She could erase memories. She shouldn’t have had any trouble incapacitating him. She could’ve just made him forget everything she didn’t want him knowing; he’d be putty in her hands. The Church was dealing with one crisis after another, from the mysterious serial killings to the assassinations of three High Cardinals by a former demon general. She could’ve fabricated some sort of incident and had everyone involved suffer from some well-timed memory loss. Everything would be wrapped up neatly, and the truth would vanish into the dark.
“If you have that much power, then why?”
It had gone from a question to a plea. For the sake of my own ego, I needed there to be some reason he’d had to die.
As though she could see through all of my thoughts, the saint turned to gaze at the coffin with a soft chime of her bells.
“He told me that sweet lies were a false kindness, not a lasting solution,” she said slowly. “And that a good-hearted, trustworthy inquisitor would soon be on her way.”
He— He knew all along? Father Carol...knew about me?
With all my might, I forced down the emotions bubbling up inside me.
“And that’s why you killed him?” I asked the saint again.
If she could have told me “I knew I’d be in danger if that inquisitor brought the Hero along,” or “I had to eliminate him before he started dropping hints”—if she could have explained it all, if she could have confessed her sins and told me it was all for the sake of saving those children, if she could have shown me even the slightest tinge of regret—maybe I still would have been able to forgive her. Maybe I could have told myself that it wasn’t my job to wander the hazy space between good and evil, or to draw the line between the two. Maybe, as an inquisitor, I could have turned a blind eye and let her go.
But even my faintest hopes were dashed as the saint spoke without a hint of care or concern. With no sign of remorse, with an air of simple necessity, she declared:
“He rejected my salvation. There was nothing I could do.”
I felt a strangled noise escape my throat.
I can’t do it.
All this time, I’d been carrying Father Carol’s words in my heart: “Help her find her way.” I’d done everything I could to keep my feelings under control, but as I listened to the saint’s casual dismissal, I was overcome with frustration, sadness, defeat...
“I... I can’t...”
I turned my gaze away from the saint.
“You didn’t need to kill Father Carol. With your power, there were so many other things you could’ve done. But in the end, taking lives is all you know how to do...”
She was a demon, not a human; but I didn’t feel like laying the blame there.
Even if she’d never looked at us as equals—if she’d sought to rule over us, to bring about peace through absolute devotion to her—some part of me felt like maybe I might have been able to accept even that. Just as the Church worshipped the Gods, we’d elevate the false saint as our new god and live under her protection. Even if that were the shape of the world to come, if it could be a world free of killers like me, then maybe...
“But you were wrong,” I continued.
Under the reign of a tyrant who’d given up on their ideals, the cycle of violence would never come to an end.
“You never should have killed him!”
Even if the two of them could never understand one another, even if she were threatened with inquisition—as long as she called herself a saint, as long as she claimed to serve justice, she had a duty to reckon with her own self-deceit.
“By your own deeds, you’ve defiled the title of Holy Saint!”
My knife was in my hand. I would never accept her. I couldn’t accept her—not in the name of the Gods, not by my honor as their bride.
“You have no right to call yourself that name!”
What I was about to do was an act of rebellion. I could talk about the Gods all I wanted, but as far as the Church was concerned, justice was on the saint’s side. She was the representative of the people before the Gods; she stood alongside the pope at the pinnacle of the Church’s power structure. To resist her was to go against the Church itself, plain and simple. But even so...
“I won’t allow it!”
Father Carol had told me to help her find her way, but...
I’m sorry. I can’t.
I apologized to him inside my heart.
I could never save or guide anyone to begin with. That was why I’d spent all these years killing countless people, trampling over their lives. All their hopes, all their futures—I’d plucked them like flowers.
After all that I’d done, maybe I had no right to judge this woman at all. But she was the one person I could never, ever forgive.
“Hell yeah. That’s a great look you’ve got in your eyes, Sister.”
Turning toward the voice, I saw a figure appear amid the pews—the slender form of a killer clad in shadow itself.
