The hold of the ship lay steeped in a cold so absolute it felt as though winter itself had been imprisoned within its iron ribs. A thin frost veiled every surface, and even the liquids sealed in their containers had begun to stiffen into sluggish ice.
Behind the polished lenses of the Plague Doctor's mask, his eyes burned with fervor. Heavy breaths rasped through the filter, each exhale blooming into pale mist beneath the beak. His body trembled—not from the cold, but from a mounting, uncontrollable excitement. Beneath his robe, unnatural bulges writhed and swelled, as though his flesh itself struggled to remain bound to the shape of a man.
His gaze, hidden yet piercing, fixed forward. A dim, spectral blue light stirred to life, casting everything in a deathly hue. When he spoke, his voice warped at the edges, strained by something deeper than emotion.
"So… there truly is such a thing as an angel?"
He turned, trembling, toward Archbishop Lawrence.
"No," Lawrence replied calmly. "To be precise, 'angel' is merely a word we forged—to help us grasp its form. As for what it truly is… angel or demon, we do not know."
His voice flowed on, measured and composed, as his eyes rested upon what stood before them—the most perfect creation in human history.
It was a corpse.
Pale beyond all life, ancient beyond reckoning. It hung upon a cross, arms spread wide, as though echoing the martyr recorded in the Gospels.
An ancient, overwhelming presence pulsed through the chamber. Though they stood within a steamship anchored at the port of Reindona, the Plague Doctor heard it—soft chanting, rising beside his ear. As if an unseen choir lamented in mourning, singing a dirge for the fallen.
The boundary between time and space had fractured. That sacred existence had pierced through the ages, descending upon the present to reveal its forgotten glory.
Then, from below, a milky vapor began to seep outward. It rolled across the sea of candles, setting the flames to trembling like waves. It engulfed the Plague Doctor, as though a thousand unseen hands reached out to seize him, unveiling before him a miracle of the heavens.
It was a vision beyond language—a ritual steeped in sanctity and terror. And yet, the cold precision of machinery held it captive.
Endless streams of freezing vapor coursed through the chamber, binding the corpse in an unyielding cycle of cold. Its desiccated skin clung tightly to bone. Every joint had been driven through with sacred silver nails, pinning it in place—like a specimen, like a prisoner, like something that must never be allowed to return.
Past and present. Faith and mechanism. The sacred entwined with the mechanical.
The Plague Doctor stepped forward, boots pressing into wax that had melted and hardened again beneath countless flames. At last, he stood before the crucifix, studying the corpse in reverent detail.
Its hair had long since fallen away. Its eyes were closed. Its face—indescribably androgynous—was at once beautiful and unsettling, a harmony of grace and something eerily inhuman. Its body bore no trace of gender.
It was not human.
Only something that resembled one.
From the very first glance, he had known this. Of course he had known. This was no human corpse—it was something sacred. A relic. And yet, some part of him had resisted belief.
That such beings could truly exist.
"…An angel," he murmured.
His gaze lifted to its back.
There, protruding along its spine, were grotesque extensions—alien to any human anatomy. Twisted growths of flesh, like malformed tumors.
But he knew what they were.
Wings.
Ragged, skeletal wings, spread to their furthest limit—yet pinned in place by countless silver nails, displayed like a specimen for study.
Still, he did not yet notice his own unraveling.
Beneath the mask, his eyes had filled with blood. The more he saw, the more the unseen pressure bore down upon him—eroding him, piece by piece.
This was forbidden knowledge.
An image not meant to be perceived.
To witness it was to invite its corrosion.
And yet, he felt nothing.
His senses dulled. His nerves fell silent. His flesh twisted and tore without protest.
Above, the freezing vapor descended in slow cascades, glowing faintly with a dim blue light. As it washed over the corpse, countless tiny inscriptions flickered into existence across its skin—only to fade again in the next instant.
The cold formed a perfect cycle.
A broken alchemical matrix.
A system designed to soothe the flesh each time it stirred from dormancy—forcing it, again and again, into eternal sleep.
"…How beautiful…"
The Plague Doctor gazed upon its face.
It did not seem dead.
Only sleeping.
In his eyes, its androgynous features began to shift, to distort—until they became something breathtaking. A beauty so exquisite it quickened even his own pulse.
He reached out.
