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/The Rosary - Rosarium/
The priest was entirely hidden beneath black fibers, with only a square of white exposed at his collar—like a hidden entrance, like a door.
The more tightly closed it appeared, the more it tempted a person to peer inside, to uncover exactly what mysteries were hidden beneath the fabric.
'He really ought to reduce the number of times he appears before the female believers,' she thought, silently resolving to use those exact words to tease him the next time they crossed paths.
The deeply respected, most pious Father Tomioka Giyuu in the entire world should be taking his afternoon stroll through the monastery's rose garden at this exact hour, shouldn't he?
This quiet priest's daily schedule had long been thoroughly memorized by her. If her elder sister knew about her scheming, she would undoubtedly pat her head and praise her: "What a clever and capable little Shinobu."
Armed with that comforting thought, she stepped onto the gravel path leading toward the cloister garden.
Sure enough, she spotted him beneath the stone arcade. Wild roses climbed lazily up the columns, enveloping the corridor in a dense canopy of crimson and green.
The priest wore his usual black cassock, a garment that looked as though it hadn't changed in ten thousand years, except the bright sunlight refracting through the petals seemed to carry a certain natural, living power, washing over the dark fabric until the blackness itself appeared to breathe.
It was a vibrant, holy uniform, yet it was paired with an utterly dead, expressionless face.
Sister Kochou glided over, intentional footsteps drawing his attention. The priest slightly lowered his chin, and the brilliant midday radiance casting down from the edge of the sky was instantly eclipsed by the quiet shadow of his dark fringe.
"Fa—ther—To—mi—o—ka." She took great delight in addressing him this way, deliberately dragging a single title into several distinct syllables, as if she could stretch out the brief time they spent together by doing so.
"Good afternoon, Sister Kochou. God bless you," he murmured, offering a slight nod. For him, a single nod was equivalent to an entire sentence of formal greeting.
The nun stepped closer, her starched white wimple catching the heavy, sweet fragrance of the surrounding blooms. "You like the roses very much, don't you, Father?"
"Yes. Roses are holy and beautiful, entirely fitting for the glory of the Lord and the Holy Mother."
"I like them very much as well. Tell me, Father, am I permitted to have a single rose from this garden?"
"Of course. Anyone who respects and loves creation is welcome to—"
"Then help me pluck that specific one, Father."
She lifted a slender finger, pointing toward a solitary bloom hanging just above Giyuu's head. Its petals were deep, velvety crimson, and its core looked as though it were guarding a dark secret, refusing to expose its depths to outsiders.
Flanked by sharp, twisting branches, it appeared remarkably lonely compared to the vibrant, clustered blossoms thriving next door.
"Can you reach it?"
The priest had originally tilted his head to track the direction of her finger. Hearing her challenge, his gaze instantly dropped back down to meet hers. He reached up and plucked the stem casually, not expecting his bare skin to be suddenly sliced open by a hidden, wicked thorn.
"My heartfelt thanks to you, respected Father." She immediately noticed the tiny bead of crimson welling on his finger. "Oh dear, is your hand alright?"
He lifted his hand to inspect the tiny scratch, shaking his head dismissively. "It's nothing."
"Do you require me to help you tend to it?" A certain decidedly impure thought suddenly germinated and sprouted inside the nun's heart. Reaching out, she abruptly took hold of his hand. "If a wound received in the dirt gets infected, it won't be good."
"There's no need, Kochou." On rare occasions, he would omit her formal title entirely, calling her only by her surname. Yet, despite his verbal refusal, the priest made no move to pull his hand from her grasp.
"My, are you perhaps afraid of me, Father?"
Shinobu’s gaze shifted, her smile deepening erotically as she continued to hold the hand he had meticulously cleansed in holy water.
"Could it be that you've been listening to the idle gossip of the others? Do you truly believe I'm a demon sent to tempt the clergy into absolute corruption?"
The priest remained silent for several long seconds. In the quiet space between them, his dark eyes blinked twice.
"I don't believe that," he ultimately replied, his voice flat and steady.
"I certainly don't believe that you don't believe it. How could the famously pious Father Tomioka ever tell a lie? But I'm perfectly willing to prove my innocence to you. You may kiss any part of my body as confirmation. After all, it's said that if a holy man kisses a demon, he'll instantly be dragged down into hell... Are you willing to test the truth for me, Father Tomioka?"
What a brilliant, manipulative trap of words. She knew that a priest whose entire life purpose was the salvation of mankind would surely cast aside his personal reservations to perform his holy duty. She could hardly wait to return to the convent and tell her elder sister what a remarkably simple prey she had captured today.
Father Tomioka agreed as expected, apparently deciding that this testing was entirely necessary. Without a word, he placed his large hand firmly over her left shoulder.
Instantly, a strange, blistering warmth diffused through her entire body from the point of contact. Shinobu hadn't anticipated her physical senses to react so violently. She froze on the spot, her knees suddenly turning so weak she could barely maintain her balance.
The priest before her felt like a black hole possessing an immense, terrifying gravity, plundering her strength the closer he approached. When he finally bent his tall frame over hers and grew perfectly still, she felt as though the very oxygen had been snatched from her lungs.
'Heavens... thank God, I'm still breathing...'
The mischievous nun who had played her game a bit too far was suddenly struck by a wave of genuine fear. Regret washed over her. She wanted to shrink back, to flee the overwhelming shadow of his presence, yet there was nowhere left to retreat. His iron grip held her fast, and her shoulder felt incredibly small beneath the wide expanse of his palm.
'No... I shouldn't drag a holy man into the mud with me...'
Her conscience flared, momentarily pushing past her desire as her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. She forced her eyes open, bracing her hands to push him away in a final refusal. Little did she know, his confirmation had already been completed.
The most pious Father Tomioka Giyuu in the entire world had merely lifted the heavy silver crucifix hanging against her chest, closed his eyes, and pressed a gentle, reverent kiss against the cold metal.
"Is it finished?" he asked quietly.
His hand relaxed, letting the crucifix fall back against her sternum. The small piece of metal clinked heavily against her chest, sending a dull thud through her ribcage.
