The Saint Who Never Comes

It was during the week when the student roster passed 110,000 that the world noticed the "empty seat."

It started in the usual verification thread.

'【Verification】Shin-sensei's Five Students: A Roundup of Their Current Status'

【Kenjo Rei: Already crashed the stream. A legend】

【Hido Mio: Already added supplementary notes. Correction fiend】

【Shishiōmaru: Already reenrolled. Teaching aid】

【Night Crow: No idea; the rankings are blacked out. Also, Verification Bro, isn't that you?】

【Shirase Kokoro: —nothing. Never appeared on stream. No comments. No official mention】

【Now that you mention it, Saint-sama is the only one with nothing】

【She's the pinnacle of healing arts. She's just the busiest person in the world】

【But Rei, Mio, and Maru all came "back" so unmistakably】

【Hey. Does anyone remember the article from the transfer press conference two years ago?】

Three days later, all the headlines were out.

'The "Saint," Shirase Kokoro, the Only One Silent—What Happened Between Teacher and Student?'

'The Transfer Press Conference's "That Remark" Ignites Again: Why Is Only the Fifth One Not Coming Back?'

'Insiders Say "The Falling-Out Theory Had Been Around for Years"'

As for me, I looked at the three headlines and turned my terminal face down.

I cooked rice, leafed through my notebook, and prepared for the evening stream. Nothing had changed. —The fact that I'd confirmed to myself three times since morning that I wouldn't change anything probably said enough.

◇

"Good evening, I'm Shin. If there are any first-time viewers, here's the usual spiel. This is a course for beginners. I won't cover flashy techniques or talk about the strongest gear. It's dull. Probably shockingly dull."

【We know】

【Is the fifth one coming tonight?】

【Don't bring that up】

"Lesson Thirty-Nine: 'First Aid Basics—The Five Minutes Until Help Arrives.' In a dungeon, it takes an average of five minutes for someone who can treat you to reach you. Today, we'll cover everything a layperson can do during those five minutes."

Stopping the bleeding. Keeping them warm. Talking to them. Clearing the airway. Dull procedures, in a dull order.

"One last thing that sounds like a magic trick. The difference between people who are good at first aid and people who are bad at it isn't their hands. —It's their eyes. The unskilled look at blood. The skilled look at people. Your hands can reach only where your eyes go first."

I held up one of my old notebooks to the camera.

"You know, this is something I learned from one of my students. She was humanity's greatest healer. When I first met her, her healing only reached as far as her palms. It was obvious once I watched her. She stared at her own hands the whole time she was healing. She must have been afraid. She was doing a job where one mistake meant the person in front of her died, at fourteen."

"So I changed just one of her exercises. Don't look at your hands. Raise your head and look at the person you want to heal. —That alone doubled the range of her healing. Mana follows your gaze, all the way to where your eyes go."

The flow of comments changed.

【It's the Saint】

【That's a story about Shirase Kokoro...】

【Is this the first time we've heard the origin of the "Saint of Healing Range"?】

【But Saint-sama is the only one who never comes, huh】

【Did you see that article? The one that said, 'I felt there were limits to Coach Hiiragi's instruction.'】

【If she said it herself, they must have been on bad terms】

【So in the end, his student gave up on him—】

I set down my teacup. Then I addressed everyone.

"I'm adding one rule to this classroom. —Don't speak on behalf of someone who isn't here. That's all."

【...Yes】

【I've never seen Teacher make a rule before】

【We're sorry】

"I'm not saying you shouldn't pry. Your eyes have helped me every time you've investigated; they're good eyes. But the better your eyes, the more carefully you should choose where to point them. ...And as for that press conference two years ago, I watched it live, too."

I didn't hesitate over whether to say it. It was simply an observation report from someone who had watched her for eight years.

"That girl is the worst liar in the world. I've never known anyone else who checks a cue card three times while speaking. —That's the end of my observation report. Today's assignment is how to fold a blanket. See you next time."

【Huh?】

【Did he just say something incredible?】

【He said she "looked at the cue card three times." The observer himself said it】

【So that remark meant—no, that's against the rule. Never mind】

【T-Teacher...! I won't say anything, but I can't say anything...!】

Hina-chan couldn't say anything. It was the usual classroom.

◇

Meanwhile, at the scene of a shallow-level cave-in in the Seventh Administrative Dungeon, in a northern provincial city, a figure in a white cloak stood.

Every time another stretcher arrived, the air around Shirase Kokoro changed color. She raised her face and looked at the injured person. That alone reconnected nearly severed arms and made crushed lungs swell again. Someone would pray, saying, "It's Saint-sama," and the twenty-one-year-old would give a slightly troubled bow each time.

The seventeenth patient was a seventeen-year-old D-ranker. He had crushed his left leg shielding his partner. During treatment, he kept talking in a voice more excited than pained.

"I was taking your course, Shin-sensei. I was the one who used the bleeding-control lesson from Lesson Six on my partner—because you said to look at the person, not the blood. Saint-sama, do you know that course?"

