Griselda had time to take a bath and change her clothes (into an identical but fresh nun outfit) before someone knocked on the guest room that she had been given.
All church rooms she had seen were largely the same. There was a bed with a hard mattress, a singular dresser for storage, and a table with two chairs. The chairs were made of wood and designed to be as unforgiving as possible on the rear of whomever sat in them. A true follower of God did not need comfort to perform their duties; in fact, it was known to get in the way.
Griselda approached the door and opened it. There was a man on the other side who was roughly fifteen years older than her, in his early forties. He was still very handsome, with black hair and smile lines on his cheeks.
His basic priest vestments were of roughly the same quality as Griselda's nun outfit. Looking at them, it would be impossible to guess that this man was one of the highest ranking humans in the entirety of the church.
"Brother Ewald," Griselda said, lowering her head.
He waved away the gesture. "Please, Sister Griselda, be at ease. I think we're past formalities."
"It would be wrong of me to take liberties with a Cardinal Deacon," Griselda said.
"Even if he's asking you to?" Ewald asked. "Goodness, this job is a heavy burden sometimes. I miss when my only work was whipping spitfires into shape with a sword in their hands. There was one in particular with blond hair, blue eyes, and the nastiest temper I've ever seen."
"It sounds like such things happened a very long time ago," Griselda said. "So long ago that there is no point in even mentioning them."
The glare she gave him let a little bit of that old spitfire personality from her youth bleed through. Ewald laughed.
"Can I come in?" he said when his laughter faded. There was a more serious look in his eye this time.
Griselda stepped aside without saying anything, and they went to the table she had been provided with.
Ewald Cristaldi might look ordinary on the outside, but that was only to people who weren't familiar with him. He had personally reared almost every legendary exorcist trained in the last thirty years. The man was one of the strongest holy sword wielders ever. Where Griselda had never been able to acclimate to a single sword, he could use multiple Excalibur fragments, get the basic functions out of legendary blades like Durandal, and had never been outright rejected by any blade he touched. Before he retired to teaching at a young age, there were rumors that Ewald had even fought satans and cadres to a complete standstill.
"You did brilliantly today, Griselda," Ewald said.
"I allowed an enemy of the church to escape," Griselda said.
"You put a halt to her evil experiments," Ewald said. "While she flees, she cannot work on her evil schemes. Justice will find her eventually. For today, dealing her a defeat is good enough."
"A true defeat would have seen her dead," Griselda insisted.
Ewald sighed. "You are too hard on yourself," he said. "That witch is incredibly dangerous. Her vile magics are descended from the power of devils, the ultimate evildoers. Through her nasty enchantments, she has even bewitched one of the Holy Father's most famed tools. To stop such a woman is a great success!"
"I will do better in the future," Griselda promised.
Ewald just shook his head.
"If other exorcists could have even a tenth of your diligence, there would be no evil left in this world," he said wryly. An expression of concern appeared on his face. "I have heard the report of the damage caused. That could not have been an easy thing to see. Are you feeling alright, Griselda?"
"Merely frustrated," Griselda said. "When the witch is dead, I will sleep soundly."
"I heard about the kerfuffle with Xenovia. I still remember her as a tiny child that came up to my waist, swinging a sword for the first time. She's like a daughter to me," Ewald said. "I'll get through to her."
"She was very disoriented when I saw her," Griselda said.
"It's very distressing to see a mistake in God's system," Ewald said. "Particularly for the young ones. It's up to the old ones like us to help them through it."
He stood up, getting ready to go and do exactly that. Griselda watched him, remaining seated.
"I'll come and find you tonight," Ewald said. "It would do my heart good to catch up and talk freely."
"I'll look forward to it," Griselda said.
Ewald left, smiling as ever, moving at a sedate pace. He stopped once before leaving.
"You know that if anything is weighing on you, you can always talk to me about it, right Griselda?"
"Of course," Griselda said.
"I'm always available to be relied upon," Ewald said.
He left, closing the door behind himself. Griselda waited a long time. Finally, alone in the room, she allowed herself to mutter under her breath.
"God does not make mistakes."
LINE BREAK
The depths of Cathedral de Cordoba were one of the most difficult places to penetrate anywhere on earth. Catacombs had been converted into a tunnel network and coated in so much holy magic that a High Class devil would be vaporized merely by stepping foot in them. There were skilled sentries armed with light guns and holy swords posted at every corner. The deeper one descended the tighter that security became. Infiltration was almost impossible, and an assault was bound to turn into a pitched battle, at which point church forces from around the globe would stream to defend their treasures.
As one of the highest ranking exorcists alive, Griselda wasn't given any funny looks as she walked along Level 12, the deepest floor beneath the cathedral. Its nickname was The Vault.
A huge door guarded by fifteen armored exorcists came into view ahead of her. It had a wheel shaped handle akin to the vault of a bank. The door's surface gleamed slightly. Its thick metal surface was made of the same blessed material as the blade Walburga had melted in their battle.
No one called out telling her to stop as she approached. An exorcist wearing a domed helmet stepped forward to greet her.
"Lady Griselda. What brings you here?" he asked.
"I have business in the vault," Griselda said. "The Cardinal Deacon suspects that Durandal may have to be added soon. I am to prepare a place for it."
The exorcist winced. News of Xenovia's blasphemy and arrest had spread even down here. She was a very highly thought of prospect within the church; a downfall of this sort would be sad to any loyal exorcist.
"Let us hope this work is done in vain," the exorcist said.
He made a gesture and his fellows started the process of opening the door. It took more than three minutes for all the locks and defensive mechanisms to be disarmed. Griselda waited patiently.