"How... how can you be like this?! You're far too cunning, Father Tomioka!"
The nun looked thoroughly flustered and indignant, but the priest merely let out a soft, helpless sigh, turning on his heel to depart. Behind the ancient stone church, the midday roses continued to bloom wantonly in the summer heat.
Perhaps they, too, were silently calculating how many fruitless, silent clashes had already transpired between the rigid Father Tomioka and the clever "Sister" Kochou.
The moment a gentle breeze swept through the courtyard, the petals began to rustle and sway, as if laughing. Their laughter was thick with fragrance, scattering a quiet blessing over the two of them.
/Affirmation of the Heterodox - Sacred or Scientific?/
Kochou had never expected to see him sitting beneath the auditorium stage—a pitiful, somber priest who looked entirely out of place within the modern university lecture hall.
She was currently delivering a prestigious guest lecture on astrophysics, and the moment she projected the complex planetary orbits mapped by the national observatory onto the massive screen, this pious believer looked as though his entire reality were breaking into pieces.
During the afternoon tea break, she actively sought him out. She found the priest leaning heavily against the balcony railing, his handsome face clouding over with a profound, unconcealable sorrow.
"Hello, Father Tomioka. I've heard of your grand reputation for quite some time," she chimed, sidling up to greet him, her sharp gaze locking onto his tightly knitted brows.
The priest turned his torso around to face her. Upon looking at her, he went slightly blank for a moment before offering a sparse, flat: "Hello."
'Could it be that he doesn't even remember my name?'
Kochou felt a sudden surge of irritation and wounded pride. After all, throughout her entire presentation, she had noticed this particular priest staring intently toward the stage. Could it be that he had only been staring at the illuminated planetary projections? She was the specially invited keynote scientist of this global conference, for goodness' sake—had he truly failed to notice her entirely?
"I'm Dr. Kochou Shinobu," she announced, bestowing the mercy of a formal self-introduction while making sure to emphasize the prestigious doctoral degree she had obtained at such an exceptionally young age.
"I'm Father Tomioka Giyuu. May God bless you." It was a perfectly polite, entirely rigid return of courtesy.
Thoroughly displeased and feeling vastly underestimated, she turned her head away to glare at the manicured scenery outside the window. The luxury hotel hosting the academic venue was the most opulent in the province, but right now, she felt as though she shouldn't have bothered attending at all.
They stood in tense silence until the angle of the afternoon sunlight shifted noticeably across the balcony. Finally, the priest spoke again, his voice tight: "May I ask you a question, Doctor?"
"Of course you may. Is there perhaps a specific concept you failed to grasp regarding the research paper I presented today?" She secretly thought to herself that this old-fashioned, archaic priest had likely failed to comprehend a single word of modern physics.
"Something like... yes." He slowly turned his head to look at her, his face pale with the desperate, agonizing expression of a holy man whose lifelong faith was teetering on the brink of total collapse. "Tell me... is it true that outside the Earth, there are only other physical planets and... and it's not the literal Heaven where God resides?"
Shinobu could feel the intense, trembling anxiety radiating from him as he awaited her reply. It was obvious that if she delivered a harsh, unyielding scientific truth, this pitiful priest would crumble to ashes like scorched paper right before her eyes.
The clever scientist paused, her analytical mind shifting gears. Deciding to offer some gentle comfort to this overly sensitive soul, she softened her tone: "Yes, mathematically speaking, that's the reality. The planet we reside upon is called Earth. The Earth exists within the solar system, which contains other planets and there are infinite galaxies stretching out beyond our own... However, it isn't entirely impossible to suggest that these cosmic galaxies and distant planets were all systematically engineered by the hand of God. Yes, you may provisionally look at it that way."
The moment those words left her mouth, a brilliant light flickered back into the priest's dark eyes. The profound, hollow despair that had consumed his expression just a moment ago vanished without a trace. Though his lips remained pressed into a strict, stoic line, his entire gaze overflowed with the sheer radiance of a child who had just been granted salvation.
"So that's how it is. Thank you, Doctor. God bless you, God bless you."
Without another word, he spun around and practically marched toward the exit with joyful, energetic strides. Kochou opened her mouth to invite him to join her for the conference dinner, but he flatly rejected the offer, citing the urgent need to "return to the parish chapel as quickly as possible."
As his tall figure disappeared through the heavy glass doors, she could still hear him ecstatically muttering incomprehensible things under his breath... something about celebrating with "simmered salmon with daikon."
Left standing entirely alone on the balcony, Kochou could only shake her head in sheer disbelief. How on earth had such a thoroughly baffling, unlikable fellow managed to become a priest admired by the entire community?
/The Holy Mother Mourns Christ - The Pietà/
When he initially accepted this grand commission, Giyuu had never anticipated encountering such a monumental obstacle. He was merely a humble, quiet sculptor from a small frontier city.
Simply because his technical masonry skills had caught the eye of the regional bishop, he was abruptly reassigned to the royal capital to assist in the construction and decoration of the grand Cathedral of Our Lady, which was currently under development.
She would become the most magnificent and glorious cathedral dedicated to the Holy Mother across the entire continent—the Pope himself had declared it so—a monumental testament to mankind's absolute devotion to the Lord.
"Wealth and earthly glory shall fill this sanctuary, dedicated to Her image alongside our eternal worship of God," the resident bishop had spoken with immense reverence, his eyes gleaming with ecstatic fervor as he gestured toward the Pope's retinue.
Consequently, the grueling construction had commenced immediately. The main stone structure of the church had taken a staggering forty years just to achieve its baseline form.
By the time Giyuu was summoned to the capital, seventy years had elapsed since the first stone was laid. During that massive stretch of time, the papacy alone had changed hands through four separate successions.
The current Pope knew full well that he stood no chance of surviving to see the completed cathedral with his own eyes. Therefore, he had issued a strict apostolic demand: During his remaining tenure, the grand Statue of the Holy Mother destined for the high altar must smoothly be brought into the world.
