The Unknown of Humanity (1)
Past midnight.
Following the Holy See's secret passage downward, Shirone and his companions slipped into a dark corridor where the lights had been extinguished.
"At the end of this hallway is the Heresy Division," Shirone thought. He needed to learn the truth about the Heresy Division, so stealth was essential.
According to Seina, the sentries rotated every eight hours.
"They're clerics regardless of rank. Better not to use mind-affecting magic."
After waiting, footsteps sounded out of the darkness at 2 a.m.
"Ugh, I'm sleepy."
Ordinary priests on guard duty blinked drowsily and passed by Shirone's group.
"There's no light and they make us stand guard? This is torture."
"Yeah. Night duty's the worst." Replacement guards waited at the far end of the hall.
"Anything happen?"
"Nope. Nobody came by."
Most of the priests didn't even know where the Heresy Division was.
"Now."
As if on cue, Shirone's party moved.
Relying on a firefly-sized mote of light, they approached a large iron door that smelled strongly of metal and blocked the corridor.
It would be at most a minute before the incoming guards reached the post.
"Can we do it?"
Contrary to Seina's worry, Shirone thinned the Miracle Stream into a thread and fed it into the lock.
"Sound!"
Seina, startled awake, lifted her head just as the lock released.
No sound came.
"Vacuum magic."
The moment the iron door opened, countless voices echoed.
"Ugh—"
Even with the sound waves suppressed, Shirone shut the door in a hurry.
"O God! Punish me!"
Shouts turned to screams. Seina went pale.
"This is… the Heresy Division?"
Steel doors lined the corridor like prison cells, each one issuing a horrible sound.
"No. This can't be." Even underground, this was the Holy See—the seat of divine dignity. These noises did not belong here.
"If they hadn't received purification, they wouldn't have been able to think like that."
Seina had no answer.
She had already known—she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, but she knew, at least in outline, how the Heresy Division's knights handled heresy.
It wasn't frightening because she'd finally realized it.
What was truly terrifying was—
"How could anyone live without realizing this?"
Such inhuman things were happening beneath the Holy See, and people went on as if nothing were wrong.
"Let's go. This is only the beginning."
"Beginning?"
Shirone stared toward the end of the corridor.
"Holy knights are trained from childhood. Do you know where that place is?"
Seina searched her memories.
"Of course I don't. I was too young. All I remember is that it was somewhere in the mountains."
Shirone pointed into the darkness.
"If we get out of here, we'll find it—the holy knights' training grounds. The Papal Territories aren't just the Holy See. To the north a mountain range stretches. There are many villages there—places where those condemned by the Heresy Division are exiled."
"They have… holy knight training grounds there?"
"That's what we need to confirm. Let's go."
As Shirone's group moved forward, Seina drifted into thought.
'The harsh training of childhood.'
It was an ordeal that tested both body and mind.
'But she survived it. She lived on that confidence. She defeated countless evils.'
How had things come to this?
'I must reclaim divine power. As Yahweh said, I must confirm the truth and judge with my own hands.'
Following Shirone, Seina could see what was happening behind the iron bars.
"You bastard! Kill him! Kill him!"
Those who raged.
"I was wrong! I was foolish! Oh, God Cria!"
Those who prayed.
"Hehehe! Come on, do more! Give me a taste of heaven!"
Those who laughed.
Seina's hair stood on end.
"This is… the same as the Heresy Division's holy knights, isn't it?"
"Yes. When thought itself becomes pain, the human mind simplifies. It goes blind and becomes ferocious."
Seina had once been strong herself.
"But that isn't true strength. Real strength is the power to protect, not to destroy."
"Uuuuh… uuuuh…"
A holy knight of the Heresy Division emerged as an iron door opened.
Blood painted his body; tears of blood streamed from his eyes.
'Someone crying.'
"I—I… am sad. This world, this reality…"
He ignored Shirone's group and staggered to another cell.
Iruki's expression tightened.
'He's completely gone. He's not ignoring us—his mind is paralyzed; he moves like a machine.'
They stood before an opened cell and saw a man utterly mangled.
Seina stepped forward.
"He's lost too much blood. Wait—let us at least stop the bleeding…"
"Kill me."
The man asked it.
"Please… kill me. Let me out of this prison."
Seina looked at him with a pained expression, then shut her eyes and shouted.
"That's enough!"
Yahweh was right.
"I know I was wrong. I know it—I don't need any more investigation. Let's go. Saving the people here comes first."
That would be the sane choice, but Shirone remained deep in thought.
"Kill me! Kill me!"
The man flailed weakly; Seina took his hand.
"It's okay now. We'll get you out of here."
"Kik."
A rasping sound came from the man's throat.
"Kiki! Get out? What?"
"Out of the prison…"
At that moment the man's eyes cleared for the first time.
"Is there such a wide prison?"
As everyone tried to make sense of his words, he suddenly leaned in and screamed.
