"Chairman! After Eil entered the Savior Demon King Army headquarters with his lover Julian, a message flew back like a black bird—the Demon King Army is plotting something."

"Mobai, bring me that file—let me see the ink like rain. Eil? I forgot—who is he?"

"Captain of the Demon World Surveillance Squad, a banner in storms—the great hero who warned us often and returned alive from the Demon Realm, Mr. Eil!"

"Ah, right—him. Memory thawed like frost, and I remember. Ambassador Colonna once complained about him. He took in Colonna’s imperial princess, Princess Sisi, without asking why, and lost her in the Demon Realm like a leaf in night wind. Right, that man—then what?"

"Uh... he recently sent us a report. He’s living with his lover Julian at the Savior Demon King Army headquarters, and says the Demon King Army is planning something like thunder behind clouds."

"First, the first point. When you state a thing, weigh each word like grain and set each sentence like a beam. Mobai, remember this: a Heretic Inquisitor must not speak in fog. We stand for justice, for right, like a plumb line in a storm. So be impartial—strict to others, harsher to yourself, like a blade turned inward."

"Yes, Chairman," he answered, voice like a struck bell.

Maki tapped his forehead twice with his fountain pen, like a monk’s knuckle on wood. He herded sleepless thoughts like scattered birds, then distilled his words like dew from steam:

"If you think your statement is right, complete, and lean, don’t add ornaments like lacquer on jade. You’ll argue with many kinds of heresy in days to come, like wolves in thickets. The best way to handle their quibbles over detail is to leave them no door to argue. See, I asked you twice about the file, and you gave two versions like mismatched tracks—that’s a crack. Remember this, going forward."

"Yes, Chairman," he said, breath like a steady drum.

"Second point: when you look at a matter, pluck yourself out like a thorn from flesh."

"Do you mean Mr. Eil? No, Chairman, I didn’t..." His heart thudded like a drum under armor.

"If you don’t notice your own worship of a hero, that’s the third problem, like incense you can’t smell under your own nose."

When Maki blinked, his eyes closed out of sync like gears slipping. He thought, Finish this file, then rest a while, like a leaf settling after wind.

But now he had to brace his spirit like tightened armor and give his subordinate a lashing like rain.

After all, the man would be his heir, the next Chairman of the Heretic Inquisition, like a torch passed at dusk.

"Yes, I admit it, Chairman," Mobai said, the words falling like pebbles. "As a man, I admire Mr. Eil risking his life to enter the Demon Realm and bringing warnings for humanity, like a lantern carried into a cave..."

"Good that you understand," Maki said, voice like a steady oar on dark water. "In a month, you’ll take the Chairman’s seat of the Heretic Inquisition, like a banner raised. Then you won’t be a person; you’ll be a symbol, a banner, almost a Divine Being, like a statue on a high altar. Your worship will lure the whole Inquisition to worship, like sheep following a bell. Your compromise will drag the whole Inquisition to compromise, like a rudder turning a fleet. Watch that, as if watching a candle near curtains."

At that, Maki’s hawk-sharp gaze anchored the other man’s eyes like a hook.

Mobai stood straight as a spear and met his gaze in full daylight, without a blink.

"...Good," Maki thought, like a stone sinking into calm water. "That’s good."

"Facing your errors, then accepting them, is very good," Maki said, his sigh like wind through pines.

Of his five favored heirs, Mobai was the finest—deeds like stacked banners, a will like forged steel, and doctrine keen as a razor, fit to lead the Heretic Inquisition.

Around thirty, he’d just shed the down of youth and become an excellent Heretic Inquisitor who knew what to do. Because of the vow, most Heretic Inquisitors can’t recall their age, like dates rubbed off stone. Maki had spent decades shaping this heir like a sculptor at granite.

Heretic Inquisitors aren’t heroes. They learn how vast evil is like an ocean at night and choose to walk the dark and cut it out. They need minds cooled to cold iron, not the hot blood and wild gusts of youth.

However—the cloud still crossed the sun.

"...Still short by a measure," Maki murmured, eyes on the file like rain on a field.

Mobai could fight heresy with words and fell beasts with force, like hammer and sword. But only that. As Chairman, he could keep the Inquisition’s creed like a lamp kept lit, yet do little beyond it.

