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Kotomine Kirei walked through purgatory. Countless souls prayed fervently as they made their way to their destination. Each confessed their sins to God. Whenever he passed by them, they invariably addressed him as “Priest.”
Each time, Kotomine stopped and expounded a passage from the Bible to them.
This is Trinity Metatronios.
The singularity set in Italy consisted of the blessed heaven, a vast purgatory spanning multiple layers, and hell for atoning for sins.
Each location was governed by powerful angels or administrators wielding substantial authority. Within this realm, Kotomine traversed the various sites of the singularity as a devout “Priest.” Since his arrival in this land, people had all regarded him with respect.
Except for one particular administrator he was about to visit.
The gate to the Greed Zone exerted a silent pressure on the priest. A guard who knew the situation immediately escorted him inside.
Kotomine had adopted a policy of not meeting the Greed Zone administrator directly, communicating primarily through letters.
They agreed to avoid interfering with each other, minimizing contact to the utmost extent. That was their unspoken understanding.
The door opened. The interior resembled the structure of a cathedral. At the far end of the room, an organ sat enthroned.
As he stepped inside, a girl with silky white hair fixed her gaze on Kotomine. Her golden eyes, narrower than usual, briefly revived a certain memory. Kotomine instantly expunged that thought from his mind.
“You're late, Father.”
“I did hurry here as fast as I could. What business brought you here?”
“I just met my mother.”
Time froze.
She stated the irregularity matter-of-factly. Silence dominated the room. The background vanished from his vision. When his senses returned, she stood before him.
“How ridiculous. You're shaken just because I voiced a truth even animals know.”
“Sister—”
"Every lost lamb needs guidance. When I called out, she murmured your name as if in prayer. She saw me. Then she called my name. When she embraced me with her thin arms, I knew without a doubt I was her mother."
“Caren Ortensia.”
“Yes. She spoke my name as if cherishing i t. After a while, she asked me for guidance. She wanted to see you, even just for a moment. I granted her wish.”
“Isn't it against the rules for an Administrator to take sides with a sinner?”
“Have you forgotten? This is the Land of Greed. The deeper the desire, the greater the price paid. In this case, that price was simply your very existence. That settles it. I'll fetch Mother now.”
Before she could move, hestepped in front of her. Even facing a gaze that seemed to swallow the entire room, Caren didn't bat an eyelid. Instead, she tried to pass right through his massive frame without hesitation.
“What recklessness, Sister. I'm utterly speechless.”
“Indeed. Your blindness is beyond belief. What meets the eye isn't always the truth, you know.”
The door creaked open slightly.
“You...?”
The moment he heard that single syllable, Kotomine spun around.
He should have forgotten her face. He should have forgotten her voice. He should have been unable to piece together even fragments of his memories.
The light streaming through the door illuminated her. She was the saint. She was the very embodiment of the saint. She was the one who always wished for the happiness of others more than her own body, constantly being consumed.
Faint white hair, translucent golden eyes, bandages wrapped around her body—evidence of a painful yet beautiful existence—and a smile like a holy mother's.
“...Claudia.”
The moment he reunited with her, what Kotomine saw was that same smile, filled with unchanging joy. The sensation of being embraced afterward felt exactly the same as back then.
Her devotion seemed something that would never change, even if judgment fell upon her.
“...My business is done. Well then, I shall take my leave.”
“Wait, Caren.”
Still holding Caren in her embrace, Claudia beckoned her closer. For the first time, confusion flickered in Caren's eyes.
“I'm truly, deeply happy to see you all. So please, let me hug all of you together.”
Caren timidly moved closer to Claudia. With her mother's smile, Caren was embraced once more. The presence of Father Dani beside them truly rankled her to the core, yet seeing Claudia's beaming smile strangely overwhelmed her with joy, neutralizing the irritation.
“Such a good girl,” Claudia murmured. Kotomine stirred. Caren froze. Had anyone ever praised her purely like this before?
