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"Please get away from there, Sister Paula!" Abel shouted as he landed. His gun's sights already had aligned precisely on the Lady of Death. "We, AX, are collecting this missile! We won't let you blow it up!"
"Do you think you can get away with interfering with the Bureau of Inquisition, agent?" Paula asked quietly as she regarded the new intruder from the corner of her narrowed eyes. "This is an official operation, according to the Department of Doctrine. Your obstruction of it will inconvenience not just you but also Cardinal Sforza. You continue to act, knowing that?"
"If the matter becomes public, isn't it your superior who will be inconvenienced?" asked Abel. As Abel glanced at his former colleague crumpled on the floor, he realized that Havel's injuries were more severe than he had initially thought. If Havel weren't treated quickly, he'd likely lose his life. "A cyanide compound, prohibited by church law from diversion to weapons, is loaded on this missile. If the other cardinals and common lords learn of it, it will be a huge scandal and Cardinal Medici will be put in danger."
"You learned that much?" asked Paula. All of a sudden, her tone softened and she lowered the hand she'd been holding up vigilantly. "So, what do you want, agent—to save the life of this apostate?"
"I want to save the lives of all the people in this city, including him," Abel replied as he edged closer to Havel's side. "Please get the army to recognize the bloodless surrender of Brno. You can't say you can't do it. It should be fully possible under Cardinal Medici's authority."
"Sorry, but that's unreasonable, Father Abel," Paula answered kindly, disappearing the moment the words left her mouth. "I can't let you leave here alive."
By the time he turned his head in the direction of the voice he'd heard, a hand blade spun out from the same direction, causing a gust of wind. If he hadn't accidentally raised his right arm, Abel's head would have had its carotid artery gouged out. The percussion revolver, which received the brunt of the attack in place of its owner, had its gun body amputated, revealing a sharp cross-section.
"To destroy the people of this city, leaving not one alive— that is our objective. We can't recognize a bloodless surrender now when it's too late, can we?" Paula asked, throwing her deadly hand blade at its target, who jumped back with mechanical precision. "Father Nightroad, I won't let you return alive, either, since you have knowledge of the hydrocyanic acid gas."
"Ugh!" Abel cried, his eyes reddened pondering his impending death. He parted his lips to reveal his fangs and hurriedly recited a curse: "Nanomachine 'Crusnik 02' 40% limited oper ..." But Abel's incantation wasn't finished.
"You're slow," Paula mocked.
Right when he thought Paula's figure had been erased, a spinning kick assaulted the priest with a force that could've instantly killed a bear, causing his body to fly backward.
"Gah!" Abel cried.
"AX Agent Abel Nightroad. Code name: Crusnik," Paula said, peering down coldly at the priest writhing on the stone floor, vomiting blood. "Six feet tall. Weight: one hundred forty-three pounds. Age: unknown. Place of birth: unknown. Battle strength: assessment B-; however, battle strength assessment in the battle mode called Crusnik: A++."
First grasping Abel's silver hair, Paula used her strength— uncanny for such a delicate outward appearance—to lift the priest's body. "I've collected data on all you agents, and naturally, I've also analyzed your weak points. Father Nightroad, if you can't transform into Crusnik, you're worthless."
"P-please stop!" cried Havel in a weak voice as he watched the hand blade being swung toward Abel's face. "The match already is decided! Sister, useless bloodshed is an act that goes against God's will!"
"It isn't useless. I can't let this man live when he knows about the hydrocyanic acid gas. Besides ..." said Paula. The nun's face was unharmed in contrast to the priest’s bloodstained face. With the clarity of an angel of death, Paula lectured the bystander. "If we're going to talk about 'God's will,' you and this man must be killed. God is this world's order—reality itself. To mercilessly annihilate those who disobey that creed is conduct that obeys God's will. Please give up soon, Father Havel." The Lady of Death's kind whisper reached the priests ears, leaving him silent and crushed by grief. "God is power, and the reality of this world itself. You who disobeyed that power and pursued selfish ideals as you rejected holy reality are evil incarnate. There are things that are unforgivable^'
"Wr-wrong!" exclaimed Abel in a weak, muffled voice, interrupting Paula's supposed words of truth. "That's wrong, Sister Paula. What you're saying is the excuse of a beaten dog!"
