Proselytization (2)
Clutching the child to her chest, Yoanna let a single tear slip free.
The sight of the abused and the helpless girl was more than enough to drag her trauma up from the far side of memory. It was a pain only someone who had lived the same nightmare could truly understand.
I expected her to react like this.
Having already sensed as much, Dantalion swallowed a bitter taste. He had not kept the truth from her out of any desire to torment her. That kind of pointless cruelty was the work of sadistic trash.
But this is something she needs.
If simply wiping out a city’s criminals would have been enough, none of this would have been necessary. Vermin that sucked a city’s lifeblood dry were well within the reach of her power to exterminate. But would the enemies she would face from now on be so weak? Never. If they had been that frail, sin would never have flooded this world in the first place.
If she does not grow stronger, Yoanna is destined to die.
Through their contract he could aid her, but he could not always stand guard over her. If Michael had been willing to allow that, he would have spoken of the Rapture instead of Magical Girls. That man would rather mobilize angels and demons to reset the world than watch it drown in sin and collapse. Yoanna’s very existence was Michael’s final ultimatum to this world.
And so, knowing full well it was a cruel thing to do, Dantalion had laid this trial upon her. For a girl who was neither a knight born with aura nor a mage who could command mana, this was the only path left.
Divine power—no, holy power—grows stronger through faith.
At their core, the strength of priests and holy knights was not truly the power of a god. To them, a god was merely a vessel for belief; their power was the miracle born of their own faith in something. That was why most priests and holy knights never reached the higher realms. They believed the words of their god, yet never asked themselves why they believed.
And Yoanna was no different. Because she had been saved. Because a hand had reached for her in her most desperate hour. Because cutting down the wicked and helping the good was simply the natural thing to do. Regrettably, those were only catalysts. They did not yet hold a conviction she had carved into her own heart. Sacred power drew its strength from a fierce faith directed at a conviction, using that faith as its wellspring.
If your faith is true, then this will be the moment you engrave a conviction upon your soul.
Dantalion believed in Yoanna’s talent, and he believed in her character. She would take the despair of her past as a cornerstone and carve her conviction into her soul. And then—
“Ah…”
—the flower blooming within her soul would come into full bloom.
The reason Marlon had not ordered his men to guard the room beyond the secret passage was simple: with the muscles of their arms and legs severed, they could not have fled even if they wanted to. Opening the door and running would have been useless.
As long as you can’t move your limbs, you’re worse off than stray dogs. See that one who ran? He’s being torn apart by a couple of mongrels right now.
In the end, all they could do was watch anyone who opened the door become dog food. So they obeyed Marlon and waited for death. Every time men of money and power came to slake their filthy desires and left again, they prayed to be killed instead.
Yet human beings are both ridiculous and pitiful creatures.
“Beautiful…”
A single flower that looked like the sun itself, banishing the dark, filled their hearts to the brim. Despair, sorrow, regret, hatred—the darkness that had eaten away at them through forgotten stretches of time melted away like frost. They dragged their ruined limbs toward Yoanna. If they were going to die, they wanted to die beside this beautiful flower.
Then the brilliantly blooming flower scattered its petals. They looked up at the petals streaming past like a galaxy, recalling night skies they no longer remembered. And the moment those petals settled gently upon their skin—
“Warm…”
—they wept, remembering a warmth they had long forgotten. The petals stroking their skin seemed to say they had done nothing wrong, and they could not stop the tears. The girl who had made this flower bloom was crying for them, and something swelled unbearably in the hollow of their chests, as if a hole had been punched through them.
The one whose tongue had been cut out sobbed without a sound. The blind man bowed toward the girl he could not see. Death no longer frightened them. They were simply grateful—grateful beyond measure—to the girl who wept for their sake. And so they gave thanks to the world that had sent them such a girl…
“Aaaah…!”
The drifting petals wound around their wounds and poured warmth deep into their bodies. Where the petals landed, the injuries vanished; the warmth that sank into them breathed new life into severed muscle and rotting organs. The blind man regained a clear world. The tongueless man realized he could speak. Discovering they could move their limbs again, they rose awkwardly, stumbling and crashing to the floor after so long without use of their bodies. But in hearts overflowing with joy, there was not a single corner left for pain.
Before long they had gathered around Yoanna. Without being told, they prostrated themselves, pouring out gratitude and joy. If they could die for this girl, it would be the greatest happiness in the world.
A single voice rang through their heads. Even hearing it seemed to still their hearts with sheer majesty. Startled, they closed ranks around Yoanna, scanning the surroundings as if to protect her.
“This voice…?”
“Who are you? Who is speaking to us?”
Was that not the being who had made their salvation possible? Recalling their earlier rudeness, they hastily dropped to their knees and bowed their heads. How could they dare lift their faces before one who had bestowed a grace they could never repay?