"Kill me! Kill me! I said kill me!"
Blood splattered his face. Seina, chilled, hurriedly recoiled—just then—
"Futile gesture."
A gloomy voice came from outside the iron door.
'When did he—?'
A man in a robe that trailed to the floor stood there, chains in both hands.
Iruki asked, "Who are you?"
"Banisa."
He was second in rank at the Holy See—the Forgiver.
Even Seina, a paladin of the Oracle Administration Bureau, had never faced him before.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Banisa showed no outward reaction.
"That such atrocities occur in the Holy See. Who approved this?"
"...God."
When Banisa removed his hood, the robe slid down his body.
Seina's eyes widened and nausea rose from the back of her throat.
'What has he done to his body?'
There were hollows in his flesh where bone showed; his abdomen was twisted as if the organs inside had been knotted.
Shirone stepped forward.
"I'll take him. He's powerful." A yasha, or a banya—
No. Perhaps something that had both.
"Kill me… kill me."
At the tortured man's moan, Banisa pointed with his scythe.
"You are lucky. Shall I oblige? Come, grant mercy."
Shirone snapped back.
"Taking that man out of the prison is mercy."
"Prison?"
The corner of Banisa's mouth lifted.
"We are all imprisoned."
His scythe pierced his own chest.
"Imprisoned by the flesh itself."
"An absolute binding that does not allow even a millimeter of leeway—that is the flesh. Look at my body."
When he opened his chest, broken ribs tore through flesh and jutted out.
As Seina turned away, he spat the words.
"In this body… where can I find rest?"
Banisa advanced slowly.
"You cannot hide anywhere. The pain is wholly mine. And that is why God created us."
Nade summoned a bolt of lightning.
"He's insane."
"Insane? We are born and immediately locked in a prison, and in that prison we suffer endlessly until we can no longer bear it. When we can no longer endure, God opens the prison door for us."
He stopped within scythe range.
"I free a mind that has attained perfect truth from the flesh. You are the ones who are not gods."
Some choose suicide at the edge of despair.
"That man cannot kill himself—he has not yet attained truth. Still, he tries to escape the prison of the flesh. I help him."
It was perverse reasoning. Reason enough to repudiate it—yet it carried a force that made denial difficult, because of one thing:
'The outside world.'
Shirone now suspected the identity of God.
'Banisa doesn't know the outside world. His conviction is self-made. But it was born of extreme pain…'
A human's truth.
"Foolish creatures, God trapped us in flesh. You cannot escape the debts of your existence. Repent. Find truth in suffering. I will forgive you."
"Why?"
Shirone wanted to find the truth inside the madman.
"What's the reason? Why does God punish us?"
"One reason only."
His hunched body thrust slowly forward.
"For the glory of God."
"Get back!"
Nade and Iruki stamped the ground.
Shirone, to protect Seina, activated the Miracle Stream where he stood.
The moment he wrapped Banisa's arms in a wisp of light, an immense pressure slammed down.
"Guh!"
Though his muscles tore, he could still move—divine transcendence.
"Yahweh—"
The reason he could withstand the Miracle Stream's force was mental transcendence.
"You are heresy."
Shirone gritted his teeth and lashed the light-smoke; Banisa crashed into the corridor wall.
Kraaaang!
Before the echo died, Shirone shouted.
"Go! Find the exit!"
Having confirmed Banisa's strength, Nade and Iruki grabbed the now-weakened Seina's wrist and ran down the corridor.
"Faith, flesh, philosophy, motion."
Banisa's body, more damaged than before, rose like a storm.
"Do you think you can do anything with such things? Not at all, Yahweh. You're mistaken."
He snapped off a protruding rib, regripped his scythe, and charged again.
"There is no way to escape God's prison."
Kaiden could not sleep.
'Maya.'
Assigned to guard the artists' quarters in the Tormia district at Delta headquarters, he had been given the room next to Maya's.
'Is she asleep?'
Staring at the wall revealed nothing; only flights of fancy followed.
'No wild thoughts. Protecting Maya is enough. I ask for nothing else.'
Then a strange sensation rose from his lower body.
"Huh?" He looked down to find his pants pulled off and his right hand moving on its own.
"Ahhhh! What the hell! Damn it!"
Divine Hand Syndrome.
It seemed to respond to desire, but he couldn't make sense of what drove it.
"You stupid right hand! Stop! I'm not a monkey!"
As his left and right hands struggled, Maya flung the door wide.
"Kaiden! What's wrong?"
"Uuuuh! Uuuuhhh!"
Kaiden was grateful his body had superhuman reflexes.
Hastily pulling the blanket up, Maya flushed and waved her hand.
"S-Sorry. I didn't see anything. Honest."
'Damn it! Damn it!'
Burying his face in the blanket in frustration, Kaiden thought, I'm done for. I'll never be able to protect Maya.
As if to deny his thought, his right hand drew a sword and slowly swept it left and right.