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skeletonpunching · 6 years ago

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Vatican Miracle Examiner book recap - The Apostles Without Original Sin

Or the one where Hiraga and Roberto go to Japan, and then… uh.

Things this book definitely contains: Hiraga being adorable, your regular dose of Roberto whump, shady Vatican politics, lots of esoteric science and history, and spoilers for stuff past the anime.

Beyond that, I grow uncertain.

This post has been in the works for a very long time, partly because I found the plot of this book pretty confusing, even by VME standards.

The publisher’s official summary:

At Amakusa in Kumamoto Prefecture, a snowstorm is observed in midsummer, and a massive cross suddenly rises into the sky. At the same time, an ocean explorer who was shipwrecked in the sea nearby claims, "I was rescued by a beautiful black-haired angel." Hiraga and Roberto begin their miracle examination, but even more enigmatic mysteries and codes surface in the land of Amakusa, suffused with the remnants of the Hidden Christians’ faith. What is the truth behind the legend of Amakusa Shirou?

As always, I am a mere mortal and can only do my best to capture the glory.

(This is more of a standalone episode than some others, but you may want to read my previous recaps to get the lowdown on a new recurring character, Dr. Chandra Singh.)

This book is a slow burn, especially compared to the others I’ve recapped. That is to say, there’s a lot of great character stuff, but there isn’t as high a concentration of “what the hell is happening” on a page-to-page basis. It absolutely gets weird, but the nature and extent of that weirdness isn’t as upfront from the start.

Reading this book was like sailing a boat through the fog, squinting at the faint outlines I glimpsed in the distance and wondering if they were just my imagination, until I crashed straight into the iceberg and started sinking. I hope you’ll stick with me.

And on that nautical note...

The prologue introduces us to Robinson Baker, a 26-year-old American ocean explorer. He’s fit and bronzed and has appeared in fashion magazines, but lest you think he’s just a pretty face, he’s made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs won the Vendée Globe, a solo non-stop yacht race around the world.

Now he’s sailing his yacht solo across the Pacific for a magazine piece on “Pursuing the Legend of Prester John”. Robinson himself isn’t really religious, but reading the legend as a kid was what made him aspire to be an ocean explorer.

He’s currently heading towards Japan; he has no particular interest in Japan either, but the magazine editors made him write that “the kingdom of Prester John might possibly be Japan”, for clickbait reasons I guess. Mostly he’s looking forward to partying with his adoring fans at a swanky hotel.

This is interrupted by a typhoon warning. Robinson is pretty confident it won’t be any trouble, but as the typhoon approaches without weakening and the boat starts rattling ominously, it occurs to him that maybe he’s miscalculated. He considers calling for help, but then decides against it because he’s too attached to his reputation as a badass. He can handle this! He’s hardcore! Time to shut himself in the cabin and struggle with his growing dread!

The storm, unimpressed by his level of hardcore, overturns his boat. He’s still at least 15 km from land. Before the water pressure can trap him inside the cabin of the sinking yacht, Robinson makes his best decision so far and, wearing a life-jacket, he throws himself into the sea - “the sea he loved more than anything, which was now betraying him”. I’d accuse him of being melodramatic, but honestly it seems justified.

Something hits him on the back of the head and knocks him out, which at least saves him from making any more bad decisions.

When he wakes up and finds himself still adrift, he prays to God for the first time in his life, and in that instant he sees a pale light that doesn’t look like a lighthouse or buoy. He paddles towards it with his remaining strength, and as his consciousness ebbs, he sees: a miracle! The glowing figure of Jesus Christ is floating above the surface of the pitch-black ocean, wearing a crown of thorns and holding a shepherd’s staff!

Robinson swims towards it, having a religious epiphany the whole time, and finally makes it to shore. He thanks God, and the figure of Christ vanishes into the darkness, leaving Robinson alone on a deserted beach. He’s too exhausted to budge any further. Guess he’ll freeze to death here! But then:

A beautiful angel came walking along the beach, long black hair fluttering.

With a tender smile, the angel gently touched Robinson’s body.

Robinson is engulfed in a sense of warmth and relief, and passes out.

We will be returning to Robinson, which is why I’ve recapped the prologue so extensively.

But for now, we head to the Vatican, which recently decided that IT dungeons weren’t enough and added some CODEBREAKING dungeons. Previously, members of different religious orders weren’t able to collaborate or discuss their work across party lines. But Saul has been working on implementing reforms, like establishing the new “Forbidden Documents Research Division” (mentioned in Norway book), which brings together scholars from various factions and ranks to decipher old Vatican texts that have been sealed away in the archives for ages.

Roberto, naturally, is part of this elite new codebreaking division. But Vatican transparency only goes so far - the names of the members aren’t publicised, and they aren’t actually allowed to interact with each other. They’re locked in separate rooms and have to get the guard to let them out when they want to leave. Roberto isn’t really bothered by this because hey, old books!

He was deeply proud to have been selected as a member, and it put him in high spirits. But at the same time, he suspected that Archbishop Saul had created this department with some sort of deep plan in mind.

Oh well, no point worrying about Vatican politics when there’s NERDING OUT to be done. Roberto is deciphering a classified document about a ceremony at Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey on Easter 1633. Somehow Roberto makes the mental leap to the fact that Galileo’s trial for heresy took place in 1633, and this gets him thinking about how the church suppressed all this cutting-edge knowledge.

In this way, the knowledge that was “hunted down” had grown into vast archives of classified material. These had been hoarded in the Vatican - which had led the Roman Inquisition - and the headquarters of the various Catholic orders.

Hadn’t this been fuelled by an extraordinary possessiveness and desire to monopolise knowledge? No, that was too mild a way of putting it. It must have been something like a frenzy - a maddening passion.

Roberto was aware that he himself possessed such passion, and so he could understand these people.

Through trial and error, he hits upon using the Lullian Circle to decode the document - he constructs his own Lullian Circle, and when he encounters some cryptic string of characters, he treats it as a substitution cipher. By lining up the three concentric circles of the Lullian Circle and considering the associations between the words, he can unpack a range of complex meaning from just nine characters, and he manages to decode the whole document this way. Basically he is being very smart and I’m not doing justice to it.

The document turns out to be about a ritual performed by “the ones illuminated by light”. Roberto is alarmed, because he realises that this is VME and of course “Those who referred to themselves as such were none other than the Illuminati.” The Illuminati predates the Catholic orders; it formed among the Roman ruling classes, influenced by Egyptian mythology, and so it turns out that there was worship of Isis and Horus going on right there in the abbey.

It occurs to Roberto that the Jesuits use the emblem “IHS”, which allegedly stands for “Iesus Hominum Salvator” - but it also happens to be the initials of the three Egyptian deities Isis, Horus, and Set.

Was this merely a coincidence?

Sure, it could be, but why go with the tiny-brain explanation? It could also be a sign of the DARK INFLUENCE OF THE ILLUMINATI in the Catholic Church.

If the forbidden documents continued to be deciphered, this was bound to come to light eventually - and then the extent of their influence over the Catholic world would inevitably become clear.

What on earth is Archbishop Saul planning?

He’s probably laying the groundwork to flush out the dark powers that have spread throughout the Vatican…

But that’s far too dangerous…

Roberto decides to shelve this thought for now and just do his job. He writes his report, has lunch delivered to the room, and takes a break to have judgemental thoughts about how the latte is cold and the panini are tough and it’s all very unpalatable.

Hey, maybe it’s time for the actual plot to start! Roberto leaves the codebreaking dungeon at 8 pm, and sees that he’s gotten an email from Hiraga: “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.” Roberto figures that Hiraga is probably still in the lab (guys, please, it’s 8 pm, stop making everyone look bad), and calls him.

“Yes, this is Hiraga- ah!”

From the other end of the line came the sound of something heavy falling over.

“You... what’s wrong?”

“No, nothing at all, please don’t mind it. More importantly, Father Roberto, did you see my email?”

“I did. You said there’s something you want to discuss?”

“Yes. I’m sorry to bother you when you’re so busy, but…”

Hiraga launches straight into rambling about the discovery of a cross in the sea near Goa. He’s “rattling on at the velocity of a runaway train” when Roberto clears his throat and cuts in. “It’s getting late, so if you like, how about we have dinner at my place and you can tell me about it slowly?” Hiraga thinks this is a “wonderful proposal”, hangs up, and soon shows up in person, out of breath.

Roberto cooks a delicious meal of lamb chops, grilled vegetables, risotto, and some smoked salmon appetisers, while listening to his favourite bossa nova music, because this man doesn’t know how to chill. But I guess when you have an appreciative audience...

“It smells excellent. Thank you for always cooking such splendid meals, Father Roberto. I find it incredible that you can make such elaborate dishes in your own kitchen,” Hiraga said admiringly.

“No, they’re not really that elaborate.”

“Is that so? They seem very complicated to me…”

Hiraga began to scrutinise the table closely, as though examining the subject of an investigation. Seeing this, Roberto hastily spoke.

“Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

“Yes,” Hiraga said, and went on with a bright smile.

"Father Roberto, I'm sorry for always imposing on you like this. My house is currently undergoing renovations. I will invite you over once they are completed."

What?! Roberto thought, reflexively doubting his ears.

Hiraga was utterly unconcerned with matters of everyday life, and dwelt placidly in a house that had transformed into a mountain of trash. The news that he was undertaking renovations was truly astonishing.

Knowing him, he was probably planning on constructing a laboratory in his house.

"Is that so? I look forward to it," Roberto replied with a vague smile.

Hiraga eats a bit of his food, and then starts going on about the mysterious cross again. It washed up in some fishermen’s nets, and when appraised, it turned out to be hollow, containing a cache of Catholic ritual stuff. This includes a “holy belt”, which is embroidered with the crest of the person who had it made, but Hiraga can’t identify it, so he wanted to consult Roberto.

Hiraga takes out his laptop to show Roberto a picture of the crest, and “Roberto took that moment to sneak a lamb chop onto Hiraga’s dish.”

Then he takes a look at the picture and oh, very simple, it’s Gregorius XIII. Of course. This turns into talking about Malachy’s Prophecy of the Popes, and this quality exposition really gets Hiraga going.

