“…The Holy Grail’s second form?” Laetitia Blanchard asked, raising her eyebrows as she sipped her cup of tea. “You said you had something to discuss, but why this all of a sudden?”
Laetitia was the former vice president of the student council at Saint Gallardworth Academy, but although she was presently sitting in the familiar student council room, the council was under new leadership, and all official duties ought to have been their responsibility, not hers.
The new president, Elliot Forster, wore a strained expression from his seat behind his desk.
“Of course, I’ve read the data,” he answered. “But there are some things I can’t quite wrap my head around looking at that alone…”
“Did you find something in connection to Percival, perhaps?”
Percival Gardner was a close friend and the current user of the Holy Grail, whose whereabouts were presently unknown. Given the situation, any inquiry about the Holy Grail would have to be in relation to her.
Yet as Laetitia watched him from her seat on the guest sofa, Elliot quietly shook his head. “No, it isn’t like that. But you were close to Gardner, weren’t you? I was hoping you might be able to offer us a clue as to what’s going on.”
“…”
She couldn’t tell whether his intentions were honest or deceitful. It certainly seemed that Elliot had taken a few tricks of the trade to heart.
When he had first taken over as student council president, he had been easily distracted, to the extent that Laetitia had even wondered whether he was up to the job. Now, however, he seemed to have grown more worthy of the chair.
“All right. Yes, I’ve been looking out for her ever since she entered the school, and I probably do know her better that anyone else.”
Her earliest memory of Percival was her worn-out face the first time they met. At a glance, Laetitia could tell that her heart was badly frayed, her emotions repressed—that she had, in short, been living a life of regret.
It was little wonder. According to the data, she had worked under Dirk Eberwein, the Institute’s so-called Tyrant. She seemed to blame herself for having survived when her fellow designer children hadn’t.
And that was precisely why Gallardworth had purchased her as a candidate to wield the Holy Grail.
“Did Gardner ever unlock the Holy Grail’s second form?”
“Good heavens, no.” Laetitia brushed that insane question aside. “You’ve read the data on the Holy Grail—on the Amalthean Goat—haven’t you? Its second form, the Holy Lance, is only theoretical.”
“…Yes, that’s true.”
The Holy Grail was a powerful Orga Lux, but it was also an incredibly difficult one to wield. Only those who harbored a particularly keen sense of guilt could establish a high compatibility rating with it, and its cost was that the bearer must continue to suffer the burden of atonement. Only those strong enough to do so could wield its soul-robbing light.
“In theory, if one’s compatibility rating exceeds ninety-eight percent, it should be possible to activate the Holy Lance. But no one could possibly endure that much guilt.”
“Endure, you say?”
“Guilt involves inflicting self-punishment. And what do people do when their guilt becomes too much to bear? They choose suicide.”
“…!”
Atonement, when you got down to it, was a matter of personal subjectivity. Social guilt could be settled through punishment, and objectively, if a victim offered their forgiveness, the matter would be settled, whether or not the person responsible forgave themselves. Some were capable of forgetting their sins without atoning, and there were those who were simply unaware of their sins to begin with. And then there were those who continued to blame themselves even when others decided to let go.
Only the latter such group could wield the Holy Grail, and that was precisely why the Holy Lance remained forever out of reach. Before their guilt grew to the point that they could achieve a 98 percent compatibility rating with the Orga Lux, they would seek to atone through their own death.
“In its Holy Lance form, the Amalthean Goat seems to have extraordinary power output, even compared to other first-rate Orga Luxes. But that means that the price exacted by the Holy Lance is that much heavier,” Laetitia explained.
“The Holy Lance’s abilities, its Light of Judgment… They’re an inversion of the Holy Grail’s abilities, resulting in extremely potent destructive power, no?” Elliot asked.
“Yes. The Holy Grail manifests for those who seek atonement, while the Holy Lance is for those who want judgment… And the more someone uses the Holy Lance, the more guilt they take on. According to some estimates, using the power of the Holy Lance even once will increase the user’s feelings of guilt so much that they would be willing to bite off their own tongue to seek death on the spot.”
In other words, the price of using the Holy Lance was nothing short of death itself.
It was no wonder it was so powerful, seeing as it came at such a high price.
But, of course, that was ignoring the fact that there would never be a suitable user in the first place.
Elliot fell silent, sinking deep into thought.
“What’s wrong?” Laetitia asked.
When finally he looked up, his expression was strained. “In that case…what if it was possible for an external force to suppress those suicidal thoughts?”
“Like the reconditioning programs used by the foundations? Impossible.” Laetitia found the very idea vaguely amusing. “The mind can’t just be remodeled like that. And even if it could be, the only thing it would achieve would be to diminish the sense of guilt. There would be no point.”
Reducing one’s guilt would indeed keep a subject’s suicidal thoughts at bay, but then they wouldn’t be able to wield the Holy Lance.
Suppressing only someone’s suicidal thoughts while maintaining their feelings of guilt would be impossible even for a Genestella with a mental interference or brainwashing ability.
The only exception might be to use an Orga Lux with a particularly high level of power output.
It would, however, be absolute hell for the subject.
After all, they would be constantly tormented, weighed down by immeasurable guilt yet unable to atone for it through death.
“Yes, I see… My apologies, I suppose that was a strange question,” Elliot said as he rose to his feet. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. We’ll find Gardner, I assure you.”
“…I was against letting her have the Holy Grail, you know?” Laetitia murmured despite herself.
Even without reaching its second Holy Lance form, the Holy Grail still put its user through considerable hardship. Percival might have accepted it willingly, but it should never have been placed in the hands of someone as frayed as she was.
“Well, I couldn’t go against the wishes of our superiors, and it wasn’t up to me.”
Nevertheless, Percival had worked hard as a member of Gallardworth’s student council, and during her days as a member of Team Lancelot, she had grown brighter, more human even, than when she had first been brought to the school. At least that was how she had seemed to Laetitia.
Taking a sip of her cold tea, she let out a deep sigh. “I wonder where she is now…?”