“You truly are a wonderful child, Caren. Even though you inherited your mother's constitution, I'm so happy I got to see you grow up. Your mother always loved you.”
Caren rested her head against Claudia. Her words were enough to convince her that if she let go, they would vanish immediately.
“Caren. Don't forget, I'll always be by your side.”
“Mother...”
Once more, mother and daughter embraced each other. It was like a sacred painting.
Witnessing their moving reunion, Kotomine stopped thinking.
The emotions boiling within him had swelled to the point of overflowing at this reunion.
He urgently needed fresh air. His body moved toward the door of its own accord.
"Where are you going?"
He stopped in his tracks. Come to think of it, there had never been a time when he hadn't answered his wife's questions.
"...I'm just going outside for some fresh air."
Kotomine briefly stated the facts. There was no reply. Taking advantage of this, he quickly headed outside.
The door closed. Caren quickly looked at Claudia. Her eyes were fixed on the door.
"Are you going after him?"
The question just slipped out of her mouth.
"Of course. I can't just leave Kirei alone."
"...If I pursue him now, he'll probably say terrible things. I would never say those things. I would never betray my mother."
"Thank you, Karen. I appreciate your feelings. But I still need to go and see Kirei."
"I don't understand. I don't know how you are praying for his safety, or how you are prepared for his harsh words."
"Caren, you really care about me. There's only one reason I'm pursuing him."
With a smile as beautiful as a blooming flower, Claudia murmured.
"Because I'm his wife."
Kotomine was circling the perimeter of the administrator's mansion. It was the same scenery everywhere he went, but he knew there would be no shortage of places to leave his thoughts.
"You're here, aren't you?"
Kotomine heard his wife's happy voice from behind him. Kotomine did not answer.
"Caren is worried about you because you don't come back very often. How's it going? Did you have a nice change of pace?"
“...No, unfortunately.”
"Yeah. The air is a bit heavy here, come to think of it. I wonder if that's the reason.
"...... Claudia, you should go back to Caren's now. This is not the right place for your constitution.“
”Where is the wife who leaves her husband alone when he looks terrible? That's our line. I think we should both go home."
Kotomine looked at the hydrangeas growing in the garden. Looking at the carefully arranged flowers, Kotomine's heart was filled with a certain emotion.
He looked at his wife next to him. His feelings did not change, but rather grew stronger.
"Claudia. Why did you wish to see me again?“
”Because I am your wife.“
”...Yes, indeed, we are husband and wife. But listen to me, Claudia. Even in death, even as a Servant, the feelings that swirl around me do not change. I saw you smiling. I am sure that in general we feel happy, but the thought that came to my mind was:
“Kirei.”
Kotomine stopped speaking. The swirling thoughts seemed to stop at the same time. The saint looked straight at the priest.
It's all right," she said. You love us. You love me, and you love Caren."
The moment I heard her words, a forbidding memory was replayed for the priest.
It was a long time ago.
By nature, Kotomine's sense of happiness was inverted from that of other people.
He could not consider general “happiness,” such as people's joy and happiness, to be happiness, no matter how he felt about it.
The fact that he never once felt beautiful with the name “Kirei,” which was given to him by his father, whom he respected, added to his misalignment.
In the midst of being taught by a god who preached absolute morality, he was terribly dismayed at himself for finding happiness only in the suffering and misery of others.
This is the kind of mentality that no priest should have. He had to overcome it at all costs.
With this in mind, he tried a wide range of actions, from the almost self-punishing to the simple. But all of his efforts came up empty.
As his senses overcame everything, he came to a decision. You might call it a tragic resolve after resignation.
He finally decided to have a family. Any man would dream of a home where he could love his wife and children and quietly breathe his last.
He wished he could do so and sought happiness as much as humanly possible, although he did not find a handful of that happiness appealing.
He wanted to enjoy the happiness that ordinary people could experience through the pathway of life called “home,” even though he continued to have contradictory feelings.