Hiraga leant forward across the table; Roberto looked pointedly at the food and said, “Do eat for now.”

Hiraga absentmindedly took a mouthful of risotto, and bit into the lamb chop.

Roberto mentions how the prophecies have been used as propaganda by power-hungry church officials who wanted to get elected pope.

Hiraga wore an expression of disbelief.

To a pure person like him, it was practically undreamt of that people would maliciously manipulate the hearts of others - let alone in the Vatican, the nation of God.

[...]

“Is that so… One could say that Catholicism is currently facing an upheaval, but at least there aren’t any new phony prophecies circulating. I’m glad.”

Hiraga beamed and took a drink of his wine.

Roberto, who had lately been reading nothing but forbidden books about savagery, felt himself awash in gratitude at having a partner as pure as Hiraga.

The reason why Hiraga did not notice the malice of others was because he himself harboured no malice.

When talking to this friend, Roberto felt as though he was cleansed of the dirt of the world.

Roberto’s face softened, and he continued eating.

From tomorrow onwards, I’ll try to take things easier. I’ll go out for lunch at least, and if the timing works out, I’ll invite Hiraga to dinner. Even as an apostle of God, I should be entitled to enjoy life.

As he was thinking this, Hiraga spoke up.

“Roberto, how are things going at the Forbidden Documents Research Division?”

“Mm, so-so. The work itself isn’t too different from what I usually do. It’s just that every day I have a feeling of tension, like it’s hard to breathe.”

“That sounds difficult. If there is anything I can do to help, please say the word.”

“Sure, I will.” Roberto nodded.

“This just occurred to me, but from now on, won’t you be busy whenever I’m sent on miracle examinations? Will I end up being partnered with someone else?”

“I wonder. It’s up to Archbishop Saul to say, but after all, my ultimate duty is as a miracle examiner. If I’m sent on an official mission, I’ll gladly comply.”

“I see. So that’s how it is.”

Neither of them expected that an opportunity to resolve their doubts would arrive so soon.

Haha, okay, NOW it’s actually time for the plot! Two days later, Saul summons them and gives them the mission: they’re going to Japan to investigate the miracle of a midsummer blizzard in Amakusa, and a giant cross that appeared in the sky and then vanished. Oh, and there’s also a young American who’s been yelling about how a glowing image of Christ and an angel appeared and saved his life, a few days before that.

Hiraga is very into this miracle and wants to go check it out as soon as possible, but Saul points out that there are… complications. The Vatican received an investigation request from a church in Amakusa, which is run by Jesuits; if it’s verified, they want to build a church near the site of the miracle. But our excitable American friend has been in touch with the Franciscan church in his California hometown, and they also submitted a petition to the Vatican; if it’s legit, they want to embark upon missionary work in Amakusa. So there have been some dick-measuring contests negotiations between the Franciscans (to which Roberto and Hiraga belong) and the Jesuits.

The higher-ups discussed it, and decided that Roberto and Hiraga were the most qualified to deal with this level of Weird Shit. Well, the real clincher is that it happened in Japan, so Hiraga seems like the obvious choice. But our heroes will be hosted by the local Jesuit priests, and this level of cooperation between different orders is kind of an anomaly.

“So we’ll be heading to Japan tomorrow, huh? I’m looking forward to this much more than the usual miracle examinations,” Roberto said cheerfully, as they set off down the corridor.

“Why is that?” Hiraga asked, puzzled.

“You’re of Japanese descent, aren’t you? You could say it’s the country where you have your roots. I’m interested in it.”

Hiraga let out a long sigh.

“About that - I’m very uneasy.”

“Why?”

“I myself am unsure whether I’m that familiar with Japan. Even though it’s my grandfather’s birthplace, I only ever visited the country when I was a child…” Hiraga muttered. “Just now, Archbishop Saul said, ‘The location being Japan was the deciding factor; it was settled that Father Hiraga was the most qualified’ - when I heard that, I thought my heart would stop.”

Hiraga had straight black hair and black almond-shaped eyes. His skin was fair, but unlike a Westerner’s complexion, it was the tint of ivory. His slender, petite frame was another of the many obvious features of his Japanese heritage. Even at the Seat of the Disciple, many people knew him as “the Japanese priest”.

But in fact, Hiraga did not know Japan especially well. It was merely that his parents were both of Japanese descent, and so they had also spoken Japanese in the household.

“By the way, Roberto, do you know Japanese?”

At Hiraga’s question, Roberto grimaced.

“Japanese is difficult - I haven’t been able to tackle it. European languages share the same roots, so I can learn them without too much trouble, but Japanese is one of the world’s most difficult languages. I won’t be able to step up as interpreter this time.”

“Then, I’ll have to translate Japanese, won’t I…”

“I’ll be in your care.”

“Yes… I’m not really confident about that, but I will at least spend tonight studying hard,” Hiraga said with a small shrug.

As it turns out, they’re welcomed by local priests who speak Latin, so Hiraga is spared for now. Roberto wastes no time getting judgemental when one of the local priests, Kitami, has the audacity to smile at him.

His smile was merely an upward curve of his thin lips; those eyes did not smile.

A cunning man, Roberto thought.

Hiraga, meanwhile, is listening to another local priest (Nishimaru) talk about how the four junior priests at the church all went to seminary together and have been friends since.

They drive to the local church; Roberto, whose knowledge of Japan is mostly limited to the urban landscapes of Tokyo and Kyoto, thinks that this peaceful rural scenery reminds him of some corner of Southeast Asia.

Hiraga got out of the car with a spring in his step, and murmured delightedly, “It looks like my grandfather’s hometown.”

They’re introduced to Father Gerard, the guy in charge, and the other two young priests, Nanjou and Andou. (At this point, I start rooting for some of them to die soon so I don’t have to keep track of all these names. I can reassure you that most of their names aren’t actually important, but they each contain one of the cardinal directions - Nishimaru is west, Kitami is north, Nanjou and Andou are South and East - which I thought was a pretty hilarious bit of theme naming.)

The youngsters make sure to introduce themselves as being “from the Society of Jesus”, which rubs Roberto the wrong way. Uh, waiter, how did this political intrigue get in his nerdery

“Thank you for your warm welcome. Although we belong to the Franciscan order, we are priests serving the same God as you. The current Pope himself is from the Society of Jesus, but I understand that he dispatched us Franciscans here in hopes of a more impartial investigation. We will investigate this incident with wholehearted commitment, in order to be worthy of the trust His Holiness has placed in us.”

Father Gerard smirked cynically.

“To be frank, it came as a surprise that they were sending Franciscan miracle examiners. But I, too, have received direct instructions from the Jesuit higher-ups to cooperate with you. Since that is how the matter was settled, I intend to abide by my superiors’ decision.”

“You have our heartfelt gratitude for your cooperation,” Roberto replied without missing a beat.

“By the way, when can we go to the site of the miracle?” Hiraga interjected from the side.

They’ll have to wait till tomorrow for the boat, but in the meantime, they can settle in and talk to Robinson, who is staying in the same lodgings as them. It’s an inn on the outskirts of the village, run by a guy named Yoshioka, who’s very honoured to be hosting actual priests from the Vatican.

Yoshioka tells them about how Kamishima - the small uninhabited island where the miracle actually took place, off the coast of Amakusa - has always been rumoured to be cursed. Residents include: a frightening deity named Mahiru, spirits such as ghost lights and oil pressers, and poisonous snakes. Fun times.

Our heroes meet Robinson, who is wearing a yukata and sitting seiza-style, and greets them in Japanese. Hiraga, too, sits down seiza-style and bows his head. Robinson seems deeply stirred by this image, and goes, “Oooh… What a charming priest.” (Roberto, at a loss, imitates Hiraga’s posture, but his legs immediately start to hurt.)

Robinson tearfully recounts the story of his near-death experience - how he was saved by the glowing figure of Christ and then a beautiful angel with long fluttering hair, and survived to be picked up by a passing fishing boat.

“By the way, Mr. Robinson, even though the island is uninhabited, that does not necessarily refute the existence of the angel.”

“So you believe me, Father Hiraga?”

“Yes. I have no reason not to believe,” Hiraga replied with a smile.

“I see… Everyone I talked to said it was all just in my head, and I was starting to be convinced myself. But with you believing me, I feel like I’ve been saved. Thank you, Father Hiraga,” Robinson said joyfully.

Robinson, dude, he’s married, slow your roll

Then our heroes go to their room, where we’re treated to more culture shock with Roberto Nicolas. He’s startled that there’s no furniture - no bed, no desk, no sofa. Meanwhile, Hiraga’s only qualm is that they need to set up wifi, so he can be a nerd at all hours.

Hiraga cheerfully explains what a kotatsu is - you can write on it, you can lie down when you’re tired, and it heats the room in winter.

“I see…”

When Hiraga was at home, he would occasionally sit on the floor rather than using the sofa, and would roll about on the floor. Roberto now understood that this was due to Japan’s culture of using the kotatsu.

Then Hiraga explains what tatami is to Roberto, who needs a pile of cushions to settle down and remarks, “I have trouble with the way you’re sitting. Is it considered rude in Japan to sit with your legs crossed Arabian-style?” Hiraga reassures him that it’s perfectly fine.

Hiraga is apparently in full travel-show-host mode, because he decides to make tea.

Hiraga: There’s a tea chest here. I’ll brew some tea.

Roberto: You will? That’s rare.

Hiraga: I do know the general method for brewing tea. You steam it a little, like this. But you may find Japanese tea bitter.

Roberto: Excuse me, I do know a thing or two about Japanese tea. Asian teas which are rich in catechin and vitamins have been getting a lot of attention in Rome lately. There are even baristas who specialise in Japanese tea. The different varieties of Japanese tea are bancha, sencha, houjicha, genmaicha, kukicha, gyokuro, matcha… and so on. So, what kind of tea are you brewing right now?

Hiraga, softly: I don’t know. I’ve never thought about the different kinds of tea. I figured that if it was light green, it was green tea, and if it was light brown, it was regular tea.

Then they go to dinner, where they meet Yuuko, their host’s daughter who also works at the inn. She’s young and beautiful and demure, and blushes when her father talks about how sweet she is and proud he is of her.

“That girl truly feels like a model of Japanese womanhood,” Roberto murmured admiringly.