This crushing, divine pressure ultimately fell squarely upon the shoulders of a simple provincial craftsman who had arrived in the capital carrying nothing but a single change of clothes and a wooden toolbox.
Giyuu was tasked with creating twelve distinct statues of the Virgin Mary, including the colossal centerpiece above the altar and the life-sized figures destined for the stone arcades.
The bishop emphasized repeatedly that the Holy Father expected these sculptures to be the most breathtakingly beautiful, emotionally moving depictions of the Holy Mother in the entire world. He constantly subjected Giyuu to harsh, agonizing criticism, looking as though he wanted to snatch the iron chisel away and carve the marble himself.
But Giyuu had no way of explaining his limitations to them. He wasn't a conceptual designer. He was merely an expert at replicating the physical things he was deeply familiar with, like a stone guardian lion, or a river turtle.
He had never seen the divine countenance of the Holy Mother, and thus, his literal mind held absolutely no capacity to imagine what kind of face he was supposed to chisel out of the raw marble blocks.
When summoned by the bishop, he had desperately wanted to confess this truth, but the prelate spoke with such frantic, overwhelming speed that he took Giyuu's silent compliance for granted, dismissing him to attend to other administrative emergencies. By the time Giyuu formulated his words, the bishop had already vanished down the corridor.
For the duration of the carving period, Giyuu was arranged to lodge within a nearby convent. Throughout his first month in the capital, he kept himself busy by attempting to interview the various monastics residing there, hoping to piece together a cohesive image of the Holy Mother from their descriptions.
However, the cloistered sisters were incredibly guarded, refusing to converse with a strange male artisan for more than three minutes at a time, leaving him in an exceptionally difficult position.
Until one afternoon, he crossed paths with a nun whose temperament was entirely out of the ordinary.
She was remarkably thin and small—so petite that at very first glance, Giyuu had almost automatically disqualified her from his mental gallery of potential muses for a grand, imposing statue.
He stepped forward, offering a blunt, simple greeting: "I'm Giyuu. I've been summoned to assist with the masonry for the Cathedral of Our Lady. Please guide me."
"God bless you. I'm Kochou Shinobu," she replied, offering a flawless, elegant curtsy before quietly taking a measured step backward. "It's an absolute honor to meet you, Giyuu-san. Please address me however you see fit."
Their very first meeting took place beside the ancient, moss-covered fountain in the center of the convent courtyard. It was the absolute height of summer, and the cool spray of the cascading fountain water offered a brief, merciful respite from the oppressive heat. They stood approximately one meter apart, sharing the gentle chill drifting from the same liquid curtain.
Shinobu’s serene smile was perfectly fixed, remaining entirely unchanged even within the broken, rippling reflection of the churning water below, a sight that made a person feel that beneath that placid surface of holy sincerity, there lay a completely different world of hidden emotion.
The freezing water of the fountain caused him to feel a bit cold, so he decided to conclude their conversation as quickly as possible.
"I'll be responsible for sculpting the Statue of the Holy Mother inside the Cathedral of Our Lady," he explained plainly. "Because of this, I want to ask about your personal impression regarding the appearance of the Holy Mother."
The thin, small nun lifted her eyes to look at him. She cocked her head, asking back with a pleasant smile while flawlessly mimicking the haughty, artificial tone of the high-and-mighty clergy behind the high altar:
"Tomioka-san, do you mean to say you haven't even seen the true appearance of the Holy Mother?"
He had, of course, seen the versions sculpted by other artisans, but those were merely limited to cold stone and wood. Therefore, he submissively answered: "I'm not entirely sure, so I want to ask you."
His stark, unadorned sincerity made the nun burst into a soft laugh. She turned her entire body to face him, exposing an even more wanton, mischievous smile. "I know her face, you know. Do you want to see it? Please, come with me."
He followed, walking quietly behind the back of this small-statured nun, noting that the crown of her head didn't even reach the height of his own shoulder.
He found himself constantly worried about accidentally stepping on her heels or inadvertently overtaking her, so he kept deliberately restraining the length of his paces, doing his absolute best to maintain a consistent speed with her.
'Did other people experience this exact same protective instinct when walking alongside her?'
From his high vantage point, he could easily see the top of her dark hair, as well as the stony path she tread beneath her feet.
They finally ground to a halt at the arched doorway of the monastics' residence. Kochou slipped inside, retrieving a small object from the cramped dormitory where six sisters shared a communal room. Standing before him once more, she held out a painted miniature portrait that was roughly the same size as her palm.
The portrait case featured a beautiful, three-fold design that opened down the center to reveal a delicate, half-length painting of a young woman. The metal frame craftsmanship was remarkably exquisite; Giyuu instinctively guessed this must have been a cherished heirloom belonging to a wealthy household.
The nun unfolded the delicate wings of the frame with extreme care inside her palm, gently lifting her hand to offer it to him, clearly indicating that he was permitted to take it for a closer look.
He carefully took it from her. The woman captured within the oil painting was undeniably young and beautiful, her expression pleasant, warm, and amiable. Giyuu stared at the painted girl's face resting in his palm, and then looked up at the flesh-and-blood nun standing right before his eyes. As if suddenly recognizing a pattern, he asked:
"Is this the appearance of the Holy Mother?"
The nun fell perfectly silent for a long second. Then, as if she had quickly resigned herself to the stubborn, one-track mind of the man standing before her, she answered in a perfectly normal, breezy tone:
"Yes. This is the Blessed Mother who appears inside my dreams every single night."
Giyuu offered a solemn nod, remaining quiet as he carefully returned the miniature portrait to her, expressing his gravest gratitude.
Kochou finally lost her composure, letting out a sharp, amused "pfft" as she burst into a quiet fit of laughter.
It wasn't until a week later, when he had finished drawing half of the intricate charcoal sketch for the central statue above the high altar, that Giyuu abruptly perceived something was deeply wrong. The physical appearance of the "Holy Mother" inside that palm-sized portrait was excessively, undeniably similar to Sister Kochou.
'Could it be that the Holy Mother and this peculiar nun held some sort of mysterious, divine relationship?'
