The Goddess Miko! Ch.6: God, learn the full picture of the ley line guardian and the rainbow-absorbing tube—three people on the rooftop, a golden flower in their joined hands.

Morning came to the rooftop. The concrete floor of Sanvert Mikagegaoka floated dimly in the pale blue light before dawn. The six outdoor AC units rumbled on as always, slicing through the cold early-autumn air. In the corner of the stone steps before the small shrine, Honoka — silver hair unbound — lay curled up in a blanket, drifting faintly in midair. Visually speaking, it was a complete "mysterious floating blanket." The night before, Honoka's outline had grown thin from depleting her divine energy, and she'd fallen asleep with the blanket Kazuma brought still draped over her head. That a blanket could contain 880 years' worth of divinity was a sight no one would ever guess. On the stone steps beside her, Kazuma Sakakibara leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, dozing. His head bobbed down every three seconds, and each time he jerked awake. His eyes were half-closed. He'd spent the whole night in his convenience store polo shirt, and he was nearing his limit. Then— With a clank, the rooftop's iron door quietly opened. The one who entered was a small, elderly woman. In her hands was a bundle of white and yellow chrysanthemums. Her grayish-white hair was neatly tied back, and she wore a navy apron — a figure that seemed to blend naturally into the morning air. Deep wrinkles were carved into her face, but her eyes were still sharp and lively. The manager of the pet cemetery "Seiroen," Hanae Yomogida — seventy-four years old. A descendant of the clan known as the Ley-Line Wardens, able to sense the flow of spiritual currents through her body — one of the last self-aware wardens in Mikagegaoka. Offering flowers at the memorial monument every morning at six had been her habit for decades. The moment Hanae stepped onto the rooftop, she saw the floating lump of blanket and the young man jittering on the stone steps. "My, my," she said, tilting her head. With seventy-four years' worth of composure, she accepted the situation in one second. A voice shot out from inside the blanket. "Do not disturb my slumber! I am in the midst of my morning divine-energy recharge!!" Kazuma on the stone steps jolted awake. "—Ah, good morning!!" His just-woken voice echoed across the rooftop. Three people, three different wavelengths, colliding in the early autumn morning. Hanae smiled and began walking toward the memorial monument. "Good morning. Forgive me for intruding while you're recharging your divine energy." The blanket twitched. Its edge lifted, and a golden eye peeked out. Silver hair was slightly disheveled. A girl who looked about twelve, with a mystically ephemeral face, gazed up at the old woman. Her current divine energy was thirty units. Her semi-transparency had progressed, and her outline was so thin that the morning backlight passed clean through her. "...You. You can see me?" Hanae laid flowers one by one before the memorial monument and answered casually. "Only vaguely, you understand. Our family has been able to sense the presence on this rooftop for seven generations." Honoka froze. Still wrapped in the blanket from head to toe, she floated upright in midair, arms akimbo. Silver hair spilled from beneath the blanket and swayed in the wind. It was a magnificent sight — 850 years of divinity trying to assert its dignity while wrapped in a blanket. "A Ley-Line Warden...!! So you are one!!" "I suppose I might be. Vaguely." "That is not something one settles with 'vaguely'!!" "Coming from someone standing arms-akimbo in a blanket, the impact drops by thirty percent." "Silence!! I am currently asserting my dignity!!" "Say that after you take the blanket off." "The blanket is necessary for my current configuration!!" Hanae chuckled. Having finished offering the flowers, she pressed her hands together before the memorial monument. Her back was serene — she was accepting all of this. "Seiroen — I've managed this pet cemetery for thirty-four years. My name is Hanae Yomogida." Kazuma bowed. "I'm Kazuma Sakakibara." Honoka lowered the blanket a little and fixed her golden eyes on Hanae. In those eyes, wariness and curiosity mingled. "...I am Honoka." Her voice was a little quieter than usual. Hanae turned and nodded gently. In the morning light, Honoka's semi-transparent outline seemed on the verge of dissolving into the air. Kazuma glanced at her profile — a fleeting silhouette of gold and silver, the dawn backlight passing clean through it. The small body beneath the slipped blanket was so faint it seemed it might vanish at any moment. Deep in Kazuma's chest, something quietly tightened. (Not "I'm scared" — it's "she might disappear" that scares me.) Before he could identify what that feeling was, Hanae spoke. "Actually, there's something that's been on my mind." ＊ Hanae continued watering the memorial monument as she began. "Lately, you see, the pulse from the southeast has been growing thin. The Mikage Branch Line — the channel of spiritual energy flowing directly beneath this rooftop — its flow feels like it's been weakening. Vaguely." "A pulse... you mean a ley line." "Yes. It's a sense I inherited from seven generations back, so I can't explain it well. Vaguely, you understand." "How many times are you going to say 'vaguely'?" "But it really is vague." Kazuma put his hand in his pocket. What he pulled out was a memo sheet printed from a phone screenshot, and a pale purple flyer — the one for "The Eclipse Chamber." He'd recorded the name that had appeared in the comments of yesterday's stream. "The southeast — that's the direction of Mikage Ginza Street, right? There's a spiritual salon there called The Eclipse Chamber—" The moment Kazuma spread out the memo, Hanae's hand stopped. Still holding the watering can, Hanae looked at the southeastern sky. Toward Mikage Ginza Street — beyond the row of shopping district rooftops. "The Eclipse Chamber." As she repeated the words, something welled up in Hanae's eyes. Her gentle eyes sharpened for just an