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Then all the more reason not to spread this shamelessness and debasement to others.

Even if you accepted it, you are unable to perform such an act.

Only the Law can bestow such salvation.

You can't possibly mean...

Keph's plan... was to give everyone halos, all so they can be granted this 'salvation'?

But how would becoming Sankta help? Are Sankta beyond callousness, beyond cruelty, beyond... suffering?!

We shall not stop at becoming Sankta.

We will all become true angels, Andoain Agathangelos.

True... angels?

Aggy... Agathangelos? I don't like this name. It's too long and hard to read, and it doesn't sound like any of the other names here.

This is... my surname. Before your father left, he kept telling me he hoped I would give it to you.

But, Mamma...

I know it's strange and hard to read, Andoain.

If the other children knew you had this name, they might say hurtful things to you like 'there's that weird boy!'.

Once you head out further afield, bandits may think you're a rich foreigner, while the Inquisition might assume you're a zealot up to no good.

Which is why I hope you never share it with others. Stick with a simple name, like the other orphans here.

I hope you will keep it in the deepest recesses of your heart, a place where your happiness, anger, sorrow and joy cannot touch.

But I feel really sad right now... I don't know if there's anywhere in me that doesn't feel sad.

Is there really a place like that in my heart?

Of course, Andoain. Everyone has one.

I hope that, when you think of this name, you will be free from suffering, grief, frustration, and strife.

Forget the dying and the hungry by the road who claw at your ankles. Forget those in despair, whose minds were eaten away by the sea fog, and the flesh they chew on.

Forget the monster doll your father made, and my finscale soup. Forget the storybook you keep beneath your pillow, and the brush you found in the old chapel.

But I don't want to forget them!

...It's just for a little while, alright?

I hope that, when you think of this name, you will find tranquility... the tranquility of emptiness.

One day, you will need this peace.

Promise me, Andoain.

Alright.

But I still want to know what this name means.

'Angel'. In Lateran, it means... 'Angel'.

Tranquility... Yes, a very apt descriptor.

Behold. Even as they come, they do so in silence.

The ocean of Originium is endless. Those who look upon it soon realize that every observation they make of it is without meaning.

When everything the eye can see is impossible to differentiate, where to start looking is similarly impossible to determine.

But now, above this great sea of uniformity, something shines.

It is as if the edge of the Originium sea has converged into a river that flows into the heavens. Countless fragments of Originium rise up from the surface of the sea, floating up into the distant, empty beyond in perfect formation.

The fragments are jagged and irregular. Some are as small as dust, others as immense as stars, but all, without exception, are crowned with a glimmer of light.

A glimmer shaped like a ring.

Halos...

Beautiful, aren't they?

It's a pity that all the beauty and ugliness in the world is meaningless to angels.

Angels are neither beautiful nor ugly. They are neither high nor low, noble nor base, reverent nor blasphemous, adorant nor disdainful.

They know neither meeting nor separation, happiness nor suffering.

Can they even be considered life?

Does that matter? All the praise we heap upon life is nothing but egotistical admiration.

Observing their forms in an attempt to compare them to our definition of life is simply us trying to find resonance with them.

Then, are they the Law? Are they gods?

If there is no distinction between beauty and ugliness, high and low, noble and base, why would there be one for god and worshiper?

Angels do not understand faith. They simply exist in the furthest reaches of the universe, taking on the most distinctive forms.

It was our forebears who encountered them, shamelessly disturbing them as they did so. In their name, we created a forgery of a dialectic, of god and worshiper.

If all our emotions, ideas and actions have nothing to do with angels...

What does our future have to do with them?

It is because everything we are has nothing to do with angels that we should become them.

Now, this is only a possibility, but...

When the Creator descends, when everything is submerged into this ocean before us, a time of stasis, uniformity, and meaninglessness...

The Sankta within can take on the forms of angels and enjoy an eternal existence, where they shall shine forevermore.

This is the final answer we shall submit to death.

This is His gift to the people He has guarded for thousands of years, His final blessing and salvation.

We drift, just as we drift between past and future.

We flicker, just as we flicker between reality and the void.

Angels know not beginnings or ends. Angels know not increase or decrease. Angels know not life or death.

In an existence where nothing exists, we can only exist in the form of angels.

So these are true angels?

Incomprehensible to the point where the Law cannot directly describe them, instead defining them by what they are not?

Immaterial to the point where taking the form of angels allows one to continue to exist after becoming Originium?

This is the existence the Law has chosen once everything returns to Originium?

Affirmative.

If this is the ultimate purpose of the Law, then as a saint and an executor, I should implement and enforce it.

Unless...

Unless the Law itself is a paradox.

I have one final question!

Explain to me how, if angels truly are as you say, without beginning or end, increase or decrease, life or death...

Then why do they—you—have such a strong desire to exist... to continue to exist?

As machines have inputs, so they have outputs.

The saints sought answers in the Law, and the Law granted them revelation.

The fleet asked the system for instructions, so the system issued commands.

The Lord, or rather, PCS, has never been as silent as it is now.

You are an artificial system, so you require people to operate you. This is true for both a 'command system' and the Law worshiped by the Holy City.

The ultimate purpose you were given was to break humanity free from their shackles and return their angelic nature.

However, this purpose, does it stem from people, or from angels?

Why would the angels you described desire this? Their actions do not have purpose, assuming they can even perform actions other than 'drift' and 'flicker'.

But if this purpose comes from people, how will you turn them into angels?

Surely everything you have done was more than just—

A wish?

...A wish.

Nurturer, I shall now grant you salvation.

Guide your people to angelification. Guide yourself.

Be free from suffering, grief, frustration, and strife. You will obtain tranquility, the tranquility of emptiness, as shall those you have helped and harmed alike.

You need not live as an egotist, a villain, a traitor, or a fanatic. Nor do you need to die as one.

Andoain feels more tired than he has ever been before, as if an entire lifetime's worth of burdens have been pressed down onto his back at once.

The arborbeast was right. He really is like that Sarkaz drunkard, acutely aware this is the last chance he has.

If he wanted relief, this is the only way.

'Relief'. He only needs to hear the word's crisp syllables to feel joy, to want to fall to the ground and weep until he has spent all his strength, then fall further into a deep slumber.

But he uses that strength to instead open his clouded eyes.

I don't know what kind of answer His Holiness gave you, nor do I know what Mostima, Fiammetta, Lemuen or her little sister are thinking right now aboveground.

I don't know where Patia and our former fellows are headed, nor do I know whose bosom the children I tended in the Shrine of Nurtury have clutched.

I don't know if they want this salvation, this relief.

But if what you really care about is my answer as a 'suitable candidate'...

Then my answer is no.