Beatrice withdrew her hands, clasping them behind her back as she slowly paced around Eladia.
Her slender, small feet made no sound against the marble floor.
Her long, silver-white hair draped over her shoulders, making her look like a harmless, delicate doll.
“I sent you to monitor the Hero and confirm she has no thoughts of betrayal. If she did, you were to clean house.”
She stopped in front of Eladia, tilting her head.
“But isn't it a bit inappropriate for you to be so lovey-dovey with that vampire right now?”
Eladia did not answer.
Her hands were clasped in front of her, fingers tightly intertwined.
Yet she remained standing, still looking into the golden eyes before her.
“...According to our original agreement... I only need to act after confirming her betrayal...” she said softly.
“And Esper has not betrayed us... so I have no reason to act... nor any need to...”
“No betrayal?”
Beatrice stopped pacing.
She pressed a finger to her chin, adopting an expression of deep thought.
In the next moment, an innocence befitting her apparent age bloomed on her overly youthful face.
“Then, what about that child named Kaylar?”
Eladia's fingers suddenly tightened.
“Kaylar...”
“The Twelfth Saintess of the World-Forging Cult. A core member of the Abyss Cult. A believer in extreme human supremacy. While wanted, she lived and ate with the Hero, fought alongside her, and even turned against her own Pope for the Hero's sake.”
Beatrice raised a finger for each point she listed.
“Ah, in case you didn't know, their brand of extreme human supremacy is the kind that classifies everyone in the world into strict hierarchies. First come the pure-blooded, divinely created humans, and then, as the bloodline dilutes layer by layer, it finally reaches modern humanity. Quite a terrifying cult, isn't it?”
Her voice remained sweet, but every word carried a precise, heavy weight.
“To choose to establish ties with such a cult~ If that isn't betrayal, then what is?”
“...It really isn't betrayal... Kaylar hasn't done anything detrimental to the Church of Radiance... nor has she abandoned the Church's ideals...”
“But she is a Saintess of the World-Forging Cult. She joined the Hero's party, fought alongside the Hero, and built trust and affection. If word gets out, wouldn't it reflect poorly on our Church of Radiance? Doesn't that count as acting against the Church's interests~”
Beatrice smiled.
“Yes, yes, yes. You don't think it counts, but I do. The only difference is whether either side can accept it, right, Eladia?”
She took a step forward, instantly closing the distance between them to less than a foot.
“You know, I won't accept it.”
She tilted her head back, looking up at Eladia's face with her golden eyes, as if admiring a painting that was slowly changing colors.
“The moment Esper accepted Kaylar, the moment she decided to trust that wanted criminal, you could have already acted. You could have returned with the evidence of her betrayal and her corpse, and then I would have fulfilled my promise and let you go. The covenant completed. You would be free.”
Beatrice stood on her tiptoes, bringing her lips close to Eladia's ear.
Her breath brushed against the Saintess's ear, as if sharing a secret meant for only the two of them.
“But you didn't.”
Eladia's shoulders trembled.
“I can tell, you know. Your eyes are different than before.”
She raised a finger to point at her own eyes, then turned that finger to point at Eladia.
“Before, your eyes were dead. Whether you were being dissected, drained of blood, or dragged out to stand before the believers as a saint, your eyes were always dead. Empty, lifeless, as if what was stuffed inside the skin of the Saintess was merely a puppet.”
As Beatrice spoke, she toyed with the ends of her hair, her tone incredibly cheerful.
“But it's different now. When you walked in with her earlier, I saw it from the Holy Seat. There is something in your eyes. The desire to live, to gain freedom, to stay with someone forever~ All those things that bring happiness, pleasure, and joy~”
Eladia's nails dug into the back of her own hand.
“That's only natural. Once people get a taste of sweetness, they want more and more. Like the taste of happiness, and the taste of destroying that happiness. And now that you've felt happiness, you want to live, you want freedom, you want to stay with someone. Yet, you choose not to kill Esper.”
Beatrice's voice suddenly became extremely soft.
“Why is that? Could it be because—Esper is that person~”
Eladia's heart pounded violently beneath her holy robes.
“Is Esper, in your heart, more important than your freedom, more important than your very life?”
A brief silence fell over the hall, and then Beatrice broke into an even brighter smile.
“Eladia, you don't actually like Esper, do you~”
Eladia did not answer.
She had never thought about this question; no one had ever asked her anything like this before.