Gently.
Carefully.
As though afraid to wake her.
And the moment his fingers touched—
He saw.
Frozen blood began to flow once more. Withered skin softened, regained its vitality. The body, once like sculpted ice, grew warm—alive.
Pure white feathers drifted down.
Its closed eyes trembled… then slowly opened.
Within them burned a radiant white light—fierce as a blazing sun.
In that instant, the Plague Doctor felt nothing at all.
Then came the pain.
His fingers froze first—seized instantly by the alchemical cold. Then his hand, his arm—half his body swallowed by a bloom of white frost.
The searing light poured beneath his mask. The thick lenses shattered. His eyes burst and melted in an instant, black vapor spilling from the cracks.
He screamed.
A scream torn from the depths of his being.
The agony shattered the illusion, dragging him back from that impossible vision. With what strength remained, he staggered backward—only to collapse. His frozen arm struck the ground with a brittle crack, then shattered like glass, fragments scattering to reveal flesh and bone beneath.
Though blind, he could still see.
The angel—radiant, unbound—leaned toward him, as though to grant him a final, gentle kiss.
"Lawrence!"
he roared.
The Archbishop approached at a measured pace. Without touching him directly, he drove a nail-sword into the Plague Doctor's thigh and dragged him away.
"You're still alive, I see."
His tone was casual. His eyes, however, remained fixed on the center of the chamber.
The corpse still hung upon the cross.
Unmoved.
Everything the Plague Doctor had witnessed… had been an illusion.
Such was the terror of its corruption.
So absolute, so immediate, that before one could even perceive it—
it had already taken hold.
The dam of reason shattered in an instant. No warning. No defense.
"I… I almost died!"
The Plague Doctor writhed, blood pouring from his shattered limb. From beneath the cracked mask, liquefied remnants of his eyes seeped out, mingling with the blood.
"I knew you wouldn't die," Lawrence said calmly. "At least… not so easily."
He waited.
Patiently.
And then—
The Plague Doctor's body convulsed. His robe tore as new flesh surged beneath it, swelling grotesquely, as though some creature sought to break free from within. At its peak, the distortion suddenly receded.
Then came the sound.
A thousand writhing things crawling beneath his skin.
Damaged flesh was devoured—reduced to nourishment. New limbs burst forth, slick with blood. From empty sockets, fresh eyes slowly grew.
Curled inward, shaking from the pain, he finally steadied.
"Lawrence… I swear… if there's a next time, I'll kill you."
He gasped, collapsing against the floor.
"This is for your own good," Lawrence replied. "You'll be dealing with it soon enough. No warning could ever compare to experiencing its terror firsthand… wouldn't you agree?"
He showed no concern for the possibility that the Plague Doctor might truly have died.
After all—
that was the Holy Grail.
Even as a discarded corpse, it was not something a mortal could hope to defy.
"So," he continued, almost admiringly, "how does it feel? Magnificent, isn't it?"
The source of everything.
The origin of all chaos and conflict.
"…That thing… inside the coffin… is this it?"
The Plague Doctor forced himself upright, keeping his distance, his gaze wary.
"Yes," Lawrence said softly. "The corpse of the Holy Grail."
"Its will has long since departed. But as the vessel of that will, this body still holds terrifying power. Without the alchemical matrix… it would awaken."
"A life without a soul," he went on. "Like a corpse that moves."
"Like cells in a culture dish," the Plague Doctor murmured. "No consciousness… but endlessly dividing, endlessly growing."
"Precisely."
"Don't worry," Lawrence added, pulling a valve. More freezing vapor cascaded down, bathing the corpse. "The Hunter's Order has long since perfected its containment. As long as you do not cross into the domain of 'Winter'… it is nothing more than a specimen."
The cold deepened. The matrix tightened its grip.
"I can't believe I ever performed a graft using its flesh," the Plague Doctor muttered. "The fact that I'm still alive… feels like a miracle."
"It was calculated," Lawrence replied. "The tissue you used was newly regenerated—far less corrosive. Even so… it nearly killed me as well."
He pressed a hand lightly to his chest.
"This old body is not so easily suited to such power."
"Calculated?" the Plague Doctor scoffed. "Aren't you supposed to cry out in faith and leave everything to your god?"
