Persona - 5
A village we passed through only briefly, midway along the road. It held no particular meaning.
It was the most ordinary sort of village imaginable.
Nestled inland, untouched by war, free of scars or lingering wounds—a clean little place without so much as a single blemish.
Honestly, I was jealous.
While people died day after day behind walls built from sacrifice, these folk lived their peaceful lives without a single loss, without a single sacrifice, without even realizing what they were spared—and would one day close their eyes in quiet, comfortable death.
Unlike me.
Smiles never left the faces of the people we passed.
It was the monotonous everyday of a place utterly unlike the front lines, where blank, sticky expressions had piled up like masks on every face.
After a full month spent at the front, the colorless gray of that life had already become routine. Stepping into a village that still held color made the contrast feel strangely sharp.
Yes.
Idle thoughts floated up, one after another.
The Hero pulled me back out of the sea of my own mind.
"Saintess, we have arrived."
Ah. So we had reached the inn.
I answered inwardly.
Yes.
Jerome, the Hero, and I.
And last of all, the beast we were dragging—we entered the inn together.
I had hauled her along for a very long time before we reached this place.
At first the villagers had glared at me with open hostility, but the moment they recognized the white nun’s habit that marked a high-ranking cleric of noble standing, their eyes dropped.
And those lowered gazes settled on the victim I was dragging behind me.
When they saw the black tail and the pair of mismatched horns on the girl they had assumed was an innocent victim, the hostility that had vanished flared back to life, and their scorching stares turned on her instead.
Yes.
That is exactly the position you are in.
Even with your eyes covered, a gag in your mouth, and your whole body bound as you are dragged along in humiliation, you must still feel the hatred directed at you.
This is your karma. This is your ending.
What will become of you once we reach the Imperial Capital?
Well, that is none of my concern.
The innkeeper took one look at our battered appearance and the composition of our party and widened his eyes in brief surprise, yet he recovered with the practiced ease of an old man who had run an inn for a very long time.
This was what model handling looked like.
"How many rooms will you be needing?"
Smoothing his expression in an instant and acting as though nothing were amiss.
It was the model survival skill every medieval innkeeper needed to possess.
Mm. I liked it.
The Hero was the party leader, so he stepped forward first in situations like this.
"Two rooms, please."
Huh? Why two?
As if they had rehearsed it, the Hero and the innkeeper exchanged key and coin at the same moment and headed straight for the stairs.
The glance he shot me that clearly meant Come with me was more than a little alarming.
Ah. Is this a crisis?
I handed Jerome the handle of the leash and spoke.
Please take care of her.
Jerome looked flustered, but he accepted with familiar readiness.
"Yes."
I left the troublesome package with Jerome and followed the Hero inside.
And what I heard once we were in the room was nothing short of shocking.
"I know you are not the Saintess."
Ah. We’re fucked.
That was the first thought that crossed my mind.
How do I get out of this?
I ran through countless possibilities.
I stepped into the realm of a Superhuman.
I had to find a way to survive, by any means necessary.
First option: subdue or kill the Hero.
A solid plan.
Jerome was in the next room, and I could still match the Hero evenly.
My Erosion Rate sat at 65 percent, so I would certainly handle him more easily than back when I had barely crossed 50 percent.
As a regressor the Hero had accelerated his growth enough that he might still overpower me, yet the gap between someone who had become a Superhuman and someone who had not was simply too vast.
Therefore the Hero could not defeat me.
A man whose only gift from the stars was a set of weapons could never overcome someone whose very body had been forged by the stars.
In a war of attrition, my regenerative body held the advantage.
Second option—and this was really the last option.
The internationally famous traditional method of apology: full prostration.
Bowing to the floor, spitting out words of apology, begging “Please forgive me,” and groveling for my life—a thoroughly humiliating act.
The Hero was a good man, so he might spare my life.
An optimistic view, at least.
After speaking those words, the Hero watched the Saintess’s eyes tremble as though an earthquake had struck them.
Those pupils, shining as if they held the starlight of the night sky itself, darted rapidly up and down, laying bare her tension for all to see.
He tried to calm her with more words.
"Please compose yourself. I have no intention of harming you."
"I also know that you are the Saintess."
The Saintess gathered the emotions thrashing about inside her and the thoughts that had scattered in every direction, and succeeded in steadying herself.
At the same time, she thought:
…You “also”?
She felt she had found an opening.
The Hero continued.
And he made his decision.
"In truth, I know the future."
"You would not have known, but I have been acting on the basis of the future I have seen."
Half truth, half lie.
One of the most effective ways to deceive a person. Having resolved to act selfishly, to ignore the other’s will and choose the path that would save everyone, the Hero took the easiest road available.
He would deceive the Saintess.
For some reason—whether a blessing of starlight or something else entirely—he had seen the future.
And he himself had never lived through that future.
That was the story.
"And you have acted differently from the Saintess who existed in the future I saw."
"Perhaps the cause was that I myself acted differently from that future."
"What did the Pope do to you?"
Once more he mixed falsehood with truth.
He adjusted the proportions with cunning care so that the two could no longer be distinguished.
The Saintess answered.
He manipulated my mind.
I’ve undone it now.
Leaving out the important facts, of course.
The war waged at the tip of a tongue that held neither spear nor sword had reached a surprisingly vicious domain.
In a sealed room with the windows and door shut, a man and a woman sat facing each other on a bed, their words intertwining—words that had begun from the tongue alone.
It was not, however, the sort of situation one might imagine.
The Hero believed he had proven his hypothesis. The Saintess believed she had successfully deceived him.
As expected, both were only half right.
The first error was that the Saintess was not another personality, but an entirely different human being.
And the second was that the Hero was still suspicious of her.
He was a good man, not a fool.
In medieval society “good man” was often treated as a synonym for “fool,” yet he belonged to that rare breed who was genuinely good without being stupid.
Perhaps it was because the experiences of his previous loops had worn him down and sharpened him at the same time.
The Hero answered the Saintess’s words.
"The Pope tried to erase you."
Why?
"What the Pope needs is a puppet—someone to take his place on the battlefield, or a Superhuman like the first Saintess."
"He has no desire for a young girl he cannot control and who is unused to power."
"But because I arrived far sooner than expected, the work that began not long after the Hero appeared was never finished."
The Saintess closed her mouth.
More precisely, she did not transmit the thoughts she was having to the Hero.
Because inside she was thinking that the Hero was an idiot.
Why had the Pope not completed the brainwashing quickly? Why had he bored a hole in her soul to control her overflowing holy power? And why had he deliberately waited until after the Hero appeared to begin the work? Those were the questions.
The Hero’s hypothesis was a stupid theory that explained nothing.
Yet she answered.
Because she was playing the Saintess, and because she had to be the Saintess.
I see.
Yes. Affirm that idiotic theory and pretend not to know.
The Hero kept speaking.
"I know you are not the Saintess who existed in the future I saw."
"And I also know that another Saintess is still alive inside you."
"[Spring] told me, so you must have seen something in your dreams."
"But I will save both you and the Saintess who exists within you."
"Because I am the Hero."
The Saintess thought to herself:
This crazy bastard—what the hell is he saying?
Yet she did not let that thought show, and answered with perfect composure.
Yes.
And she gave him a smile.
Meanwhile Jerome remained in the other room with the succubus—the lewd demon—and Spring, one of the Seasons who ruled dreams.
"…"
"…"
An awkward atmosphere hung between the two of them.