“How so, exactly?” Hiraga inquired, puzzled.

“She’s quiet and gentle, and seems shy and obedient.”

“Is that so? There are many Westerners who hold this image of Japanese women, but all the Japanese women I know are surprisingly strong-willed.”

“Oh? I really can’t see it.”

Roberto shrugged.

Roberto, man, don’t be one of THOSE guys.

At this point, Yoshioka serves them a dish piled high with sashimi, which awes and intimidates them. Hiraga objects that they’re priests and really don’t need such lavish food, and also, he’s worried about whether Roberto can handle eating sashimi. But it turns out to be fresh and tasty, and they eat half of it before Hiraga starts feeling the strain.

And then Yoshioka brings out the rest of the meal, which is a massive donburi full of rice and fish sauce.

Hiraga broke out in a cold sweat.

“...Roberto, I’m sorry, but my stomach has reached its limit.”

Hiraga set his chopsticks down on the table.

“Honestly, me too. But the fish sauce is pretty tasty. How about you try a bite? The flavour is different, so maybe it’ll put you in a new mood and you can enjoy the food.”

Roberto reached for the fish sauce, looking a little relieved.

“You’re talking strangely. My mood has no effect on my stomach capacity,” Hiraga muttered, suppressing a hiccup.

The two of them agree that this is just Too Much for them, and Hiraga should go request that Yoshioka halve their portions from now on. I almost feel like I don’t need the casefic plot, I would be fine with the Roberto and Hiraga Travelogue forever.

But the casefic plot wants to remind us that it exists, because suddenly, while Hiraga is talking to Yoshioka, Roberto sees a mysterious figure standing stock-still outside the window. It’s a young Japanese girl with pale skin and black hair, dressed in white, and she’s staring expressionlessly at him.

A chill runs down Roberto’s spine, but presumably because he hasn’t seen The Ring, he doesn’t freak out and nope the hell out of there. He glances around, but no one else seems to have noticed the girl’s presence, and when he looks back, she’s gone.

Hiraga returns and asks what’s wrong, and Roberto deflects, because of course he does.

Meanwhile, our American friend Robinson is bored. He’d rather be partying in California, not out here in the sticks where there’s one karaoke bar and it closes at 10 pm. He can’t even chat up his adoring friends in California, because of time differences. Robinson has gotten very fond of Japan, but this is a real issue.

Robinson decides to engage in the classic American pastime of getting drunk and setting off fireworks without permission, and that’s exactly what he does. He tries to drive back to the inn after this, but gets lost in a creepy forest.

This reminds Robinson that he watched an anime movie a few days ago, about spirits living in the Japanese forest. So naturally he should go check out the forest right now! Our intrepid explorer finds a bunch of old houses surrounded by graves, and then his flashlight goes out. He’s trying not to freak out, but then he hears a slithering noise like a giant snake, and an unearthly flickering ball of flame appears before him. The flame is held in a disembodied dark green hand, like a zombie’s.

Robinson loses it and bolts for the car, and heads straight to our heroes to yell about this.

It’s 4 am, and Roberto was planning to sleep in a bit more, but Robinson is clearly panicking; he clings to Hiraga’s arm and pleads, “H-help me!” He raves about having seen a phantom and been possessed by it, and Roberto blesses him with holy water until he settles down enough to describe what he saw. Robinson adds that he used to visit haunted places with his friends just for fun, but he never saw anything, and they called him “Robinson the Fearless” - but apparently now he can see God AND he’s plagued by demons too? He doesn’t want this, guys.

Hiraga says, “No, I believe that you may have encountered a legendary lifeform.” Roberto has no idea what he’s talking about. Hiraga explains that after Yoshioka mentioned the oil presser spirits earlier, he did some research online. They’re youkai that manifest as hands holding oil or fire, and there’s no record of them causing harm to humans, they just give them a fright. Robinson doesn’t really get it, but he goes along with the explanation.

Hiraga nodded in satisfaction, and looked over at Roberto.

“So even Father Roberto, with his extensive trove of knowledge about folklore, isn't familiar with Japanese youkai?”

Roberto stared back at Hiraga, astonished.

“No, well, youkai are basically creatures like Yeti and Mothman, aren’t they? So because I don’t know about Japanese youkai, you’ve been staying up late to research this?”

“Yes, that’s right. I borrowed some compilations of local folklore from Mr. Yoshioka, and I’ve been reading them,” Hiraga said, indicating several books next to his pillow.

“......”

“It’s not out of mere curiosity. Ghost lights and oil pressers - they’re both spirits related to combustion phenomena. And so I thought that they might have something to do with the glowing image of Christ, and the mysterious shining cross. Usually you would be the one to tell me about this kind of information, but I can’t ask you to read Japanese materials.”

“I see, so that’s it. You suddenly started talking about something so unlike you - that was quite a shock.”

Roberto patted his chest in relief.

Robinson is excited that Hiraga believes in spirits; Hiraga reasons that there’s no concrete evidence refuting their existence either, so he can’t deny it. Robinson, who has apparently recovered from his terror, starts enthusing about how wonderfully exotic youkai are. He thought there was no real point being an explorer in the 21st century, since there are no more undiscovered frontiers, no more romanticism and the thrill of the unknown - but look at these delightful mysteries! God must have shown him this phantom to send him an important message!

As Robinson was getting carried away by his impulsive fancies, Roberto let out a brief sigh.

“Mr. Robinson, just what do you think God is telling you by showing you that phantom?”

“He’s given me a mission, of course! To stay in Japan and explore its unknown parts, and introduce all these marvellous youkai,” Robinson answered cheerfully.

“...ah, I see. You’re a modern Lafcadio Hearn, then.”

Roberto’s words were laden with sarcasm.

Unfortunately, Roberto’s sick burn is wasted on Robinson, who has never heard of Lafcadio Hearn. (Neither had I, to be fair.) Roberto explains that he was a journalist who researched Japanese folklore and catalogued ghost stories, like the story of Houichi the Earless.

At this moment, Hiraga blinked uneasily, and he muttered softly, “Roberto, could you stop talking about Houichi the Earless?”

“Why?” Roberto asked.

“Well, Father Hiraga saying that just makes me even more curious about this earless so-and-so. I definitely want to know, Father Roberto,” Robinson said, his eyes shining.

Hiraga would occasionally get scared by things that were basically trivial. Roberto decided to tease him a little.

“Then, at Mr. Robinson’s request, I’ll tell the story.”

I can’t tell the story better than Roberto or Wikipedia. The really important thing is Roberto being a shit.

Roberto paused dramatically. In that moment of suspense, there came the clatter of Hiraga’s teacup falling over. Roberto pretended not to notice this, and went on.

[...]

Roberto finished speaking, and glanced at Hiraga, who wore an expression of childlike fear.

“Oh my, what’s wrong?” Roberto asked, as though only just noticing Hiraga’s odd behaviour for the first time.

“It’s scary. I heard that story long ago from my grandmother, who was a skilled storyteller, and ever since then, it’s been a terrifying trauma. My grandmother was good at scaring me… Please, don’t ever tell that story again.”

“I won’t. I’m sorry,” Roberto said. Hiraga sighed in relief.

Next, Roberto looked over to see Robinson’s reaction. His cheeks were flushed, and he was breathing heavily.

“Fascinating… How fascinating, and frightening, and fantastic! My heart was really racing. Father Roberto, you’re good at telling stories.”

“I’m glad. Lafcadio Hearn was the one who wrote down that story. How about you look him up on the Internet and read some of his other works?”

“I’ll do that right away, thank you! I’ll definitely become like Lafcadio Hearn.”

“That’s a lovely dream,” Roberto said with a smile.

Sadly, instead of staying with passive-aggressive Roberto, we go to our heroes at breakfast. They’re being served the leftover sashimi from last night, now pickled. Roberto tries to eat a piece, but just the smell makes his gorge rise.

“Sorry, but… I can’t do it.”

“Please leave it to me. I have the willpower of a Japanese priest.”

Hiraga took a bite of the sashimi, his face grim.

Then they remember that oh right, there’s a conflict in this book beyond FOOD PROBLEMS. So they’re going to take a look at the island of Kamishima, and talk to the people who witnessed the snowstorm and the appearance of the cross.

But first Hiraga goes back to the room to call Dr. Chandra Singh, their new IT guy. As ever, he is a ray of sunshine.

Hiraga: Good morning.

Dr. Singh, expressionlessly: It is 1 am here.

Hiraga: Ah, good evening. Well, when will my investigation materials be arriving?

Dr. Singh: It's scheduled for today. Do you want to know further details?

Hiraga: Yes.

Dr. Singh: I've emailed you the tracking number, and the contact information for the national support centre.

Hiraga: Thank you.

Dr. Singh: Is there anything else?

Hiraga: Nothing.

Dr. Singh: Then excuse me. [hangs up]

Roberto: Dr. Singh is as unfriendly as ever, I see.

Hiraga: Really? The doctor is a kind person.

(I love him so much.)

Hiraga makes delivery arrangements, and then checks on the boat they’re supposed to take to Kamishima.

“You handling things this way - it’s kind of refreshing,” Roberto said without thinking.

“I can get things done if I try. After all, I’ve always been a fiend for schedules.”

They have a 20-minute boat ride to Kamishima, accompanied by local priest Father East Andou. The boatman won’t go ashore with them because of local superstition, and Andou says he’ll wait in the boat too, so our heroes are on their own.

Hiraga frolics around collecting soil samples and taking photos. He and Roberto discuss what the glowing image of Christ might have been, if not a miracle - maybe it was a projection on the cliff face, or a 3D hologram, or small LEDs made with a 3D printer, but for various reasons none of these is very plausible. I mean, I agree, but who wants to bet the eventual explanation is about as implausible?

They climb to the top of the cliff, up a very narrow and steep path surrounded by dense foliage.

“This is a rather difficult climb,” Hiraga said, short of breath.

“That rucksack is getting in your way, isn’t it? I’ll carry it.”

“No, this is light. I’m fine.”

“Tell me if you’re having trouble.”

Roberto notices someone standing in the shadow of a tree, but when Hiraga calls out, the figure silently vanishes. They figure it was their imagination, but then they find multiple sets of fresh human footprints.

