In the end, he had come back here again.
Shirou stood at the entrance to Fuyuki Church. From within came the solemn, melodious sound of an organ.
He entered the church, sat down on a pew, and quietly listened to the performance.
He did not know how much time had passed before the hymn came to an abrupt stop.
The acting priest of Fuyuki Church, the silver flower named Caren, slowly descended from beside the pulpit.
"Ah. Good work. That was really beautiful."
Shirou looked up from his seat and applauded.
"Thank you very much… Shirou Amamiya, are you interested in music?"
"No, not enough to call it an interest.
Either way, that performance just now was wonderful. Even an amateur like me could tell."
"...…"
Shirou's blunt praise seemed to have some effect. Caren nodded, as if accepting it.
"Even though you weren't really listening at all."
The nun frowned, her cute smile carrying a hint of displeasure.
"Haha… You saw through me?"
The atmosphere became a little awkward.
Caren changed the subject. "The fact that you've appeared before me again means you already know you were wrong, doesn't it?"
It was not exactly a wager between the two of them, but Shirou had once told Caren in a fit of stubbornness that he would prove the "Holy Grail does not exist."
Now, he had come to her with an almost ingratiating attitude. The reason was obvious.
Shirou stubbornly said, "I only came here today to kill time."
Caren narrowed her eyes. "Kill time? You crossed half the city all the way from Miyama Town just to kill time here?"
"That's right. Is there a problem? This is a church, isn't it? Isn't welcoming citizens part of your job? You've been acting like you wanted to chase me out from the moment I got here."
"True. The Church does not turn away visitors who are lost.
That said, you are still far from being a lost lamb."
"That's pretty harsh. But I'm not going to talk back."
Shirou felt that he and Caren were deeply incompatible.
No, rather than being incompatible, it was more like she was always trying every possible way to provoke him, just like before…
What an immature brat.
As the older one, he would not stoop to her level.
"Mm. I don't have anything worth confessing either, so I guess there really isn't anything to say."
"…In that case, there is no point of contact between us."
And with that, the conversation ended.
Silence once again surrounded the church.
Once Caren understood his stance, she simply stood there without moving.
If neither of them had anything to say, there would be nothing wrong with Shirou leaving right then.
"Is there anything else?" the silver-haired girl asked one last time.
"I need information," Shirou said.
Information on the Holy Church.
Information on the Mage's Association.
Shirou had already decided to accept Justeaze as a new member of his family.
For that reason, he needed to know about any enemies who might appear.
"So the Greater Grail did manifest after all."
Caren nodded thoughtfully. Shirou neither confirmed nor denied it.
"What is it like?"
"I can't say."
Caren smiled faintly. "Well… even if you don't tell me, I can more or less tell from your attitude."
It was undoubtedly a human-shaped Holy Grail.
If a captivating golden goblet were placed in front of Shirou Amamiya, he would smash it without hesitation.
If he had resolved himself to protect it, that meant it had to be a living being.
Caren smiled and said, "I understand. However, the information I possess is actually quite limited, so I doubt I can be of much help…"
Shirou cut off her polite preamble. "What do you want?"
The girl in the black nun's habit uttered a single word.
"Money."
"Huh?"
"I want money."
Shirou felt a wave of heat.
Looking carefully, he realized it came from the fanatical light shining in Caren's golden eyes.
This girl…
"W-wait. Didn't the Lord say, 'Do not store up treasures on earth'?"
As far as Shirou knew, members of religious orders regarded a life of poverty as part of their discipline.
"Greed," one of the Seven Deadly Sins, was also centered on the desire to possess material things and money.
"Mm?"
Caren blinked, then composed herself.
With a solemn expression, she asked, "Shirou Amamiya, what is your kink?"
For an instant, Shirou wondered if he had misheard her.
What had this nun, sent to manage Fuyuki City, just said?
"Your kink. In other words, your twisted sexual inclinations. This concerns the color of a person's soul.
I believe that if people wish to understand one another, they must know each other's kinks.
