The Meeting (1)
Everything around me was pitch black.
The ground was damp, as though it had turned to swamp, and on either side the darkness yawned wide open — no matter how wildly I swept my hands through the air, there was nothing there to touch.
I tried moving, just a little at a time, and every step came with a wet squelch as my lower half sank in, ripples spreading out around me. Even so, the surface beneath my feet never gave way; it held firm under my weight without swallowing me whole. It was, truly, a wondrous place.
I couldn't have said how long I had walked like that when, at last, a faint sound began drifting in from somewhere.
[■■... ■■■...!]
A static-riddled noise, still impossible to make sense of. And yet — a voice I knew.
It was one of the voices from that dream. The one that had laughed and vanished first, at the very end.
In this place I couldn't begin to identify, where no sound of any kind existed, merely hearing a voice at all was a stroke of fortune.
Half-afraid the voice might bolt, I made my way toward it very, very slowly — more slowly than I had ever crept up on a wild cat I hoped to pet.
And how much longer did I walk after that, I wonder.
At the end of the voice, a single sphere was floating in midair.
At first I refused to believe the sphere was the source, and searched the surroundings further — but no matter how thoroughly I combed the direction the sound came from and the space around it, there was nothing else to be found. I had no choice but to accept that this sphere was the voice.
[......]
"..Hm?"
With the voice's identity settled, I was turning over what to do next — how one even left this place — when I felt it watching me.
The instant that thought formed, I became aware of a slimy, unwelcome presence crawling up my body, and I flung myself backward on pure reflex.
[Keh.. hehehehe!!]
"..."
The moment I retreated, the thing that had been glowing violet whipped around toward me with a whoosh and began to laugh, emitting a thoroughly nauseating sound.
[■■..!! ■■■ ■■■!!]
The bastard rejoiced in a tongue I couldn't understand. Its delight struck me as nothing but vile.
Then, upon the thing that had done nothing but laugh, saw-like teeth emerged. They meshed together and swept upward in one long, unbroken curve — unmistakably, a smile.
And it kept coming, slow and steady.
I could have turned and fled, if I'd wanted to. But if I ran now, I might forfeit my only chance of ever leaving this place.
Telling myself as much, I didn't refuse its approach — and seeing that I wasn't running, the thing hauled both ends of its toothy grin higher still.
When it finally closed to within a handspan of my head, my neck vanished straight into its mouth.
[Da..mn..]
The instant pain lanced through my neck, I shot upright as though bursting out of that place — and for a split second, all that flashed before my eyes was a scatter of stars.
BAM—
"Ack!!"
The crack of something hard striking something harder rang through the room, and the person in front of me toppled backward with a small groan.
"Y-you're awake?!"
"...Saintess?"
Her hair still shimmered with that faint brown glow, a rosary hung at her chest, and she was rubbing at her forehead over and over — the Saintess, Hildegard.
"Where... where am I?"
"...The Academy dormitory. You had collapsed, so we carried you here."
The Saintess walked me through everything that had happened on the outside since I had entered the sphere together with Leon — from how, under the Chairwoman's direction, the spell had been unwound as swiftly as possible, to how they had found Leon's corpse and me inside it.
I couldn't have cared less about the rest, but the part about Leon's corpse left me utterly dumbfounded. Naturally, I had assumed I was the one who'd finished him off after being rescued. Whatever else was true, I had passed out partway through, unable to endure the pain — so I was certain it hadn't been my doing.
"..Then what brings you here, Saintess?"
"Well... there is something I must ask of you, Brother."
As she spoke, squaring her posture, she seemed different from every moment before — heavier, somehow. What's more, the two presences just outside the room were coiled and ready, poised to come crashing through the door at the faintest opening. And their readiness wasn't aimed at the Saintess. It was aimed at me.
"If we're going to talk... send the people outside away. And have them stand down that killing intent while they're at it."
"...!"
"Did you think I wouldn't notice?"
"I'm sorry... I was instructed to bring them, if only for my own safety..."
With that, the Saintess gestured toward the door, and only then did I feel the hostility that had been smoldering in my direction quietly die away. Even so, they never strayed far from it — they clearly prized the Saintess's safety above nearly anything else.
"Now then... let us proceed to the matter at hand."
"What's with the sudden change in tone—"
"Brother."
"...Yes."
"It appears that She descended upon your body."
Only today did I learn, for the very first time, that when a person hears words they could never have anticipated — with no chance to brace for them — the mind empties completely.
And in my case, that emptied mind was at once flooded with confusion and revulsion.
Then came the murderous intent, impossible to contain. It ran so deep that the holy knights waiting well clear of the door were startled into kicking it open and rushing inside.
"S-Saintess!!"
"Are you unharmed?!"
Unlike the holy knights scrambling toward me from across the room, the Saintess didn't so much as blink at the killing intent blooming off me. She simply looked at me.
Apologizing for the bloodlust I had radiated unbidden, I defused the knights' hostility once more and faced the Saintess again.
"...Are you certain? How am I supposed to believe that?"
"Candel, would you bring me a mirror, please?"
The moment her order fell, one of the knights standing awkwardly about the room drew a hand mirror from inside his coat and passed it to her — and she, in turn, passed it to me.
"Would you check your forehead, Brother?"
"..."
Without a word, I accepted the mirror and began lifting my bangs with my free hand.
