The Pope did not wait for her to finish.
She lifted her greatsword from the ground. Grasping the hilt with her right hand, she ran her left hand along the flat of the blade.
Wherever her fingertips passed, a dull red glow welled up on the rust-colored metal surface.
“Step aside.”
The Pope’s voice echoed from beneath her helmet, as calm as if she were reading the table of contents of a holy scripture.
Kaylar did not budge. She remained standing in front of Esper, shielding her.
“Hey... Kaylar...”
“Shut up! Leave this to me!”
The moment Esper spoke, her voice was cut off by Kaylar's sharp shout.
The girl who was always smiling now had a frantic, near-hysterical anxiety in her voice.
She did not look back. She did not dare to. She feared that if she turned around, the courage she had managed to summon with such difficulty would instantly vanish.
In the next instant, the Pope lightly pinched her fingers, and a razor-thin golden flame shot from her hand.
The golden flame was so thin its path was virtually invisible in the air, discernible only by the lingering streak of light burned into the retina.
It pierced straight through Esper’s throat, entering the very center of her neck and exiting from the back, splashing a few tiny droplets of blood onto the gravel behind her.
“—Ngh!”
Esper’s body violently arched.
The first thing she felt was a bizarre heat radiating outward from the depths of her throat.
Then came a hollow sensation.
Her vocal cords had been burned away. She wanted to cough, but no sound came; she wanted to scream, but only a desperate hiss of air escaped her lips.
The golden flame did not dissipate after passing through. The residual light clinging to the edges of the wound began to creep outward, slowly expanding from the small hole like a living thing.
The Fire of Destruction.
It was pure, unadulterated destruction itself.
With every ring the flame expanded, it incinerated the surrounding cells and nerves, stripping away any possibility of her making a sound.
“Esper!”
Kaylar instinctively started to turn around, but the moment her body began the motion, a chill rising from the depths of her bones froze her in place.
The Pope stood where she was, quietly looking at Kaylar.
“Twelfth Saintess, are you attempting to harbor a non-human?”
“...This is not harboring, Your Holiness... You cannot kill her.”
Kaylar's voice was trembling, but she enunciated every word with absolute clarity.
“Your reason?”
“She... She is... the Hero.”
The Pope tilted her helmet slightly, as if re-evaluating the dark-haired girl slumped on the ground and the Holy Sword that was struggling to glow through her iron visor.
“Indeed, the Holy Sword has chosen a non-human.”
Her tone remained flat.
“To think the Holy Sword has decayed to such a state. No matter. Kill her, and we shall simply wait for the next Hero to take her place.”
Esper felt her teeth chattering.
The presence of the figure before her was even more terrifying than what she had felt when facing Rafina.
Just how powerful was she? Esper did not even dare to let her mind wander toward an answer.
Meanwhile, the Pope raised her greatsword. The dark red light on the blade intensified from a faint glimmer to a brilliant glow, staining the surrounding ground a rusty red.
The sword rose slowly. Every inch of its ascent was accompanied by a faint, metallic scraping sound, like the prelude to an ancient ritual.
Or the preparation for a judgment.
“...No, Your Holiness. You cannot touch her.”
This time, Kaylar’s voice did not shake.
She was usually far better at analyzing situations with logic rather than emotion. Even now, with her emotions threatening to burst from her chest, she forced herself to think.
“Twelfth Saintess. Kill her, and we will simply wait for the next.”
“Your Holiness, how long will we have to wait for the next Hero? Years? Decades? Or centuries?”
Kaylar lifted her head slightly, the calculating thoughts that were always spinning behind her eyes coming to the surface.
“The Black Tide is still spreading, the Authorities related to it are manifesting one by one, and the death marchers are growing more active by the day.
Furthermore, with the Abyss Expedition imminent, the absence of a Hero would be a catastrophic loss of military strength for humanity.”
The Pope did not raise her hands any further, but she did not lower them either.
“Twelfth Saintess. Are you saying these words for humanity, or for her?”
“Of course, and solely, for humanity.”
She forced the corners of her mouth upward, pretending that she wasn't the one who had just been trembling under the Pope's overwhelming presence.
“What else could it be for? It is true that those of a different race can never be fully trusted. But to us, she is merely a tool. Since she was accepted by the Holy Sword, she is currently the most useful tool humanity has. Surely you understand this, Your Holiness?
“We are blacksmiths, and utilizing tools to fulfill our mission is part of our doctrine, is it not? Just as the sword that decapitates a god must be wielded by humanity, even if the primary agent is human, the sword's cooperation is still required to achieve that goal.
“We have never cared about what material the sword is made of. As long as it can kill the gods, that is all that matters, right?”