"Right this way," said the man she had spoken to before.
Of the group of fifteen guarding the door, twelve accompanied her into the vault. She asked the name of the man she had spoken to, and learned that he was Brother Jose.
The inside of the vault made even Griselda's skin crawl. There was an aisle down the middle of the room with pedestals on either side. Atop the pedestals, clad in enchanted glass, swords hummed with power. Griselda's eyes darted over them all.
The burnished blade of Hauteclere, the sword of purification, lay to her right, the gem embedded in its golden handle gleaming brightly. There was the thin and bronzish blade of Excalibur rapidly, positioned next to its sibling, Excalibur Nightmare. Deeper into the room was a sword with an even stronger aura, practically pumping out waves of raw holiness. Galatine was the sister sword of Excalibur itself, and standing in its unbreakable presence made it impossible to doubt its status.
Griselda walked past all of these blades, traveling deeper into the vault.
"Sister Griselda, you've passed multiple open places," said Jose. "If your goal is to prepare a place for Durandal, any of those would work perfectly well."
Griselda took a few more steps, stopping near the very back of The Vault. Here, the shiver she had been experiencing turned into an outright chill. The elite guards accompanying her were shaking. The source of the discomfort was obvious.
The last sword in the room didn't have any glass over it. It had been stabbed point down into a hunk of metal, then wrapped in hundreds of chains forged from the same metal as the door. This one wasn't on display; it was a prisoner.
Griselda clasped her hands.
"Forgive me, Father, for I am going to sin."
Jose looked confused. He was a smart and competent man, understanding dawning in just a few seconds. He managed to open his mouth before Griselda's fist broke his jaw, but nothing else.
The aura of the sword they were in front of slowed down the reaction of the others by a second. Griselda used that time to knock out two more of the guards with her. That left nine. The others were fighting back now.
Four swords came at her, but Griselda cartwheeled out of the way. She wrapped her ankles around a man's neck and slammed his head into the ground. She grabbed his holy sword and used it to deflect light bullets from other exorcists. She spun between their bodies, a blur of violence, defending with the blade of her stolen sword and attacking with its hilt or her limbs, whichever she saw an opportunity to use.
In thirty seconds, Griselda stood among a spread of unconscious bodies clad in broken armor and dented helms. Holding the holy sword she had taken, she stepped up to the last pedestal. After a moment of hesitation, Griselda swung, hacking through the chains ten at a time.
She felt something in her head, a pressure urging her to go faster. Griselda heard two voices. One was deep and demonic, the other was high pitched and angelic. They couldn't have been more different but they both wanted the same thing: freedom. A dark blade was revealed slash by slash, one with red lines running through its surface. Once, Arondight had been a shining beacon on par with its sibling Excalibur, until madness and sin mixed its holiness with demonic aura.
It was known as the blade of madness, or the sword of greed. The church locked it away not to guard it as a treasure, but to shield the world from its effects. Griselda cut away the last chain, grabbing the sword's black handle.
It knew her intimately in an instant. It understood who Griselda was, the pious and fiery woman who devoted her life to cleansing evil, and it understood why she was here, her reason for doing this. Griselda heard laughter inside her head.
When reinforcements arrived they found no sign of Griselda Quarta, just hundreds of shattered chain links surrounding guards who were just beginning to stir, and an empty pedestal.
LINE BREAK
Arondight was a ravenous sword. It craved blood and power. Griselda soon realized that with the former, it could drink up the latter.
When one exorcist nearly caught her as she traversed the base, their exchange of blows ended quickly with Griselda disarming the man. In the process, Arondight's blade nicked his hand. She experienced a sudden surge of stamina while the man had fallen to the ground, suddenly exhausted. The boost was temporary, lasting as long as it took her to reach the cells where prisoners were kept, but Griselda got the feeling she had only scratched the surface of this dangerous sword's true abilities.
The guards were knocked unconscious before they saw her coming. Unlike The Vault, these men never expected to be attacked. There were only a few prisoners contained in the base's cells, none of whom expected to be rescued.
It was a race against time now that she had stolen Arondight. She would have to get Xenovia out quickly. With the legendary sword, she could protect them on the run. The church did not have a monopoly on the virtues they had instilled her with. As long as she and Xenovia were together, they could be happy and live virtuous lives. The trick was to escape quickly, before the entire base could converge on them.
She sprinted between cells made of iron. There were less than ten of them. As she passed empty ones, Griselda realized that Xenovia was in the last one.
First, she would apologize for how she treated Xenovia outside the church. Griselda would have been locked away too if she admitted the truth. Xenovia would understand. Then, they would escape together—
SHINK!
As Griselda arrived in front of Xenovia's cell, she saw that the door was open. She hardly noticed that. She was staring between the bars at where a girl she considered her sister stood with a sword through her stomach. Xenovia bled from the corner of her mouth, her eyes hazy. The handle of the sword piercing her was held by a black haired man in priest vestments; a man who had told Griselda earlier that day that he considered Xenovia something like a daughter.
Ewald Christaldi was not smiling when he looked at Griselda, standing in a place she shouldn't have been holding a sword that was supposed to be locked away. A tear slid down his cheek.
"I told you to rely on me," Ewald said sadly.
He pulled his sword—a sword Griselda had seen in a million drawings, wielded by King Arthur himself—out of Xenovia's stomach, and took a step toward Griselda.
She howled, and Arondight howled with her. Power filled her body and surrounded her, fueled by anger that was partially her own, partially foreign. When Griselda launched herself forward, both she and her blade were intent on tasting a brother's blood…
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