They get back to the boat and go to another local church to interview witnesses to the miracle. This being VME, it turns into exposition about the history of Christianity in Japan, and how it was outlawed in the 1600s and Japanese Christians were severely persecuted and driven into hiding. The head priest of this church explains that Christianity has come so close to being snuffed out in Japan, and it’s up to them to keep it going - basically, it would be REALLY NICE for this miracle to get verified, so the priests can once again spread the glory of God throughout the country.

“You’re Japanese too, so you understand, don’t you? Our fervent wish…”

Father Takeo clasped Hiraga’s hand tightly as he spoke.

“Yes, this is the purpose of the miracle examination. For the glory of God’s name, I promise to carry out a rigorous investigation, and make sure of this miracle’s authenticity,” Hiraga replied, his gaze utterly earnest.

Father Takeo’s expression froze, startled, and his shoulders sagged.

“...rigorous… yes, of course. I couldn’t help getting worked up in the face of this mystery.”

Even without knowing Japanese, Roberto could understand what they were discussing, judging from Hiraga’s usual attitude and the other priest’s obviously crestfallen demeanour.

But without the language to convey his support to the Japanese priest, all Roberto could do was sincerely bow his head to him.

They’re done investigating for the day, but Roberto notices a museum and naturally wants to pay a visit. Hiraga isn’t especially interested, but doesn’t mind going with Roberto - or so he thinks, until he sees Roberto checking out the museum displays and realises what this means.

“Roberto - I’m sorry, but I’ll wait in the lobby.”

“Huh? Why?”

“How should I put it… The instant I saw all those lines of Japanese characters on the display cases, my eyes started spinning and stopped processing information. I’ve seen all sorts of things today, and my head is full. I think I’ll be better after a bit of rest.”

Hiraga tottered unsteadily into the lobby and flopped down on the sofa. It seemed that his hard disk had overheated.

“That’s a problem… Without you, I have no idea what’s written here.”

(Ah, heritage speaker problems...)

Father Andou (whom I keep forgetting is even there) offers to translate for Roberto, and they hit it off pretty well because they’re both nerds about Christian culture and stuff. Andou gives some exposition about the Hidden Christians, who continued practising their faith in secret even after it was outlawed by the Japanese government, risking jail, torture, exile, and martyrdom.

This is Roberto’s cue to angst about his faith, which I guess is what happens as soon as he’s separated from Hiraga for five minutes.

Roberto himself had decided to become a priest merely as a pragmatic way of making a living. As such, this made him reflect deeply on the strength of faith.

Oh, and it looks like his angst is probably infectious.

“Could you please listen to me for a bit?”

“Yes,” Roberto replied, bewildered.

Father Andou took a deep breath.

“Father Roberto, I have something to confess. I… I was envious of you. Ever since I decided to become a priest, I’ve hoped that someday I’ll achieve something splendid, and be recognised and summoned by the Vatican. It’s my lifelong dream, and I’ve been working extra hard towards that goal. And yet you all so easily achieved my dream. It frustrated me…

“I heard that the Vatican’s miracle examiners were an elite division chosen from all over the world, and I was convinced that they had to be unpleasant fellows, smug and full of themselves. When you said, ‘We will investigate this incident with wholehearted commitment, in order to be worthy of the trust His Holiness has placed in us,’ I honestly couldn’t believe it.

“But today, when I saw you both climbing the mountain and getting your cassocks covered in dirt, and when you were bowing deeply to Father Takeo, I felt ashamed of myself. Father Roberto, please forgive my rudeness so far.”

Father Andou slowly lowered his head to Roberto, who was taken aback.

“Rudeness? Nothing of the sort. It’s because of you that I was able to learn all sorts of things today. I’m grateful. Thank you.”

Roberto, too, bowed to Father Andou, who laughed wryly.

“You’re unusual. I didn’t think that Westerners bowed like this.”

“Ah, that’s… My investigation partner is Hiraga, who’s of Japanese descent, so I guess I picked up a thing or two.”

“I see. Father Hiraga is also rather… unusual, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he gets that a lot. But he is a highly outstanding man of ardent faith.”

When our heroes get back to the inn, Hiraga’s equipment has arrived, but Roberto knows that once he lets Hiraga get started, good luck getting him to eat dinner. So he asks Hiraga about the witness interviews at the church just now; Hiraga apologises for forgetting to translate earlier. Basically, there are no recordings of the miracle. Hiraga does some infodumping about weather anomalies and solar flares; he posits that the miracle might be caused by St. Elmo's fire, but he’ll have to check the soil samples for traces of our old friend ELECTROMAGNETISM.

Then Roberto seizes the opportunity to suggest they get dinner, which had totally slipped Hiraga’s mind. On their way to dinner, they see Yoshioka telling off his daughter Yuuko, because she got back late from walking the dog.

And again, the true conflict of the book rears its head: Roberto and Hiraga versus their hosts’ food.

The dinner that was served to them was, indeed, a huge helping of sashimi. It seemed that Hiraga’s appeal to reduce their meal portions hadn’t gotten through to Yoshioka.

“Well, we’ve been out and about today. Shall we tuck in?”

“Yes…”

The two of them said grace and began to eat, but Hiraga’s chopsticks soon fell still.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just looking at raw fish makes me a bit queasy.”

“But whatever we have left over will just be pickled and added to our breakfast. That’s the system.”

“I know that, but…” Hiraga muttered, his face pale.

“You pushed yourself too much at breakfast. Luckily I’m feeling peckish - I think I can handle this.”

Hiraga sighed in relief at Roberto’s words.

[...]

“Actually, I realised I had to come up with a strategy for handling meals, starting tomorrow,” Roberto said, setting down his chopsticks and gazing steadily at Hiraga.

“What sort of strategy?”

“You’ll be absorbed in the investigation and lose track of time, won’t you? There’s no way you’ll manage to go to the dining hall at fixed times.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, you could say that.”

Hiraga nodded, as though discussing someone else entirely.

“So you’ll persuade Mr. Yoshioka to bring the meals to the room from tomorrow onwards. The menu can be very simple - tell him that just rice and one dish will do. If that’s not possible, I’ll buy food from somewhere. I’d like to get Mr. Yoshioka’s permission for that.”

“Can I really manage this?”

“But you’re the one who speaks Japanese, aren’t you?”

“That’s true…”

Hiraga nodded determinedly, and went off to negotiate with Yoshioka.

And he shoots, he scores! Hiraga is really achieving some A++ adulting in this book.

“Roberto, the discussion went well.”

“I’m glad. Deep down, I was worried.”

“Miss Yuuko lent me her support midway - she chimed in with, ‘Father, your stubbornness is causing trouble for the priests. Let’s do as they say.’ It was a real help.”

Hiraga picked up his chopsticks with an expression of relief, and bit into a slice of sashimi.

Roberto turned towards the direction of the open kitchen. Yuuko smiled bashfully and nodded to him.

“Miss Yuuko is a nice girl,” Roberto said appreciatively.

Well. Still, good work there, Hiraga!

They decide that tomorrow, Hiraga will... do his thing... and Roberto will go do some research - maybe there are some miracle witnesses whom they haven’t interviewed. Hiraga is worried about whether Roberto can get around without him, but Roberto says, “I think it’ll be fine. I’ve made a friend who’s an excellent interpreter.”

Roberto goes off with his new priest friend Andou, who takes him to another museum; it has a massive golden cross that’s engraved with the usual Christian iconography and also a mysterious Japanese inscription: a cryptic string of syllables. Andou has no idea what it means either - “It’s a code that no one can solve.” Naturally, Roberto perks up at the mention of codes, and requests more exposition.

Basically this is a replica of a cross that used to belong to the Hidden Christians, and there’s a theory that the inscription encodes the location of the Hidden Christians’ secret treasure. Roberto and Andou speculate for a bit about how the Japanese syllables might actually represent some slightly mangled Latin words.

As Roberto spoke passionately, Father Andou gave him an odd look.

“I didn’t expect someone like you, an elite Vatican priest, to get so serious about a long-forgotten code.”

“Ah, excuse me. It’s just my nature. I’m a miracle examiner, but I specialise in codes and the restoration of antiques, so… If it’s alright, might I be able to take a look at the original iron cross itself?”

Father Andou’s expression abruptly went rigid with discomfort.

There was no hope of this happening. Even if this code concealed the “treasure of the Hidden Christians”, it was a treasure that had been bestowed to the Society of Jesus - it belonged to the Jesuits. They had no obligation to disclose their secrets to Roberto, who was a Franciscan.

“Oops, I guess I’ve overstepped. I’m just sincerely interested in codebreaking, but I shouldn’t have meddled. Sorry I bothered you - don’t mind me,” Roberto said breezily. Father Andou looked relieved.

Damn these Vatican politics, getting in the way of our heroes geeking out.

But hey, at least we’ll always have infodumps? They go into the museum, where Roberto learns about Amakusa Shirou, “probably the most famous Christian in Japan”, who led a Catholic rebellion against the Japanese government when he was only 16, but was never recognised by the Vatican because he wasn’t formally baptised. He was a beautiful, charismatic prodigy who was said to have a healing touch. After his rebellion was crushed, he basically vanished from history; a body was found and beheaded, but it’s unclear whether it was actually his. Academics debate whether he actually existed.

Roberto wonders if the Hidden Christian community still exists; apparently no one knows for sure, but the scholarly consensus is that they were stamped out.

Also, Roberto sees some chipped, badly worn clay dolls, and after looking at them for 10 seconds, he comments, “They were so uncanny I’ll probably dream about them tonight.” And he teases Hiraga for being scared of ghost stories...

(This place is a real museum, by the way, which is pretty cool.)

Next they go look for more people who might have witnessed the miracle. Andou tells Roberto about a very secretive and close-knit village in the mountains, led by a family surnamed Futou. It has a good view of Kamishima, but the villagers are “extremely odd” and seem to dislike priests - they turn away Andou & co. whenever they visit.

Roberto immediately wonders if they’re Hidden Christians, because come on, but there’s no definitive evidence for it. Roberto really wants to visit them anyway, so they drive to the village, but no one seems to be there.

