Hori sat alone on the wooden bench outside the inn, both hands resting neatly in her lap as she stared at the forest trees.
Nothing was happening.
That was the problem.
'Haruki-san left nearly an hour ago after receiving a job protecting some underground boss.' She spoke to herself.
Before leaving, he'd given her a simple instruction.
Wait here.
So she waited.
The afternoon had settled into an almost irritating stillness. A mild breeze passed through the trees surrounding the inn, stirring the leaves with a soft rustling sound before disappearing just as quickly.
Hori's eyes followed a drifting leaf as it tumbled across the dirt.
It stopped.
She stared at it.
The leaf did not move again.
"The Sabbath Exams..."
She said aloud. Her voice carried absolutely no enthusiasm.
"How on earth do I plan to make it to the top 3.... I'm just a kid."
She leaned farther back against the bench, letting her head rest against the wooden backrest. Her newly shortened hair brushed against her neck, and she absently tucked one loose strand behind her ear.
Nothing.
No Haruki.
No visitors.
No sinners.
No training.
Not even a particularly interesting cloud.
Hori sighed.
She had already counted the fence posts. Twice.
She had counted the windows of the inn.
She had even spent several minutes attempting to determine whether the same bird had been chirping from the same tree or whether there were simply two identical birds.
The latter seemed more likely.
Still, she had nothing better to do.
Just then, a familiar voice called in her head.
"I'd start training if I were you kiddo."
Hori slowly turned her head to the left.
Behold.
What could only be called a ghost sat there. The ghost of ICHIRO NAKAMURA, the deceased luchador-inspired Priest who had saved her.
Hori stared for exactly 5 seconds, she blinked once. Then twice. Before jumping out of shock.
"Ah-!"
Her voice cracked. She tripped over her own feet and landed hard on the dirt, palms stinging.
Nakamura was still there.
Same frowning luchador mask. Same red and blue briefs.
Only problem: he was dead.
Hori's breath hitched.
This wasn't possible. Dead people didn't sit on benches and talk to the living.
"N-nakamura san...! what're you doing here?" she had to ask, despite knowing it wasn't real.
Hori remained on the ground for several seconds, her palms pressed against the dirt while she stared at the impossible figure sitting comfortably on the bench.
Nakamura stared back.
Neither of them moved.
The afternoon breeze passed between them, stirring the grass around Hori's knees and carrying a few dry leaves beneath the bench.
Hori slowly lifted herself onto her knees.
Her eyes narrowed.
"... I'm.... hallucinating?"
Nakamura's eyebrows rose beneath the edge of his mask. "That's your conclusion?"
"...Yes." Hori answered, head bowed. "You were crushed in my front... your smashed entrails was smeared on my body." Tears almost fell. Guilt gnawing her insides.
Nakamura took a deep breath. "Here, come sit down." He tapped the bench with his huge red gloves.
Hori stood carefully, brushing the dirt from her palms before looking at him again.
Her heart was still beating faster than it should have been, but the initial shock had begun giving way to something more familiar.
Curiosity.
It was difficult for Hori to remain frightened of something she desperately wanted to understand.
"Ehmm.... H-how are you doing?" She managed saying.
Nakamura's expression remained completely calm. As if not hearing her through the mask.
Hori stared at him. Then her voice cracked. "...are you... angry with me?"
"Ehh? What makes you say that?" Nakamura sounded oddly calm.
Hori's lips parted.
"You were killed because of me... if I had died in the explosion. You probably wouldn't have had an excuse to risk your life..."
Hori confessed.
She looked away, thinking about his response to come.
Nakamura chuckled.
Hori slowly lowered herself onto the bench again. She kept her hands folded neatly in her lap, but her eyes couldn't meet his.
"I'm a Priest. Even if nobody survived Arson's explosion. I would've still died fighting... it's what I signed up for right?" He laughed patting Hori's head.
There was something different about seeing Nakamura like this.
Even the feeling of his glove tapping her head was detailed.
Her mind had somehow reconstructed him perfectly.
After several seconds of silence, she spoke.
"Nakamura-san....I need some advice." Hori said with watery eyes.
"What is it?" He leaned back on the bench. Glancing over his shoulder.
"Do I... just give up?"
Hori's expression softened. Sorrow fogged her thoughts until it got grim.
"I'm sure I'll just end up dead if I take the Sabbath Exams... that's if they even allow a 14 year old to take it."
She swallowed then continued.
"So do I just stop trying? Spend the rest of my days in this forest with Haruki-san.... never to see my father... Ever again?"
She pulled her knees in and rested her head on them.
Nakamura didn't look at her.
He turned his gaze to the forest instead. To the dark between the trees.
When he spoke, his voice had no softness in it. No pity.
"Take the exams."
A pause.
"If your reason for becoming a Priest is truly noble, then you don't run from the danger simply because you're afraid of dying... you need to get up. And take the risk."
Hori's tears stopped.
Just like that.
She had been bracing for gentle hands. For the kind of words adults give to children who were breaking.
What she got was an order... one so absolute, She couldn't help but laugh.
And for a brief moment, sitting beside the hallucination of a dead man felt almost normal.
'Nakamura-san is right.'
She thought with a smile, cleaning her nearly red eyes.
'My father owns the highest rank for any man in SHO. The rank of Pope! High Father Jiro!'
Her posture straightened.
'What kind of daughter would I be to give up so easily...! His blood flows through me!' Hori nearly slapped herself for the pitiful display up till that point.