It was then that he met her.
Claudia Ortensia.
She was a devout believer to the point that he was impressed, and even though her body was so battered and bruised that she had little time left to live, she never forgot to care for others, and he saw in her the image of a saint.
He decided to start a family with her.
At first, he thought he could perfectly conceal the darkness that swirled around him as he cared for her as they grew closer.
But then one day she pointed out his secret. Caught flat-footed, he immediately apologized and once again explained his history in detail. She listened in silence.
Suddenly, she hugged him.
"You are a kind man. Still, you try to have a family with me."
He did not understand the meaning of the words.
The words that had just been spoken were exactly the words he should have given her.
To his consternation, she smiled again.
"As you know, I don't have long to live. In addition, I am constantly haunted by illnesses, which will no doubt cause me a lot of trouble. You are in constant agony, and all you want is to be as happy as humanly possible. Still, you try to have a family with me? Are you going to spend time with me?"
He had already decided on a response from the moment she met him.
From then on, The couple have worked together closely to overcome a great number of difficulties.
While things often did not go the way they were supposed to, only the wife understood her husband's struggle and rage.
No one else ever again understood his anguish as precisely as she did, and no one else ever again understood to heal him like a saint.
She offered him every emotion and life she had. He, too, tried with all his might to experience true "happiness."
Eventually, the child was born.
But as he looked alternately at the screaming child and the smiling wife, the husband could not help but be appalled at the emotions swirling around him.
No matter how much his rational mind refused to accept it, all his heart desired was the grief and despair of his wife and child.
As he was tormented by impatience and conflict, she, now a mother, asked him once what was on his mind. He immediately replied that he was fine. Before her questioning gaze, Kotomine looked away.
Kotomine looked away from his wife, who was growing weaker by the minute, and their child, whom they had named “Caren,” meaning "可憐.The figure is gentle and beautiful and makes everyone want to protect it.."
It had been two years since he had spent time with them, and the more time passed, the more he tried to love them, the deeper his despair deepened.
And the day finally came.
Kotomine had never once forgotten the day he had to say goodbye to his life.
He entered the room to say goodbye. His wife, who was too weak to get up properly, tried to get up as soon as she saw the look on her husband's face. He ordered her with a look to stop quietly.
Simply and simply, the man told her.
"I couldn't love you."
He looked at her neck, which had grown thin. Instinct told him to touch her, but he shook his head.
He wanted to be sincere, at least for the last time.
It hurt him more than anything not to be able to return ordinary love to her who had been so close to him, whose birth itself had been a mistake.
The fact that she could not fill his lack was more painful than anything else.
Finally, he locked eyes with her. She looked straight into his golden eyes, and he slowly shook his head. He turned his back and stood up.
"No, you love me."
He turned around and was stunned by the sight. Before he knew it, she had picked up a knife. The small knife she held straight out instantly made fresh blood on her skin.
He rushed to her uncontrollably, oblivious to the sound of the chair toppling over at his side. She looked at him and smiled slightly.
"Look, you're crying."
Of course, he was not crying. It just looked that way to her. Before he could respond, the light of her life was extinguished.
At that moment, all the emotions that had held him together to the utmost seemed to disappear. Emotions, life, and even doctrine no longer found significance.
The man left the room in silence and parted from the teachings of the Lord.
His remaining daughter was later taken into the care of a church. The church searched for the daughter's father, but he never came forward.
The man knew what would happen to his daughter if she was raised by a bankrupt.
He sometimes ponders Claudia's dying thoughts.
”What a mess. If she was going to die, I wanted to kill her.”
Was it joy because he wanted to enjoy the woman's death, or sorrow because he wanted to do it because he loved her so much?
The thought of her death, which cuts through his thoughts every time he snatches it from his mind, remains locked away in the back of Kotomine's mind.
Even he, who had vowed to question and kill even my Lord if his own questions would blaspheme God, has stopped answering this thought for good.