So they drive around more and talk about local religion, and Andou mentions that deer are the sacred animal here. He also takes Roberto to another museum and shows him a bunch of antique printing presses. It occurs to me that this would be a very good date if Roberto weren’t already married.

Or maybe not, because while Roberto is sighing adoringly over printing presses, Andou slips off. Roberto finds him crying silently in front of a painting - it’s a reproduction of the “Coronation of Pope Sixtus V” fresco in the Vatican Library. Roberto pretends he didn’t see anything and beats a discreet retreat, and when Andou comes back they act like nothing happened. But yeah, awkward.

Hey, I wonder what Hiraga’s up to while all this is going on? Oh, no big deal, he’s just GOING TO SCALE A CLIFF BY HIMSELF

Hiraga stuffed a small pickaxe and other climbing equipment into his huge rucksack, and set off alone for the harbour, in search of the boat captain. He then requested to be taken to Kamishima.

In order to examine the cliff face, he had to climb it. That much was obvious.

But if he told Roberto, he’d be sure to object that it was dangerous. That was why Hiraga had kept quiet about this.

...I was wondering how we’d gotten this far without any dead bodies, but looks like Hiraga is trying to make up for that.

Hiraga cinched a safety harness around himself, and fastened a high-strength climbing rope to it. With this, he had no worries about falling to his death.

GREAT, GUESS I’LL WORRY FOR BOTH OF US

Gripping the pickaxe in one hand, and with six pouches tied around his waist, Hiraga began to slowly descend the steep cliff face.

The cliff rapidly turned into a sheer precipice, but the surface was slightly uneven, which offered some footholds.

Hiraga thanked God for his own small feet and light body.

okay Hiraga but what if you slip and break your STUPID NECK

He survives the descent, so naturally he does this two more times, on the other sides of the cliff. He confirms that there are no traces of snow or anything that might emit light on the cliff. I sure am glad Hiraga risked his life for a whole load of nothing! (Or, well, 10 kilogrammes of soil samples.) Then, apparently satisfied that he’s done enough death-defying for today, he prays, “O Lord who appeared on the face of this cliff, please show me the reason why.”

The poor boat captain, who had to sit there anxiously watching this whole display, hurries over and asks if he’s alright. Hiraga is covered in sweat and mud and his clothes are fraying, but he reassures the captain that he’s fine. The captain is curious what he’s going to do with the load of soil that he went to all this trouble to get.

“Well, I don’t know. Perhaps this was unnecessary - but it was important to me. After all, the truth can be found in unexpected places. Even a single grain of soil cannot be dismissed.”

I can’t really argue with this, but I want to.

When Roberto gets back to the inn, he sees Hiraga covered in dirt and staring at soil samples through a microscope.

Roberto: Hiraga, just what is all this?

Hiraga: I’m examining the soil from that cliff.

Roberto: Soil from the cliff - on Kamishima, you mean?

Hiraga: Yes.

Roberto: How did you… You did something dangerous again, didn’t you?

Hiraga: It's alright. I made sure to wear a safety harness, so I could gather samples without any danger.

Roberto: A safety harness, huh… Really, you're always startling me. I'm glad you're fine, but you sure brought back a lot. Well then, did you figure out anything from the soil?

Hiraga: I won’t know until the examination is complete. But I have to investigate, even if nothing comes of it - after all, that’s the site of the miracle.

Roberto: That’s true. You really are your usual self, no matter where you are. But I have one piece of advice: you should take a shower or bath, and change out of your dirty clothes. Mr. Yoshioka will be bringing the dinner soon, and he’ll be worried if he sees you all covered in mud. We couldn’t even complain if he decided to throw us out of the inn.

Hiraga, startled: Is it that late already? I see… I’ll go take a shower.

Roberto: You sure were in a trance. Is there something strange about the soil?

Hiraga: No, it’s just ordinary fragments of igneous rock.

Really, it was very typical of Hiraga to get so engrossed in examining ordinary soil that he lost track of time.

While Hiraga takes his shower, Roberto tidies up the room so as not to scandalise their poor host, and fetches a yukata for Hiraga to change into.

Hiraga comes out wearing the yukata, and then notices that his cellphone has apparently been going off this whole time, but he overlooked it because he was so busy with his soil samples.

“Ah, I have a lot of voicemails and emails from Mr. Robinson.”

“Mr. Robinson? What’s he saying?”

Hiraga, tilting his head, read the emails out loud.

"The first message is, 'I want to discuss something.' The next is, 'It's important.' Then the next one is, 'Do you have time?' The next is, 'Please contact me.' The next is, 'I'm waiting for your reply.' The next is, 'Why won't you contact me?' The next is, 'Whatever.' The next is, 'Please contact me after all.' The next is, 'When will you contact me?' The next is..."

Roberto sighed.

"What a persistent man. Did he mention what he wanted to discuss?"

Apparently Robinson took Roberto’s snide remark about Lafcadio Hearn very seriously, and is now running around looking into youkai and jabbering about oil presser spirits. Points for initiative, I guess.

“Anyway, when did you give Mr. Robinson your email address?”

“As soon as we met. He asked me to take out my cellphone, and it was done quickly - it took about three seconds. Weren’t you in the room too, Roberto?”

“I was, but I didn't notice. In a sense, that's an impressive feat. It's none of my business, but maybe you should watch out.”

“For what?”

“For what, you ask... well, this and that. Now, I'm going to shower,” Roberto said evasively, getting to his feet.

Even in Japan, Roberto can’t escape all these guys trying to cosy up to his husband. WOW

Honestly, I kind of admire the sheer audacity of asking a priest for his number, in three seconds, the first time you meet him, when his partner is RIGHT THERE (even if you don’t know they’re married). But seriously Robinson, don’t be a homewrecker.

Late that night, Hiraga is analysing his soil samples and Roberto is tossing and turning in bed, when there’s a knock on the door and a dark figure looms outside the glass pane, like the start of every horror movie. Roberto, understandably, has a bad feeling about this. Hiraga points out that they can’t do anything without knowing who’s outside, and calls out, “Who’s there?”

An icy voice responds, “It’s Futou. Open up,” and Roberto realises it must be one of the reclusive villagers he missed meeting today. Outside is someone dressed in black; it’s a teenage boy with long hair, pale skin, delicate features, and a surprisingly intimidating presence. Sounds very goth.

He’s accompanied by a stoic young girl in white - the same girl Roberto saw outside the dining hall the other night. This girl is called Sara, and she speaks Latin, which Hiraga appreciates because “I’m not confident in my Japanese.”

Futou ominously says, “Are you the ones trespassing on Kamishima? That island is in an extremely unstable state right now. Do not go near it again.”

This pretty much sets the tone of the conversation.

Hiraga: I was the one who went to Kamishima a second time - I was just collecting a bit of the island’s soil. I apologise if I shouldn’t have done that. But my duty is as a miracle examiner. If you tell me not to go to Kamishima, it puts me in a difficult position. Besides, the island doesn’t seem unstable to me. There are no historical records of any earthquakes or natural disasters occurring on Kamishima, and no data on landslides either.

Futou: So you see and understand nothing? I hoped it’d be a bit easier to communicate with a Vatican priest - what a pity. Kamishima’s instability isn’t an issue of geography. It’s a spiritual issue.

Hiraga: A spiritual issue…?

Futou: This shouldn’t be discussed with someone who doesn’t understand. But even if you don’t understand, you have to comply. There’s no other option.

Futou is like “oh, by the way, apparently there’s a foreigner running around yammering about the oil presser spirits - is that you too? You’d better back off and stop talking about the spirits, or bad stuff is going to go down and it’ll be your fault. There have been multiple incidents of cars slipping on roads since last night.”

Hiraga is genuinely confused. He doesn’t think the oil pressers would cause car accidents or otherwise hurt humans, and besides, the person yelling about the oil pressers isn’t them, it’s their “friend” Robinson. He can try to convince Robinson to chill - but before that, he himself needs to understand what’s going on. Why can’t they go to Kamishima, and why can’t they talk about the oil pressers? He’d like an explanation.

Hiraga stubbornly insisted. At times like this, his extremely obstinate nature came to the fore.

But his opponent seemed remarkably stubborn as well.

“Why should I talk to someone who doesn’t understand, about things they won’t understand? I don’t have time for this. If you won’t do as I say, the conversation is over.”

The boy Futou got to his feet. Roberto suddenly spoke up in German.

“Is there anyone here who understands German?”

Futou, Sara, and Hiraga all stared at Roberto, perplexed. Futou and Sara looked like they had no idea what was going on.

Hiraga blinked.

“Let me translate what Father Roberto said…”

Roberto put a finger to Hiraga’s mouth, shushing him midway.

“I’ll negotiate with Futou from here. But I don’t want Miss Sara to get wind of our plans, so we’ll make our arrangements in German. Alright?”

“I understand.”

I just want to appreciate Hiraga not realising that Roberto is trying to talk to him in secret. Bless.

Roberto asks how long it’ll take Hiraga to finish analysing his soil samples, and Hiraga says probably about ten days. Roberto has an offer for Futou - how about they stay away from Kamishima for one week? (Roberto guesses from Futou’s urgency that they’re operating under some time limit.) Futou agrees.

As for the oil pressers, Roberto says that their “friend” has just gotten really into Japanese youkai, but he doesn’t mean any harm; he hopes Futou will understand.

The boy Futou raised an eyebrow slightly.

“It doesn’t matter whether I understand. What I’m asking is whether he’ll stop or not.”

“I’ll try to convince him to stop, but he’s a free man with his own dreams for the future. Just how long should I restrain him?”

Futou’s face tensed, and his voice was dark when he replied.

“I can tell you’re trying to sound out our plans. But very well - I’ll answer. Three days. After three days, once the full moon is safely past, he can do whatever he wants. Otherwise, there will be an even greater disaster. People are likely to die.”

Roberto gets chills at this declaration, but agrees. Of course, being Roberto, he can’t just leave it at that.

“Until the full moon is past… I see. Hmm. That might be a bit tricky.”

“Why?”

“Our friend is quite an energetic man; it won’t be easy to hold him back. I’ll probably have to put my own work on hold, to keep an eye on him constantly.”

“Are you saying you won’t do it?”

“No, that’s not it. I just have a minor condition. If you fulfil it, I can keep my friend in check.”