Kill the gods? The sword that decapitates a god?
Those words echoed in Esper’s ears, but the agonizing pain of the moment left her with no room to process them.
The Pope did not answer Kaylar immediately.
Nothing could be seen through the narrow slit of the helmet, but Kaylar could feel the heavy gaze falling upon her face from behind the iron visor.
The weight of that stare made her want to look away. But she didn't. She kept her head high, staring straight back with eyes thoroughly steeped in exhaustion.
“I refuse,” the Pope said flatly after a moment of consideration. “I cannot accept the Holy Sword being defiled by a non-human.”
Her gaze shifted to Esper.
It was calm, as still as deep well water.
A stark contrast to the attitude she showed when speaking.
“...Your Holiness, we had an agreement.”
Kaylar closed her eyes, speaking through gritted teeth.
“...An agreement.”
“You said that you didn't hold any expectations for me at first, yet I survived anyway... So, as a reward, you would grant me one request...”
She forced the words out with great difficulty.
“I want to use it now.”
The Pope’s helmet tilted slightly.
“Are you certain, Twelfth Saintess? This is the only promise I have ever made to you.”
“I am certain.”
“Very well.”
The Pope planted her greatsword on the ground.
“Speak.”
“Let her go.”
The Pope remained silent for a long moment. It was as if she were weighing what this child, who had never made a single request of her in six years, had finally chosen to bargain for.
The wind whipped the hem of the Pope's cloak up and down. The red light pulsing through the seams of her armor flared and dimmed rhythmically, like a slow heartbeat.
“So be it,” the Pope’s voice echoed from beneath her helmet, still devoid of any emotion. “I will let her go.”
Kaylar’s shoulders slumped in relief, only to tense up again immediately.
For the Pope had taken a step forward.
“I have fulfilled our agreement. Now, we shall attend to Church matters.”
With every step of those iron boots, the ground trembled slightly.
She walked up to Kaylar, raising her left hand and placing it on the crown of Kaylar's head.
“Twelfth Saintess, Kaylar.”
Through her hair, Kaylar could feel the temperature of the metal.
It was freezing cold.
“For harboring a non-human under the title of Saintess, utilizing an Authority without the Pope’s permission, and deeply cooperating with a non-human...”
The Pope’s tone sounded as if she were reading a list.
“Therefore, I sentence the Twelfth Saintess to the crime of 『Apostasy』.”
“W-Wait, what?”
Kaylar’s voice trembled as she spoke.
“Your trial will be executed within the Church. Until the trial begins, I shall ensure you do not die for any reason.”
She slowly slid her armored gauntlet down from Kaylar’s head, brushing past her hair to her cheek, and finally resting on her neck.
Snap.
She seized Kaylar by the throat.
The girl's neck creaked under the immense pressure. Kaylar’s body spasmed in instinctive reaction before falling into an uncontrollable, continuous tremble.
“Cough... Cough...”
“It is time to go home, Twelfth Saintess.”
Kaylar’s feet left the ground.
Her body dangled limply in the Pope’s grasp.
“Kay...”
Esper collapsed on the ground, reaching her hand out toward Kaylar.
She desperately wanted to speak, but the words were choked off by the fire in her throat, reduced to barely recognizable, garbled syllables.
The Pope turned around, which allowed Kaylar, who had been facing away, to look back and lock eyes with Esper.
She looked at Esper. There was so much in those gray-green eyes, but everything was veiled by a thin layer of tears, tangled into an indistinguishable mess of emotion.
“Don't... go...”
Esper pieced together her plea with broken syllables.
Fina’s departure had been Fina’s own choice. Her sister’s had been her own choice.
But this time was different.
This did not stem from either Esper’s or Kaylar’s wishes.
Esper was right here, and the person she wanted to save, the person she wanted to keep by her side, was right in front of her.
But she could not keep her.
There was no other reason. She simply lacked the power to hold onto her.
The Pope walked toward the door. Kaylar’s legs dangled, but she raised her hand and gave Esper a weak wave.
She seemed to want to smile, to make the wave look a little lighter, but the corners of her mouth only twitched halfway up before refusing to go any further.
Her final expression was one of bitter resignation.
She had likely foreseen this outcome long ago.
Yet, she had made her choice regardless.
The door closed.
The light dissipated rapidly, and the iron door vanished into air without making a single sound.
All that remained on the muddy ground were the footprints where the Pope had stood, and a few drops of blood that had yet to dry.
Esper sat where she was, the Holy Sword slipping from her grasp.
The Fire of Destruction faded, and the wound on her throat began to heal.
She stared at the spot where the door had vanished, where the Pope had vanished, where Kaylar had vanished.
There was nothing left.
Rate on N.U.
