"M... Lord Michael!??"
The girl's pale-gold eyes were filled with a kind of stunned bewilderment. A wind from somewhere stirred the ends of Lyudmila's hair, allowing Su Yuzu — there in the stairwell, all but pressing herself down onto Lyudmila — to see all the more clearly the shock and blankness in the Saintess's eyes.
"Yuzu..."
"What is Yuzu-senpai talking about?"
"Do you mean... me?"
Su Yuzu-senpai really was pressed in far too close.
So close that if Lyudmila lowered her head, she felt she could see right down the girl's collar — the line of her collarbones slender, straight, and exquisite.
So close that even holding her breath, Lyudmila couldn't keep that... thoroughly invasive citrus-like fragrance on the girl's body from invading her nostrils, wave upon wave, seizing dominion over her every sense.
Although Su Yuzu-senpai didn't seem to have any intention yet of asking that unknown deity to mete out 'sanction' upon her, still... Lyudmila, instinctively pressing back against the wall, fidgeting, even wanting to tilt her head away... wanting to rise on her toes and flee Su Yuzu-senpai's gaze and scent, had already clenched the hem of her gown tight, as though... she were already feeling the sensations that only appeared at the moment of being sanctioned.
And yet Lyudmila still didn't understand what on earth Su Yuzu-senpai meant.
Lord Michael?
Was she addressing... her?
Su Yuzu merely looked levelly at the Saintess before her, who wore that pitiful, sorrowful, weak, and helpless expression.
The more such a holy and pure maiden — one who looked so flawless and white that she couldn't stir up the faintest desire to defile her — wore an expression like this, the more it would only excite a wicked person like Su Yuzu.
But... she also suddenly felt a touch of pity.
She didn't quite understand whether what she was doing... was, in the end, right or wrong.
"I myself... am perhaps truly snuffing out a girl named Lyudmila."
"But——"
"If it really is the way I've guessed..."
"You don't understand?" Under Lyudmila's flustered gaze, Su Yuzu-senpai, as though performing a magic trick, produced from somewhere a holy-white hooded cloak and a white... blindfold band patterned with pale-gold flames.
"This is..."
"The Inquisition's cloak and an Ascetic's blindfold?"
"How... how does Yuzu-senpai have these things?" The former was the standard-issue cloak of the 「Holy Royal Court」 Inquisition, but... judging from the cloak's ornamentation, it was one that only a rather high rank was permitted to wear — a cloak Lyudmila knew very well.
As for the latter, it was the blindfold the Inquisition's Ascetics used to hone themselves — capable of completely shutting out their vision, carrying a meaning held in common with those Thorned Crowns.
"Yuzu... senpai?" Right hand clutching the hem of her gown, left hand propped lightly against the stairwell wall, the Saintess looked helplessly at the Su Yuzu before her.
There was of course no way Su Yuzu could say that these were, in fact, all Favorability Gifts that appeared in her Material Inventory whenever the girl's Favorability went bouncing back and forth.
She merely raised her hand.
It was shame and fear, plainly... and yet within her heart there was also, faintly... faintly, something like anticipation.
The Saintess of her own accord tipped her head slightly forward, letting Su Yuzu cover her eyes with the blindfold.
In the instant she lost her sight, the world seemed to grow sensitive to Lyudmila all over again.
The first thing to invade Lyudmila's world... was that sinful fragrance on the girl's body — the kind that seemed bent on tempting one into corruption.
Then... as Su Yuzu fitted the cloak onto her, every time the girl's fingertips brushed against Lyudmila, every time the girl's breath drifted across Lyudmila's neck... it would set the Saintess trembling, her legs going so weak it seemed she might collapse to the floor the very next second.
But——
The Saintess, who had already endured countless kinds of torment, still forced herself to stand up straight.
Su Yuzu looked at the Saintess before her.
The cloak's hood, its shadow, and the blindfold concealed the greater half of the girl's face; a few strands of pale gold spilled from the cloak, and beneath the hair... the girl's lips were pursed in a flustered way, her delicate chin sharp and fine, carrying a certain aura unique to a Western Saintess.
Exactly like... the half-face depicted of that 'nameless girl' when she had intercepted the invading Kujou Iruka — identical in every way.
"Honestly..."
"How did I not notice sooner?"
With her eyes covered, every single word from the girl seemed to Lyudmila to blow directly against her ear. Lyudmila felt that although she hadn't had that wicked Goddess's Blessing brought down upon her, she was... she was even more thoroughly routed and overflowing than when she'd been struck down by that Blessing.
She propped herself against the wall almost limply.
"Sen... senpai..." In a voice soft and glutinous, sorrowful and weak to the point of nearly crying, Lyudmila begged for mercy, "May I take the blindfold off..."
"Isn't it rather pretty this way~"
"Lady Saintess." Su Yuzu looked at the Lyudmila before her.
"Senpai... what is senpai saying. I'm not even a Saintess yet..." Lyudmila felt her whole self was just about to fall apart.
Every single word from Su Yuzu-senpai was toying with her heartstrings.
"Does Student Lyudmila know~" And yet, Su Yuzu's words suddenly took a turn. "Completely unlike ordinary religions, in the doctrine of the 「Holy Royal Court」 there is no specific deity at all."
Even though... every word from Su Yuzu was still invading Lyudmila's nerves.
The girl's fingertips seemed to want to claw at the wall, and the arches of her feet were drawn taut as well.
"The 「Holy Royal Court」 is no pantheism. What the 「Holy Royal Court」 believes in..."
"Is the courage, the tenacity, the sacrifice of humankind... it is the unyielding hymn named humanity."
Su Yuzu suddenly understood... what exactly the information she'd overlooked was — the thing she'd noticed after obtaining Lyudmila's 「Holy Light」.
"Senpai... what does senpai mean!?" Lyudmila was a little puzzled.
As a Saintess of the 「Holy Royal Court」, a future Saintess in reserve, she of course understood this point.
"Has Student Lyudmila still not realized?" Su Yuzu lowered her head, her right hand resting lightly over Lyudmila's heart, feeling the girl's heartbeat thudding, racing, sharply accelerating beneath her palm.
Lyudmila, already on high alert after having her eyes covered, was nearly sent collapsing straight to the floor by this provocation from Su Yuzu.
With her head already a complete muddled haze, how could Lyudmila possibly fathom what Su Yuzu-senpai meant? "Senpai... what is senpai saying?"
"If what the 「Holy Royal Court」 believes in is in fact a hymn to humanity——"
"Then... the voice belonging to a deity that Student Lyudmila is able to hear... what exactly is it?"
Every hair on Lyudmila's body stood on end all at once.
"A demon..."
"The girl before me... is, just as I feared, a messenger of the demon."
"To think she could so easily, so effortlessly, all but dismantle my faith."
"Please take care of yourself, senpai!!!" The Saintess wanted to pull down the blindfold and resist; she knew... that at this moment she absolutely had to fight back.
But the very next second, Su Yuzu had already seized Lyudmila's raised wrist, and pressed the girl's arm against the wall.
Su Yuzu bowed her head, leaning to the side, close to the Saintess's ear.
"Because that is the voice within Student Lyudmila's own heart..."
"And it is also——"
"Seventeen years ago... the one who snapped off her own two wings, sacrificed her own Word of Command,"
"and held back that one of The Abyss of Eternal Smiles..."
"The voice of Saint Michael."
The hand resting over the girl's heart clenched tight.
"She——"
"Or rather, you——"
"Are right here, aren't you——"
"Lord Michael."
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