Chapter Text
Kaido does not pick up when they call. Nor does he email back right away. Not that Nanami is expecting too much out of him. But a lead is a lead and Himemiya would not be pleased if they ignore this avenue of the search. In the meantime, Nanami has a cult to infiltrate.
If there’s an etiquette or art to dressing like an easy mark for pretentious pseudo-intellectual cultists Nanami isn’t aware of it. Nor can she be bothered to find out. So she dons designer clothes and accessories as usual, but in a slightly tackier combination. Wearing a few too many pieces of jewelry, choosing the purse with the most obvious branding, everything that says ‘I have more money than sense.’
Finding her way back to the Calyx Institute goes faster this time. She knows precisely which train station to get off at, which exit to take, and how many blocks to walk before she arrives at the place. It’s probably her imagination, but Nanami feels an almost magnetic pull as she gets closer to the headquarters.
Unlike yesterday’s empty lobby, this morning it’s overflowing with young women with a few men and a handful of middle-aged women. Aiko is wearing a black blazer over a rose colored sheath dress, but more intriguing is the golden lapel pin that she didn’t have the day before. Maybe it meant something, maybe it doesn’t, but Nanami files away the information all the same.
“Attention, everyone!” Aiko claps her hands and smiles with a satisfaction so thick one could cut it with a knife. “Honored friends please follow me to the lecture hall for the morning seminar. Afterward there will be an informal reception in our banquet hall on the eighth floor where there will be light refreshments.”
Never has Nanami felt more like a cow as the crowd is herded down the hallway, past the dead girl portrait, and into a lecture hall that is nicer than Nanami’s ever seen outside a historical drama. Maybe even a smidgen nicer than Ohtori.
The desktops are polished wood and the lighting is provided by elegant sconces rather than cheap overhead fluorescents. Which whatever, they’re a whacko cult with money let them spend it how they want is Nanami’s position. What really makes the room stand out is the elegant plush carpeting and decadently stuffed chairs upholstered in velvet.
Nanami nearly makes a faux pas of the grandest type because she starts to sit before she realizes all the others are patiently standing behind their chairs with their hands clasped. The sound of crystalline bells tinkle follows a quick rat-tat-tat of drumbeat then silence. She could almost appreciate the drama if she wasn’t so bored.
“May the Prince bloom in your heart,” echoes throughout the room and at last Kanae Ohtori floats down the aisle, not literally of course though Nanami wouldn’t put such cheap theatrics past the Institute, and greets them all with the sweetest salutations. The lavender rose corsage stands out on the white of her silk dress. Whatever cult silliness the Ohtori heiress had gotten herself mixed up in it’s a relief to know her sense of style is intact.
And contemplating that dress is the most enjoyment Nanami gets out of the morning because apparently being in a cult is like being in school. They have to learn songs, one a Buddhist seeming mantra and the other a more Western song, but both are about the Rose Prince. That enigmatic figure is the subject of the leather bound book Aiko gave Nanami yesterday. They read aloud passages from the book and another cult instructor interprets the parables and applies them to real life situations. Which, you know, anyone with a little imagination could do.
But Nanami fakes epiphanies like nobody’s business. She gives tiny gasps and widens her eyes in counterfeit wonder. But she doesn’t overdo it, she throws in a skeptical expression a few times. If the cult leaders think she’s already completely taken in they wouldn’t spend time with her, likewise if she’s too disbelieving they’ll kick her out if they fear her disbelief would drive others out of the group. No, she needs to seem like the perfect fence sitter who wants to believe, but still has a few doubts.
And just to seal the deal Nanami approaches Kanae after the last afternoon lecture. She twirls a bit of hair around her finger, like she’s shy or something, and gazes up at Kanae like the textbook picture of an adoring junior.
“Miss Ohtori, I, um, well,” Nanami squeaks as convincingly as she can. Seriously, someone should give her a medal because she’s damn good at this. Just because she stopped manipulating her classmates in middle school doesn’t mean she’s forgotten everything. “I wanted to tell you again how happy I am to be here. I used to feel so alone sometimes at Ohtori, but thanks to you I think I might have found a place I belong.”
“Miss Kiryuu, you are very welcome.” Kanae actually kisses her forehead like in an old comic about elite boarding school girls. “I very much look forward to your journey unfolding with us here at the Institute. You may even have the potential to become a champion of great fortitude.”
Right, whatever that means.
