“What?! Wh-where have you come from…?!”
“Don’t mind that. Rather than that, here, here.”
The girl, dressed in purple, who had most certainly not used the convent’s door to enter, wove an entire stack of documents in the priest’s face.
“N-no, that’s…”
“I need to meet with the head of this place. Hurry it up, I don’t have all day.”
“No, like I said, who-”
Cutting the poor young man off, the girl practically shoved the papers up against his face, forcing him to read them with no regard for his personal autonomy.
“Ah…”
The light faded from his eyes, and he accepted the stack, leafed through it a moment, and nodded.
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Don’t keep me waiting.”
He set off for Astaroth Avasia’s private office, light slowly returning to his eyes, but on the way there, not once did he question anything.
***
Calm, unhurried strides carried Avasia through the halls of the convent, following after the apprentice priest.
Once the pair reached the main prayer hall, Avasia bade the young man halt by raising his hand and turned to the statue of the Goddess.
The Goddess, said to be like the most beautiful woman in the world. Eyes of rainbow and hair of snow, he had always thought she looked oddly artificial.
Even so, he lowered his head to the statue, offering a quick prayer, before letting the apprentice priest continue.
The visitor was… certainly, she was a sight to behold.
Avasia’s first thought was that she looked out of place. Like something that didn’t belong.
Yet moments later, he found himself wondering where that thought had even come from. Nothing about her was all that unusual, save for perhaps her purple hair and eyes.
“This is?” he asked the priest.
“Ah… Yes,” the priest responded, looking over one of the sheets of paper he was carrying. “Claimed name, Cyci. Claimed race, human. Claimed purpose, religious pilgrimage. Claimed identity, pilgrim.”
“Yes, yes, I can see most of that just by looking at her. I want to know why she was looking for me.”
“Ah…”
The priest leafed through his entire stack of documents, including proofs of identity, travel documents, interview documents, and several other types, but all he managed to come up with was…
“Refusal to disclaim.”
“Hmm? Then why have you permitted her to meet with me at all?”
“Why, I wonder…”
The priest couldn’t help but scratch at his head—this was no bluff, he appeared to be well and truly baffled.
“Ah…”
The purple-haired pilgrim opened her mouth and let her voice leak out. For some reason, that terribly out-of-place voice filled Avasia with a distinct sense of dissonance.
“As I thought, you are a wonderfully grand personage.”
“Hmm? What are you on about?”
Avasia’s cold black eyes stared at the pilgrim like he was staring straight through her, peering into her very soul. Refusal to allow a non-answer.
“Might I… know your name, sir?”
“Hmph. Is it not manners to introduce yourself, first?”
“Ah… yes, of course. I apologise. My name is Cyci. I am here for a religious pilgrimage, as this is said to be the place closest to the Goddess’s heart.”
“Astaroth Avasia. Head priest of this convent. I do not know what you have heard, but the place you are looking for is likely a city several leagues due east. You are in the wrong location.”
For some reason, this pilgrim seemed terribly out of place. Like she was ever-so-slightly misaligned with the very world itself, as though existing on a slightly different wavelength. No, it was more akin to… aye, as though she opposed the entirety of existence, all in that small body.
“No… after seeing you, I am convinced. This was truly the right place.”
“I know not of what you speak. You will have to elaborate.” Avasia turned to the other priest. “Leave us.”
“Huh? B-but, sir…”
‘I couldn’t possibly leave you alone with such a strange woman’—he didn’t quite say it aloud, perhaps out of a semblance of respect for the pilgrim, but it was written all over his face.
“I would have you leave us. For all we know, this woman could be an assassin, yes… but are you implying I would not be able to defend myself?”
“That’s…”
“Or rather, you should rest. We must all do our jobs, and resting so that one has enough energy to do their job is an important part of that.”
For that was the sort of trite man Astaroth Avasia was, always had been, and always would be.
“Y-yes, Most Reverend Avasia…”
He was clearly more than a little reluctant, but even the apprentice priest knew of Avasia’s skill with darkness-attribute magic, the attribute said to be closest to the Goddess. Indeed, common sense dictated that any common person could pose no possible threat to him… but this pilgrim somehow seemed anything but common.
Yet at such direct orders, he had no choice but to leave, leaving Avasia and the pilgrim on their own.
“So then, pilgrim. What in the world were you talking about? I heard nothing but nonsense.”
“Ah… Yes. I am no fan of returning questions in response to questions, but even so, I must ask you—Lord Avasia, have you ever felt like you were constrained by the rules of the world?”
A moment of silence ruled the air, so thick one could cut it with a knife…
“What rubbish. Do you think me a child? I should not have heard you out. Leave.”
Indeed, the words she had spoken were similar to the kinds of things children would utter when they were fed up with the world the adults had created and wished to escape into juvenile fantasies.
Avasia had no problem with others having such fantasies, but on the other side of the same coin, he also felt no desire for them to involve him in that escapism.
“Then let me rephrase my question, Lord Avasia, the Black Guillotine. Have you ever felt like you were truly putting your full effort into anything?”
“... Where did you hear that name?”
The words came out more like a hiss or a growl than a sentence. The chill in his black eyes had transformed into a piercing glare without his own notice, but the pilgrim did not retreat.
“Pilgrims have their connections, Black Guillotine, executioner of the church’s special Execution Squad. O you, who has taken over a thousand lives with your own hands… please, answer my question.”
“Your questions are nothing but drivel. Go bother someone who will indulge in your fantasies. But before that, erase that name and everything related to it from your memories. It is not relevant. That is behind me now.”