A devout believer defies his doctrine and chooses to die himself.
He knew the weight of her resolve. He felt it.
Therefore, the thought that it was meaningless, but not worthless, was also engraved in his very soul.
The recollection ended.
Claudia looked at Kotomine with a similar expression to that time. She waits quietly for his reply, and he replies in a matter-of-fact manner.
"It wasn't love. The feelings I had during my life with you, the feelings I had for your death, and the feelings I had for Caren were all far from peaceful love."
"Still, for me, those two years were an irreplaceable, happy life. From the beginning to the end of that life, I had only one thought. A kind person. I am grateful to you for being by my side for two years without once abandoning me."
"...It is unquestionably you who are full of charity. I took care of you because it was my natural duty as a husband to do so. I was making an effort to love you. It was because that was the only hope you had.
...But now that I think about it, there is a part of me that continued to live my life in order to see my wife and child despair, even if only a little. That's what I mean by a feeling of being far from peaceful love."
Every time I hear his words, the woman in front of me smiles.
Why? The words he just said were definitely not uttered with the intention of pleasing the woman. Where are the elements that make her smile, such as the latter part?. The words he revealed were clearly a confession of despair.
"You see, you love me."
Her words brought back memories of a certain Holy Grail War in Kotomine's brain. It had taken place more than a decade after her death.
There, he had been overseeing the war as a supervisor.
That, of course, was his ostensible position.
Behind the scenes, he has seized the edict of his lord, the Seal Executor, and transferred ownership of Lancer to himself. He also hid the true contractor, the ancient king of Archer, and for 10 years kept the children he was supposed to protect near death in order to feed them to Archer.
Sometimes he would lead surviving boy underground to open his wounds in war, and sometimes he would die for a mistake of command against a lancer.
Whatever happened at the end of it all, he believed, was the result of his own choices.
But in one choice, Kotomine had chosen the past. He was unconsciously revealing memories of his wife, whom he usually tried not to remember.
He once helped a girl who was under a curse with healing magic.
His motive for learning such a masterful magic, which surpassed that of his teacher, was, when you get right down to it, the separation from his wife.
That magic, which was originally out of his jurisdiction, proved to be a good match every time he studied it.
Every time he received praise from his master, he realized the absence of the “object” for whom he should have exercised his magic and recalled the symptoms of the disease that had possessed him, but he suppressed his thoughts.
He also saw a boy struggling to save a girl, and the words that suddenly overflowed him were.
"If the one you save is a woman, don't kill her. It is very painful to see someone die in front of your eyes."
He spoke these words out of kindness, but for him, the woman's death was a wound that had taken root deep in his heart.
Later, after fighting off an old enemy on the way with a baptismal chant and eliminating an skull assassin, Kotomine leaned against a nearby wall.
In his fading consciousness from exhaustion, he saw the woman who had been like a holy mother.
It was unmistakably the woman before Kotomine's eyes.
The question that he had endlessly asked himself, "Why am I, the evil one, still alive?"
"Kirei."
Claudia called out. Claudia's voice was gentle, as if she was trying to help him.
"I know that you met us once again in this world. I know exactly how you and Caren interacted in this place.You have a distorted mind, you say, but you still faced us again. You thought about us.
If you didn't really care about us, you would never have had the thoughts you mentioned. You wouldn't have looked at us with that terrible expression on your face when you said what you really felt.
Besides, you would have left us immediately and gone far away. I think that's the answer.
Suddenly, there was a glimmer of sunlight.
“Oh my...?”
At Claudia's words, Kotomine looked at her as if she had been played. Her form gradually took on a shimmering appearance.
This phenomenon. He have seen this phenomenon many times in many different belts of hearsay.
"Claudia...!"
She quickly took his hand, and after rolling her eyes, she smiled gently. Kotomine looked away at that smile.
"Mother...!"