Driven by this thought, he resolved to visit the nun the very next day to seek verification for his theory. The morning Mass had just concluded, and as the heavy cathedral doors swung open, he spotted her emerging amidst the dense crowd of worshippers.
The nun had her back turned to him, navigating her way toward the cloistered direction of the convent. Even though her face was entirely obscured beneath the heavy folds of her monastic habit, he could rely on that remarkably thin, small body alone to recognize her instantly.
She looked almost excessively petite—fragile enough to be entirely submerged by the sea of humanity surrounding her. It appeared as though if the tide of the crowd gently turned over a single spray of water, she would be completely buried beneath the ocean floor.
Giyuu was exceptionally sensitive to human proportions due to the daily nature of his sculpting work. He watched her receding figure, desperately wanting to follow, but the regional bishop who had just finished presiding over the Mass caught sight of him. The prelate marched over, loudly inquiring about the completion progress of the grand altar statue.
Not every craftsman possessed the immense, rare honor of a private audience with the bishop. The man was constantly reminding Giyuu of the noble status and patronage he provided at every waking moment—and everything, absolutely everything, was for the sake of those statues.
By the time he finally managed to bid farewell to the bishop, he returned to the convent courtyard, sitting in total silence beside the fountain pool for an entire afternoon.
At dusk, she finally arrived.
Giyuu stood up immediately. Looking down, he once again saw the unvarying, painted smile of Sister Kochou reflected clearly within the churning water of the fountain.
"God bless you, Tomioka-san."
"Good afternoon, Sister Kochou. Regarding that matter of the Holy Mother's portrait... I still have questions I must ask you."
She appeared entirely unsurprised by his persistence. "What is it? Please speak your mind."
Giyuu stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, finally squeezing out the single sentence he had spent hours pondering—
"Are you... are you the living manifestation of the Holy Mother?"
The nun truly couldn't restrain herself this time. She laughed so hard she practically bent double at the waist. The cascading fountain water splashed heavily into the basin below, shattering her original, rigid mask of a smile and rippling waves of genuine, unadulterated joy across her features.
"Whatever makes you think that?"
"...The two of you look extremely similar."
"Did it truly never cross your mind that it's actually... oh, forget it. The person captured in that portrait is actually my elder sister. To me, she's my god and my absolute salvation. I'm very sorry for intentionally misleading you before. I honestly assumed you wouldn't be foolish enough to actually believe it."
He suddenly recalled the solemnity of the morning Mass, always finding that something felt fundamentally warped within Kochou's words. He knit his brows, stating bluntly: "Shouldn't our god be only the Lord God alone?"
Her gaze turned abruptly cold and dim. Though her true intonation remained difficult to fully discern, the velocity of her speech quickened noticeably:
"Tomioka-san, if you believe my faith's not pious enough, you're entirely free to report me to the bishop. I'll gladly take full responsibility for my own words and deeds but I also don't share these thoughts of mine with just anyone."
The final sentence carried a sharp note of defensive blame. He managed to fully decode the meaning of it... exactly ten minutes after she had already turned around and left him behind.
By the time they met again, seven full days had passed, and it was once again Giyuu who actively came forward to seek her out. She, on the contrary, maintained her usual fixed smile, until he delivered a sudden, jarring request: "I want to ask you to act as my model."
And so, Kochou became his model. During the brief window of free time following dinner and preceding the mandatory evening prayer, the nun would quietly visit the spacious stone workshop specially granted to the sculptor by the bishop, assisting Giyuu in completing the grandest artistic enterprise of the entire diocese.
The sculptor's workshop typically maintained a state of pristine cleanliness for a maximum duration of two days. After that, it predictably descended into a chaotic mess, looking as though it had been thoroughly plundered by a localized storm.
Sometimes, within ten minutes of her arrival, the nun could be found silently tidying a small patch of space just so she could have a proper place to sit down.
She would sit perched upon a worn-out wooden chair, the dark fabric covering the backrest having long been rubbed away to the bare wood. She would wrap her slender arms securely around her bent legs, resting her chin comfortably over her knees as she watched the sculptor working just a meter away.
The posture made her look remarkably like a small animal curled into a tight ball, desperately seeking a sense of absolute security within the narrow, dim confines of the room.
The sculptor, currently drafting an intricate sketch on parchment, briefly withdrew his gaze from his work when he heard her open her mouth: "Will you truly sculpt the Holy Mother into my exact appearance, Tomioka-san?"
"No," he answered honestly, his voice deadpan. "I'm merely referencing your human dynamics."
The nun turned so thoroughly annoyed by his lack of romance that she refused to speak for the rest of the hour.
The sculptor poked his head over the edge of his easel to inspect her sour expression, before lamely offering a follow-up: "But... I'll sculpt the face of the Holy Mother above the high altar into your elder sister's appearance."
She immediately straightened her upper body, her eyes widening as they flashed with sudden brilliance. Her two crystal-like pupils diffused an extraordinary, radiant light throughout the entire dim room, looking precisely as though a genuine, divine miracle had descended upon the workshop.
"Why would you do it that way? You know that my sister was just..." She trailed off, her following voice dipping so low and faint that the rest of her sentence wasn't fully caught by him. He assumed she had simply finished speaking, so he smoothly took over the conversation.
"I just feel that... it's not a bad idea."
"Thank you," she whispered. Sculpting the Holy Mother into her deceased sister's likeness appeared to make her vastly more emotional and excited than if he had sculpted it into her own image. "Thank you for making it so people will remember my nee-san."
"Moreover...," he pondered for a long, quiet moment, before adding, "....If I were to sculpt her completely according to your exact face, I'm worried it would be discovered by the townspeople."
Kochou keenly captured the immediate opportunity to tease him. "Oh? Are you shy, Tomioka-san?"
As she spoke, her intonation clearly turned higher. She looked as though she were truly, genuinely happy.
He waited until he had completely finished drawing a long charcoal stroke before finally addressing her gibe, but it amounted to nothing more than a small, muffled grunt as he bent down to pack up the scraps of waste paper cluttering the floor.
