(A concept.)
Rantaro had seen a lot of cults.
Like, a lot.
Mainly because he traveled a lot and liked free lodging, but also because there were people he needed to find, and he would follow any lead available to do that.
This specific cult was...attentive. That was the word for it.
It wasn't one of those cults that inundated him with the literature or made him go to some ceremony or prayer circle to earn a bed. They asked if he wanted a place to stay, they gave him a place to stay (albeit in a room full of people training to be devotees), and then they just...watched him. A lot.
But he was allowed and even encouraged to wander everywhere, so he wasn't one to complain too much.
It was while wandering around the cult's lush compound that he came across...
It must have been the art room. This must be where they came to paint and sculpt and carve. The evidence was all over the space, on easels which crowded the floor and in frames and shelves which crowded the walls.
In the back of the room, he heard humming, so he shuffled past the easels until he saw a girl his age, working away at an enormous canvas. She seemed not to notice him there, even though he'd made plenty of noise, navigating the room.
She just hummed to herself and painted.
He watched her work, transfixed.
Several minutes passed before she came out of her trance and startled at the sight of him. "Oh! Good morning. Angie didn't know we had a new guest."
The name "Angie" was one he'd heard before. The devotees whose room he was sleeping in talked about her a lot. Things like, "Does Angie know about this?" "Did anyone tell Angie?" "If they tell Angie, they have to tell the other one."
"I'm Rantaro Amami," he introduced himself politely. "Did you paint all these?"
She beamed but replied, "God is the true painter. Angie is just a conduit."
"I see."
The girl suddenly approached him and took his hand in both of hers. "What drew you here, Rantaro? What were you looking for?" In that moment, she had the same attentive eyes as the ones who had offered to let him stay here.
"I was just looking around. Not after anything specific."
Angie hummed dubiously. "I hope you didn't lose someone."
Rantaro frowned slightly. "What?"
"When you lose something, you have to look at all the places where you've been. When you lose someone, you also look in places you've never been. Did losses lead you here?"
Rantaro forced a calm response. "That's a pretty intense question, for a first meeting."
Angie blinked. "Super intense," she agreed. And she smiled. "Did you meet Kokichi yet? It's unfair if you meet me and not him."
"No, I don't think I've been introduced."
Angie immediately set down her paint supplies and led Rantaro to the opposite wing of the building, to a door which sat locked. She knocked on the door.
"What's the password?" a voice inside bellowed.
Angie looked to Rantaro expectantly.
"There's a password?" he asked her.
She just smiled cryptically.
"I'm Rantaro," he called out to the room's unseen occupant. "I'm new here."
The low hum of voices conversing inside, and then a large figure opened the door. "Kokichi will see you now."
The room was filled with random junk. Stolen road signs, bikes without wheels, one of those coin-operated plastic horses they had in shopping areas. Devotees (a few of whom Rantaro recognized) played card games and did knife tricks throughout the room.
The one named Kokichi sat on an exercise ball on top of a large, throne-like chair, in perpetual risk of falling.
"Angie," he greeted first.
"Good morning!" she sang back. "A new guest wandered into my studio, so Angie thought you should meet him, too."
"I'm sure it only matters if he came to see me first," Kokichi said, examining his nails boredly. "If he was drawn to you, it doesn't really matter if I meet him, does it."
"You let us in," Angie pointed out.
"That's just because I haven't seen you in forever." Kokichi was suddenly whining, throwing away his aloof disposition entirely. "The only time you talk to me anymore is when you're trying to even the score."
"What score?" Rantaro asked. The more they talked, the more it felt like he was being served up as some kind of offering.
Angie gave him a consoling smile. "Kokichi and Angie were both born in the year the last Good One died," she explained. "Every child in our year's harvest was tested, and we were singled out as the new Good and Bad."
"Who knows which is which," Kokichi said sarcastically.
Rantaro caught a momentarily troubled look on Angie's face, before she schooled it into the same bright smile. "Exactly," she said. "Until we turn eighteen, either of us might be the new Good One, so it's important that we stay on blessed land and receive all the same things."
"So, the Good One becomes the new leader?" Rantaro guessed. A wary feeling beginning to build... "And what happens to the Bad One?"
Kokichi opted to answer, "Stripped naked and thrown into a freezing lake!"
Angie clarified, "The Bad One and their devotees go away. We won't know how, until it happens."
"Yeah," Kokichi said. "We don't know if they'll be served with rice or noodles."
"Kokichi is silly," Angie said.
"Hey." And suddenly, Kokichi's purple eyes were locked onto Rantaro. "It wasn't your fault, you know."
The words were stunningly impactful, for how casually the boy said it. "What?" Rantaro said hoarsely.
Kokichi was back to examining his nails. "I see failure in you. It's all over your face."
Before Rantaro could answer, Angie took his hand. "Let's go. Kokichi gets cranky sometimes."
...
Rantaro stayed with the cult for a full week, and he spent half the time searching to see if any of his sisters were (or had ever been) there, and the other half planning how to get Angie and Kokichi out of there.
(part 2)