O lost lamb, I urgently need to know the twisted desires you keep hidden."
Why are you just assuming my kink is twisted?!
Shirou wanted to shout that, but Caren's serious expression made it impossible.
The girl's eyes were clear, without a single impure thought. At that moment, she was truly God's representative upon the earth.
Under Caren's gaze, Shirou felt a powerful urge to meet her expectations.
"I understand. I'll answer. My kink is… No, I really can't say it after all."
Shirou complained, "Why do I have to discuss kinks with a girl I'm meeting for only the second time?"
"Tch… narrow-minded pubescent high school boy."
Caren muttered with a bored expression.
"Then what about you? Can you say your own kink out loud?"
"Of course I can."
Caren proudly puffed out her well-developed chest. "My kink is collecting money."
"Are nuns allowed to keep money for themselves? That definitely violates Catholic doctrine, doesn't it?"
"That is a mistaken interpretation of God's teachings, Shirou Amamiya."
Caren said without changing expression, "You must understand that money is not the same thing as wealth. Also, I am not attached to the money I have accumulated. I simply become excited by the act of accumulating it.
I have no desire to buy things I like with money or use money to live in luxury. For me, burning money is also a way to please myself.
Do you understand now? To me, accumulating money is the supreme joy."
"I see." Shirou nodded as though everything suddenly made sense. "Your kink really is extremely twisted."
In other words, if he wanted information from Caren, he had to bribe her with money.
Shirou's life certainly could not be called poor, but he did not have much private money either.
Raiga Fujimura and Issei's father would occasionally ask Shirou for help and give him spending money. For a high school student, it was an enormous income.
However, there were a lot of people living in the Amamiya household, and the daily expenses of such a huge Japanese-style mansion alone were considerable.
On top of that, Shirou had the necessary expenses for his Magecraft training.
He also spent money on his personal hobbies.
Ever since meeting Shiki Ryougi, he had gained a new interest, collecting and appreciating katana.
Although Shirou could replicate and project any blade after seeing it once, the acts of "shopping" and "collecting" were enjoyable in themselves.
Shirou had also promised Shiki that if he ever mastered the art of swordsmithing, he would sell her the first finished blade.
…Though he was still in the learning stage.
In short, Shirou did not have much money on hand.
What should he do? Ask Irisviel to lend him some?
"Einzbern money won't do. Who knows if it might be cursed?"
Caren narrowed one eye. "If you're troubled over money, I can point you down a path."
The moment Shirou heard that, alarm bells went off in his head.
Caren noticed as well. "It's nothing. Relax. It isn't illegal work."
The more the silver-haired girl said that, the more suspicious Shirou felt, but he had no choice but to keep listening.
"Would you like to take a part-time job with the Holy Church… as an Agent?"
...
...
After talking with Caren for about two hours, Shirou first heard about her work and experiences before she became an acting priest.
Caren was born in a republic in southern Europe and lost both parents very early.
Her father had been unknown from the start.
Her mother was a frail woman weakened by illness, and died one year after giving birth to her.
Church records said she had been killed by bandits, but in truth, it seemed to have been suicide.
For those who believed in God, suicide was one of the most terrible acts.
Although it was not treated as a mortal sin, those who ended their own lives could not reach Heaven. They could only go to hell, accompanied by eternal suffering.
As a devout believer, what meaning had her mother found at the very end of her painful life that made her violate even the Lord's teachings?
And so, Caren was abandoned by her mother.
No one was willing to adopt the lonely infant.
Her mother had no relatives, and her father's name was unknown.
Rumors spread through the town that she was probably the child of a terminally ill woman who had acted like a prostitute and conceived with some man who happened to pass by.
The orphan no one would take in was adopted by the Father of a small church.
A believer who had taken her own life.
A man who had brushed past with contempt, and a promiscuous mother. The devout, exemplary Father took in the infant born of them.
The child sent to the House of God had not a single piece of luggage, but she did carry one possession.
The name Caren.
