
I’d always given it all I can to remain positive with my eyes fixed forward, but that time had been one of the most difficult in my campaign as the Celestial Knight. Pushed to the limits even further than I’d ever been, the situation had quickly become a test of endurance to keep my resolve. Yet in a moment of weakness, despair began to reached for me, its crooked fingers touching my chest.
Then when the world was beginning to seem so hollow and colorless, she’d found me.
Beneath that tree the tickling wind was so warm. The world sang its lullaby to me while I’d rested there with her. Her gentle touch helped to take away the bitter edge I’d felt running through me. Soon my eyes grew heavy and I’d began to dream. Dreaming like she would.
In that world I’d seen in my own mind, a world far away from the world my body rested in, I’d found the answers to my troubles in an infinite library that stretched beyond what my eyes could see. A familiar, kindly place that had only ever aided me.
The sensations that had sent me away to sleep had taken my hand and lead me back to my life. A soft, caring touch that ran through my hair as I’d laid there.
As my eyes opened to view the sky and the face of the one who had helped me to rest, I’d awoke to find her nearly translucent skin running with streams of tears from her golden eyes. That expression she wore was every bit as delicate and sweet as she had always been despite the tragedy it carried. Everything about her shone like exquisite art even in her sorrow.
I’d been immediately returned to the pain of the world I knew as I’d returned from that library. For a time I’d simply watched her as the tears flowed, until they had eventually began to splash against my cheek. Those tears had cut into my soul, engraving an impression with their streams that remains with me as vividly as the moment I’d beheld her.
Yet I’d at last followed my heart and reached out to her, touching her tears and softly drying them. She’d taken my hand and placed it against her cheek while offering me a fleeting smile that made me reminisce of the gleaming snow beneath the sun.
I didn’t ask her why those tears fell. It was almost by a psychic sense, the same feeling as when I would tour those otherworldly bookshelves that I’d known better than to ask. I’d made peace with respecting the secret of her tears. Never speaking of that moment again, keeping it between the two of us silently.
✩ ✩ ✩
After I’d risen from my resting place on her lap, her strength had began to fail her. While carrying her had become a somewhat infrequent event, as I’d held her in my arms, I’d held her more dearly than I ever had before. Feeling even more strongly the fragility of her body, even to such a mundane task, a flame to protect her had wicked in my chest.
“Thank you so much for always helping me.” Her adorable, soft voice spoke up as we’d reached the top of the foyer’s stairs. “Please let me walk from here.”
It hadn’t been my expectations that she would find herself with a fighting spirit. But with a deep breath, a quiet strength present, but never undoing the sensitivity of her gaze, she’d urged me.
It was a strange sentiment that had come over me. The reluctance to answer her wishes. All I’d desired at that moment was to continue holding her where I’d felt she would be most safe. It had taken a breath and a moment of focus to let her feet touch the wood of the floor.
There was a small stumble at first, but I’d caught her and held her steady as she’d remembered her balance. And as she’d stood before me, looking up to my eyes, I’d understood that no matter my fears and concerns, I couldn’t let her weaken anymore by taking this from her. Even if my intentions were seeking good.
Grasping onto my sleeve, she’d given me a pleasant surprise. She’d lead me along to her room. Within, in the gloominess it was, she’d reached up to her shelf and took a small, leather bound book and offered it to me.
“I want you to have this.”
So strong willed, a rarity, I’d respected her wishes and took it into my hands.
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” I’d read the title aloud for her.
“It’s my favorite book. My mother used to read it to me when I was a child. Someday I’d be happy if you’d read it too. It’s a beautiful story.”
“I understand. Thank you for giving me something so precious. I’ll take good care of it.”
Though I’d kept my stoicism, I’d felt strongly about her gift. Knowing deep down the true reason as to why she’d wanted me to have it. But I’d pushed that prescience out of view.
I’d willfully chosen innocence unlike myself.
★ ★ ★
“Neptanie’s sickness… is no ordinary illness.” Hyla begins her explanation, a grim shadow over her features. “There’s nobody else in all of Celestia who suffers from it.”