Caren, who had been hiding in the shadows, also jumped out when she saw her mother's condition. She held her free hand in hers as if to wrap it around her, a state reminiscent of the three of us indoors.
"So...my wish came true and now I've been picked up."
"I don't want to. I don't want to be separated from you so soon after we've met like this...!"
"No, I'm not going to disappear."
“...what?”
"Don't forget that I will always be with you."
Claudia hugged them both and dropped a gentle kiss on each of their foreheads.
"You're not convincing enough."
"Hey, Do you continue to have such an attitude even at a time like this?"
"
I have no idea what you're talking about, Caren."
"You're right, Kirei. I think I forgot to mention something important."
The smile they saw at this time was like the sun.
"I love you all. I love you more than anything in the world, more than God. Meeting you was my very happiness. Thank you both for being born."
Her body gradually became one with the sky.
As the sun overhead grew brighter, Kotomine saw the smile of a saintly woman. Her fingertips traced her cheek.
Kotomine embraced Claudia. An inexplicable driving force was pushing him forward.
Her mouth arched as their foreheads touched each other. He stared at her and then spoke his hidden true feelings.
"I envy those who enjoy love. because they accept without sorrow the very happiness that I have never been able to experience. But even if I cannot feel love, even if my nature is malignant, it was not a mistake to have met you, Claudia, in my life. Your death, too, is not worthless.
Claudia Ortensia. I was indeed saved by you, and my life was defined by you. As long as I am me, that fact will never change.
Now that I think about it, I will always think of you.
Claudia. It seems that I love you, in my own way."
Claudia Ortensia. I was indeed saved by you, and my life was defined by you. As long as I am me, that fact will never change.
Now that I think about it, I will always think of you.
Claudia. It seems that I love you, in my own way."
Instead of replying, Claudia gave Kotomine's lips a blessing. As her smile deepened, he put his arm around his wife's back. Her back was warm. Her hair was also touchable.
Their gazes met. At this moment, they were definitely a couple in love with each other.
After a moment, Claudia patted Caren's head as she buried her face in her own clothes.
"Caren. Your cheerful love for me cheers me up more than anything else. I wish you many more adventures with your friends and with those you care about. Your mother will always wish you well.“
”Mother, my dear mother, I will continue to be a preacher of love. Please watch over me."
Caren and Claudia smiled at each other, and then a gust of wind blew, signaling the end.
As the surrounding landscape was swallowed up by the wind and the sun's rays, the three family members leaned tightly together, not letting go of each other.
Kotomine's consciousness surfaced. In his mind's eye, Claudia's smiling face was constantly on his mind.
The inorganic ceiling came into view. This was Chaldea, and he was the Servant who had answered the Master's summons.
At first he was called Father Rasputin by everyone, but as time passed, his name changed to Father Kotomine Kirei.
He was called out, and as soon as he saw his daughter in front of him, even he had to shut his mouth.
He instantly checked the time and found that the clock read five o'clock in the morning. He continued to open the drawers in his room and found that the Craft Essence was sleeping without a problem.
Ortensia.
It is hard to describe how he felt when he saw this Craft Essence for the first time. Before he knew it, he found himself in possession of it and continued to stare at her in his room.
Thinking back on it, she was a person with a smile on her face.
For a while, he decided to ignore her gaze, which he felt every time he went out into the hallway.
When he sees his daughter celebrating their love, he remembers the dream Claudia told him about.
When he sees his daughter, he remembers Claudia in his mind.
When he sees Craft Essence Ortensia, he remembers the days they spent together and his feelings for her.
Until he met her, Kotomine had assumed that this phenomenon was caused by sentimentality.
Now, however, he is certain that he was looking back at the memories out of a single, unmistakable emotion.
Kotomine carefully put her formal attire away in her cassock and opened the door. He headed for the control room at three times his normal speed. When he reached his destination, he activated the dedicated ray-shift device in seconds.
Apparently, he was not the only one feeling nostalgia for Italy. The machine displayed the number of people marked for two people.