Paula's eyebrows pricked up. "Beaten dog?" she asked in response to Abel's babbling about irrelevant things. "Father Abel, did you call me a beaten dog? I, a disciple of God, am a beaten dog?"
"Yes, sister—you're a pathetic beaten dog," Abel insisted, slowly moving his blood-smeared lips. Although his face was twisted in severe pain, his eyes were as serene as a snowy lane. Painfully but decisively, Abel continued, "I know, because I used to be like that, too. I viewed the world with despair and mocked the ideals of those 1 loved. Actually, I hated them—but when I think about it now, I was a beaten dog who was afraid of fighting reality. I was a pathetic beaten dog who mocked everything. I was exactly like you are now."
Abel seemed as though he were somewhere not here and in a time far from the present. His voice was filled with deep regret and sadness, but at the same time, a yearning for beloved memories. "It's good to look at reality. It's important to know that you don't have enough strength—but you can't let that defeat you. Paula, your theory is the theory of a beaten dog. It's only a beaten dog who'd give up fighting!"
"Thank you very much for the long and wise speech, Father, but do you understand your own situation?" asked Paula. Resting her icy eyes on her accuser, the nun laughed lightly as she gracefully but ferociously swung her hand blade. "Fine. If you can call me a beaten dog after I've beheaded you and annihilated this city, I'll acknowledge what you and Father Havel say. Be destroyed, agent!"
With enough force to turn the priest's head into a bloody lump, Paula's hand propelled through space, but the blade it gripped never reached Abel. "Ridiculous!" she exclaimed in a concerned tone. An overpowering strength that had struck her from behind had stolen her freedom. Paula unconsciously dropped Abel's body and faced the person who had pinioned her with one arm. "How can you move in that condition?" she asked, exasperated.
"Abel, earlier I denied my God, but God ended up existing after all," Havel said, laughing quietly as he kept the inquisitor bound. Because he'd diverted all his life-support backup circuits, his facial color was changing to that of a corpse. As he confronted death, his expression remained calm. "God certainly exists, but that alone isn't power. It isn't dreams, either—it's human volition that tries to bury the border between dreams and reality!"
"Vaclav!" By the time Abel shouted, Havel's torso had been sliced by a hand blade. His spinal cord was pulverized and subcutaneous circulation fluid overflowed from his ruptured closed circulation system. It was a fatal blow.
"Abel?" Havel whispered, smiling weakly, in spite of his being on the brink of death. "The rest ... the people... please..."
"You would-be suicide!" shouted Paula. By the time Havel's eyelids had lowered, Paula had succeeded in withdrawing her hand blade from the priest's body, which had ceased all function. Twisting her frame, which at last had regained its freedom, she faced her other enemy. "That took unnecessary rime. You're next, Father Abel."
What the triumphant Lady of Death discovered was that there wasn't any priest on the brink of death to be found. "Nanomachine Crusnik zero-two—forty-percent limited activation—authorized!" Abel said in a somber voice before standing up quietly.
***
"Vaclav?" asked Abel.
Feeling as though he could hear somebody whispering, Havel slowly opened his eyes, but his field of vision was terribly clouded.
"Are you awake, Vaclav?" Abel asked with a half joyous, half distraught face.
Havel nodded to Abel. His vocal cords had lost nearly all their function, but by using all his body's strength, he finally could move his tongue. "The... inquisitor...?"
"I managed to fight her off. Father Leon and Father Tres are summoning the citizens and preparing for an unconditional surrender, and it looks as though we can avoid the church army invading the city. Understand? It's all thanks to you," Abel said.