I sit among the three of them, Uria, Hyla and Plutia and listen well, giving it my best to understand all that they have to share.
“It’s not genetic nor is it contracted. It has nothing to do with her family nor is it a virus nor bacterium that infected her. This disease is nothing that can be mended with medicine or a new discovery in a lab… She’d taken this sickness into her body of her own will.”
Her words present an extreme anomaly, sounding utterly nonsensical. But even if it comes off that way, I haven’t the desire to interrupt her nor question it. I keep my patience while my heart continues to ache. While the scar begins to sting me unlike it had in such a long time.
“I wish it was simple. That we could do something, anything, but there’s nothing… we can do.” Plutia speaks with a wounded tone as if it’s a bid to apologize to me, to Neptanie. “If I could… I’d do anything to take it away from her…”
“The reason that this isn’t a normal sickness is because it’s paranormal. It’s an affliction of spirit that not even magic can hope to touch.” Then adds Uria, speaking from her expertise in her field.
“When Neptanie was a young woman, Celestia was put into devastation unlike it had ever known before.” Plutia takes off from where Uria had come to a halt. “There was an event that has been held in secrecy from the public for all these years. It had happened during The Day of Eclipse.”
Hearing of that day alone sends my nerves on end and brings all of those horrible experiences back. Even with a simple mention it feels as if Eclipse itself is looming over my shoulder. Its darkness creeps to touch my shoulder, to remind me of its looming presence I carry on my chest.
“The attack on Empyrea wasn’t the only situation that had unfolded during that day. Unbeknownst to all of the public, every Sinner but one had broken their seal. The Sin had returned to the land, overcoming the shrines that kept them in bindings. It was a horrible incident.”
Shifting her posture, Plutia gives each of our company a glance as if for support before she can find the strength to continue.
“Each of the shrines had become a battle ground. So many lives were lost; priests… knights. Solus was occupied with protecting Empyrea itself and he’s only one man. After a desperate struggle, the Sinners were sealed once more… Yet one Sin… had overcome all the measures we could pit against it.
“Belphegor. The Sinner of Sloth.
“Everything had failed, every seal had broken against it as it had continued enduring all that we could attack it with. On and on until there was only one option left.”
The weight of the history of blood begins to show its presence over Plutia who chokes on her words while thoughts of the truth strike through her mind. That’s when the most calm and clinical of us all finishes the story.
“In the case of a loss of seals in an emergency situation, there is one more option left to the priesthood of the shrines.”
Uria removes her glasses and places them beside her on the desk she rests against. A tired look in her eyes unlike I’d seen since we’d both worked to best the Sin of Lust together.
“There remains one final seal possible. That seal is the very body of a maiden.”
It wouldn’t matter if any of the three would have revealed this truth. Uria’s dry tone would be no different than Hyla’s sweeter voice nor Plutia’s seductive manner of speech. It would all be every bit as painful to hear.
“This seal can’t be any maiden. It must be one who is pure of heart. A young maiden who is willing to give their life for another. Neptanie… had always been a sweet and gentle woman. Even when she was a young child she was full of kindness and care. She was a child and yet she was the most selfless and brave of all the priests of the shrine.
“It was with her sacrifice that Belphegor was removed from this kingdom. And so long as it remains in her body, connected to her soul, it cannot fully manifest itself in this world.”
Uria takes a deep breath and decides that she’s had enough time talking, she entrusts the rest to Hyla with a solemn nod.
“In our records there have only been 6 other maidens written to have used themselves as seals. And no matter how long the kingdom has investigated this condition, we’ve found no effective means to cure it. It’s treated… as a terminal illness. As it remains in her body, it’s feeding on her energy, her magic. The maidens who chosen to become seals have all perished in their 18th year.”
“And Neptanie…” I begin but hold myself back, choosing to redirect my thoughts to something more positive. “Is there really no way to free her from this illness?”
My question sounds and falls to a deafness as all I can hear is the silence of sorrow each grants me.
“What if I’d slay it? What if I’d find Belphegor and put him down? Will that save her?”