Roberto wants Futou and the other villagers to give him any information and recordings they have related to the miracle. Futou seems reluctant, but Sara talks him into it. (She addresses him as “Shirou-san”. Hmm.)

Two can play at the same game, though - Futou also wants our heroes to do something in exchange for the info. He won’t tell them what it is now, but he’ll return to fetch them on the night before the full moon.

After the visitors leave, Roberto and Hiraga discuss this latest bit of weirdness. They agree that it’s quite the coincidence that the boy Futou has the same given name as Amakusa Shirou, and Roberto infodumps everything he learnt today about Amakusa Shirou, the Hidden Christians, etc. Hiraga is impressed. “That’s amazing. You gathered this much information in no time at all.” They also wonder what the boy wants from them, but who knows.

The next morning, someone really had died.

OH, FINALLY, we’re way overdue for a corpse

This one is an unidentified body found along the coast, and it’s completely covered in scars like it was scalded with hot oil. I await the VME explanation for this.

There are also news reports of multiple accidents due to cars slipping on the roads. All this lines up with the warnings from the boy Shirou.

Hiraga has contacted Robinson, who goes pale and asks, “Oh Jesus, you mean this is all my fault…?” Roberto says it could be a coincidence, but if so, that’s pretty uncanny - either way, it’s probably best to take Shirou’s warning and not go around mouthing off about spirits. Loose lips sink ships (or crash cars, apparently).

“Just who did this warning come from? Who on earth are they?” Robinson asked dubiously.

“Well, we’re not too sure. We only met them for the first time last night,” Roberto deflected.

“So, Father Roberto, you’re telling me that because of what these strangers said, you’ll be monitoring me for the next three days? This is a violation of my privacy! Don’t you think so, Father Hiraga?” Robinson asked, gazing beseechingly at Hiraga.

“But there has indeed been a death. I also believe we should be cautious, so as not to endanger anyone. Besides, we made a promise to them, and I want to keep it as well.”

“Well then, Father Hiraga - say ‘please’ to me. If you do, I’ll do as I’m told.”

Robinson demonstrated by clasping his fingers together, turning his gaze upward, and saying, “Please.”

Hiraga followed suit by clasping his fingers and saying, “Please,” but he looked like nothing other than a priest praying earnestly.

Robinson wants to stay and talk to Hiraga more, but Roberto hurries him out of the room.

Of course, this was to keep him from disrupting Hiraga's work.

Sure, sure.

Robinson sulks. “Dammit, there go my plans for today. And I even turned down a date for this!”

Roberto is having a worse day, since he’s now on babysitting duty, keeping Robinson from being too much of a dumbass. He’s got his work cut out for him.

Especially because Robinson catches sight of Yuuko doing the gardening, and his face lights up and he dashes over to her, yelling greetings.

This was a common sight in Italy, but here, the shy Yuuko hung her head, evidently distressed.

Roberto sighs and is wondering whether to intervene, when Yoshioka shows up and hurries Yuuko back indoors. Robinson sulks about how Yoshioka keeps getting in the way when he’s trying to chat up Yuuko - he’s even barred Robinson from the dining hall. It’s like he thinks Robinson is a shady character or something. Can’t imagine why.

“I fell in love with Miss Yuuko the day we met - it was the first time I’d ever fallen for someone at first sight. So I said, ‘Miss Yuuko, you’re my angel, my Madonna! Go out with me!’ And then she started shrieking, and her father yelled at me.

“But my feelings are the real deal. I’d never seen someone so beautiful before… That lovely hair, those clear and gentle features! Don’t you think she must be an angel?” Robinson asked earnestly.

“Well… It’s true, she seems like a nice girl.”

“Yes. And my heart races when I see her long black hair. Didn’t I tell you how, when I was miraculously saved by God, I met an angel on the beach? I think the angel back then looked exactly like Miss Yuuko…” Robinson murmured feverishly.

Roberto’s reaction to this is to… start thinking about the case instead. The mention of long black hair reminds him of the boy Shirou, and he remembers all the footprints he and Hiraga found on the supposedly deserted island - was Shirou the angel Robinson met that day?

They go for a drive in Robinson’s car, for lack of any better ideas. Roberto is getting bored when Robinson’s like “okay, I know we’re not supposed to TALK about the spirits, but we can go LOOK for them, right?” Roberto is actually on board with this terrible logic; they go to the forest but see nothing, and decide to get lunch at a family restaurant instead.

The two of them ordered steak and salad. Roberto was pleased; it had been a while since he last had Western food.

“By the way, didn’t you email Hiraga about something you wanted to discuss?” Roberto asked, making small talk.

“I was hoping Father Hiraga would be a go-between for me and Miss Yuuko,” Robinson replied, his mouth stuffed with a thick chunk of steak.

“I see. You can’t approach her without her father showing up, so you thought you’d make use of Hiraga?”

“That's a harsh way to put it. I don't want to make use of Father Hiraga. I want to get along with him too. After all, he also has wonderful black hair,” Robinson said with no trace of shyness, and kept going. “I like Japanese people. They're all kind and gentle, demure and clean, and they like housework. They're small, quiet, and adorable. I’m tired of stubborn, wilful American women.”

Roberto thought of responding, "Hiraga isn't like that," but decided to stay silent.

Robinson sounds uncannily like an American fratboy, and like an American fratboy, he needs to be stopped. Maybe he should actually talk to Hiraga and realise that he spends his time flinging acid and living in a mountain of trash.

After eating, they have nothing better to do than try looking for the oil presser spirits again. Robinson complains about how fruitless and boring this is.

He should probably be careful what he wishes for - they’re on a deserted mountain road when suddenly, the tyres skid, the car spins out of control, and they almost crash into a reservoir. They’re only saved because Roberto reflexively pulls the handbrake.

They have no idea what just happened - the road seemed to be glistening with an oily lustre right before Robinson lost control of the car, but it looks completely dry now. Maybe they were just imagining things.

Meanwhile, Hiraga is having a much quieter time examining soil samples. He finds jute fibres in the soil - like someone was digging there, put soil into jute sacks, and tossed it off the top of the cliff. Hmm. He remembers Roberto telling him about the creepy clay dolls at the museum; apparently pottery is a local specialty? So he hits up the local potters to check if they excavate earth from Kamishima, and he learns that the cliff was actually man-made, but they haven’t been digging there since the local economy went into a slump.

He was so overly focused on his work that he lost all sense of time passing.

Abruptly noticing his parched throat, Hiraga got up and opened the refrigerator.

Inside were some onigiri and tamagoyaki wrapped in clingfilm.

There was a note from Roberto attached to them, saying, “Pregate che si mangia (I’m praying that you’ll eat)”.

It occurred to Hiraga that his brain did feel slightly fatigued - probably due to low blood sugar.

He stuffed the cold, hard onigiri into his mouth.

(The Italian is just lifted straight from the text, by the way, please don’t @ me.)

Roberto is doing so much good work here, and his reward for it is… spending another day with Robinson, I guess. Yesterday’s incident dampened their enthusiasm for spirit-hunting, and more importantly, Robinson is now in trouble; it turns out he borrowed the car from an adoring female fan, and has to apologise for damaging it.

“I’ve had enough! That girl got mad at me because, ‘You had an accident when you were on a date with another girl, right?!’ I told her, ‘No, I was with a Vatican priest,’ but she wouldn’t believe me. So I want you to come vouch for me today, Father Roberto,” Robinson said.

“You said she’s ‘a female fan’ - what’s she like?” Roberto asked, figuring that if she’d lent him her car, they must be close.

“Well, her name’s Haruko. She was my nurse when I was in hospital. She was really kind to me, and so cute with her black hair, so I guess I told her ‘You’re cute’ and ‘I like you’...? And that’s why she lent me the car,” Robinson replied without hesitation.

“But you - you’re actually in love with Miss Yuuko, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. So after my destined meeting with Miss Yuuko, I cooled things off with Haruko.”

“But you still borrowed her car?”

“Don’t tell me off like that. Yeah, that was my bad - but I didn’t expect things to turn out this way, and I was going to return the car when I found the chance. More importantly, we mustn’t make Haruko mad today. I’m counting on you to back me up,” Robinson said.

Roberto could feel a headache coming on.

[...]

Robinson got out of the car and hurried over to Haruko.

“Why didn’t you contact me?” Haruko cried out angrily.

Robinson let fly a string of frantic excuses in English and clumsy Japanese. Roberto watched them from the passenger seat of the car.

Robinson’s fervent apologies and repeated compliments seemed to restore Haruko’s good mood. The two of them linked arms affectionately and came over to Roberto.

“You’re the Vatican priest? It’s nice to meet you. I’m Haruko,” Haruko said in strongly accented English.

“Miss Haruko, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Roberto Nicolas,” Roberto said with a smile.

“Oh wow, he’s really hot. If only he wasn’t a priest, I’d totally switch over. But he’s a priest, so…” Haruko mumbled in Japanese.

“The two of us are planning to go on the Dolphin Cruise after this. How about tagging along, Father Roberto?” Robinson asked cheerily next to her.

“No, I’d better not intrude on your date. Now that the misunderstanding is cleared up, I ought to head back to the inn,” Roberto said, and waved goodbye to the couple.

But Roberto doesn’t actually want to go back to the inn and bother Hiraga while he’s working, so naturally, he finds an obscure historical archive to visit instead. He meets a random man looking through a telescope at the sea, and tries to strike up a conversation with him. They have an exchange that’s kind of perplexing, and not because of the language barrier.

“Catching fish,” the man said in accented English. “No dolphin today.”

He seemed to mean that there were no dolphins.

“That’s right,” Roberto acknowledged.

“Sightseeing?”

Roberto, unsure how to reply, said, “We came here to examine the miracle of Kamishima.”

The man grimaced.

“Kamishima? No. It’s - Shikashima. There are - many - shikashima.”

Roberto was at a loss as to what the man meant. Just what was he saying?

He looked around the room for some means of communication, and saw the map of Amakusa on display. He went over to the map and pointed at Kamishima.

“Here. Kamishima,” he said, and the man nodded.

“Yes, yes.”

It seemed that neither of them was getting through to the other.

