A Sister's Resolve
The corridor had grown oppressively gloomy, as though dusk had spilled ink across the air. The nun leaned against the wall, her body threatening to collapse. No, to crumble entirely. The burning sensation in the blood vessels around her eyes was almost welcome. That piercing pain kept her fading consciousness from slipping away under the weight of mental exhaustion, and it dulled the guilt that had driven like a stake into her lungs.
Was this truly the best course of action? No. Of course not. There had surely been far better options. If the Saintess's mind had been whole. If they had not been the Hero's Party. If the nun's own judgment had surpassed theirs. Countless ways to resolve the situation without paying any price or suffering any loss would have existed.
She could have confined the priest in the Audience Chamber for a time while she herself fled the Capital to some foreign land, buying time. Or she could have explained the circumstances to the Hero's Party and negotiated to take full custody of the priest. Or she might have persuaded the priest himself to return to them. Any of those approaches could have been attempted.
But what if—just once, even once—those attempts had failed? Unlike the elusive, brilliant alternatives, the disastrous possibilities rose vividly behind her closed eyelids the moment she tried to imagine them. If the Hero's Party, still searching for the priest while she was away, discovered him through some trick and confronted the Saintess, the only person who could be seen as holding him captive. If negotiations broke down and they insisted the priest must return to the Hero's Party. If, in the process, the mentally unstable Saintess came to harbor hostility toward the Hero.
That would be the end. In crude terms, catastrophe.
It was a well-known fact that just as the Demon King—the despair of humanity—grew stronger with each passing generation, the Saintess—the hope of humanity—likewise received greater divine power with each successor. Yet unlike the Demon King, who possessed no physical form, the Saintess had a living body. The side effects of pouring divine power into a human vessel had only worsened with each generation, a shameful truth the Holy See strictly forbade from public knowledge.
Among all the Saintesses recorded in the Capital's history, the current one possessed an unprecedented level of divine power: Welna Angelas Ashes. But the backlash from receiving that immense power had reduced her cognitive abilities to those of an infant.
Even the royal family, which had once insisted that the Hero and Saintess should fight the Demon King together as the ideal form of the Hero's Party, had reversed their stance and claimed it would be safer for the Hero to receive the Saintess's blessing beforehand. All of it was to prepare for this very situation.
The Grace Bestowal Ceremony. If the citizens of the Capital ever learned the sordid origins behind that grand-sounding ritual, what expressions would they wear? Surely none of them would be smiling brightly. The nun believed so.
The day the Saintess was chosen. The day the girl became the Saintess. The nun would never forget it. How could she forget the horrific sight of a personality being erased, an existence overwritten, an individual completely vanishing? The despair of consciousness sinking into an endless swamp. The helplessness seeping into her bones. And that disgusting sense of relief, spreading like ink in water, rising like a buoy whenever night fell. It was the nun's regret, her curse, and her brand.
Compared to the bitterness in her heart, the pain of having her flesh seared by red-hot iron would seem laughable. If she could only undo the mistake of that day, the nun would gladly gouge out her own eyes if asked.
"The Saintess... Welna, I will protect her..."
She had to protect her. That was why she could never hand over that priest. That man. She could not allow him to be separated from the current Saintess even for a moment. If she lost the one person who had returned the Saintess—a vessel holding divine power, a doll dressed in the robes of admiration, nothing more than a breathing corpse—to humanity, the Saintess would finally break this time.
The only one qualified to grasp the pitiful hand that had sunk into darkness because of the nun's past failure, the only one with the strength to pull her back into the sunlight—that was the sole path to atoning for her sins, her mission. The nun truly believed that. And for that, she was prepared to do anything. Yes, anything. She would not hesitate to steal someone who might have been another's support, nor to stain a life of integrity with lies. She had sworn and resolved this again and again.
Fortunately, that desperate resolve had not been in vain. Thanks to the play in which the nun had written the script and taken the leading role, any suspicion toward the monastery had surely been completely erased from the Hero's Party's minds. A person burdened with guilt sees the world through a narrow, darkened lens. The nun knew this feeling all too well. No matter how many circumstantial clues pointed here, as long as even a trace of guilt toward her remained in their hearts, those leads would soon fade into nothing. When facing an opponent one could never overcome by force or wit, the best strategy was to bow low and stir their sympathy—a truth even street vagrants understood.
"Ugh!"
Was it static? An inexplicable sensation shot up from her palm, making the nun furrow her brow.
"Blood...?"
She brought her hand—previously braced against the wall—before her eyes. The vivid cut across her palm looked as though red paint had been smeared across a blank sketchbook. Judging by the fresh blood still beading on the wound, it was clearly recent. Had she brushed against a fragment of the table the Hero had broken? At the time, simply enduring the overwhelming presence the party had exuded had taken all her focus, so she had not noticed.
'Give him back!'
The nun shook her head firmly. She could not waver. The luxury of considering someone else's feelings had long since turned to ash and vanished. She had to turn away. And she could. Her selfish, self-serving, filthy self was more than capable of it. All of this was for her. For the Saintess. What did it matter if her own mind and body became stained with filth? As long as the Saintess could laugh, cry, get angry, and feel sorrow like other children her age, the nun was willing to become as dirty as necessary.
"Wel... na..."
Was it because the tension had finally eased, or perhaps because she had lost too much blood? The nun's consciousness began to blur in patches. The mournful sound that escaped her dry, moving lips carried an unmistakable damp longing. The cold night air caressed her cheeks, and moonlight filtering through the clouds drifted to her side, proudly displaying its brilliance. Yet the nun seemed too busy chasing memories beyond her slowly closing eyelids to notice the beautiful nocturne the late night played.
'Beltein, big sister!'
Yes. There had been such times. When the way others addressed her was not "Sister," but "Beltein." Beltein Angelas Ashes. The name now felt so unfamiliar that being called that way seemed stranger than anything. Yet there was only one person—the one she loved most in the world—whom she still wished would call her by that name. The nun had never been able to completely sever her lingering attachment to it.
Long ago, the nun had a younger sister. Yes. She had.
"Um, Sister... If you sleep in a place like this, your mouth will twist..."
It was then. Like a single drop of dew falling onto a lake, a voice dropped into the center of her fading consciousness.
"Oh dear, and what happened to this hand... Goodness..."
What followed was a gentle, floating sensation. The memory of her childhood, now only vaguely outlined, surfaced—the moment her father had carried her to bed after she collapsed from exhaustion while playing. That warm, sinking comfort slowly returned.
"O Lord. I am Your finger. A mere lamb. Beneath Your authority, I shall bring rest to all things upon this earth. All glory be to You."
With that soft, lullaby-like voice lingering in her ears, the nun's consciousness faded into blissful darkness. For some reason, she felt she would not have nightmares tonight—though she had no proof, only the feeling.