"Faith," Lawrence said, "is merely a tool to govern the ignorant. What changes the world… is the mastery of this unknown power."
His clouded eyes sharpened—like a blade on the verge of breaking, yet still keen enough to cut steel.
"Plague Doctor," he said quietly, "it is time for you to show your genius."
"I need you to uncover what this thing truly is… or perhaps—what demons themselves truly are."
"Me?" the Plague Doctor snapped. "I nearly died just from touching it!"
"Is that… a refusal?"
Lawrence asked softly.
In his hand, the nail-sword still dripped with blood.
Two figures held each other's gaze for a fleeting moment—
and then, from beneath that beaked mask, there came a laugh that seemed to seep straight out of something rotting and unseen.
"Of course… how could I possibly refuse?"
The voice slithered through the air, laced with a morbid delight.
"This is a lifeform that does not belong to this world… Who's to say the truth I've longed for isn't hidden somewhere within its flesh?"
A pause—then softer, almost reverent:
"How could I refuse?"
Even wounded, the Plague Doctor seemed exhilarated, his words trailing off with a wicked aftertone.
"You've convinced me, Archbishop Lawrence."
Gone was the earlier dishevelment—nothing more than an act, just as Lawrence had suspected. Injuries of that degree? Hardly enough to claim his life.
Moments ago, there had still been friction between them—conflicting aims, clashing interests.
But now, as the corpse of the Holy Grail lay truly unveiled before him, all such barriers dissolved.
He knew it with absolute clarity.
This… was what he had been searching for.
"But how am I supposed to study it?" the Plague Doctor asked.
"Once it leaves that alchemical matrix, it awakens, doesn't it?"
The consciousness that once governed the body was gone.
Yet it remained the vessel of the Grail. Like cells in a culture dish spiraling into mad proliferation—even without a mind, instinct alone rendered it lethally dangerous.
"I've prepared more than enough in advance," Lawrence replied calmly. "You may begin with those."
With a pull of another valve, a massive iron wall descended, sealing the pallid corpse away entirely.
Then came the grinding of gears—heavy, deliberate—and from beneath the floor, new specimens rose.
Containers. Dozens of them.
Within pale-blue solution, strips of bloodless flesh writhed slowly.
It was a form of life difficult to describe.
Though all originated from the Holy Grail, once separated they seemed to exist as independent entities—twisting, pulsing masses of distorted flesh, like embryonic horrors suspended in artificial amniotic fluid.
The low temperatures suppressed their activity. Like their "mother," they slumbered… for now.
"These are samples excised from it," Lawrence explained. "Start here."
The grafted flesh embedded in his own chest had come from these very specimens. When the sacred coffin was opened, he had only a brief window to carve out what he could—the rest had been sealed, contained.
The Plague Doctor studied them with quiet admiration.
He had been prepared—but even so, the sheer intensity of their corrosive presence made his heart tighten.
"Unimaginable…" he murmured.
"How did your Hunter Order ever become aware of something like this?"
Even under the suppression of the alchemical matrix, that dreadful erosion could shatter his defenses with ease.
At its peak—before containment—its mere existence would have been enough to drive one into madness.
To know of it was to fall.
To find it… was something else entirely.
And yet, they had done both.
Like glimpsing the edge of some immeasurable entity, the Hunter Order's former might revealed itself as something abyssal—terrifying, yet resolute.
They were the ones who had stood against despair.
The torchbearers in the dark.
"That was a very long time ago," Lawrence said flatly.
He had no interest in revisiting it.
Though their former glory had faded, too many unanswered questions still lingered around the Order's power.
"But before you begin your research," he added, turning to face the Plague Doctor,
"there is something else you must do."
"What is it?"
The Plague Doctor's excitement was unmistakable now. He could almost feel it—the ultimate truth of demons, buried here, deep within this steamship… within that pale corpse.
"A rather interesting plan."
Lawrence extended his hand. Beneath the crimson robes, his body was stiff—aged, decaying.
"The Grail's flesh has not truly transformed me," he continued.
"It has merely prolonged this body's life."
He pulled aside his garment.
Twisted flesh occupied most of his chest—yet it did not belong. It clung there like a tumor… or worse, like a parasite, feeding on him.
"So the transplantation failed?" the Plague Doctor asked coldly.
He understood the situation immediately.
The Grail's flesh was consuming Lawrence.