"Surrender . . . ?" said Havel. So, we lost after all? As he tried to smile, Havel suddenly noticed that his head wasn't on the floor, but was propped on something soft. That something soft was somebody who had been supporting him from behind.
When that person peered into Havel's eyes, he spoke in a terribly weak voice. "A-a-are you okay, Vaclav?" asked Alessandro.
"Ah, Your Holiness. You're unharmed?" Vaclav replied, surprised. Examining the Pope's white face, Havel managed to smile. "I am as you see. We lost... and I'm very sorry for dragging Your Holiness into an absurd farce."
"F-f-forgive me, Vaclav," Alessandro pleaded as tears welled up in his eyes. "I-if I'd been a proper Pope, this kind of thing—
"It's fine, Your Holiness. It's really fine," Havel assured the sobbing boy. Doing his best to comfort the Pope, he said, "Thanks to you, I was able to reunite with the God I'd lost sight of. I'm satisfied."
"God? S-so, Havel, you met God?" asked Alessandro.
"Yes, the Lord God whom I'd lost sight of for a long time. That wasn't so—my God was inside me." Havel had labored to deliver those few words, and it appeared as though the light of life was disappearing from his body. He could no longer see the boy's expression and had so much he wanted to say, but he didn't have the time or energy to do so. At least Havel had said the most important things to Abel. It was up to Abel to allow the seed to sprout.
"Your Holiness, you're powerless now. You couldn't save us, but that powerlessness isn't your fault," Havel said. Extending a blood-smeared arm as if he were half awake, he touched the boy's bony but warm hand. "You have volition, and as long as you have volition, your powerlessness isn't powerless. As long as you're ashamed of that, the day surely will come when the God within you will grant you power. I look forward to that day."
"Vaclav?" Alessandro called to Havel, who'd closed his eyes. He shook the priest's body as if to raise his body temperature that rapidly had waned, but once Havel's eyelids had closed, they didn't open again.
"God, guide this soul. Nobody ever loved you as much as he did. Amen," Abel said, gazing at the blood red sky as if he were going to cry.
Two hours later, the city of Brno unconditionally surrendered to the Vatican-Bohemia Combined Army, ending the Second Battle of Bohemia. According to public record, not one person was reported in the conflict.
Morning at Castle Sforza—the residence castle of the Duchess of Milan in the center of the city of Milan—came early. That meant that the lady of the castle who usually stayed in Rome had returned to her own domain—a rare thing.
This morning, when Sister Kate had visited the castle's main office, her boss—an early riser—had already been sitting at her desk. "Good morning, Caterina. How are you this morning, Professor?" Kate asked, blinking midway through the hologram as if surprised.
Caterina, who'd been under house arrest after taking responsibility for her subordinates' mismanagement, was sitting on the visitors' sofa. But although her boss had been under house arrest, wasn't it Doctor Wordsworth who should've been supervising the Department of Foreign Affairs in Rome?
"Professor, what are you doing here this early? Has something happened in Rome?" asked Kate.
"Brno fell last night," Professor replied calmly as he chewed on his unlit pipe, his face appearing ashen. "The church army triumphantly entered the city unharmed and Vaclav . . . died."
"Havel?" Kate exclaimed, aghast. She was so shaken that even her hologram visibly shook.
It was the result everyone had expected—to a certain extent. Havel had kidnapped the Pope in Prague and had been deeply involved in the subsequent uprising in Brno. No one thought he'd come back to Rome or to AX unharmed. That didn't mitigate the shock of it, though. Havel had been a companion to Professor, Caterina, and Kate for ten years—since before AX had existed.
As Kate chewed on a finger that she'd unconsciously brought to her mouth, she glanced back at Caterina, who hadn't uttered a word since their conversation had started. Kate tried to think of things to say that would encourage her boss, although Caterina seemed less shaken than she should've been. "U-um, Caterina ..." mumbled Kate.