“It’s Shikashima. It’s Bambi. Uhh… Do you know ‘Bambi’?” the man asked, mixing in some Japanese.

“Bambino?”

At Roberto’s uncomprehending reply, the man looked discomfited and shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to be throwing in the towel.

All Roberto could do was make the same gesture and laugh awkwardly.

Hiraga is STILL chugging away at the soil analysis, but he’s hit a roadblock and decides to email Dr. Singh for advice. Dr. Singh replies with, “I cannot say anything without seeing the actual article,” so Hiraga sends him some soil by international airmail.

When Roberto gets back that evening, he decides to open the window to get some fresh air and admire the full moon.

OH RIGHT, THE MOON

There’s a knock on the door; Sara is here to pick them up for whatever she and Shirou are planning. They get into a car with her and four men, and drive off into the dark mountain passes. Everyone seems tense.

Eventually they arrive at a shrine gateway, and three men alight and pass through the gate, “vanishing as though they were swallowed by a black hole”. (I might as well clarify now that there are no black holes in this, indoor or outdoor. I know, I was getting my hopes up too.)

The remaining man (Kazuhito, who looks about 20 years old) starts explaining what’s up. He belongs to an organisation that has studied spirits and the old deities for a long time, and they’re trying to accomplish a ritual that hasn’t been performed in 120 years. This immediately piques Roberto’s interest, of course. Nerd.

tl;dr: the deity Mahiru that is worshipped on Kamishima is an ancient sun deity, also known as Hiruko, the firstborn child of Izanami and Izanagi. This deity takes the form of a white snake.

“A… snake…?”

Roberto shuddered.

(He’s just thinking of the serpent that tempted Eve, and all the other snakes in mythology, but, you know. I’m thinking it.)

Kazuhito talks about how when the Yamato people settled Japan, they basically drove out the indigenous people and their deities, and portrayed those deities as symbols of evil instead. “History is written by the victors, you could say.” This reminds Roberto of what happened to indigenous faiths in the Christianisation of Europe, with people being subjugated and their deities being swallowed up.

But belief in the ancient deity Hiruko never vanished for good, and Hiruko kept appearing in different forms, most notably as Yamata no Orochi.

Hiraga is excited because oh hey, he knows about Yamata no Orochi!

“Is it that famous a story?” Roberto asked, and Hiraga nodded delightedly.

“Yes. Yamata no Orochi was a great monster with eight heads and tails. When I heard the story from my grandmother, I wondered all sorts of things - like whether it was useful for a creature to have eight brains or not, and the location of the main system that controlled all these.”

Kazuhito laughs and explains that Yamata no Orochi was a villainous figure defeated by the deity Susanoo, and this symbolises the conquering of the original eight island civilisations in Japan.

“Yamata no Orochi was the sun deity of the general that governed these eight nations. That is why it had eight heads.”

“I see - this was a story about the purge of the ancient sun deity,” Roberto said.

“So the eight heads were a literary metaphor for the eight countries…?” Hiraga muttered, sounding bored.

Poor Hiraga, he’s too left-brained for this.

Apparently the oil presser spirits are also remnants of the ancient beliefs. The point is that these powers are still strong in Amakusa, which is why the ritual has to be performed here. But when Christianity came to Japan in the 16th century, it disrupted Amakusa’s spiritual energies even further and caused natural disasters.

Kazuhito: That’s what we think. Please don’t misunderstand - I don’t mean to belittle you, Fathers. Please think of this as merely an interpretation based in spiritual science. Do you understand?

Roberto: Regardless of the theory, didn’t missionaries get in the way of your rituals? I’m in a complicated position here… Even if we’re just talking in terms of spiritual science.

Hiraga: I think I understand. Put simply, you can think of it as a theory of parallel universes.

Oh yeah, that sure clears things up.

Hiraga starts talking about about Everett’s multiverse theory, and the more recent idea - developed as part of M-theory - that perhaps parallel universes can interact and influence each other through gravity.

“Likewise, even in the Bible, we cannot access the world of God - but the power of the Holy Spirit lets us establish a connection from our own world, yes? It’s the same thing. Everything that happens on this earth, like conflicts and natural disasters - such things are events that only occur within a single sealed world. The arrival of missionaries in Japan, and the religious conversion that people underwent - those results belong to a completely different dimension from what happens in the spiritual world. And methods like ‘prayers’ and ‘rituals’ are a vector of force that allow us to influence the spiritual world. How about thinking of it in that simple way?”

Maybe if I had eight brains I could understand what’s going on.

The youth Kazuhito smiled at Hiraga’s words.

“Now this is an interesting priest,” he said.

“I am not an interesting priest. I am Hiraga,” Hiraga said, pursing his lips.

“Pardon me, Father Hiraga. I haven’t introduced myself either, have I? My name is Yukimasa Kazuhito.”

Kazuhito bowed in greeting, and then looked over at Roberto.

“You are Father Roberto Nicolas, are you not?”

“Ah- yes…” Roberto replied, taken aback.

Kazuhito finally starts to explain what they actually want from our heroes. Basically, his organisation performs rituals in order to keep both the mundane world and the spiritual world in order, and they want our heroes’ assistance with the one-of-a-kind big spiritual ritual happening tonight. Our heroes are still pretty confused (same), but they roll with it.

Roberto: If I get to participate in a ceremony that only happens in Japan once every 120 years, I have no reason to refuse…

Hiraga: Yes, that’s right. If there’s some way I can help too…

So the ritual involves chanting to calm the deity Hiruko, while the boy Shirou, dressed as Susanoo, does the dance of defeating Yamata no Orochi. If this ritual is successfully performed, Hiruko will be appeased and will return to the sea, but if it fails, the deity will become malicious and curse them.

The tricky thing is that Christianity is deeply entrenched in Amakusa, which is why they had to get the Hidden Christians to participate in the ritual. (Yep, Shirou and his clan are Hidden Christians, big surprise.) But Kazuhito says the Hidden Christians themselves have forgotten what they are, and their practices have departed significantly from traditional Christianity and fused with local beliefs.

Hiraga: This is a real mystery. How fascinating.

Kazuhito: It’s not “fascinating”.

The spiritual energies are so tangled and complex now that the traditional ritual wouldn’t work too well, which was a real conundrum. But then Roberto and Hiraga conveniently showed up in Amakusa, and Kazuhito and his associates looked into their backgrounds. “We learnt that you are a qualified exorcist, Father Roberto. And you, Father Hiraga, are a priest with deep faith.”

(Ouch. It’s like hey Roberto, you’re not super devout, but at least you have the paper credentials to make up for it?)

Our heroes finally get to the shrine; Roberto is handed a stole, a Bible, and holy water, while Hiraga is whisked off and comes back dressed as an ancient Shinto priest (thanks for the fanart inspiration). They all go into a bamboo grove, there’s a lot of chanting, and the boy Shirou, who seems to be in a trance, draws a real sword.

It’s time for some classic VME confusion!

The next moment, the atmosphere of the scene abruptly transformed.

The wind picked up strangely, and the full moon vanished behind a cloud.

The turbulent breeze set the bamboo trees shaking noisily, and behind it echoed a tremendous sound like the roaring of waves.

A frightful gale swept through for an instant, extinguishing the pine torches in the men’s hands.

Simultaneously, there came the sound of something trampling through the bamboo grove, drawing closer every second.

Slide… slide…

Rustle…

Slide… slide…

Crunch, crunch, crunch

No matter how they strained their eyes, nothing was visible in the darkness. But something strange was approaching - that was evident even without being able to see it.

The air was suffused with an extraordinary presence.

Roberto nervously clutched his crucifix and holy water. Hiraga gulped.

Suddenly the strange presence was lifted - or so they thought. But the next instant -

With a noise like a bestial howl, a huge white figure swooped down from overhead.

Roberto stared up at the night sky; a moment ago, it had been an unchanging deep blue, but now it was crossed by a trail of what looked like a faint mist, which was thickening and growing right before his eyes.

The giant white snake reared its head.

Or at least that was what it looked like to Roberto. This had to be a mirage, or a hallucination, or something. He blinked, feeling like he’d stumbled into a bizarre nightmare.

The great snake stopped right above the wine cask, and its coils dived into the bamboo grove. The part of it that was closest to the ground - its front end - split into eight branches.

This figure - the great snake that was plunging its eight heads into the wine cask - this was Yamata no Orochi.

“Oohh…”

Someone let out an involuntary cry of wonder.

That instant, the boy Shirou approached the nearest head, his movements fluid, and swung his upheld sword. The silver flash sliced the air, whipping through the darkness.

Shirou whirled through the air, and as soon as he landed on the ground, he darted to the next head, moving as nimbly as though carried by the wind.

The severed heads of the great snake melted swiftly into the darkness, like snow out of season.

Just what on earth was going on?

As Roberto thought this, the youth next to him spoke in Latin.

“Quick, perform the exorcism! Psalm 68!”

Roberto decides to just go with it, and flings some holy water and recites the psalm. Everyone is chanting various things. The snake seems pretty pissed off, but Shirou chops off more of its heads, “his motions as sharp and beautiful as a needle”. The instant he cuts off the last head, the chanting stops and everything falls silent; Shirou bows to everyone, looking tired and relieved. “Thank you for your cooperation today. The ritual has been successfully completed.”

Everyone disperses, and Hiraga and Roberto are kind of shell-shocked. Hiraga says uneasily, “I was in a daze, and just kept praying to God. Is that really fine?” but Sara confirms that it was good enough.

“Anyway, what on earth did we see…?” Roberto murmured distractedly. Hiraga turned to him, curious.

“What did you see?”

After Roberto told him what he had witnessed, Hiraga posed the same question to Sara.

“I saw many trails of thick fog that formed the terrifyingly huge shape of Yamata no Orochi,” Sara replied. Hiraga blinked.

It’s okay, here comes Hiraga with the explanations. He says it’s probably a hallucination caused by… “magnetic disturbances affecting the neurons in the brain”, which caused people to imagine shapes in the formless fog.

LOOK, HIRAGA, YOU CAN’T JUST EXPLAIN EVERYTHING WITH ELECTROMAGNETISM, OKAY. It isn’t always electromagnetism! Sometimes it’s cocaine!