Her mother, who had left nothing else behind, seemed to have decided on only that name.
The Father gave the girl not his own surname, but the surname of the mother who had killed herself.
Her mother's surname was Hortensia, meaning hydrangea.
Caren lived with the Father for eight years.
The Father was full of love for the Lord, but he did not spare even a sliver of that love for the child he had adopted.
He kept charge of the money for her upbringing, yet refused to send her to school, instead making her work as an assistant at the church.
The girl's very birth was a sin.
She had not been baptized when she was born, and before the baptism of childhood arrived, the girl could not receive the Lord's love.
That way, Caren would not be recognized as a child of God, the Father said.
Being a very strict man, the Father questioned whether leniency was necessary when baptizing an orphan.
The Father had two reasons for denying her sufficient education.
One was to save on unnecessary expenses. The other was to keep Caren from gaining wisdom.
Wisdom must not be given to the child of a beast.
That was the first step toward evil. More than anything else, thinking brought all kinds of inconveniences.
If she put up some troublesome resistance, or if people began gossiping about something unpleasant, it would damage the reputation of the House of God.
The only thing the Father allowed Caren to do was "pray."
She was taught that all she needed to do was continue entrusting herself to the Lord.
That continued for eight years.
She had long grown used to pain. Caren never once thought such a life was painful.
Following the Father, she learned what humans and the Lord ought to be.
Eight years were all it took to complete her hollow prayers.
That year, the girl finally reached the age to receive baptism.
Stigmata appeared on Caren's body, and the Father accepted the fact that he had failed.
The education that came next exceeded the scope of his duties, so the Father sent Caren into a wider world.
Deep in the forest stood a building cut off from the surface world like a castle. A convent.
According to the very few nuns who fled because they could no longer endure it, the convent was a living hell.
The convent was a community made up of devout believers, where every necessity of life was supplied from within.
Clothing and food were self-sufficient as well, and making small amounts of wine and cheese was one of their few pleasures.
There was no oppression and no exploitation. Their only work was praying to the Lord.
Yet precisely because of that, normal human beings could not endure it.
Because there, the will of the "self" was absolutely forbidden.
No one was allowed to think about why they existed or why they prayed. Something like "human rights" was as distant as myth.
The girl was summoned to an ancient convent named Cistercian.
As an orthodox and prestigious institution with a long history, the Cistercian Convent would normally never have allowed the daughter of a sinner to enter its ranks.
Naturally, the reason Caren was summoned to the convent was the Stigmata dwelling within her body.
She was wounded alone, bled alone, and healed alone.
The believers who carried down secret rites, the believers who lived within, discovered her, and understood that the girl possessed a certain supernatural ability.
It was a high-level mediumship, a method of sensing the spiritual essence drifting around her and using her own body as the medium to manifest it in the present world.
Once they realized that, the girl's value rose sharply.
This kind of supernatural ability could not be developed through training after birth. Because it was extremely rare, it naturally had great value.
"Caren Hortensia is a rare and exceptional talent. With her present at our rituals, we may obtain results we have never achieved before."
Because of that report, the Holy Church decided to place the girl under the management of the Cistercian Order.
However, no matter how high her value was, the Church still would not allow the girl to receive the Lord's love.
The girl would be given a room, receive an education, and train rigorously to become God's representative.
That was right. Caren had not been summoned to the convent as a nun, but as a candidate Agent.
She would prove her worth as a weapon of the Holy Church.
However, before the girl could adapt to the convent's austere life, things took a turn.
A certain person entered the Cistercian Convent and demanded that they hand over Caren.
"This child has the qualities to become a saint."
That person said so.
"Her ability should be used to communicate with God and convey the Lord's teachings to the earth.
Using her merely as a weapon against demons is far too wasteful. Do you not even understand that?"
A child born from the daughter of a suicide could become a saint? She could even convey God's words?
The claim was absurd beyond belief, but no one present refuted that person.
Even the Cistercian Order, with its long history and many distinguished figures raised within its walls, could not challenge that person's authority.