"So, Professor, what is the Bureau of Inquisition doing?" asked Caterina in a sweet but tough voice. The nun's attempt at solicitude ended in complete futility. When Caterina raised her head, her razor-colored eye flashed through the monocle as she questioned her subordinate in a clear tone that showed neither frailty nor wavering. "How much has Cardinal Medici grasped about the connection between us and Father Havel—or rather the traitor Vaclav Havel? Enough that he can prosecute me?"
"We've already erased all the records concerning Vaclav's status as an agent and the duties he'd accomplished until now," Professor replied in a tone as dry as Caterina's. Wearing a poker face characteristic of an Albion noble, he said, "His status as a Department of Foreign Affairs employee hasn't changed, but Your Eminence's inattentive supervision might be attacked. Even if it's not an inquisition, the hearing and judgment by the Cardinals' Council that precedes it can't be avoided."
"That can't be helped. There also was the incident in Prague. When I think about it, it was painful to hand over the stocks of hydrocyanic acid gas in exchange for Brno. If we had that, I could use it to haggle with my brother," Caterina said.
"True. However, the production records of the gas should have remained at the production site," replied Professor. "If we can get our hands on those somehow . . ."
The conversation between the Iron Woman and Professor was as calm and intelligent as always and didn't at all make Kate feel as though she'd been kicked. However, as she listened off to the side, Kate was growing increasingly troubled by something nagging at her heart—Havel was dead. A friend with whom they'd shared life and death, pain and joy, was no longer in the world, and she couldn't understand why her colleagues weren't sad or how they could they act the same as they always did. It was certain that Caterina's and AX's situation would become dangerous, but there was still the matter of mourning the dead.
In an act of resistance, Kate intentionally interrupted Caterina and Professor as they fervently conversed about their forthcoming plans. "Um, so ... where is Havel's body?" asked Kate. He was a traitor, but treating Havel with such disrespect made him out to be more pitiful than he really was. As his only ally, Kate changed the topic to the matter her two colleagues were ignoring. "Havel had no relatives. We'll have to retrieve his body and lay it to rest somewhere. Caterina, shall we hold the funeral in Rome or here in Milan? Whichever you choose, I'll take care of the formalities."
"We are not concerned about Know Faith's body. If somebody tries to make us accept it even temporarily, refuse them," Caterina said sternly. The eye behind her monocle showed no expression and her white face was as hard as porcelain. "Father Vaclav Havel was my subordinate, but now he's merely a traitor. No matter what kind of opinion the Department of Doctrine has concerning those who died in the Battle of Brno, we cannot bury his body with our hands. Lump him in and deal with him like the other war dead."
"P-please wait, Caterina!" Kate pleaded as she beat on her desk, causing her hologram to flicker. "Wasn't Havel like our family? We're pathetic if we don't mourn him."
"It can't be helped, Kate," answered Professor. As if to protect Caterina, who walked silently toward the window, from further prodding, Wordsworth shook his head. "As it stands, Cardinal Medici and the Bureau of Inquisition are trying to push the responsibility for this rebellion on Cardinal Sforza. At this time, we can't publicize the relationship between Vaclav and AX, so please give up on the topic."
"Th-that's . . . !" Kate's meek face stiffened at Professor's answer. She turned toward her boss as if she were seeking a second opinion; however, Caterina didn't give the nun a second glance.
After again taking her seat at the desk, Caterina relayed a succinct order to Professor: "Doctor Wordsworth, return to Rome at once, and absolutely do not take your eyes off the Pope's palace. Be sure to submit detailed reports concerning the actions of Cardinal Medici and the Bureau of Inquisition, as well."
Bowing gracefully, Professor stood up. "Understood." He was about to leave the room when he called the nun as if suddenly he'd remembered something. "That's right, Kate—if it's not too much trouble, would you arrange for a train? Special class, if possible—a single room would be good. Because if I go to the station from here, I'll probably make it in time for the next express."
"Very good," Kate replied firmly before dissolving her hologram from the office. She didn't salute Caterina before she left because if she'd opened her mouth again, Kate didn't know what she would say to her. But amid her feelings of irritation, and before she severed her contact with the office's camera circuits, Kate noticed that she'd forgotten one more thing—a matter requiring a decision.