As soon as he lay-shifted, the sight of predecessor praying spread across his field of vision.
"It's late, Kotomine Kirei."
Caren was holding a bright hydrangea. For example, in the rain, the hydrangea blooming in a pure, correct, beautiful and colorful way easily reminded me of his wife's smile.
"I'll take one bunch."
Caren backed away when she received the words, but Kotomine muttered nonchalantly, "I won't be indifferent to the flowers."
"I don't hold the flowers in contempt. Because the hydrangeas remind me of her. Caren, your mother used to gaze happily at the Italian cityscape."
Kotomine held a bunch of hydrangeas in his hand with a faint smile on his face. His smile was not the priestly smile he usually smiled, but a natural smile.
As he moved on, Karen asked him where he was going.
He replied, "I'm just going to take a whimsical look around Italy to thank my wife for the smile she just gave me...sometimes, Caren. There was something I failed to mention to you earlier.
Caren Ortensia. My only daughter and conduit of love. I love you in my own way. Daughter, continue to spread your love to the world."
“...what's gotten into you??”
"It's just as they say. What, sometimes it is not bad to walk with my daughter."
"...I won't reply.“
”Fine. I'm talking to myself."
Caren follows Kotomine as he begins to walk at a steady pace.
Her body has a subjected mediumship inherited from her mother. Working to exorcise demons along with her body, which is wounded daily, she lives her life based on her faith in God.
It was the only way for her to survive.
As soon as I can remember, a priest in the church told me the story of my mother's life.
He told me that your mother, who was sickly and frail, was recorded as having committed murder by stealing things, when in fact she had committed suicide.
She believes that the seemingly unnatural record must have been made by her missing father.
In the church, suicide is against the Lord's teachings.
It is not hard to imagine the uproar that would be caused if word got out that a devout member of the congregation had taken that action.
Her honor, her life, everything would come to nothing.
In other words, at the end of her painful life, my mother found enough significance to throw away her entire life, to disobey the Lord.
But for Caren, that was not a problem. .
For the “daughter of the harlot who made a deal with hell,” whatever the truth of her mother's actions or her father's craftsmanship, it did not change the fact that both parents had left their infant child behind.
In addition, Caren, who holds the Lord's teachings as absolute, could not have feelings for her parents, who both had genuine faith but had disobeyed the Lord.
Indifference. That, so to speak, was the best she could do for her parents.
However, once she came into the world as a Servant and encountered her parents, whom she never expected to meet, her response naturally changed.
When Father Rasputin was summoned, Caren was standing by with a bazooka. Soon after, the priest appeared with a rainbow-colored circle.
After the customary complaint, the priest looked around. The moment his eyes met Karen's, the priest made a reluctant face.
She immediately shot a bazooka at him, but he avoided it without difficulty.
Still, he continued to look at her.
She remember his words to her face one day when he said to her, "You don't look anything like her except for your face."
-I am sure that he will be chasing after the image of her for the rest of his life without being aware of it.
Caren was the first to avert her gaze.
In contrast to the stunned Master, he was completely unmoved. The inorganic gaze directed at her continued to be felt until she entered the room.
Once in the room, Caren leaned her body against the wall. She praised various kinds of love, but only in regard to that priest, she thought it needed to be considered.
Also, she would be lying if I said that her emotions were not shaken when she saw Ortensia's Craft Essence in Chaldea.
It was not because of her mother's smile, which she saw for the first time.
It was because the description that appeared when she held up the vestments to the heavens indicated that it was a turning point in that priest's life.
For some time after that, she observed the priest as such, but he thoroughly avoided her. He seemed to be bothered by her even being in his line of vision.
He was a very obvious person. At the same time, Caren thought, he was more foolish than anything else.
Not long after that, Caren met her mother. The irregularity of her mother suddenly appeared in a routine that was supposed to be fulfilling a predetermined role.
It was the usual rounds.