What was liking someone? Was it wishing for them to live? Was it wanting to stay by their side? Was it feeling a tight ache in one's chest upon seeing them cry? Was it wanting to gaze a little longer at their face when they ate cake, wearing an expression of wanting to comfort her but not knowing how?
If those things meant liking someone, then she probably did.
But Beatrice was clearly not asking this to offer relationship advice.
“...”
The silence stretched for a few more breaths before Eladia's fingers slowly relaxed.
She lifted her gaze, looking straight into Beatrice's golden eyes.
Her trembling shoulders gradually stilled, and the heartbeat in her chest slowly returned to its normal rhythm.
Something had overridden her fear.
“...Your Holiness. I have a question.”
“Ask away~”
“You said before that there are other substitutes with the 『holy blood』 constitution.”
Her voice was still quiet, but it no longer carried that hesitant, choked-up quality.
“Since that is the case, why do you still torture me?”
Beatrice blinked and giggled softly.
“First of all, even if there is other 『holy blood』, the production efficiency and quality are far inferior to yours. After all, our Lady Saintess is no ordinary 『holy blood』. If we switched to a substitute, the yield would be cut in half, and the purity would drop significantly. Every holy rite in the Church, big or small, requires holy water, so cost control is very important, you know.”
She nodded, as if satisfied with her own business analysis.
“But that's secondary. The most important point is—you are just too cute.”
The Pope clasped her hands behind her back and spun in a light half-circle before Eladia, the hem of her papal robes sweeping across the floor in an arc.
“Your substitute has already gone mad. It's all because she got so used to dissecting you that she didn't know how to hold back with the newcomer. Although she can still be squeezed for raw holy water, she can no longer serve as the Saintess to maintain the Church's public face.”
Her smile remained brilliant.
“And Eladia, don't you think so too?”
She reached out to gently tug at the collar of Eladia's holy robes, looking up with an extremely innocent voice.
“Doesn't the expression on a child like you when they break bring more excitement than anything else?”
Eladia's pupils contracted.
“When you were being dissected before, there was no expression on your face. It was so boring. But it's different now.”
She gently ran her fingertips across Eladia's cheek.
“On the day you finally break, on the day you realize you can never return to her side no matter what—at that moment, what kind of expression will appear on your face?”
“What... what are you going to do...?”
“Look at that, just talking about it has already made you panic~”
She withdrew her hand, smiling faintly at Eladia.
“My dear Saintess. I am incredibly curious to see what beautiful despair will flow from those lovely eyes of yours after you have lost every person and thing you could ever hold dear. Just imagining such a scene fills me with absolute delight.”
Eladia remained silent for a long time.
The candlelight flickered between them, casting their long shadows onto the white wall.
The Pope's shadow almost completely engulfed the Saintess's.
“...You cannot touch me.”
“Oh?”
“I am the face of the Church... the only Saintess... If the Church loses its Saintess... it will deal an extremely heavy blow to its reputation...”
“Who are you saying those words to? Do you think I don't know that?”
Beatrice tilted her head, the light in her eyes still burning bright.
“—Did you think I called you here simply to enjoy this expression of yours?”
She reached out both hands, gently grasping Eladia's trembling right hand.
“Eladia. If it were a normal Pope, they would of course consider... No, they probably wouldn't even think of doing such things in the first place, right? After all, it violates humanity. Any decent person with a shred of conscience left would surely never do something like this~”
“I...”
A light began to shimmer from their joined hands—a pure, flawless white light.
“Too bad, I've already lost my humanity~”
The cathedral bells began to toll at that exact moment.
“The Saintess is the face of the Church, and her reputation affects the Church's reputation. Therefore, one cannot openly do anything too wicked or terrifying to her. Yes, that is the normal way of thinking, and the one that maximizes benefits~”
Beatrice nodded.
“But that is the thinking of a useless fool~”
Eladia's eyes widened.
“That's right, I just wanted to see this expression of yours. Think about it, if my hands were tied, wouldn't I miss out on so much fun?”
Beatrice's eyes narrowed with delight.
“『The Maiden Who Plucks the Blazing Sun, go betray Esper.』”
The Eternal Girl spoke with the joy of someone sharing a long-awaited prank.
Then, the joy ground to a sudden halt.
The aura of the Black Tide briefly surfaced at this very moment.
Replacing the expression on Beatrice's face was the sheer astonishment of something utterly unexpected occurring.
In the next instant, a joy even greater than before returned to that youthful face.
.
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