“You mean… you are the one who sent this lady to us?”
Dantalion spoke without a shred of falsehood. Choosing to follow the trail had been Yoanna’s decision, and the miracle born of the change in her heart had been Yoanna’s as well. Those who knew little of holy power, however, took it rather differently.
If she serves this being, then he must be a god!
He’s saying the work she did with the power he granted doesn’t count as his own? How humble…
They had never heard of a god more benevolent than this. Assuming an even more reverent posture, they carved the name Dantalion into their hearts. Confirming their reaction, Dantalion continued.
“The grace our Saintess has shown us is higher than the heavens. How could we ever repay it? If you command it, we will offer our wretched lives in its place.”
At one man’s solemn vow, the others nodded. If that flower of gentle warmth could light the world, they did not fear vanishing as fertilizer for its roots.
What use would it be for people weaker than Yoanna to offer their lives? She would never want such a thing, and helping her would be far more useful anyway. Those who had come to revere Dantalion and Yoanna, however, twisted the meaning.
Even wretched as we are, he doesn’t want us to die?
That such a merciful being exists…
Interpreting it as a command to treasure their own lives, they wept tears of gratitude. Unable to understand their reaction, Dantalion tilted his head without meaning to.
Did they want to die that badly?
Moved by his words, they wept as they swore.
“Our lives are as good as the Saintess’s own!”
“Even if we are reduced to a handful of ash, we will repay her!”
A being in whose service they could feel not the slightest shame had given them a command. Swelling with a pride they would never know again, they answered with vigor, feeling loyalty and faith surge and grow within them—
Wait. How did they know their lives hang on Yoanna?
Dantalion was startled for an entirely different reason. Their lives truly did hang on Yoanna. Fully restoring another person’s body was beyond her current level. The only reason she had succeeded was that she had shared fragments of her own power. Which meant that if she ever withdrew that power, their lives would end as well. He had meant to warn them—but if they already knew, there was no need.
Thud.
“S-Saintess!”
The flower that had seemed ready to shine forever vanished back into Yoanna’s body. Exhausted, she released the child and collapsed. The people cried out in alarm and rushed to check on both the child and Yoanna. The little one who had slipped from her arms was lost in peaceful sleep; her face was so serene it was as if everything she had endured had been nothing but a dream.
“The child seems fine.”
“And the Saintess? The miracle she worked was no ordinary one…”
Having calmed them, Dantalion flicked a finger and marked a path upon their eyes.
“The surface…!”
Surface—an ordinary word, yet it shook their hearts. Carefully lifting Yoanna, they set out without hesitation along the crimson-marked path. It was the moment the clocks they had thought forever stopped began to tick once more.
Exhausted Yoanna did not wake until a day and a half had passed. Overcoming a pleasant sense of drained weakness, she slowly pushed herself up in bed. As her senses sharpened, she felt a light weight resting across her legs.
“Mm… Saintess.”
“……”
The little girl from the underground was asleep with her head on Yoanna’s lap. When the child’s wriggling hand tugged at the blanket, Yoanna smiled softly and stroked her hair. At that touch, gentle as a spring breeze, a smile bloomed on the girl’s face.
The day I first met Lord Dantalion, he told me I was a special existence.
He had said she was one who had seized a special chance among countless fates that would have ended in tragedy. Until now she had not truly understood what that meant. Among everyone she had met, no one else had endured a time as hopeless as hers. She had simply punished sinners and performed good deeds out of faith in Dantalion.
But the moment she saw this child, she finally grasped the true meaning of his words.
The world is full of tragedies no one ever learns of.
Lives dying beyond the darkness, where neither gods nor humans paid any attention. Lord Dantalion had saved her—one among them—and thanks to his words she had been able to save these people. Of course this did not end every tragedy. The world would still be filled with unknown sorrows.
“People who are powerless… forgotten… and vanish.”
At the very least, she must not turn her back on them. Having been lucky enough to escape a fate of wretched death, she must not ignore them. Even if she could not save everyone—
Giving up without even doing your best is nothing but foolishness.
If her strength was lacking, she would simply build more of it. If her power was lacking, she would seize power. If her faith was lacking, she would whip herself and believe, and believe again. And if even that was not enough, she would one day entrust the duty to someone finer than herself, so that it would continue.
“Saintess, we thought we heard your voice, so we—”
The people waiting outside opened the door and entered. Yoanna looked at them, a flower as radiant as the sun blooming at her back. If strength and power and everything else were lacking, she need only use her own body and soul as the cornerstone and build, step by step.
“I need your help.”
Yoanna carved into her soul a vow that would never fade for as long as she lived. By every means and method, she would see her faith through—even if, like a flower that blooms for a fleeting moment, she vanished into nothingness.