act16side

At least you still have some sense in you, and your Sarkaz friends aren't running around the city, joining in on the commotion.

If any of the envoys saw the Sarkaz actively sabotaging the Summit of Nations in Laterano... Things wouldn't end nearly as well.

What are you trying to say?

Andoain is on his way to the Basilica, isn't he?

What do you know about him?!

I've got no reason to tell you, Patia.

But before I go settle my score with him, I need you to stop the stupid, annoying little tricks.

While your people might still have some sense in you and you aren't actually trying to sabotage the Summit of Nations...

I'm warning you. Don't push your luck. Things don't always go the way we want them to.

Oh? So now it's your turn to 'convince' me?

This is just a little advice. If you don't want to take it, that's no feathers off my plumage.

Fiammetta, tell me. What are you thinking?

What else could I be thinking? I'm doing my job... I'm settling the score. It's not that complicated.

Why did you leave the Pontifica Cohors eight years ago?

They don't get to leave the city, only the Notarial Hall does. What's it matter? Why ask about that?

I don't know what you're brooding about. Maybe you put your hopes on me for something, but I don't really get what your whole thing about Lateran Liberi is about.

And I couldn't care less about it.

A teammate I trusted betrayed us. One of my friends got hurt because of it, and another got exiled. There might even be traitors who have eyes on them because of it.

I made this mistake once... and I won't let it happen again.

I'll protect them. It's as simple as that.

And I'm not going to apologize if that doesn't fit in with your fantasies.

...Pfft.

Don't get cocky, Mostima. In the same position, wouldn't you do the same?

You're right. I would.

It's true. I've got a fantasy.

But so what if it's a fantasy? Fantasies, ideals. If I didn't chase the things I once believed in, I wouldn't have made it this far.

Maybe I'm too naive to entrust others with my ideals, but I have no regrets.

I don't get you.

That's why I'm not going to back down. Even if everything I'm doing seems stupid and annoying to you, it's my mission, and I will see it through to the end.

If you want to stop me, you'll have to take me down.

Very well, Patia.

Urgh...

That's enough, Patia.

It's... not over...

Patia, right?

Most of the Gun-Knights have been reassigned to the envoys' village. Your mission is over.

I don't really get it, though. It's not like Andoain doesn't know who the most powerful guy in the Basilica is... Why the whole charade?

He probably wanted to make sure he got an audience with His Holiness.

Hm? You were actually listening to Lemuen?

This has nothing to do with that.

He is free to settle his score.

But that doesn't mean I'm letting him get away.

Sure. Shall we get going?

Once we get Patia settled in.

Right.

How should we face this Revelation? These mysterious, indescribable moments; these ambiguous, yet to be explained urges; these unascribable, esoteric intuitions...

Where will it lead us? What kind of choice does it want us to make? Or, perhaps, this is merely a hallucination caused by the fatigue of life?

But Revelation is called as such only because we willingly believe in it or were told to believe in it.

We could even say that if we knew it to be absolutely temporal, even if we deconstructed it into ice cold, objective logic...

Regrettably, man will still shine a spiritual light upon 'Revelation.'

Thus, when this cruel reality befalls us, the cowards can point fingers at the ambiguity of the Revelation, while the devout can repent their insufficient understanding. In any case, we can at the very least ascertain that we ourselves are not the root cause of everything.

Ah, Andoain. I was expecting you.

You don't seem surprised at all.

I can't say this was the result of any particular manipulation. The greatest lesson that I've learned in life is that people always cross paths, no matter their intention.

But, in the end, we all have our own goals.

The guardian, keeper, and executor of the most supreme law.

The eleventh man to take the name of Yvangelista, the Patron Saint of Sacrifice and Unity, and to stand atop the Lateran Curia as the Apostle, His Holiness the Pope.

Why recite all these titles you do not believe in?

The girl does not remain in your grasp.

She's still young. There is still much for her to experience.

Yet we are old. So old that we know our way around conspiracy, political machination, and internal strife.

What will you do now? Will you use this fine gift you spent decades preparing on her?

I'm not foolish enough to stand in a young girl's way.

Even if she triggered some kind of 'miracle?'

No, this miracle is Laterano's. It belongs only to Laterano. God's grace has fallen upon us. There is nothing more to it.

Do you enjoy history? I love history. For history to become history, you generally need an origin point, and when some kind of variable is introduced to stir up the water and form ripples—those ripples are history.

What of the object that was thrown into the water in the first place, then? Perhaps history does not care about it.

And neither do I.

The girl called Cecelia will go where she wants and do what she wants. Some day in the future, perhaps the name Cecelia will be known far and wide—it could also remain forever in obscurity.

But that has nothing to do with you or me.

It has nothing to do with the both of us. We have a mutual understanding regarding that, do we not?

You make yourself sound like a kind grandfather sending his granddaughter away.

This is nothing more than you getting what it is that you seek. You now get to explain this miracle. In exchange, Cecelia earned the right to leave this place.

This cannot even be called a trade. She never had the right to choose.

No, I never wanted to do anything to her. Laterano has stood for millennia, and neither should it nor shall it ever waver for a mere mixed-blood child.

I only hope that Apostles before and after you feel the same way, and that those expunged names were not erased for nothing.

We cannot ask for too much. Sins shall always be sins. Only time can wear them down.

And it wears them down to the point that no one remembers they were once sins.

I cannot cast blame on our forebears' cautiousness. However, neither shall I accept those sins in order to cover them up.

So long as our mutual understanding stands, am I right?

Hmm... as I said, it is very boring to grow old. Thanks to all the things that we experienced in the past, we are always fearful, on the fence with just about everything.

The old don't have the luxury of 'possibility,' Andoain. We have no choice but to continue down the path that was already laid.

A path that was already laid...

That goes for you too. I know of your journey.

My journey...

Right, I once journeyed... and I heard the purest of prayers and the most vicious of curses.

I stepped into sumptuous palaces and plucked my shoes out of bloodstains.

I saw shameless sinners beg for mercy, and I closed the simplest of caskets on innocent children.

It was always the same. Their cries always died down, and their tears always dried up, and I... I always stood there right next to them, attempting to comfort them.

I told them that salvation would come, as long as we believed.

But no, nothing ever happened. Not even the briefest passing glance.

The Holy City of Laterano has weathered every storm that came its way. How would a saint sitting in his soft armchair and the Sankta that know only to sing the praises of their own dignity know that there exist hardships in the lands beyond?

All the hopeless penances, withered consolations, and deafening silences.

Do you know how heavily silence weighs on my heart?

I seek only an answer.

We will never find salvation, will we?

'Salvation.' I often hear this word from the faithful, as though a sort of incomprehensible accedence, as though an ark that will rescue all the drowning.

Behold, our grand and glorious Lateran City. It is so splendid and magnificent, solemn and refined, with a perpetual aroma of vanilla and sugar wafting in its air.

All of this is a reward for abiding by the laws. All of this is our proof of salvation.

Yet this paradise is only a paradise because of the harshness of the wastes beyond.