As an administrator, it is natural to ask how people are doing.
Among the many people praying, Caren suddenly spotted an unfamiliar figure.
A woman with white hair that flowed like her own. She was praying to heaven more fervently and devoutly than anyone else. As she spoke, Caren raised an eyebrow.
As she approached her, golden eyes, the like of which she had never seen before, stared at Caren. She instantly realized.
She was not dressed in Craft Essence at all, but was unmistakably her mother in the flesh.
"...Caren? Is that you? ...Caren Ortensia, is that you?"
She nodded and hugged Caren as hard as she could. With thin arms that looked as if they would disappear at any moment, she still hugged Caren as hard as she could.
The moment Caren received her mother's defense, she decided on her future course of action.
Although she had always tried to stay away from her parents, she had never stopped dreaming of meeting them face to face. Caren felt as if the singing voice of her mother, which had been lying dormant in the depths of her memory, had enveloped her.
Surely, this encounter was nothing but the Lord's guidance.
Those who take their own lives are said to go to purgatory, where they cannot enter the gates of heaven. There they will suffer eternal torment.
But now I am its administrator. The greed sphere is a place where the stronger the subject's desire, the stronger the price to pay.
"What is your desire?"
Claudia instantly answered Caren's question.
"I want to see Kotomine Kirei again, even if it's just for a glance."
It was a stormy time before he arrived. She hurriedly sent an urgent message addressed to Father, led Mother to the administrator's residence, and put her through to the visitors' room.
When she saw the organ and the statue of the Virgin, she prayed the same prayer as before. Her prayer was as serene as a saint's, but with consistent conviction.
All for the happiness of her loved ones.
The “significance enough to disobey the Lord” was her very love for him.
Soon after, the priest came.
The hydrangea in her hand swayed in the wind.
After everything was over and she woke up, Caren immediately went to the control room. She carefully tucked her formal wear into the pocket of her attire so as not to lose it.
After completing her lay shift without any problems, she made an impromptu bouquet of flowers using hydrangeas planted in the garden. Once back in her room, she tied a ribbon from her desk to the bouquet.
When she returned to her original location, the sun was shining on the area. The area is lined with brick houses, and the sun's rays penetrate every nook and cranny.
It would not be long before Father arrived.
Silently, Caren continued to pray for her mother's well-being.
Just because I became a Servant does not mean that my birth and what came after will be lost. The person she is now is merely a crossroads on a certain path.
Still, Caren continues to pray.
She is grateful that her mother included her without hesitation in the definition of her loved ones.
The actions of her mother, who gave her so much love in a short time, made Caren a “daughter” in a very small way.
She felt certain that she was a “daughter” of a father who was distorted but loving, and a mother who expressed her love with every fiber of her being.
Looking back at the path he had taken so far, Caren looked at his father walking in front of him. His walking speed was slower than usual.
She and her father will never be able to understand each other, but she still feels the same way about her mother, even if the way she feels about her mother is different.
She thought back to the flicker in her father's eyes as she watched her mother disappear. Oh, I didn't want to admit that we were father and daughter at this point.
"I affirm all kinds of love, but shall I admit that the love between my father and mother is complicated and monstrous? ...No, I do not. I had forgotten that their love, as complicated as it seems, is so simple."
Caren stares at Kotomine's back. Perhaps it was the refraction of the strong sunlight, but for a moment she thought he caught a glimpse of his mother leaning close to him.
"As an evangelist of love, I am compelled to support you. Lord, please bless our mother who continues to pray between us, between the two of us. May their love be everlasting."
The hydrangea she held swayed in the wind again as if responding to her thoughts.
Caren looked up and saw that her father, who had been walking ahead of her, had stopped before she knew it. She carefully re-carried the bouquet of hydrangeas and took a step forward to catch up with him.
A gentle Italian wind gently pushed them back.
From somewhere, she thought she heard the nostalgic voice of Claudia singing a hymn.