Now that I think about it, I should've reported on Hugue's condition ... Remembering the progress report that had come from the hospital in Rome, Kate wavered for a moment. She hesitated to speak to her superior now and wondered whether she should send a written report instead. Ultimately, she revisited the cameras, reinserting the microphone switch. After all, it was a report about an agent, and it had to be delivered directly and orally. Kate still hadn't dared to rematerialize, though — perhaps because of the trouble it would require, but also because she was reluctant to show her face to Caterina so soon.
Professor had long since left and only a slender shadow remained in the office, seated at the desk. "Your Eminence, I'm very sorry — I forgot one thing." Kate tried to call her superior without materializing, but she couldn't say the words out loud.
Iron Woman was sitting alone in the same position beyond the desk that she had been in a little while earlier. As if Caterina’s thoughts were consumed by the secret feud between half siblings that soon would resume, her steely eyes stared at the desk without blinking. Her overall demeanor left no question that her nickname couldn't have been more appropriate. "Vaclav!" she cried as clear droplets slid down her faintly trembling cheeks.
***
That morning, when Dietrich had gone up to the seventh floor study between the third and fourth floor of Thurm, a guest had arrived there before him. Near the window, from where moonlight seemed to eternally beam in, Wizard thumbed through the morning newspaper.
"Good morning, Isaak. Did an interesting article get printed?" asked Dietrich.
'"The winner always writes the loser's history, and the survivors always write the history of the dead'—Lessing," Isaak recited. "The Battle of Brno is over, Puppeteer." His black hair falling to his waist, Isaak glanced at his comrade's smiling face, before once again dropping his eyes to the morning paper. A needle-like cigarillo scrupulously inserted between his glove-covered fingers trailed purple smoke as he proclaimed, "It's a total victory for the Vatican. Alfonso d'Este is missing. The church army invaded the city bloodlessly."
"Bloodlessly? That isn't any fun. According to your calculations, weren't thirty thousand people supposed to die?" asked Dietrich.
Smiling wryly at Dietrich's innocent utterance, the longhaired man folded the newspaper. As he moved his eyes upward inside their flat eyelids, Isaak smiled cheerfully—a rare thing for him. "Now that the settlement of the Silent Noise operation is over, the outcome has turned out to be slightly different than planned, but it's well within the permissible scope."
"Permissible scope? Should you be saying such an optimistic thing, Isaak? There also are those among the other eight-threes who are questioning this matter," Dietrich replied. As he sipped the espresso brought in by an unidentified maid, Puppeteer frowned, but his eyes continued to smile like a cat playing with a mouse. "Ice Witch, for example. At the meeting she said, 'Isaak, wasn't it your clumsiness that destroyed Neue Vatican before our very eyes?'"
"Hmph! Her opinion is right. The fact that the Neue Vatican was destroyed certainly was my responsibility," Isaak admitted. After snuffing out his cigarillo in the ashtray, he gazed at the coffee cup still at his mouth and whispered in a tone that seemed to lecture his reflection in the brownish-black surface. "Except that it's rather unexpected for the Neue Vatican matter to be blamed on clumsiness. That was an investment—an investment intended to lead to the next success. No kind of business can attain success by neglecting investment. It seems I didn't get the Ice Witch to understand that, but—
"Say, Isaak?" Dietrich said, grinning as he peered into his companion's face. "Shall I guess what you intend to do next?"
Wizard pressed the cigarillo deeper into the ashtray, skillfully raising only one eyebrow. "Do you know what I intend to do?"
Puppeteer nodded, filled with self-confidence. "Of course I know. You’ll do something quite terrible, right?"
Wizard's thin lips stretched into a small smile in response to the extremely straightforward answer. He rested his chin on his laced fingers, and his eyes, which never shone, narrowed like those of a sated demon. "As you say, Puppeteer. I'm now going to do something quite terrible."