"Oh, correct me if I'm wrong about the name. Isn't that the name your heretic mother gave you? Lightless, isn't it?"

He lowered his face, letting shadow veil his expression.

"Yes. Cardinal." His tone came out flat, carefully controlled.

She tapped his shoulder, not minding the wetness soaking through her habit.

"Good. So... I heard you failed to bring back the F-rank otherworlder."

Light's expression furrowed, just slightly.

"He was not F-rank, Cardinal."

The Cardinal turned to him with theatrical surprise, eyes widening in mock disbelief.

"Oh? Not F-rank? So you fail and suddenly they're not weak." She leaned closer, her breath hot against his ear. "You Inquisitors — because you answer directly to the Pontiff — you think you're untouchable, don't you?"

Light's expression went grim. He kept his face straight, every muscle locked in place while suppressing the rage building behind his ribs like pressure in a sealed vessel.

He had never been in this position before. Everything happening right now — the proximity, the casual disrespect, her touching him — stood in direct violation of his consecration. His heart burned with vicious anger toward anything that attacked what he'd sworn himself to. Any acts, any habits, or anyone.

Even if it was The Solar Pontiff himself.

His consecration to the ways of The Eternal Sun was untouchable, sacred and inviolable!

Hence the fury coiling in his chest, the disgust crawling across his skin. How close she stood. How her fingers lingered on his shoulder. And the fact that she was TOUCHING him — deliberately, mockingly touching him!

'Control. Discipline. The light endures all transgressions.'

"No, Cardinal." His voice remained steady, a small miracle. "I am only a servant to the Lord of Judgment, to the King of Gods."

"Haa... King of Gods. That's how Inquisitors say it, right?" She waved a dismissive hand. "I almost forgot. You know, I used to be an Inquisitor myself."

Light turned his head sideways for the first time to actually look at her, barely containing the disdain and irritation burning in his pale eyes.

"You... were?"

"What's that tone for?" Her voice went flat, dangerous. "You think I'm lying?"

"No. Cardinal."

She hissed through her teeth, irritation sharpening her features.

"Whatever. You know what I think, Templar Light?"

She smiled, vicious and knowing, and began combing her long fingers through Light's hair. Her other hand drifted lower, touching her left breast through the habit. Her nipples were already beginning to outline against the fabric. But Light didn't see it — his eyes stayed fixed on the water, his lips moving in silent prayer while trying desperately to contain his rage as the Cardinal's fingers violated his silver-white hair.

His flawless white hair. She was dirtying it. Contaminating it with her touch.

'Harbor not hatred. Harbor not—'

"I think you, Templar Light, are not taking this seriously." Her fingers kept moving, kept violating. "Because I distracted you from your hunt. You're displeased and frustrated. So you're not giving this mission your full attention." She leaned even closer, her voice dropping to something almost intimate. "And since you don't want to cooperate, I'll have to take my own measures."

Light's gaze flickered toward her and caught sight of what her left hand was doing against her own body. He grimaced, jaw clenching hard enough to ache. The irritation was getting harder to hide now, threatening to crack through the iron discipline he'd spent years forging.

"I apologize for my failure, Cardinal. I underestimated the target." Each word came out measured, precise. "I won't fail next time."

"There's no need." She finally withdrew her hand from his hair. "I don't trust you enough to control things on your end. I'll be adding three to your party — experienced hunters who know how to follow orders. You are to capture the Heretic Summoner and kill whoever tries to protect him. I don't care how many people get in the way. Kill them all."

She stopped playing with her breast and moved her hand toward Light's jaw — casual, presumptuous, treating him like property.

But he suddenly sensed danger.

His eyes widened terribly, pupils dilating as something dark and primal rose in his chest. In an instant he shifted his head away from her reach, moving so violently that he smashed the back of his skull into the concrete wall beside him. The impact cracked through the bathroom like a whip. A webbed fracture appeared in the wall and dust fell into the bathwater, clouding it gray.

The gesture shook Cardinal Theresa to her core. Her hand hung suspended in the air, fingers trembling as she stared at him in stunned silence.

"What?"

Blood dripped from the corner of Light's face where his head had split against the wall. His eyes stayed fixed forward, his tone utterly flat when he responded.

"It's against my consecration to be touched by filth, Cardinal." Despite everything — the blood, the rage, the barely-contained violence — his voice still managed to sound respectful. Professional, even. "I apologize for the... abruptness."

But the Cardinal just stared at him, caught in complete disbelief.

"To think the rumors about your piousness weren't overrated." She retracted her hand slowly, clearly offended but swallowing it down. She had to. He was an Inquisitor, after all — one of the untouchables who answered only to The Solar Pontiff himself. One had to submit a special report directly to His Radiance's table in order to hold any of them accountable for their actions.

And for a fact, commanding an Inquisitor to abandon their current hunt like this — despite knowing he was already on assignment — violated protocol. She'd overstepped. She could be penalized for it if he filed a complaint.

She swallowed hard and stood up, the back of her habit damp and clinging to her skin.

Light's gaze remained fixed downward. Even as blood ran past his eyes, hot and copper-sweet, he didn't blink.

'Harbor not hatred in thy heart. For Love is only of the Light. I am of the Light, hence I am capable of Love and Love alone. Harbor not hatred in thy heart. For Love is only of the Light. I am of the Light, hence I am capable of Love and Love alone. Harbor not hatred in thy heart. For Love is only of the Light. I am of the Light, hence I am capable of Love and Love alone.'

His mind raced through the prayer like a man drowning, clinging to the words like a lifeline. He looked like he was punishing himself — performing penance for the rage still burning in his chest, for the violence he'd barely suppressed.

Cardinal Theresa spared him one last disgusted glance.

"When you're done here, come to the upper room. You'll be meeting your team members — you're to assist them in capturing the Heretic Otherworlder, hand him over, then be on your way to wherever you're supposed to be." She adjusted her habit with sharp, irritated movements. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Cardinal."

She looked at him — really looked at him. His rigid posture. The blood dripping steadily into the water. That cold, empty expression on his face like he'd locked everything human away somewhere she couldn't reach it.

If she had to be honest, it almost frightened her.

"Creep," she muttered, then turned and walked elegantly out of his bathroom, heels clicking against the tile.

As the door closed behind her with a soft click, Light suddenly remembered something he'd been hearing around the Inquisitor base lately. Warnings, passed in whispers between missions. How whatever he did, however the assignment went, he should stay away from the Church branch in Aetheris Kingdom.

He'd thought they were mocking him — making fun of his cleanliness routines, his rigid adherence to consecration vows.

But now he understood. He understood very well what they'd meant.

'This place is corrupt. Rotten from the inside.'

Light washed his face with the bathwater, scrubbed away the blood until the water ran pink, then sank his face beneath the surface and flung his head back out. His hair whirled droplets across the bathroom walls like a silver halo, scattering light.

And all the while, his lips kept moving in that familiar prayer.

"Harbor not hatred in thy heart. For Love is only of the Light. I am of the Light, hence I am capable of Love and Love alone."

Over and over and over, like if he said it enough times it might finally be true.

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