A month later, he returned from the regional quarry hauling his selected marble trophies. The bishop transferred him to an even more spacious, isolated workshop. Giyuu began to bury himself inside the studio all day long to focus entirely on his work, only crossing the threshold of the house door on Sundays for the sole purpose of attending Mass.
He commenced his labor with the most critical sculpture destined for the high altar: The Holy Mother Mourns Christ.
The intricate draft was already firmly engraved into the depths of his mind, requiring him only to allow this massive block of raw marble to yield Their exact postures. He set about starting the heavy construction, estimating it would take a minimum of half a year to fully liberate the merciful yet desperate Holy Mother and the suffering-laden body of Christ from the primitive stone material.
Since moving away from the immediate vicinity of the convent, he could rarely catch sight of Sister Kochou. Her duties as his model, however, hadn't ceased. Sometimes, when the Sunday Mass concluded, he would formally invite her back to his workshop, where she would don antique, flowing garments to continue acting as his anatomical reference.
Under his unremitting, grueling efforts, the Holy Mother's weeping face gradually achieved a preliminary appearance, her sorrowful body and cascading robes chiseled into smooth form. Christ's broken body and gaunt visage were also systematically molded out, resting heavily, supported by the Holy Mother's trembling arms as He calmly closed his two eyes in death.
At Christmas, his elder sister, Tsutako, traveled all the way from their remote hometown to visit him. The very instant Tsutako laid eyes on her younger brother, her mind was set at ease, and she let out a massive, echoing sigh of relief.
Giyuu quietly took her heavy luggage, entirely failing to comprehend why his sister looked so terribly flustered. Tsutako lifted her head to look at him, her eyes searching his face. "Giyuu... you haven't been bullied or mistreated by the capital folk, have you?"
He, of course, answered plainly: "No."
"But... I always feel that the oppressive atmosphere of the royal capital makes a person feel very frightened." Tsutako looked around in all directions, speaking her raw views aloud as Giyuu guided her into his workshop, helping her settle down comfortably.
"Especially those high-ranking officials of the curia... they haven't used the immense convenience of their holy positions to oppress or threaten you?" She was truly exceptionally nervous; the very first sentence she uttered upon sitting down returned to this exact topic.
"No, they've provided me with a great deal of money," Giyuu replied, casting a brief glance at the slightly mottled plaster wall behind Tsutako's back, feeling a vague, unexplained wave of discomfort wash over him after finishing the statement.
Tsutako let out another heavy sigh. "That's good then. You possess absolutely no political or social connections inside the royal capital. Father, mother and I were all so terribly worried that you weren't living well here."
It was perfectly fine, he thought. The dark bread he consumed every day wasn't entirely unpalatable. Moreover... did the regional bishop not count as a powerful connection?
"Are you speaking of that bishop?" Tsutako knitted her brows tightly. "I once heard rather sinister rumors regarding that man back in the provinces."
Giyuu didn't respond. He knew that his elder sister, who cared for him fiercely, would undoubtedly continue speaking.
"Three years ago, that very bishop was heavily implicated in the unfortunate, sudden death of a young nun. Because the bishop had been actively pulling powerful strings behind closed doors, the entire investigation ended up being left unsettled later on. The incident deeply threatened the holy reputation of the curia so it was very quickly and quietly suppressed. It's said that the poor girl's family was actually relatively wealthy and she had voluntarily chosen the monastic life."
She let out another deep sigh. Giyuu secretly wished his sister wouldn't sigh so frequently.
"At that time, my husband happened to be working inside the royal capital and it seemed he even had brief business contacts with that family. Their family possessed a very distinct, unique surname—remarkably easy to remember. It was called..."
Giyuu's blue eyes widened in sudden, stark comprehension.
Without even waiting for the next scheduled Mass to arrive, he directly rushed to the convent grounds on the very morning after Tsutako set out to return home. He first searched the vicinity of the fountain pool, and subsequently discovered her standing deep inside the nearby winter garden.
Sister Kochou was currently standing perfectly still beside a patch of withered, yellowed flower clusters. That frozen ground originally should have been the vibrant position of the summer roses.
Winter still had a long, grueling stretch of time before passing, and there was still a massive delay before the vibrant spring colors would descend back into the world.
Her complexion looked remarkably poor today. Her ten fingers were tightly interlaced and clasped before her chest as she stared straight ahead into the brush.
Waiting until Giyuu quietly walked over, he finally discovered that tucked at the very end of the winding, dead vines lay a tiny, weathered stone statue of the Holy Mother.
"Good morning, Tomioka-san. God bless you." Her silent prayer had ended, and she had already realized his heavy arrival without needing to look turn around.
Having bypassed the standard greetings, he went straight to the true theme: "I hope you can come to the workshop today."
"After dinner? Or right this very moment?"
"After dinner... or right this very moment." He actually hadn't thought the logistics through himself, so he simply hoped she would arrange the time at her own will.
She let down her clasped hands, the fixed smile upon her face never wavering for a fraction of a second. "Very well. I hold no other spiritual schoolwork today. I can go right now to help you complete that great, holy task."
Granted, Giyuu knew his own clumsy tongue well enough to know he had absolutely no idea how to open his mouth regarding his sister's revelation. Even after successfully inviting the person over to his studio, he had no choice but to first signal for her to sit down, while he himself picked up his tools to continue chiseling and sculpting.
When working manually, his brain would think more efficiently, and he desperately hoped this hyper-focused state would help him formulate some appropriate words to speak aloud.
However, with terrifying speed, he fell entirely into his personal world of absolute focus, pouring his awareness over the manual labor without being aware of the passage of time.
When two full hours had slipped past, he only then remembered that Kochou was still sitting quietly inside the room. He hurriedly ground his iron tools to a halt, lifting his head to look toward the silent guest resting upon the worn sofa.
His guest was currently propping her chin with one hand, her dark eyes watching him tenderly, like the morning light washing over the unobstructed earth—staring motionlessly and filled with a deep, quiet affection.