With every word she spoke, it was as though a haze more powerfully covered her body. She didn’t belong. She was akin to a withered old tree in a land full of life, or perhaps the only living plant in a deserted wasteland.
“Have you ever given anything your all, or have you simply drifted along, content to be whatever your environment wanted you to be?”
“Like I said-”
“Is that not why you became the Black Guillotine?”
Thump.
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At once, her question caused his heart to leap into his throat.
Why had he become the Black Guillotine and executed so many people?
For the money? No, he had never had monetary problems.
A matter of faith, then? No, he was certainly a religious person, but he would rather reform a heretic than chop off their head.
Then, why?
Thump.
Considering the question filled him with primal dread.
Had he truly done it merely because he could?
His environment had judged him suitable, and thus he had taken up the role—was that really, truly all the justification he had needed?
Thump, thump.
Blood rushed through his entire body. To begin with, was he so fragile that he could be so affected by a single question?
That train of thought led him to a new question.
Just who was this girl?
She claimed to be merely a pilgrim, but there was no way that was the case. A pilgrim wouldn’t know such things.
Noise. Noise. Noise. His very soul was screaming out that she didn’t belong here. This was wrong, wrong, wrong. Far from ‘not of this world’, she was fundamentally incompatible with it.
This conversation would lead only to misery.
Interacting with her at all was the epitome of taboo.
Her existence itself could not be allowed. Would not be allowed. She opposed all this world stood for, and all who got involved with her would die for it.
… Die for it?
Had he gotten caught up in her fantasies? Ridiculous. Nonsensical.
Complete and utter bullshit.
“Who are you?” he asked, regaining his calm at once by telling himself that he’d just gotten carried away owing to her momentum.
“I am Cyci. Merely Cyci. Just the one closest to the Goddess. A far more important question, Lord Avasia, is who are you? What is the purpose of your life, devoid of meaning, simply letting yourself be pulled by the flow?”
He could tell he was about to be swept up by her pace again, and he resisted it with all his might. She was a girl. Just a girl. Just some girl who was getting too big for her boots, and was projecting that arrogance onto the outside world.
“You are not merely meant to die here as a mortal man. I shall introduce you to a girl who you will be able to love more than anyone else in the world, for that is your role. To love her is your role, as he who stands opposite of this world’s law.”
This world’s… law? What was she speaking of? Was there some single, universal principle that unified all the world? Nay, nay, far from it. If anything, the opposite was true—the world could not be more split apart if it tried.
Unless…?
Perhaps, that in and of itself was this world’s central, universal Decree?
May all life be alone.
Or perhaps, even…?
I wish to be alone.
Could it truly be? Absurd, absurd, beyond absurd.
“Yes, that’s the truth and the whole truth behind it all, Lord Avasia…It looks to me like you have reached the correct conclusion. Am I wrong?”
What kind of dumb question was that even supposed to be? How was he to know what she considered ‘the correct conclusion’?
Still…
Somewhere in his heart, he could not help but admit that some parts of her nonsense rang true.
It was certainly true that he felt unfulfilled, and that it did not really feel like he had ever given his all towards anything.
“Hmph. I do not approve of your nonsense, but I am loathe to tell a pilgrim to return after you have made it all this way. I shall go along with you, just once.”
“Hmhmhm… That is enough, Lord Avasia, that’s more than enough. Mhm, that’s plenty…”
With an enigmatic smile, she sidled up to him, wrapping her arm around his waist—it was the highest place on his body she could easily reach.
“Then, please, Lord Avasia, by all means, this way…”
As though she knew the place better than he himself did, he led him to the slanted roof of the building, and, with a snap of her finger and a visible crack in the sky…
“I would like you to meet…”
***
“Hmm? What’s wrong, Asty? Spacing out like that…”
The purple-dressed girl tilted her head, peering curiously into the embodiment of faith’s eyes from below as she questioned his blank stare.
“Ahh… Do not worry about it. I was simply… reminiscing, aye.”
He shook his head in return, assuring her nothing was wrong with a quick pat on the head and ruffle of the hair.
“Reminiscing?”
The purple-marked girl chimed in, equally curious, as she stared at his face from the other side.
“Ahh. Indeed. About our first meeting, you see.”
“That’s…”
“From when you were still a priest?”
“Aye. Thinking back, I was right to doubt you, showing up out of nowhere like that.”
“Hey! I was just excited to have found the person I was looking for, y’know?”
The twin gods looked at the error in the system, narrowing their eyes.
“Y-you don’t have to look at me like that…”
Fortunately, though likely by accident, she was saved by a certain girl—
“Papa, lemme up.”
The Demon Sword, demanding attention and affection.
“Ahh… Of course, Misery, come here.”
He lifted her up and set her onto his lap, causing the nearby girl with the horn to pout in envy.
“... Astaroth,” she said, looking at Misery with narrowed eyes, “I demand affection, too. You cannot let your friend go lonely. You’re my only friend, you know?”
“Ahh, yes, yes…”
He beckoned to her so he could pat her head, and in response, his other half with the purple markings snuggled up to his free arm…
To become God required one to be truly, fundamentally broken.
To believe that enforcing one’s personal will upon the whole universe was unilaterally a good thing, or to recognise it as tyranny and go through with it anyway.
On a conceptual level, with this system, a sane God was all but impossible.
And yet…
Despite the flawed, broken, shattered nature of the pair of Gods’ minds, with the elemental goddesses at their command, they were doing a rather okay job of ruling the world.
At the very least…
It was leagues better than anything the Prism could do on her own.
And that was enough for her.
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