But the girl refused to back down. “Sorry, but now’s not the time to postpone things! We’re in a race against time!”
“If you have urgent business, I can bring it to the present Torah Lord, Spinoza, for you.”
“Present Torah Lord? …Wait, what happened to Torah Lord Grinzam?”
“That disgrace is gone,” she said curtly.
Suspicion colored the girl’s features, but she acquiesced. “Fine, you’ll do too. You have to listen to me…you’re all being targeted.”
“Targeted? By whom? For what purpose?”
“By a man with a grudge against the Torah Church. He’s trying to wipe out the entire church.”
The Rabba laughed dismissively at the girl’s warning. “We appreciate your worries on our behalf. However, our Torah Church doubles as the Civil Obedience Order, consisting of the top Golem Tamers in the world. Attacks by mere insurgents aren’t—”
“Are you okay with Sephiroth being stolen?”
The Rabba’s laughter lodged in her throat. Her eyes gleamed sharply from behind her glasses, narrowing on the girl. “…Young lady, what did you just say?”
“Sephiroth. You guys have it, don’t you?”
“Why do you know the name of that Golem?! How do you know of our most important, highly classified secret?!” The Rabba’s tone took a jarring 180-degree turn from kind to harsh.
Unfazed, the girl answered, “A certain man told me. From what I know, he’s trying to bring Sephiroth to life.”
“Impossible. There’s no way he can move it—”
“It can be moved—as long as you have this!” The girl procured an item from her pocket. “That man said that as long as you have this, you can use Sephiroth. So I came here thinking I should hand this over to Torah Lord Grinzam.” She thrust the item toward the Rabba.
Cliff couldn’t make out what it was from his position in the bushes, but when the Rabba saw it, her face went rigid.
Is it something valuable? Cliff wondered.
His question went unanswered, however, as the Rabba replied in a low, threatening tone. “…What you have in your possession right now is a vital item that was stolen from this church four years ago.”
“Come again?”
“Why do you have it?” the Rabba hissed, demanding an explanation.
Flustered, the girl jumbled her words, “Because…like I said…I stole it from that man. It’s not like I know much about him, but I really did take it away from him. What’re you glaring at me for? I’m telling the truth.”
“…No matter how hard I try, I just can’t comprehend what in the world you are trying to say.” The Rabba turned to the elders, who quietly observed the course of events, for guidance. “How do you wish to handle this female student?”
“She dared utter the name of the traitor, and there are far too many suspicious elements about her—arrest her,” one of the elders bluntly decreed.
“Seriously?!” The girl’s eyes widened like saucers.
The Rabbis moved as one unit to carry out the elder’s command.
“Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me!” she shouted.
Cliff was just as confused by the conversation. Yeah! This has gotta be some sorta bad joke! Why have things gone off the rails in such a crazy way?!
Though he still didn’t comprehend what was going on, he had a feeling that he’d get dragged into the fiasco if things continued this way. And, if it came to that, stealing back the confiscated goods would be the least of his worries.
There weren’t any Rabbis near the front gate. If he was going to make a run for it, now was the time. With that in mind, he was about to sprint for the gate—when the girl bolted out of the chapel with the army of Rabbis hot on her tail.
“OOPH!”
The girl nearly crashed into Cliff, while both she and the Rabbis stopped in their tracks to stare at him. One of the Rabbi with a particularly villainous face gave Cliff a dubious look.
“You…you’re that brat from earlier!”
“Tch!” Cliff clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
This was the same Rabbi who ordered his Golem to beat up Cliff at Flank Beach Market earlier that day. His face contorted with bafflement at Cliff’s sudden appearance.
“What’s one of Chest Island’s street rats doing here? Where’d you crawl in from?”
“Wh-Who knows?” Cliff lied. “I wandered in by accident during my walk. Maybe you should patch some of the cracks in your foundation to prevent your rat problem?”
“Fat chance, street rat!” the Rabbi yelled angrily. “Lemme guess, you’re here to steal the wares we confiscated!” He broke into a furious run for Cliff.
Cliff tried to dart away, but the Rabbi caught him by the scruff of the neck and slammed a fist into his stomach.
“Guah!” Cliff reflexively keeled over from being sucker punched.
“Don’t worry about this pest, I’ve got him under control,” the evil-looking Rabbi addressed the other Rabbis. “Arrest that girl. Quit dragging your feet! GET TO IT!”
The Rabbis resumed their pursuit. Cliff glanced at the girl as he gasped for air on his knees. Their eyes met. Hesitation flickered across her face. He nearly asked her for help despite himself, but a different entreaty escaped his mouth instead.
“RUN!”
Cliff was shocked by what he said, but he thought it was better than asking for help. He didn’t have to know her circumstances to know there was no need for them both to be caught. It was enough for him to be beaten up, he concluded.
Determination flared in the girl’s eyes instead of running away. She slipped past the Rabbis closing in on her and charged in Cliff’s direction.
“Huh?” Taken aback, the man who had punched Cliff braced himself right as she unleashed a flying kick with the full momentum of her fierce sprint. “NNGH!” The wicked Rabbi took her kick straight to the chin and flew backward.
The girl held her hand out to Cliff, who stared at her wide-eyed. “Can you stand?!” she asked desperately.
“Y-Yeah!” Cliff instinctively took her hand and got to his feet. They exchanged looks and broke into a run at the same time.
“He’s with the girl?! Arrest them both!”
“Lock down the premises! They’ll be trapped like rats!”
The Rabbis’ voices boomed behind them.
“We’re in deep! How do we escape?!” the girl beside Cliff asked through quick and short gasps for air as they fled.
The Rabbis had already created a secure perimeter around the main gate. Cliff rapidly scanned the area and his eyes stopped on a specific spot—the sole exit out of the Church’s grounds aside from the main gate—the staircase leading underground built right into the fence.
“There’s our escape!” Tugging on the girl’s hand, Cliff bolted toward Torah Church’s Underground Railway Station.
He dove through the entrance, hurtling himself down the stairs. Silence hung over the station ahead of them; nobody was around.
Dang it! The trains are done for the night!
Rabbis’ footsteps pounded down the stairs above, drawing ever closer. After taking a brief second to think, Cliff jumped from the platform down onto the railway track.
“Let’s go. We can escape to Chest Island this way!”
The girl nodded and hopped down with him. And just like that, the two children hotfooted down the pitch-black tracks.
A thick darkness instantly enveloped them. Their own footsteps echoed off the walls of the underground track and bounced back, sounding like dozens of feet instead of just their two pairs.
A feeling of helplessness washed over Cliff in the dark, when he heard her voice. “Hey, you there?” she asked urgently.
“I-I’m here,” he answered. A hand reached out in the dark and held fast on to his. The warmth from her hand anchored his consciousness in the heavy gloom that rendered even his sense of direction unreliable.