They said they were out for shopping.
But for Lucan, "slacking off while getting things done" was the real plan — or rather, doing real work under the pretense of slacking off. Going up to Ryūdō Temple fit that pattern perfectly: it was both a casual trip and the day's proper business.
Ryūdō Temple sits on the back-mountain of Fuyuki City's old quarter, the same way Shirainuzuka rises behind Misaki City — it's the upstream source of Fuyuki's geomantic currents, the branching point in the planet's vascular network where the nation's ley flow gathers and funnels into the city. Unsurprisingly, the area above it is the single most mana-rich place in the whole of Fuyuki.
The temple itself was founded long before recorded history, when local monks set themselves the duty of managing the ley flow. Time passed; Japan's native mysteries dwindled until only a handful of lineages remained, and the formal right to govern those flows fell, centuries ago, into the hands of the Tōsaka family. Even so, the place's power-gathering function endured — huge amounts of magic still pooled there.
On a sixty-year cycle the rite known as the "Great Holy Grail" is conducted, and its ritual core is built precisely beneath Ryūdō Temple. Yes: even though the Holy Grail War proper is still half a year away, and not a single Master to take part in the war has yet appeared, Lucan had promised Rorelei he would give the occult world a show. He meant to show the Great Holy Grail itself — to stir the waters of Fuyuki and get people talking. Displaying the ritual's core in advance was the most straightforward way to "make noise."
…All of which explained why, as the sun sank and the end of their day approached, Lucan found himself slightly exasperated while the two girls marched ahead of him with boundless energy.
"You never run out of stamina — where do you get it?" he asked, watching Aoko and Alice. "And what happened to all the food you ate today? There isn't even a shadow of it left."
Aoko, chewing on a pudding, paused mid-stride. The fitted red dress clung to her form as she turned; the movement made the fabric ripple, deepening the shadows beneath the hem. Lucan looked at her sideways. "I've never seen a pretty girl who can punch a temple gate into rubble."
"The last one who could do that was called 'Excavator,'" Aoko shot back. "And if I'm the 'Excavator,' then what are you? A walking critic bot?"
"You're the excavator; what am I? A walking 'snark machine'?" she retorted, and they bantered on.
Alice, spooning a small mouthful of ice cream, glanced up and deadpanned, "Call him 'Half-Price Convenience-Store Pudding Man.' The label said '50% off lucky tag,' but when you open it — the expiration date was just yesterday."
Aoko howled with laughter. Lucan, for once, was the one blushing, and muttered, "Did you secretly install a luck monitor on me? And Alice — since when do you tell bad jokes?"
Truth be told, Lucan's streak of bad luck on mundane gambles was real; he joked that most of it had been invested in the supernatural side of his life. All the same, the day had been a good one: shopping, street games, and trifles. If anything, these youthful moments were agreeable to him. Even someone who had lived many lives could still enjoy the small, foolish pleasures of being young — especially when they were spent in the company of pretty girls.
They had agreed to head up the mountain at midnight — the hour when the ley flow is at its strongest, and the point Lucan remembered the Great Holy Grail would most likely appear if the War played out along its original thread. The time to open the geomantic "gate" would be then.
But once they'd given the resident monks a small donation and claimed the tatami rooms set aside for them, Aoko collapsed on her bedding and fell asleep without even bothering to change. Lucan half expected her to be dead on the spot; her chest rose and fell, faint and steady.
Lucan himself, contrary to the rest, was wide awake. He lay on his own tatami and watched the weathered ceiling, counting the minutes in his head. He had spent the previous day casually assembling the El-Melloi family workshop — though "assembling" was a light word for a man who could, with a thought, weave impossibly complex ritual structures and even fold dimensional gaps. He had recreated the Lemonhead family's Threefold Magus Furnace and tucked it into an interstitial fold to supply continuous ritual power. In short, he could make a workshop appear almost instantly, and he had used the day to do exactly that — then, blissfully, taken time off to enjoy himself.
A soft rustle sounded at his side. He turned and met two deep black eyes; the sight stopped him for a heartbeat.
In the half-light of the shōji, Kuonji Alice's silhouette looked like an ink painting come alive. She lay on her side, the black dress cinched at the waist throwing a crisp shadow across her torso; the fabric over her chest creased and folded with each breath. The skirt fell over her hips and made a triangular dark patch on the tatami. The band of bare skin above her thigh-high stockings caught the pallid moonlight; the garter pressed a faint groove into her thigh.
"Not resting?" Lucan asked calmly, pretending casualness.
"Hmm." Alice didn't close her eyes. She merely nodded. "I am resting."
"Resting with your eyes open?" Lucan quipped. "You think you're Zhang Fei or something?"
Alice sat up without haste; the black cloth tightened across her bosom and folded into subtle lines in the moonlight. As she eased to a seated position, the skirt slid a fraction up her thigh, revealing more of the stocking-covered skin. Her expression was composed, almost neutral.
"We leave after tonight," she said plainly. "Lucan, you'll be going farther than this, won't you?"
Aoko snored away, sprawled out behind them, oblivious to the conversation. Lucan lifted his head on hearing Alice's words. Her voice was flat but grave, the sort of certainty that implied decisions made and paths chosen. It tugged at something in him.
He looked at her, at the steadiness that was not show or posturing but quiet resolve. The night pressed in; the cold, clear air from the mountain seemed to lend edges to their thoughts.
For a long moment Lucan simply watched the small, dark figure of the witch in the moonlight, and felt, with that peculiar, private stir that came to him sometimes — a distant echo of obligations he had not yet finished with, threads of the world that still needed tugging.