could you get Noe’s clothes out of the dryer?” piped up Merry. “They should be done by now. Noe, do you like coffee?”

“Y—Yeah,” Noe affirmed with a nod.

“Great, I’ll go make a cup for you!”

“Oh, hey!” said Justo. “Get a chair for Noe too! Bet her legs are prob’ly tuckered out from standin’ around all this time.”

“…All at once?” asked Leonor.

“YES!” shouted the chorus of three.

Leonor’s frown deepened. “I don’t get paid enough for this,” she grumbled.

“I didn’t think you were paid,” said Merry.

“My point.”

* * *

Seated in a soft chair with ample space, wearing a warm school uniform fresh out of the dryer, and holding a cup of hot coffee in her hands, Noe felt slightly more grateful towards this motley crew of…mages? Was that the overall term for them? Or maybe just “government employees” fit better. After all, the “contract” Shunji had thrust upon her was, to her surprise, very official-looking. At the top of the paper was a seal and a coat-of-arms. The seal, with its very deformed-looking kanji smooshed into a red box, was clearly that of Japan. Below this it read:

日本国
NIFFON YESTADO
STATE OF JAPAN

And then there was the coat-of-arms, which bore in the middle the traditional “Hayato Shield”: a white arrow shape, pointing upwards, with red-and-black jagged lines along the top and bottom, and a red and black line running in parallel to form a reverse “S” shape. A camphor tree sat behind it, its long branches poking out. This was flanked on the left by a bear, and on the right by a deer, while an angel sat on the apex of the shield. Below this was a banner that read SAPIENTIAM PRAEPOSUI REGNIS ET SEDIBUS, and below all of this it read:

SATSUMA REPUBIRICA
薩摩民国
REPUBLIC OF SATSUMA

Skimming over the rest of the contract, it seemed to be a basic agreement to not share any secrets disclosed forthwith, or prior to the signing of this contract, effective into perpetuity. A very temporary clearance, on the grounds that the recipient would later get an official clearance. Fair enough. But there were a couple points Noe took issue to.

“‘…under pain of penalty (penalties) including, but not limited to: revocation of clearance, public fines, house arrest, imprisonment up to and including life, exile, torture, and execution’? ‘With or without trial’?!”

“…We take security very seriously,” was all Shunji had to say.

“O—Okay… ‘Each signing party must stamp this paper with a thumb-print in his/her own blood’?!”

“A useful way of collecting your biometrics,” explained Shunji. “But yes, in the past it was effectively a blood oath. We’re above those sorts of superstitions these days.”

“Uh-huh…” That didn’t mean much to Noe, coming from the group that practiced alchemy and…whatever it was the onmyoji did. She sighed. “Well, if what my dad says is true, you all and every other country out there probably has all that information already.”

She first took the pen that had been given to her and signed her name: “Noe Numasaki”. Now her breathing deepened, and her heart began to race, as she took the knife that had been sitting next to the pen, and pressed it against her thumb. Nothing at first. Another try, and another, and finally a trickle of blood. She quickly dabbed the paper, and then, wincing, turned to Merry, who thankfully had band-aids on hand.

Then she held the contract out on the coffee table, offering it to whoever was willing to sign it. Shunji snatched it from her hands, signed his own name—悟堂 俊次—and, with very little hesitation, cut his own thumb and dabbed the paper.

When this was all complete, the contract suddenly shone with a flash bright enough to illuminate the whole room, and once it died down a mark was left on the paper, very large and very visible. It seemed to consist of a triangle interlaid with a circle; the circle was another yin-yang or thai-chi-thu, one half opaque and the other half clear, and in each corner of the triangle, isolated by the edge of the thai-chi-thu was inscribed a short word. Together they read:

EX UNO OMNIA

And beneath all of this was another multi-language inscription. This one read:

Ordo Monadis
Monada Cavareiro Orden
太極騎士団
Order of the Knights of the Monad