Just like the first time she had come to his workshop, she sat with her legs drawn up. When she wasn't actively acting as a dynamic reference for him, she preferred to sit this way.
But this time, her overall posture was completely relaxed, as if she finally felt entirely at ease in his presence.
Giyuu lost the ability to speak for a moment. He wanted nothing more than to permanently engrave this exact expression onto the stone of his next Statue of the Holy Mother.
"Good afternoon, Tomioka-san. Did you happen to forget that I'm still here?"
He had no choice but to offer a quiet apology. Lifting his head to look at the sorrowful cheek of the Holy Mother whose marble base he had just chiseled, he suddenly discovered how to open his mouth.
"Can you let me look at your sister's portrait again?"
Ever since she had become Giyuu's model, Kochou had taken to carrying that miniature portrait with her everywhere. She wore it tied around her neck with a thin string, keeping it ready for the sculptor's occasional, unpredictable needs.
She nodded her head, lifting both hands to untie the delicate knot at the back of her neck.
Giyuu stepped down from the wooden scaffolding, walking over to stand directly in front of the sofa.
Kochou placed the precious small object into his hand. The instant the cold metal ornament slid into the center of his palm, he felt an unspeakable, sharp heartache flare in his chest.
He decided to come straight to the point. "Your elder sister... she was previously a nun serving in this very convent, wasn't she? Her name was Kanae."
Her expression fractured all at once. Astonishment and instant resentment pushed her dark eyebrows together, completely crowding out her unvarying, painted smile. Kochou Shinobu was truly, deeply furious at this moment.
She snatched the small portrait back from Giyuu's hand with a single, sharp grasp. The volume of her voice rose, entirely stripped of its usual controlled cadence:
"How do you know that name, Tomioka Giyuu? What is it you want to do? Do you intend to make me shut up and force me to leave this city forever, too?"
Giyuu looked down at her. Though she had straightened her upper body, from his tall vantage point, she still looked incredibly small, as if swallowed by the deep cushions of the sofa. He sank down onto one knee, doing his best to bring his line of sight perfectly level with hers.
"No," he said softly. "I won't. I'm only... worried about you."
"Worried about me?" she fired back in a flash of lingering anger. But as the true meaning behind his words settled over her, she slowly turned her face away, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Tomioka-san, you have no need to worry about me," she murmured after a long, heavy silence. Then, as if struck by an urgent realization, she turned her head back to face him, her eyes flickering with desperation.
"But... I must request that you don't abandon that statue. I still want the Holy Mother to bear my sister's appearance. Because... because my nee-san was innocent. She was far too innocent... I want everyone who ever enters this cathedral to pray to remember her face. Her face and that damned bishop..."
"Will the bishop not discover it?" Giyuu asked.
"You can rest assured. That bastard remembers absolutely nothing when he speaks to me. He's fundamentally incapable of discovering that the face of the Holy Mother you're sculpting for his high altar belongs to my sister."
"When did you meet with the bishop?" Giyuu pressed immediately.
She looked toward him, her gaze turning utterly cold and indifferent all at once. "The day before yesterday," she answered flatly.
The moment the words left her lips, she abruptly stood up, burying her face as she frantically began to pack up her personal items to leave.
As she adjusted the starched edges of her white wimple and marched toward the heavy workshop door, Giyuu took a swift step forward, blocking her path.
"I should return to the convent, Tomioka-san." Her voice did its absolute best to sound cold and clinical, yet a slight, fragile tremor still cracked through her words.
"But you said you had no other spiritual schoolwork today," he reminded her with painful honesty.
"Then I simply don't wish to remain here a moment longer. Tomioka-san, you never entertain me with any real sincerity anyway so why should I stay?"
"I just..."
He fell silent. He knew full well that he could never outtalk her, and he was the one in the wrong to begin with.
Kochou’s movements were incredibly nimble. Taking swift advantage of the moment he spent lost in his own thoughts, she deftly slipped past his side, heading straight for the exit—
Only to be caught firmly by the wrist in an instant.
"Wait, Kochou. There are still matters I must ask you."
"Tomioka-san, my personal affairs have absolutely nothing to do with you, do they?" She turned her head back over her shoulder, tossing the question at him like a blade.
"I only... I don't wish to see you get hurt."
Kochou fell perfectly quiet, her dark brows knitting together in a wave of profound sorrow.
In that moment, Giyuu felt that the look she gave him was identical to the way the Holy Mother might look down in pity upon her tragic Son.
"But everything I am has already been dedicated to the Lord, Tomioka-san," she whispered.
That single sentence was powerful enough to shatter any counterargument Giyuu could ever hope to muster.
"I only hope you can understand the choice I've made. I've already dictated the course of my own life. Even if my feelings toward you are different from how I view others, Tomioka-san... you still have absolutely no way to stop me from walking the path I've chosen for myself."
She lifted her chin to look up at him, the bitter smile at the corners of her mouth vanishing entirely. She looked remarkably like an innocent lamb that had deliberately stepped onto a dark, perilous path—a lamb belonging entirely to God.
"I know," he responded quietly. "I know." Aside from those empty words, he had nothing left to say.
"I can still come to see you this Saturday night," she added quietly, "But that'll be the final time."
He slowly loosened his grip, letting her go.
When Saturday arrived, he labored over the marble from sunrise until the dead of night.
Through his frantic diligence, the grand centerpiece of The Holy Mother Mourns Christ was rapidly nearing its completion. Yet, the more finely and meticulously he chiseled away at the stone, the more he felt that the sculpture still lacked its vital soul.
The current mold of the Virgin's face could never quite satisfy him. As a merciful Holy Mother, her features seemed correct on paper, yet he always felt something fundamental was missing.
His Holy Mother was young and beautiful, bearing the pure, delicate visage of a cloistered nun. In her state of mourning, her expression needed to convey a profound, world-shattering sorrow, an infinite despair over the passing of her beloved child.
The globally renowned sculptor had always conceptualized it this way, and he desperately hoped that Kochou's arrival tonight would finally spark the artistic inspiration required to solve this agonizing puzzle.