Her hands never stopped. She had trained harder than anyone else to keep them from stopping.

"...Yes. I know it."

"It's amazing, isn't it? It's free. Even people like us can survive because of it."

"Yes," the Saint said with a smile. "A very—good teacher."

The more perfect that smile was, the less anyone noticed what was still bleeding beneath the white cloak.

◇

Shirase Kokoro, fourteen years old. The youngest ever at Genbu's training facility.

The "outlier" who had broken the mana-measuring device twice was, however, useless in practice. Her healing reached only as far as her palms. The instructors scratched their heads, then eventually said she was a treasure going to waste.

Only the nondescript middle-aged coach looked at her eyes instead of her measurements.

"You keep looking at your own hands the whole time you're healing, don't you?"

"...Because if I fail, someone will die."

"Yes. It's right to be afraid. Someone who isn't afraid when entrusted with a life is far more frightening," he said with a smile. "But your eyes are the targeting sight for your magic. As long as you look at your hands, your kindness can reach only as far as your palms. Let's practice raising your face and looking at the person you want to heal. —It's all right. Your magic will follow your eyes wherever they look."

In six months, her healing range doubled. In two years, she was S-Rank. The world called her the Saint, while Teacher kept smiling to the end and saying, "All I did was turn the mirror around."

At nineteen, the domestic relief organization 〈Hakujikai〉, the largest in the country, approached her about transferring. While she hesitated, Teacher took an envelope from his desk drawer. A draft of a letter of recommendation. The transfer procedure. The order in which to make the rounds greeting the departments she had worked with. —She learned later that there was one for each of the five students in that drawer.

"Your healing is too great to leave confined to dungeons. Outside, there are disasters, accidents, and places hospitals can't reach. ...Go."

So she didn't regret the transfer itself. That decision has saved seventeen lives in a northern city today.

She had only one regret.

The night before the press conference, the adults in 〈Hakujikai〉's public-relations office handed her a single sheet of paper.

"Shirase-san. The public needs a 'story.' This one line—'I felt there were limits to Coach Hiiragi's instruction'—will turn your transfer into a heartwarming tale."

"...There were no limits to Coach Hiiragi's instruction."

"We're doing this for you. And for the patients you'll save from now on. A nineteen-year-old Saint free of old ties. We need that image."

The nineteen-year-old had no words with which to argue back. All she had in her hands was the script.

The next day, before hundreds of camera flashes, Shirase Kokoro read it while looking at the cue card three times.

'I felt there were—limits to Coach Hiiragi's instruction.'

That night, she wrote only 'Everyone, I hope you're well.' in the five-person thread, then turned off her notifications. That was the last honest thing she could write.

◇

Two years later, that article was still doing its work in places she knew nothing about.

Every time a clip from the course took off, someone would post it. Those who doubted Teacher used it as their final evidence. After all, it was "the student's own words." Rei's barging in, Mio's additions, and Maru's reenrollment were all dismissed as "three heartwarming stories" because of that article. —Because the fifth student was the one denying him.

Her own name was engraved on the blade used to cut down Teacher.

So every time the uproar began, she thought: Unlike the other three, I alone have no right to go back.

The thread had become a little more active since Maru returned.

【Shishiōmaru】'Kokoro. My old man's classroom has a low ceiling, but the entrance is wide.'

【Kenjo Rei】'You don't have to hurry. Just don't carry it alone.'

Every night, she silently marked the messages read, and nothing more. Her reply drafts had long since passed fifty. Some began with a greeting. Some began with an apology. Every one stopped at the second line.

Late at night, in her room at the dormitory, she opened the archive again. She had watched the scene where the rule was added three times already. 'That girl is the worst liar in the world.' —Teacher. If you knew, why won't you get angry with me? If you got angry, I could go apologize.

She switched screens. Student roster, new registration. She typed "Shirase Kokoro" in the name field, then deleted it. She typed a false name, then deleted that, too. The roster had passed 110,000 entries. The seventeen-year-old from earlier that day was in it, too.

Her finger stopped over the registration button again that night.

"...I can't face you, Teacher."

The six-tatami classroom was the farthest place in the world.

◇

At the same late hour, in the room with three glowing screens, Night Crow had finished compiling the thread about the falling-out theory.

The flames had started, once again, with those same sixteen footprints. This time, they were feeding firewood into the article from two years ago.

"...They're using that girl's article as fuel, too. I see."

The review of his application was still pending. But one more reason to hurry had appeared. —The interest on the debt he was collecting was piling up, too.

◇

The next morning, as I rinsed rice, an unfamiliar engine stopped outside the window.

Only a delivery truck or the kerosene patrol vehicle ever stopped in front of this apartment.

I peeked through a gap in the curtains. It was neither. A black government vehicle. On the door were the national emblem and—the words "Dungeon Agency."

"...That doesn't look like a neighborhood circular."

Two suited men got out and headed straight toward the exterior stairs of the thirty-two-year-old apartment building.