In ten days it means that Aiko is extra frosty to Nanami every time Nanami is invited to a special lecture or exclusive workshop. There are cutting remarks about the idle rich, pointed criticisms of her outfits, and delicate sniffs when Nanami is praised by another member of the Institute. -
It’s quite invigorating actually. There are other perks, Professor Chida has given her access to the better computer labs and Team Save Tenjou’s meetings every other night has given her a more robust social life than Nanami has had in a while. Miki, Arisugawa, Anthy and her even have a regular group text chain going.
Which is why she’s more than a little irked when a bespectacled boy about her age leads her down another hallway after Friday afternoon’s last workshop. They had stuffed little rose sachets that were some kind of charity give-away while singing songs and Nanami had been counting the minutes to meeting her friends uptown. “Oh, um, I didn’t think we had another class this evening.”
He’s not even holding her hand, in fact he’s not intimidating in the least. He could have been one of any of the boys from Ohtori or her university, well-mannered and borderline unmemorable. “It’s not a class per se, Miss Kiryuu.”
They reach the end of the hallway, it’s covered with a velvet drape so heavy Nanami thinks it would suffocate her if it fell. “Oh?”
Don’t freak out, Kiryuu, she tells herself and breathes hard through her nose. You used to duel for the amusement of a possible demon. You’re on-and-off bang buddies with an immortal witch, the very witch who once turned you into a cow for some Aesop on vanity. Nothing this dork could do could compare.
“Do you remember me, Miss Kiryuu?” He adjusts his glasses and his sad smile tells her he knows she doesn’t. “We were at Ohtori together. You were a princess, one of the chosen people like Lady Kanae.”
“My memory is pretty awful,” she titters unconvincingly. Seriously, why should she remember every person that had a crush or hated her or whatever? The rich and elite are going to be known by more people than they could in turn know.
“Don’t worry, Miss Kiryuu,” he says softly. “I am not angry or bitter. At the Institute I’m not simply Hiroshi Yamada, I’m a champion. I’m reaching my full potential and I’m evolving.”
Is liking the sound of your own voice a prerequisite for joining a cult? Because Nanami is starting to think so. Somehow this is even more insufferable then when they were easily manipulated teenagers playing with weapons. If Yamada doesn’t shut up soon she’s going to be late for drinks and Arisugawa gets so flirty after two cocktails that Nanami is going to be making a fool of herself all night.
Yamada pulls on a thick cord and the rose-colored curtain lifts to reveal a door, a fabulous Rococo white-and-gold affair. Time and space feel like they’re standing still while Nanami is twirling like a music-box ballerina. But she isn’t twirling at all, just the design of the door is making her dizzy.
“The Rose Prince has many gifts to bestow upon humanity, but not all are ready to receive them,” Yamada continues. “We think you might be ready to become a true acolyte of the Rose Prince. But we won’t know until you take this test.”
“Is it multiple choice?” She forces the glibness to sound bright and eager. Her heart is hammering away and she can’t hear anyone else in the Institute besides the two of them, even though the evening bells should be ringing about now.
He laughs, not unkindly, but it is not a friendly laugh either. “All you have to do is go through the door and come back again.”
Oh yeah, that isn’t sketchy sounding at all.
“And how will I know if I’ve passed the test and become an acolyte or whatever?”
Yamada doesn’t do a creepy smile, he shrugs and says, “You’ll know. It’s pretty hard to misconstrue.”
The light does shine off his glasses lenses so that she can’t see his eyes. Plus one point to the creeptastic cult atmosphere.
She tentatively reaches out and touches the shining gold handle. Shockingly, it isn’t warm or cold to the touch. But Nanami does think for a moment she can hear distant voices singing some ancient chorus. There’s the scent of roses too, but that’s everywhere in the Institute so she doubts it has anything to do with the big Fateful Door. If anything it could be Yamada’s cologne and it’s called something dumb like Rose De Minuit Pour Homme.
The door opens easily in her grasp, gliding like it weighs nothing and that hinges are for the doors of mere mortals. Nanami holds her breath, willing herself to expect anything.
There’s nothing.
The opening of the door is a maw of darkness. Not even one mote of light from the hallway penetrates the dark space revealed by the door. She’s ready to tell Yamada screw the test, screw the whole damn Institute because nothing good lurks in that kind of darkness.
Except if she turns around now she’s giving up. Giving up on Tenjou, letting down everyone, and regressing into the scared little girl who lashed out when things got overwhelming. Nanami Kiryuu is many things; grad student, fashion icon, adorable sister, and a friend. What’s she not is a quitter. Not anymore.
Nanami walks into the blackness and hopes it doesn’t swallow her whole.
Because you probably can’t text from the void.