“That’s a plenty good reason to kill someone.”
I stared at them. “Veil Croitzen.”
The shadow laughed mockingly.
I wasn’t surprised to see them. I’d had a feeling they’d show up, even. I’d sent Cion away, leaving the saint unguarded; there was no way they’d pass up a chance like this.
“Anyway, she’s a demon. I can promise you that. Up to you whether you wanna believe me, though.”
The silhouette that stepped out into the candlelight was a woman with the air of a lonely moon on a starless night. Her ashen hair was stained red in places, and her left and right eyes were different colors.
“For the record, I do have orders for your capture as well,” I said.
“Aw, c’mon, loosen up a little. I’ll go with you if I gotta, okay? I can tell you all about how that guy died too. I was watching the whole thing, after all.”
You were watching, and you didn’t help?
“Hey, don’t glare at me like that. You’re the one who couldn’t save him—don’t act like it’s my fault.”
“I... I know that,” I grumbled.
As she stepped over, slowly and soundlessly, the killer transformed the shadows around her into countless duplicates of herself. Her mouth twisted into a fierce grin, her fangs bared at the saint.
“Anyway, first things first—time to kill this bitch!”
She crouched down low, then kicked off the ground along with her shadow clones and closed in on the unguarded saint.
No—she tried to close in on her. But as soon as she took a step, one of the shadows next to her exploded from the inside.
“Wha—”
Before she could speak, the shadow next to that one and the shadow behind her burst apart as well. Spears of light and pillars of flame suddenly manifested out of thin air, destroying her clones one by one. The killer stopped in her tracks as a giant appeared in front of her, swinging down a massive war hammer. Behind it stood the figure of the saint in prayer—a holy villainess, freely wielding the miracles of the Gods as her own.
“Ha ha...”
The killer disappeared beneath the great hammer with a short cry, neither a laugh of astonishment nor a scream of terror—followed by the sound of flesh and bone being crushed.
“All shall be as the light guides us.”
The clean chime of bells echoed through the cathedral hall, drowning out any note of dissonance.
The saint’s blindfolded gaze turned to the wall of the second-floor terrace.
“Killing Thorn of the Tree of Life.”
At the saint’s quiet incantation, a golden lance shot out to pierce through the body of the killer as she appeared up above.
“If you surrender, I will spare your life.”
Without waiting for an answer, a hail of arrows rained down onto the shadow. As shot after shot pierced through her, her body twitched and writhed, spouting blood.
The fight was utterly one-sided. I knew how to cast the same orisons she was using, but all of them took time to activate. They were all high-level incantations, poorly suited for regular use—and she was casting them instantly? What’s more, this was the Holy City of Eldias. We were standing in the very focal point of faith and prayer, the Pontifex Cathedral. She could keep casting all the orisons she wanted and never have to worry about running out of mana.
But—
“Lemme clear something up for you, real quick...”
—before I knew it, the pincushioned shadow had begun dissolving like mud.
“I don’t fucking die!”
“Nobody is immune from death.”
The shadow raced around faster than my eyes could follow. From the darkness beside the coffin, a wicked blade emerged to strike at the saint’s unguarded back. But without even turning around, the saint manifested a set of celestial chains; they shone with golden light, cutting through the darkness.
The killer quickly dodged, then pulled out a knife from within the shadows to push away the chains as they closed in after her.
“Too slow!”
As Veil leaped, the chains froze in midair. Suddenly, I noticed the shadows stretching out from every bit of darkness inside the cathedral. They ran all through the hall like a spider’s web, tangling around the chains to halt them in place.
“Need a second to repent your sins?!”
The killer pounced down from a strand of shadow. The saint awaited her with an air of placid indifference.
“I confess my sins on a daily basis, thank you.”
The saint dodged the first strike, but Veil immediately jumped back around, aiming right for her head. She was lined up perfectly for a killing blow.
“Gah—?!”
But when the blood came spraying out, it came from the shadow. In the blink of an eye, shafts of light had appeared from nowhere to intercept the killer in midair.