instant. "So it's that place, I thought. Vaguely." "Vaguely!! Again!!" "Um, Sakakibara-san. In a warden's senses, 'vaguely' is actually a word that means something close to certainty." "Say that from the start!!" Honoka leaned half out of the blanket. Her golden eyes looked straight at Hanae. "...You sense the presence of the Tōga-shū." Her voice was low. Hanae gave a small nod. "The Tōga-shū — a secret society founded in the mid-Edo period, people who use spiritual energy for business, correct?" "You know of them?" "They've been a nuisance since seven generations back. Right around the mid-Edo period, all the rice fields in Mikagegaoka failed for exactly one year — and the records show the pulse suddenly grew thin that year. It's been passed down through the generations that the Tōga-shū drained energy from the ley line." The moment she finished speaking, Honoka murmured quietly. "Kyūkōkan." Kazuma looked at Honoka. "What's that?" "A tube you screw into a ley line. A metal pipe made of a special alloy, a little over a foot long — drive it into a node of the spiritual current, and you can extract energy. It's the ritual tool the Tōga-shū have used for generations." There was none of Honoka's usual lightness in her voice. As she explained, she was looking somewhere. Beyond the stone steps, toward the southeastern sky. Kazuma noticed that all three of their gazes had naturally turned in the same direction. Mikage Ginza Street. The Eclipse Chamber. Anri's smile. Tension dissolved into the rooftop air. In that silence — grrrrrrr, came a magnificent sound. Everyone looked at Honoka. Honoka's stomach had growled with perfect timing. "..." "..." "This is! This is the sacred word of the belly! It urges the recovery of divine energy!!" "Stomachs are not sacred!!" "Every part of my body is sacred!!!" Hanae rummaged through her bag and produced a single dorayaki. Without a word of explanation, she simply held it out. The instant Honoka saw it, she snatched it with lightning speed. It took less than 0.1 seconds. "I shall accept it as divine mercy." "You said 'mercy' while snatching it!!!" Hanae laughed. "How adorable." Honoka, cheeks stuffed with dorayaki, glared at Kazuma. "Kazuma. You said earlier that woman was beautiful." "I didn't say that." "Your eyes said it." "Eyes don't talk." "Men's eyes are honest!!" Still chewing, she began tugging insistently at Kazuma's sleeve. Her body at thirty units of divine energy was unbelievably light, yet the pull had real force. The sensation of cold fingers spread through Kazuma's whole arm. The weight of Honoka pressed against his arm reminded him of the warmth of her shoulder that night — that coldness and fragility, felt at once, strangely. Kazuma couldn't pull away. "Too close, too close, too close." "I am closing in!!" Still watering, Hanae said "How adorable" for the second time. ＊ A little later, Hanae said "Wait a moment" and went into Seiroen's management shed — a small tin-roofed hut just a few meters from the shrine. When she returned, she held a bundle of old papers. Spread out, it was a hand-drawn map. On the faded paper, the terrain of Mikagegaoka was carefully drawn. A single line running north-south through the center was labeled "Mikage Branch Line," with "Mikage Hill" at the northern end, "Shrine (Node)" to the south, and an X mark further southeast. "This is a map passed down from seven generations back. It records the ley-line nodes and dangerous places." Kazuma laid his memo screenshot beside the map. The position of the X and the address of The Eclipse Chamber — matched perfectly. The line of the Mikage Branch Line. The location of The Eclipse Chamber. The location of Honoka's shrine. The three formed a triangle on the stone steps. "Directly beneath this shrine is the node. Where the Mikage Branch Line converges thinnest. If a tube is driven in here—" Hanae started to say. Honoka quietly finished it. "My very foundation of existence will be pulled out." There was no anger in her voice, no outcry. It was simply quiet. The hand holding the dorayaki lowered onto the map. Her golden eyes stared fixedly at the line of the Mikage Branch Line. It was the moment a god who had been there for over 800 years calmly put into words how she would vanish. The air on the rooftop changed. Only the roar of the AC units continued. Kazuma looked at Honoka's profile. Her semi-transparent outline let the morning light through, wavering faintly. In her golden eyes was a complex tremor — neither anger nor resignation, but something deeper, rising close to the surface. "...It is not that I am afraid." She started to say, then looked away. Kazuma's chest tightened quietly. "I'll stop them." Honoka stiffened slightly. Slowly, she turned to look at Kazuma. "...And you're just a parishioner." It was a small voice. But there was real weight in it. Relief — whether that was the right word, he didn't know, but only Kazuma heard that Honoka's voice had grown just a little softer. Hanae carefully folded the map. "I suppose I need to do my duty as a warden too." She said it with a smile. But her eyes were no longer merely gentle. The three of them faced the same direction. Southeast. Mikage Ginza Street. The Eclipse Chamber. ＊ From past noon into evening, the three sat on the stone steps and roughed out a plan. Though it was less a concrete strategy and more an organizing of "what we know" and "what we don't." Hanae brought several old records, Kazuma took notes on his phone, and Honoka occasionally added things like "That tube won't function unless driven more than three feet into the ley line," or "It can only extract about five units at a time." "You're well informed." "One must know one's enemies well." She said it as if it were obvious, gnawing on a fried chicken stick. When Kazuma asked "Where did you even get that?" she started to say "If I simply will it—" then honestly continue

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The Goddess Miko! Episode 6: God, learn the full picture of the ley line guardian and the rainbow-absorbing tube—three people on the rooftop, a golden flower in their joined hands.