In the late afternoon, the gray skies opened up into a torrential downpour. The heavy rainwater sustained itself for hours, washing over the city and injecting a fraction of fierce vitality into the otherwise dull, frozen winter landscape. During his brief moments of rest, Giyuu would stare out the fogged window panes, his mind entirely consumed by thoughts of Kochou.
By the time Kochou finally knocked softly against the workshop door, the freezing rain still hadn't abated.
She was still clad in her standard nun's habit, bringing nothing into the room with her save for a deeply exhausted smile and a body thoroughly drenched in rainwater.
Giyuu hurriedly ushered her into the warm interior, immediately handing her a dry towel and a thick wool robe, looking as though he wanted to wrap her up in his own bedsheets just to keep her safe from the chill.
The shivering nun sank deep into the worn sofa, completely enveloped in a cluster of dry towels and oversized garments. Giyuu sat down right beside her, hesitating for a long, quiet moment before leaning closer. He could feel the dampness and the profound, electric anxiety radiating from her fragile frame, leaving him entirely at a loss for words.
"I'm sorry, Tomioka-san... the umbrellas at the convent were no longer sufficient for everyone to use..."
She tilted her head back, offering him a faint, bitter smile.
Giyuu stared intently at her fragile, dark eyes and her trembling, pale lips, completely incapable of tearing his vision away. He possessed no words to comfort her, nor did he wish to say anything at all given the heavy solemnity of the room.
Sensing his focus, she matched his silence, looking right back at him.
For a long, breathless interlude, their gazes remained seamlessly interwoven, hatching the most raw, sincere affection in the world—acting like a sequence of silent vows traded in the dark, tightly binding their spiritual and physical bodies together as one.
She began to shed silent tears the moment his lips pressed against hers. Those warm drops rolled down from beneath her crystal-clear eyes, capturing and reflecting the last shards of light that God had left between heaven and earth during the creation of the world. Her lips were ice-cold, possessing a fierce, enduring quality that bordered on the divine.
She piously closed both eyes, barely managing to pull up the corners of her mouth into a bittersweet line as the tears fell, only for her features to melt back into a mold of beautiful, profound tragedy the moment Giyuu kissed her again.
In that singular touch, he finally knew exactly how the holy statue's face had to be modified.
Later on, after the final Sunday Mass had concluded, after everything had inevitably transpired... the high curia of the royal capital was once again thrown into the shadows of a massive public scandal.
The lord bishop was found dead. The official cause of death was recorded as a sudden heart attack inside the luxurious confines of his secret residence. However, whisperers in the streets claimed that the bishop's heart had always been exceptionally robust. After all, the man had been joyfully attending high-stakes horse races just days prior.
Many insisted his demise was bound to have a far more sinister cause, pointing toward covert poisoning or something of the sort.
Simultaneously, that remarkably thin, small nun was never seen within the walls of the convent again. Some claimed she had quietly packed her things and returned to her rural hometown, while others insisted her family estate was located right within the heart of the royal capital.
Public opinion was vast and varied, but no matter what rumors circulated, none of it could disrupt Tomioka Giyuu as he quietly labored to finish his twelve grand statues of the Holy Mother.
The newly appointed bishop held an immense appreciation for his artistry, particularly after laying eyes upon the newly unveiled masterpiece: The Holy Mother Mourns Christ.
Giyuu had subtly adjusted the Holy Mother's final expression. Where she had originally been crafted to look completely desperate with overwhelming grief, he had re-carved the marble into a state of supreme, agonizing restraint—a mother maintaining her absolute calm with every ounce of her spiritual might.
Her brows were tilted slightly downward, her gaze cast down toward her lap, her lips barely parted yet held in a strict, tight line due to her intense self-control. Her entire slender, breathtakingly beautiful face retained the absolute maximum limit of regal dignity, leaving worshippers capable of finding her infinite sadness only if they stared directly into her stone gaze.
Tomioka Giyuu firmly believed that she was the ultimate, unique Holy Mother. Even if the beloved child resting within her embrace had already breathed his last, her innermost heart still retained an unyielding faith in God's eternal blessing. She never truly felt despair toward the broken Savior in her arms or toward her tragic destiny. She merely harbored a boundless, echoing heartache for the suffering of her loved one.
She was both Kochou Kanae and Kochou Shinobu.
'Oh, Holy Mother admired by ten thousand times ten thousand people... your quiet sadness causes all believers to suffer so deeply.'
The Holy Mother sat perfectly upright on her stone pedestal, her beloved child resting face-up across her lap, completely identical to the initial nursing posture of his infancy. They would forever maintain this stable, tragic posture, receiving the eternal worship of the mortal world.
Before applying the final smooth polish to the marble, Giyuu carefully hid the name Kochou Shinobu deep within the heavy, cascading folds of the Holy Mother's stone robes. After engraving the letters, he paused to ponder for a moment, deciding it was best not to place his own signature alongside hers.
In June of the following year, when the wild roses were once again blooming wantonly across the capital, he returned from the regional quarry to commence the heavy sculpting work on the remaining statues of the Holy Mother.
During their very last night together, Kochou had formally handed the small miniature portrait of her beloved elder sister over to his safekeeping. However, he ultimately decided that the remaining holy statues would no longer use Kanae's face as their uniform standard.
Instead, he took to wandering the crowded streets of the royal capital to search for raw artistic inspiration, recording the diverse, natural expressions of ordinary citizens. Most importantly, he designed every single piece to quietly commemorate that small-statured nun.
The second statue depicted the Holy Mother tenderly cradling the newborn Holy Son, a piece designed to be placed individually within the church's transept. He bestowed upon this Holy Mother the exact, tender expression with which Shinobu had gazed at him from the workshop sofa that afternoon.
The third statue was a solitary figure of the Holy Mother with her palms piously joined together, destined to stand as a guardian sentinel alongside the nave. He bestowed upon this Holy Mother the precise, solemn posture with which Kochou had prayed amidst the dead winter garden.
The fourth statue was a single-person sculpture of the Holy Mother extending her right hand in a gesture of universal grace toward all living beings. He meticulously sculpted that half of her form to mirror the exact movement with which Kochou had handed him her sister's portrait.