That was how exalted this person's position within the Holy Church was. Her power was so vast that saying she could cover the sky with one hand would not be an exaggeration.
She was the one who would later become Caren's master.
The woman who took Caren away from the convent was named "Kiara Kissyoin."
Caren abruptly ended her recollection, stared at the red-haired boy, and asked,
"Do you know my master?"
"No, I don't. Judging by her name, is she of Japanese descent?"
Hearing that, the silver-haired girl narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You… really don't know her?"
"I told you, I don't know her." Shirou shook his head, completely confused.
"..."
Caren looked incredulous, but she did not press him. Instead, she continued explaining.
"My master is a member of the organization known as the 'Burial Agency.'"
"Ah! I know that one!"
Finally, Shirou had found something he could comment on.
The Holy Church's strongest combat organization, a group of superhumans selected from among countless combat-oriented Agents.
Members of that organization possessed the strength to fight on equal terms with the "Twenty-Seven Ancestors," known as the pinnacle of vampirekind. Sometimes, they could even bury one single-handedly, and so among Dead Apostles, their name continued to be passed down as legend, fear, and warning.
During the Misaki Town incident, the Burial Agency seemed to have dispatched a member as well, but Shirou resolved the situation before that person arrived, so he never met them.
"The Misaki Town incident?" Caren frowned slightly.
Of course she did not know about it. After all, that was a history that no longer existed, a secret shared only by Shirou, Aoko, and Alice.
"Well, if something serious happened here in Japan, the one who came would probably be my master."
"Something serious?"
"An entire city turning into a vampire den, or the birth of a true demon."
"I see…"
Shirou swallowed nervously.
Apparently, even if Alice had already become an evil spirit at the time, the "Burial Agency" would have been able to handle that sort of situation if they came. Physically, of course.
Shirou said, "Mm. Anyway, you've been following your master ever since then, right?"
"Yes."
Shirou asked curiously, "What kind of work did you do exactly? As an Agent… no, as an assistant to the Burial Agency."
Caren said, "Nothing."
"Huh?"
"I did nothing. I was not taught ceremonies for exorcising demons or any secret techniques, because I was merely following my master.
At most, I helped book plane tickets and hotel rooms."
Shirou frowned. "You were only following her? Isn't that just an ordinary personal assistant?"
Caren nodded. "Yes."
"Ah… So that's what it was. I get it now!"
Shirou remembered the special constitution she had mentioned earlier.
It was called the "Masochistic Spiritualist Constitution," right?
A constitution that made the body easily possessed by nearby demons, regardless of the owner's own will.
It allowed demons to reappear as phenomena, and could even allow demons to obtain bodies.
According to her, as long as Caren approached a demon, she would suffer the same spiritual affliction as the possessed person.
In that case, her value was…
"You're a radar for identifying demons?"
Shirou confidently gave his answer, only for Caren to roll her eyes at him in contempt.
"Do you think my master cannot distinguish demonic beings?
My master's power is the authority of a savior that surpasses the human realm… Mere demons are not even worth mentioning."
Shirou suddenly felt that although Caren did not show it, she actually admired her master quite a lot.
Well… Having once become a slave of the fairies and then been saved by someone, Shirou could understand that feeling.
"Nun" Kiara Kissyoin.
A member of the Holy Church, Third Seat of the "Burial Agency," a modern savior and Holy Maiden… was that it?
She sounded like a very impressive person.
But why was it that Shirou had a bad feeling about this?
"So why are you here now? What about your work with the Burial Agency?"
Shirou asked curiously.
If Caren was the disciple of someone that important, why had she been sent to Japan, the edge of the Catholic world, to act as an acting priest?
"..."
Caren did not answer the boy's question.
She remembered what her master had said before she left.
"I give up. Hehe, I cannot redeem you."
"Go find Shirou Amamiya. That's right… the boy who killed your biological father."
"If it's him, perhaps he can… After all, 'Nameless'-sama is my savior."