What greeted me was a single crest. One so common it could be found in any church or cathedral, one that turned up on decorative trinkets after barely a stroll through the markets outside.
The Holy Grail.
The symbol of God had taken up residence upon my forehead — and the instant I confirmed it, I hurled the hand mirror away.
"This..!! What is.. this?!"
"It is the crest She left with you."
"That's not what I asked — WHY!!!"
The Saintess sealed her lips, as though to tell me to calm myself just a little, and let the conversation fall silent for a moment. But it seemed I was incapable of doing the same.
Even now, the mere fact that this fucking crest had been carved into me stirred a revulsion beyond measure. It was repulsive, abominable — I felt as though rage might swallow me whole and knock me out cold all over again.
A small blade was already in my hand. The holy knights came running at the sight of it, but they couldn't stop me in time. I slashed it across my forehead in one grazing stroke.
The looks on the Saintess's face and on the knights sprinting toward me were quite a sight to behold, but I didn't care. Blood ran, and a pain like sparks scattering across skin flared up — I ignored it all. My one and only concern in that moment was erasing this crest.
Scrape, rustle, squelch — a chorus of wet sounds gnawed into my forehead. Around the time I felt shreds of flesh dropping away and dangling loose, the knights seized my hands.
"Th-that's enough of that!!"
"Please..!! Calm yourself for a moment!!"
I thrashed with all the strength I had, but this young body of mine was no match for two grown knights. The Saintess, looking as though this gave her a headache of her own, pressed a hand to her forehead once before stepping toward me. She meant to heal me, most likely — and I had no intention of accepting it meekly.
Revulsion surged. Vomit climbed my throat. Hatred bloomed. I even felt a flare of resistance toward the faint trace of holy power dwelling in the Saintess's rosary.
"Don't.. don't!!!"
"W-wait.. what on earth is the matter?!"
"It's healing!! Healing! Do you not know holy power?!"
'That's the point..!! I said I don't want it, you sons of bitches!!'
I hurriedly regenerated my forehead and brought the advancing Saintess to a halt. When I showed it to her — proof that I had no need of her healing — she slowly backed away once more, her eyes brimming with a pity I couldn't begin to fathom, and only then did the knights gripping my arms finally let go.
"...Brother, you really are..."
"...Saintess."
"Yes?"
"...I want to meet Her."
The knights' faces fell wide open. The look of men asking whether I had any idea what I was saying. They were plainly stunned that a bastard like me intended to meet a God even the Pope had never actually laid eyes on.
"As it happens... that is what I came here to speak with you about."
"W-wait, Saintess?!"
"H-he is going to meet... Her?!"
At the Saintess's affirming nod, the knights' expressions grew only more conflicted. To men of such deep faith, an audience alone with God must have seemed like something out of a dream — but I'm sorry to say that wasn't my concern.
Without wasting a moment, I asked her how it was done.
"So.. what's the method?"
"That crest."
"..?"
"She said that if you pour your mana into that crest, your soul will be summoned to the divine realm."
The moment she finished, I offered her my thanks and infused mana into my forehead — or rather, into this crest, the one that had refused to vanish even when I tore my forehead open. Call it blasphemy if you like. My head had room for nothing but the thought of killing that bastard.
Before long, I could feel it on instinct — my mana filling the Holy Grail to the brim, and then my consciousness being pulled away somewhere.
Shwooo—
When my awareness finally drained away entirely and my eyes closed of their own accord, I caught sight of the Saintess's mouth, curved into a grin.
"Tranquiel..."
'May happiness be with thee...?'
When I came to and opened my eyes, what lay before me was a blindingly white expanse — the stark opposite of where I had just been. And standing there in front of me was a single blonde angel.
"Greetings. I have come to escort you."
"..."
The moment it occurred to me that this being might be connected to God, I barely managed to stop my hand from moving on its own. I had to hold it back. There was no need to waste what I was feeling on this angel.
Reining in those thick, brimming emotions — the kind that felt ready to overflow at the slightest tremor — I followed the angel as it walked ahead, as though bidding me come along. Slowly, and carefully, I moved with the wariness of a bomb that would detonate if even one thing went wrong, and before long, an enormous temple came into view.
The floor appeared to be marble, yet gleamed with a luster far deeper than any I knew, and the hewn stone pillars alone sent a sense of grandeur crawling up my body at a single glance.
"Please head inside, this way."
"...Thank you."
I stepped into the temple and walked on once more, until at last a single door appeared. A wooden door, its handle fashioned from finely carved stone. I pressed it down and opened the door — and before my eyes unfolded a scene not so very different from the Chairwoman's office.
Tall stacks of documents piled upon the desk, and bookshelves. If there was any difference, it was the little clumps of light flitting through the air, ferrying papers to and fro.
And in the chair at the center of the room sat a woman clothed entirely in white — her head bowed, her hands folded neatly upon her knees.
[...I am sorry, child...]
It startled me. The voice startled me — not because it was beautiful, nor because I found it unpleasant, but because it was a voice I had heard somewhere before.
One of the two voices from that dream. The warm one that, for reasons I never learned, had kept apologizing to me right up until it faded away.
She was the Goddess.
"..Finally.."
[......]
"I finally got to meet you..? Haha.."
[......]
"Y-you..!"
[......]