“There had been one such a case where a tentative manifestation had been found within the kingdom after it had been sealed within a maiden. It was a time approaching her 18th year. The seal was beginning to weaken as her body began giving out.” With a shaken tone, Plutia answers me. “The Celestial Knight of that age had been able to reseal the Sinner, but it had come with the cost of her life. As it had detached from her, her last remaining life force had been taken with it.”
“Then what of killing it? No other Celestial Knight has ever slain the Sinners, but I have. If I were able to end it for good-”
“It’s… a risk.” Speaks Uria. “I wouldn’t estimate the likelihood would be in our favor that Neptanie could survive such an extreme change to her conditions. I should make it clear and say that when a maiden seals a Sinner within their body, it latches onto their very source of energy to sustain itself. It uses their life force over a span of time to slowly gain the strength it needs to break free from their body and soul.”
Now having heard all that needed to be spoken, I sit forward in my chair and rest my arms on my knees. Closing my eyes, I pray for a way out of this. A way to save her.
“Neptanie had been there for me at my worst, when I was most hopeless. It was thanks to her that I’d found my answer and could continue forward. That’s just one little thing that she’d done that had saved me. I owe Neptanie debts upon debts.”
Concentrating, letting my mind rest, that leather bound book flashes before my awareness. Its story replays quickly and I hear Celine’s own voice reading it clearly. A spark is there with that moment in time. I fix my posture back to its strength with squared shoulders and declare my word among the maidens.
“I’m going to save Neptanie no matter what. So tell me, and I don’t care what it is, what can I do to remove that parasite from her?”
All three are taken aback. Surprised to see that rather than let my spirits fall, I’ve kept them where they belong; ready to battle to hell and back for the woman I love.
Uria is the first to catch herself. Taking up her glasses again, she looks down at their frames and gives them a light cleaning with a cloth before she dons them and speaks.
“I’ve had a theory that I’ve wondered over for quite some time.”
“Let me hear it.”
“When the seal weakens, the Sinner is able to make for itself a feeble apparition in this world. With that apparition, it can manipulate its environment to a minimal degree compared to its power when it is in full manifestation. It’s able to call Loveless into being where it is once it has focused the strength it has. In some cases it can even warp reality to mimic its own Sin. So given this…”
Joining me in a fortification of her spirit, she matches the intensity of her gaze with a determined look of her own riding high on the edge of her brow.
“I’ve theorized that if we were able to find the source of its manifestation, perhaps we could separate it from its host and neutralize the threat.”
“That… That makes sense. I like how that sounds.” Plutia joins in, her unique brand of confidence finding her once more.
“But what would the source of its manifestation be?” Adds Hyla, wondering along with us.
“That thing isn’t just in this world. None of those bastards are.” I speak my piece and let the fire I feel spark on my spirit. “When those seals fail and their Sin makes its appearance, they’re taking their world with them. If I were to find a way to reach the world of its origins, where its main being is, I think I may be able to take it out and spare Neptanie.”
“How could we manage that? Beyond what we can know from our experiences in this world, we know next to nothing about their source.”
“…Fortino…”
“Fortino? That man you’ve seen in your dreams since your resuscitation?” Uria’s interest is well piqued. After all, she and Neptanie were two of my closest partners who had listened to my tales of Stelaris and its knights.
“…If I could somehow find a way… to The Zodiac Prison…”
I take a moment to formulate my thoughts before I share my own ideas with the group. But it’s all strange and, even to me, sounds like a fairy tale or a delusion. Yet they lend me their confidence and trust and I take it with me on my way to rescue Neptanie.
Our group separates, each with our own assignment decided among us. There in the manor’s sun room, I stand in the moonlight and contemplate the way that I could ever reach him and his world.
The Zodiac Prison: the origins of Loveless and Sinners.
I outstretch my arm to the pale platinum of the moon and wonder to myself if there could ever be a way I could hold that sword in my hands. Nightfall, Fortino’s sword; the sword created to slay Loveless and all of the forces of Eclipse.