When the fusion completed… what would remain?
Lawrence—or something else entirely?
"It did not fail," Lawrence replied. "I am simply… too old."
He coughed harshly.
"This body has endured too much. It can no longer withstand the Grail's power. Nor can I resist its awakening… nor abandon it."
He was still powerful—terrifyingly so.
But as he fed the Grail's flesh, it too awakened.
And like all living things, it would take.
It would take his life.
The balance between them was tipping.
At the very moment Lawrence attained ultimate power…
would be the moment he was completely devoured.
"So what? I behead you and transplant your head onto another body before you die?"
The Plague Doctor scoffed. "That's absurd."
"No. Nothing so crude."
Lawrence's voice grew faint.
"All that is required… is an alchemical matrix."
A pause.
"Do you remember what I told you, Plague Doctor? About the Gap?"
"A strange… and mysterious mental realm. With the Grail's enhancement, I can traverse it—though imperfectly. Just as Hunters require inscribed matrices to awaken the power within their secret blood… so too does this ability require guidance."
"Secret blood is steel. The alchemical matrix is the furnace that shapes it into a blade. Without it, I wield power crudely—never to its fullest."
"So at its peak… you become young again?" the Plague Doctor mocked.
"No," Lawrence said softly.
"I merely take another's youth."
Silence.
"Through the Gap, I can invade another's… destroy their will. Kill them. Influence them. Even spread through them."
Like a virus.
Endless, multiplying.
"And?" the Plague Doctor pressed.
"What if… I replace their Gap?"
For a moment, he froze.
Then came the cold.
A cold deeper than anything the Grail had inspired.
If the Grail was terror—
this was something far more intimate.
Because it reached the mind.
If the Gap was the landscape of one's psyche…
then to replace it—
"I could become them," Lawrence continued.
"In the Gap, when a will is destroyed, so too is the consciousness… the soul. Sometimes, even memories linger."
Fragments.
Echoes.
"And if I fully inhabit it…"
He smiled faintly.
"Call it soul transfer. Or will transference. The distinction is trivial."
The Plague Doctor stared at him, unease finally creeping in.
"You intend to replace that girl?" he asked.
He meant Celia Stuart.
Lawrence shook his head.
"Of course not. She serves another purpose."
A pause.
"Though it does concern that surviving Hunter of the Medanzo lineage… I am quite curious which of my disciples lived."
That burning night—
all of them should have died.
"And so," Lawrence went on, "we return to the matter at hand."
"Humans and demons are not the same. Even with stolen power, we risk losing control. That is why we require the matrix."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Power is like a vast tome. Without guidance, we cannot turn to the page we need. The matrix serves as its index—granting us what we seek, but denying the rest."
"A limitation… of the human vessel."
Hunters could wield only one authority.
More existed—perhaps—but at a cost too great.
"So the matrix… protects you?" the Plague Doctor asked.
"Yes."
"But I am a Shandaphon Hunter. Even with the Grail, my control over the Gap remains incomplete. I cannot yet replace a will."
"So what do you need from me?"
Lawrence's gaze sharpened.
"To inscribe a new matrix."
His voice cut like frost.
"Multiple authorities are theoretical—because the human body is weak. But now…"
He placed a hand over his chest.
"The Grail is devouring me. I have never been more powerful… nor closer to death."
Like a flame in the night—
brightest at the moment before extinction.
The Plague Doctor studied him in silence.
That trust in Lawrence's eyes… absolute. As though failure were impossible.
"And whose body," he finally asked,
"do you intend to take?"
Lawrence smiled.
"I already know."
"The surviving Medanzo Hunter."
He had fought him once.
A perfect vessel.
A pity, though—such a choice would cost him his current power.
Still…
"Do not worry," Lawrence added. "I know the inscription process. I will guide you."
Another long silence followed.
Then the Plague Doctor shook his head.
"That is not what concerns me."
His voice dropped.
"An alchemical matrix… for controlling the Gap…"
He had seen something.
Something buried.
"Which means… that too is a form of authority, isn't it?"
In other words—
there existed Hunters whose power was to walk the Gap itself.
Not a gift of the Grail.
But something that had always been there.
Waiting.
Beneath the mask, fear flickered in his eyes.
And Lawrence answered, almost gently—
"Yes."