The old man continued.
"As for the age limit, SHO doesn't have such for participants of the Sabbath Exams."
Nakamura added.
"I took mine 5 times from when I was 66.... That's why I'm such an old geezer of a Priest. Instead of a cool veteran." He laughed from embarrassment.
Hori frowned then stood up. "You're quite strong yourself Nakamura-san... Arson was just too much of a challenge for you." Her words were blunt and true. Even amongst the Bishops rankings existed.
"Then again... thank you." She suddenly bowed. " Your death won't be in vain.... I will take the Sabbath Exams. And I'm not dying trying!" Hori raised her voice at the old man.
"You better keep on that promise, Inori."
A wave of encouragement washed over Hori.
The trees stood motionless in the afternoon light, their branches overlapping until the forest seemed almost like a wall.
Hori's fingers tightened after she blinked. Nakamura-san. Was gone.
The silence had returned.
She stood by the bench and adjusted the sleeves of her sweater, preparing herself with the reluctant seriousness of someone accepting a task she already knew she was going to hate.
"Haruki-san should hurry back."
She turned around. Another gust of wind swept through the trees, rustling leaves.
"I have to start my training."
The words came out steady.
Hori's eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with resolve.
Her fist tightened as she looked at the inn, and for the first time it didn't look like shelter. It looked like a starting line.
------------------------------------------------
Hundreds of kilometers from the humble hills of Fukui, at the very center of Japan, rose the Prime Minister's Kantei.
The seat of the nation.
But the corridors that were never silent... were still.
No guards. No staff. No murmur of a government running.
Only silence.
Just the soft tick of the antique clock on a bookshelf and the faint hum of the city, 12 floors below.
Prime Minister Tabata Jiro sat in the small wooden chair beside his daughter's bed. The sheets a grim texture from dried blood.
The chair was meant for reading bedtime stories. It looked wrong under him now, in his tailored black suit, arms folded, leather gloved hands catching the lamplight.
His expression was stone. Jaw set. Eyes dark and unreadable.
The same expression he wore in Parliament when a scandal broke.
The same expression he wore on the news when they announced his daughters death.
Some feet away, on the polished wall, was Inori's dismembered corpse crucified like a monument.
It had been there for a long time.
Flies circling the decaying body, with visible liquids below.
He rested back on the chair and adjusted his transparent glasses, as if examining the corpse further.
He had been doing that for the past 8 days. No food nor sleep. Just sitting staring at his daughters corpse.
As though staring long enough might somehow force the world to admit it had made a mistake.
At his side, His Holiness, Pope Jeremiah, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, and Sovereign of Vatican City State.
The elderly man wiped his nose as if chasing a protruding odor.
"High father Jiro, cease this display. We must bury this child at once. How long do wish to continue this?" He told the grieving man.
No response. He had definitely heard but chose to ignore the holy man.
The Pope took his hand in both of his. And spoke softer.
"My dear brother" he said quietly. "You have carried more than most of us ever will. And God has seen every step."
A pause.
"Tonight, you do not have to be strong. Tonight, you may rest. Let the Lord, and let me, carry you."
With a quiet voice, he proposed that the girl be laid to rest. To see her remain in that state was beyond bearing.
A single tear rolled from Jiro's left eye. Falling to his sparsely bearded chin. He spoke to Holy Father Jeremiah with a distant look.
"I still don't understand...why send her to me then take her away....at such a young age at that. Were you not the man who said she was a gift from God?"
"You're right to ask that," Pope Jeremiah said softly. "It is the oldest question we have."
He leaned in, so he was below his eye level.
"I did say she was a gift from God. And she was. Every laugh, every breath, every day you had with her was grace."
Jiro glanced to his side with an unreadable expression.
"God gives, and God takes away. Blessed be His name. Not because it doesn't hurt. But because even in this hole in your heart, He is still here." The old man placed his wrinkled palm on the Prime Ministers chest.
But the powerful man was not satisfied with that response.
High father Jiro finally rose to his feet, politely removing Holy Father Jeremiah's hand from his chest.
"I cannot accept this." He said looking at the crucified corpse with disgust.
"The thing responsible for this is neither human nor sin. There is absolutely no way one would penetrate the Kantei's defense without me noticing. And doing it so subtlety at that...It's just like the time she arrived at my home.... something is responsible for this, and it is not God." He said coldly as he began to slowly levitate.
"Perhaps I should just kill everyone on this planet? Surely this being would know not to do such things. Yes....a general punishment to whatever threads this earth." Jiro told himself with pupils that grew smaller and smaller.
Pope Jeremiah didn't move. He just looked at Jiro, and his eyes filled.
"No."
The word was barely a breath.
"Jiro. If you kill everyone, then the girl dies twice. Once in her body. And again in your heart, because the man who loved her would be gone too."
He took a step closer, hands open, empty.
"Punish the world for what? For being broken? We are all broken. God knows that. That's why He sent His Son. Not to destroy, but to stay."
A pause.
Don't become what hurt you. Please. Not you."
Something in Jiro's eyes shifted. The light came back.
He lowered his feet, and the soles touched the floor.
Then the tears came. Not a single track down his cheek, but real sobbing.
He pressed a hand to his mouth as his body shook.
"My poor baby girl... I have failed you as a father...!" The words tore out of him, and the pain went straight through his chest.
His Holiness laid a hand on his shoulder. "Come." Pope Jeremiah said softly. "Let us lay this child to rest."