The fifth statue captured the heavenly angel welcoming the Holy Mother and Child. He gave this Virgin a slender, elegant neck completely identical to hers.
The sixth statue showed the Holy Mother accompanying the young Holy Son at play. He gave this figure a pair of thin, delicate shoulders just like hers.
The seventh statue depicted the Holy Mother nursing her infant. He gave this marble form a pair of small, exquisite palms identical to her own.
The eighth statue showed the Holy Mother reciting holy scriptures aloud. He gave this figure an inch of soft, slender waist just like hers.
The ninth through the twelfth statues were all individual figures captured in vastly different, graceful postures, each one systematically endowed with the most breathtakingly beautiful brows, eyes, nose, and lips existing within the deep gallery of the artist's mind.
A total of twelve magnificent statues, every single Holy Mother clad in infinite, divine grace, slowly manifesting an eternal loving-kindness to the world.
Giyuu felt a lingering pang of artistic regret that he had been unable to sculpt Kochou's characteristic habit of drawing her knees up to her chest—that was the specific posture that made her look most worthy of fierce love and protection, an image that would remain forever treasured within the quiet confines of his chest.
By the time he had successfully completed all twelve sculptures, nine full years had already vanished since his initial arrival in the royal capital. The resident bishop praised his monumental achievements to the heavens, offering him a massive fortune in gold.
Giyuu flatly declined the vast majority of the wealth, accepting only enough baseline travel expenses to secure a passage back to his remote hometown.
That was right; he had absolutely no intention of continuing his life here. This bustling capital was far different from what his simple mind had once imagined, and he considered his own quiet character entirely unsuited to city life.
Before departing forever, he visited the grand Cathedral of Our Lady one final time while it was still deep in the process of construction.
The Cathedral of Our Lady still required decades of intensive labor before she would achieve absolute completion, but the moment he stepped across the threshold into that silent, sacred domain, he could already feel the magnificent landscape completely enveloped by divinity.
Her stone vaults soared incredibly high into the heavens, physically manifesting humanity's innate self-knowledge regarding its own utter insignificance; any mortal entering her gates would feel as though they were stepping directly into the celestial realm.
The bright afternoon sunlight pierced through the three massive rose windows positioned at the exact center of the facade, falling gently into his pupils like pristine snowflakes drifting from the sky.
He found himself silently praising the elegant stone ribs of the ceiling, noting how every single intersecting segment seemed designed to guide a person's vision to converge at a singular apex, connecting directly with the divine.
The church was a silent witness and a permanent protector of human life, accommodating all the raw joys, deep sorrows, painful partings, and joyous reunions of the mortal world within her walls. God's infinite grace not only bestowed itself upon the earth, but meticulously clad every single hidden corner of this immense stone structure.
Every single block of quarried stone felt proud simply because it had been born to support these heavy walls. Every single piece of timber felt proud because it could lift the hopeful, reaching arms of the faithful.
Worshippers moved freely to and fro through the massive oak doors, and the church would never turn anyone away. Giyuu felt as though his spirit were suddenly transported hundreds of years into the future, imagining himself kneeling to worship before the altar amidst the booming, sacred chords of a pipe organ.
God's temple should always be flooded with brilliance. God's temple should always be filled with every imaginable kind of love.
Walking through the interior of such a monumental building, Giyuu was struck by the realization that a human life was far too brief, yet it was precisely because of that fleeting shortness that it retained its true, brilliant meaning. The thought made him miss that small-statured nun with an aching intensity.
Within this massive, cavernous space designed for the interaction between man and God, his eyes played tricks on him. He dazedly visualized her familiar, petite silhouette sitting quietly in a distant row of wooden pews.
He knew with absolute certainty that he would never live to see the day this world-renowned, magnificent structure reached its final completion. But as long as this cathedral stood towering proudly above this soil, the very stones recording these historical facts would never stop speaking to the world.
Throughout this century, the next century, and even thousands of thousands of years into the deep future, the raw emotions captured within these stone statues would never be submerged by the relentless torrent of time.
They were beautifully stubborn, making them the most perfect, fitting medium to embody the grand tragedies of the human world.
From the exact moment a sculptor chiseled his very first stroke into a block of raw marble, that stone stepped out of the natural flow of time and marched directly into the permanent history of human civilization. In a way, these statues appeared to completely reverse the identities of mortals and divinities, turning mere humans into the ones who "created" the gods.
Therefore, to express humanity's unswerving, eternal loyalty, the sculptor had frozen the believers' supreme worship and highest faith into the rock.
Time would roll and flow relentlessly, but only these statues engraving pure piety would be passed down intact from generation to generation.
Giyuu carefully engraved his own signature beneath the feet of the singular holy statue he was most deeply satisfied with. If a curious soul happened to hold an interest in his work several centuries later, they could wander into the completed Cathedral of Our Lady to search for it.
Tomioka Giyuu's signature possessed a rigid, blocky script style that carried a slightly dull, tedious feeling, perfectly mimicking his own quiet character.
But on the other hand, it was also just like the hidden depths of his soul, surging with a profound, meaningful and universal tenderness between every single breath.
Fin
The plot is inspired by a cute little interlude in Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Season 3, Episode 8 🎵.
The most famous architectural prototype used for this piece is Notre-Dame de Paris, though the Pietà inside was actually placed there over two hundred years after the cathedral was completed. In reality, while writing, I referenced St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna much more because I've never been to Paris (I only know it through second-hand information).
This piece was originally meant to be only 2,000 to 3,000 words but it ended up expanding into this chaotic mess. I tried my best to make the transitions not look too jarring (I'm sad that didn't work out too well). Doing research is so hard, not to mention I didn't even do it properly.
When they met for the last time, you can believe they did something or you can believe they didn't. Personally, I prefer to believe they did. I even asked them about it—after all, it concerns their dignity as fictional characters—but they have no plans to tell me for now so I can't tell you either whether they actually did anything or not. (This paragraph was originally written on Lofter and Weibo).