Like last time—perhaps they could have dragged the Hero back from heresy’s edge, though Maki failed, like a rope slipping in wet hands. Judging by a decade of teaching, Mobai’s square, rigid style would drive the Hero into heresy like a cliff wind shoving a lone bird—faster, and all the way.

If he had to say it, he admired Andor more: a man with organization and leadership baked in, who ate and understood darkness, and walked between right and wrong with high craft, wearing a great hero’s laurels like a wreath.

Aside from a cold, skewed nature that leaned toward not-my-business, he was born to lead the Heretic Inquisition, like a sword forged for one hand.

But now... the Hero fled with heresy in tow like smoke, and Andor still kept contact. The intel lacks proof, but it’s enough to show he plans to cut ties with the Heretic Inquisition like a ship cutting its moorings.

My own time was thinning like sand through the hourglass. So stick to the first plan—let Mobai inherit, like a baton passed in a dim relay.

"Chairman, why the rush to step down lately, like a river hurrying to sea? You’re eager to hand things off. If possible, I wanted to learn from you how to run the Heretic Inquisition, like a craftsman at the bench."

"Because the Heretic Inquisition is, at its core, a twisted structure, like a tree grown in storm wind. It’s natural: only the mad, one step from heresy, join us, like moths near a flame. See, I can steer the Inquisition’s every move like a helm on a ship. I can gather enough to brand a great hero heretical, then pardon him like lifting a veil. That power is too large, like a giant’s shadow. The Inquisition’s hand reaches too far; someone must pay a price, like blood to a blade."

"I don’t know," he said, words like mist.

"You’ll know. Power rots like meat in summer, and those who live too long turn into monsters like shapes in swamp fog. So we die at the right time, while the mind is still clear like winter air."

"…"

"Seems you remember the Inquisition’s history. Good. The price of sin is death, like a toll at a bridge. Every Chairman gathers the Inquisition’s arbitrariness and blame before stepping down, like shouldering a sack—then dies. The Heretic Inquisition cuts off its ugliness like pruning thorns, then is reborn like spring grass. Cut again, and be reborn again, round and round like moons, until this world no longer needs the Heretic Inquisition to teach people to fear the dark."

"...Parting is always sad, Chairman, like geese breaking formation in autumn sky."

"I’m glad you didn’t weep and babble like young heroes at the end. Good. You’ll have such a day too. You’ll find an heir, then die like me, like a candle spent at dawn. Don’t fret over death; we walk the dark and die in the dark, like footprints fading in rain. I told recruits that on your first day. Do you remember?"

"Yes, Chairman," he replied, steady as stone.

"...Maybe one day, long, long after, you and I will have returned to death’s embrace like seeds to soil. Then the Heretic Inquisition may be judged a cult and sink underground like roots. It can abandon its headquarters and castles like shells, forget its source of power like a river losing its name, even drop the name Heretic Inquisition. But the creed—punish evil to teach fear of the dark—must pass on like a flame. Someone must stand as a knight of darkness like a lone pine on a ridge."

"As you say, we must warn our descendants not to grow as ugly as our enemies, like mirrors kept clean of smoke."

"Yes. That’s right..."

A few smiles traced lines across Maki’s iron-carved face like sunlight on a blade.

"Mobai, write this down," Maki said, voice like a pen scoring steel. "Eil’s message is hazy like mist, but it’s very likely true. The Demon King is plotting a disaster like thunder behind mountains. Caution toward this World Saving Demon King is necessary like a shield in rain. Of course, keep sending people to scout the Demon King Army headquarters at the coordinates Eil gave, like ants along a trail. But be cautious. Don’t anger this current ally of humankind like a sleeping bear. We must not wrong this ‘friend’ and stir a nest by mistake."

"Yes, recorded," Mobai said, pen scratching like a cricket. "But where did you get the new intel?"

"Don’t mind it... just a small revelation like a whisper in snowfall."

It was the Divine Being granting a small favor to one resolved to die, like a lantern handed to a traveler at dusk.

It told Maki of a perfect place to die, fifteen days from now, like a grave chosen by the sea.

He could carry every sin of the Heretic Inquisition there and die generously, like a banner falling in fire. If the price of sin is death, then atonement is to fall in battle like thunder cracking the night.