Here, I’ve made a flowchart.

Okay, okay, the actual explanation:

“In cemeteries during summer, the temperature fluctuates between daytime and nighttime, which causes the gravestones to expand and contract repeatedly; this leads to disturbances in the magnetic field. Likewise, when a bridge made of iron is magnetised by a lightning strike, this is said to produce conditions that are conducive to hallucinations. Perhaps the environment of this bamboo forest is similarly aligned.

“As for why you both experienced the same hallucination, Father Roberto and Miss Sara - this can be generally attributed to the fact that you both received the same explanation from the young man Kazuhito.

“But… what disappoints me above all is that I couldn’t see this. All I noticed was the wind strengthening and shaking the bamboo trees, and the formation of a faint white mist,” Hiraga said regretfully.

“I myself have no idea exactly what I saw. Maybe you didn’t see it because you were praying with all your might, and weren’t looking around you.

“Parapsychology recognises the existence of psychokinesis - the possibility of moving physical objects by interacting with them mentally. Another possible theory is that some of the people participating in this ritual had that power, and used it to manipulate the shape of the mist that was created by magnetic disturbances. But I really don’t know much about that,” Roberto said with a shrug.

“It is often said that what humans can recognise with their five senses and comprehend with their brains is only the tiniest fraction of the universe. But I want to know,” Hiraga said, gazing intently at Roberto. “If only I could witness the ritual once again, I would carry out better observations, but unfortunately, this is impossible.

“As for the knowledge that can be acquired at present - it’s possible to analyse the fact that you and I were in the same place and should have seen the same thing, but instead we had different experiences. Speaking of which, it seems like you and I have very different brain structures. You are the type with a highly developed right brain, and I’m probably the opposite.

“So I have a proposal. How about we submit our experiences this time to the medical division, and if we get permission, the two of us can undergo a PET examination of our brain function? At least, I’m terribly interested in your brain structure.”

Hiraga said this with complete earnestness, but Roberto shook his head.

“No, no, I’ll pass. I don’t want to see my own brain.”

This marriage proposal crackpot discussion is interrupted, as always, because Sara gives them video footage of the miracle, as promised. “Apparently Hiraga’s interest had shifted from the topic of brain scans and returned to their job. Roberto heaved a sigh of relief.”

The video footage shows a dense blizzard over Kamishima, and the appearance of mysterious red-orange lights on the mountain peak, which then coalesce into a huge glowing cross. This goes on for about 10 minutes.

Roberto’s reaction to this is pretty… millennial.

“Since the only evidence of the miraculous snowfall was a single photo, and the witnesses were all affiliated with Ooe Church, I suspected that it might be a ruse. But now this video has shown up, that changes things.

“Still, Futou and Miss Sara are Christians too, so why didn’t they publicise this incredible footage? If I’d filmed a miracle like this, I’d distribute it on TV and the Internet, to share the awe with everyone.”

Yeah, Roberto, we all know what you do when you want to go public with something. (This guy has never heard of moderation. It’s either bottling up his emotions forever, or PRESS CONFERENCES TO REVEAL HIS TRAUMATIC BACKSTORY ON INTERNATIONAL TV.)

More importantly, being back to their actual job means back to hassling Dr. Singh! Hiraga sends over the video, in the hopes that he’ll spot something they missed. Dr. Singh calls back.

“Thank you for the beautiful video. It doesn't snow in India, and so I watched it with great interest.”

“Whether it's beautiful or not is irrelevant. We finally obtained footage of this miracle, and so I sent it to you,” Hiraga replied matter-of-factly. Dr. Singh’s brow furrowed.

“You think of nothing but miracles, I see. So, what do you want me to do with this?” Dr. Singh asked, resuming his usual steely impassiveness.

Hiraga asks him to analyse the footage and see if it's possible for snowfall to occur in summer. Dr. Singh points out that he’s not a meteorologist, but he’ll get in touch with the science division to work on it. (Honestly, he wins even more points with me for being the first person to say anything like “you realise I'm not THAT kind of scientist?” in a world where everyone else is pulling doctorates out of their ass.)

Hiraga and Dr. Singh disconnected from the call almost simultaneously.

I can’t quite tell if the two of them get along or not, Roberto thought.

Hiraga settles in for a long day of looping the video over and over; Roberto lies down because it’s 5 am, but he can’t stop thinking about the boy Shirou and the story of the hero Amakusa Shirou, and the encoded inscription on the cross, and the youkai, and all the weirdness on Kamishima, and the boatloads of historical exposition he’s been getting, and basically it occurs to Roberto that there’s a lot going on in this book.

At least he can tackle one small piece of it, i.e. what the guy at the archives was saying about Kamishima being “Shikashima”.

Still stretched out upon the futon, Roberto propped himself up on one elbow and called to Hiraga.

“Hey, Hiraga. I met someone who called Kamishima ‘Shikashima’. What do you think that was about?”

“‘Shikashima’, is it? Probably a reference to deer,” Hiraga answered without turning around.

“What, deer? Then ‘bambini’ was referring to fawns?”

“Yes. The story of Bambi is very well-known in Japan; it was a picture book and nursery rhyme, and also became a Disney animated movie. The part where the food runs out in winter, and the mother deer gives tree bark to the fawn, is especially tearjerking. And yet that mother deer was killed by hunters,” Hiraga said, sounding angry.

“That was Felix Salten’s fairytale, Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, wasn’t it? But I seem to remember the fawn ended up becoming the king of the forest - it was a happy ending.”

“Is that so? I don’t remember. I suppose I was so sad and irritated that I stopped reading halfway,” Hiraga said, head tilted doubtfully. Roberto laughed.

ACTUAL DISNEY PRINCESS HIRAGA JOSEF KOU

They talk about how deer are regarded as divine beasts in Japan, like at the shrines in Nara; this is because aristocrats close to the imperial family had a legend about a deity riding a white deer.

Roberto thinks it’s kind of odd that the deer worship of the imperial court was so readily received by the people of Amakusa. Oh well, there’s no point thinking about it now.

More importantly, I should be thinking about the miracle.

So the footprints we found on Kamishima did belong to Shirou and the others?

Then they must be hiding something after all…

The next day, Roberto goes off to the Hidden Christians’ village, and unlike the other day, it’s bustling with people and cars - including police cars. He finds Sara, who’s crying, and she explains that her father was missing and they’ve just learnt that he’s dead.

Turns out the oil-scalded corpse that was on the news was Sara’s father. It was strange that he went missing just before the ritual, when he’d been preparing for it for so long, but she was hoping that if the ritual was successful, he’d come back safe and well.

Roberto is temporarily speechless, and just races through possibilities. It can’t have been suicide. So it must have been an accident, or murder...

Roberto wants to take a look at the body when it’s brought back to the village, which will probably be tonight or tomorrow.

“I’ve had a lot of experience working with the police, in my line of work. I think perhaps I can be of some help.”

Sara frowned. “You’re a priest, aren’t you? Just what is your work like?”

“Of course I’m a priest. But at the same time, I’m also an investigator.”

Roberto explains that they came to investigate the miracle on Kamishima, and he thinks this miracle may have something to do with her father’s death.

“For example… if you’re hiding something, and perhaps it has to do with the miracle on Kamishima. Let’s say, you all know how the miracle was produced, and someone was kidnapped to extract information about this… That’s possible, isn’t it?”

Roberto, the girl’s dad is DEAD, can you let up on her for a bit

Sara protests that they have no idea about any of that, but Roberto is relentless. He points out that at the very least, they probably visit Kamishima frequently, which is how they had a recording of the miracle. “From this, we can deduce that you all pay special attention to Kamishima, and carry out regular surveillance. That’s a fact.”

He presses her to admit what Kamishima means to them, and she says it’s “the origin of our faith”. She gives some exposition on the history of the Hidden Christians, and how the Futou clan is a line of apothecarists who heal people with herbs and folk remedies, and also prayers and spells.

“But talking about prayers and spells in this day and age just sounds like nonsense, doesn’t it? It’s like the ritual the other day - I know it’s difficult for you to understand how we feel.”

“Not at all. I’m not much of a priest myself. When it comes to believing in God and praying to heaven, there isn’t really a difference between East and West.

“Besides, the Catholic monasteries of the West have an ancient tradition of cultivating medicinal herbs, and there were mysterious women known as witches who practised folk medicine. Don’t you think it’s pretty similar?” Roberto said with a smile.

Sara nodded, seeming a little more cheerful.

Sara shows him the rosary she wears, which is apparently an ancestral relic from Amakusa Shirou. Roberto takes a closer look at it and notices that it has almost the same design as the replica cross outside the museum - the one with the mysterious inscription. So the cross at the museum belonged to Amakusa Shirou himself. In that case, what does the inscription mean?

Sara sees him deep in thought, and gets worried. The Hidden Christians didn’t think this cross was especially valuable to anyone other than them, but maybe someone was targeting it after all? Roberto says no, they’re not after the cross itself - they’re after what it represents.

Sara sighs, “You’re talking about the legendary treasure of Amakusa Shirou, aren’t you?” She tells him that lots of people have come in search of the treasure, but it doesn’t actually exist. She can’t stand the thought that her father might have been targeted because of that. All the Hidden Christians want is to practise their faith discreetly and live in peace.

Roberto latches on to this. If the Hidden Christians just want a quiet life, then there’s no reason for them to draw attention to themselves by staging some conspicuous miracle, is there?

“I’m relieved to hear that. Like I said, we came to Amakusa to investigate the miracle on Kamishima. I truly wish to keep those mysterious events from being used as political tools.”

“Political tools… what are you talking about?”

“People want to stage miracles and have them verified for all sorts of reasons - to exploit them for political advantage, to demonstrate the power of the Lord Christ, to win back believers, to bask in the world’s attention, to gain resources and funding… Recently, we’ve been getting countless miracle reports of this sort, and I believe it’s related to the current instability in the Vatican.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s talk throughout the Catholic world of using God’s miracles as a unifying force to regain believers,” Roberto replied, with a trace of self-derision.

Sara is reminded of the four local Jesuit priests, who showed up after the events on Kamishima to urge all the Hidden Christians to go back to church. But the Hidden Christians have been doing their own thing for a long time and would prefer to keep it that way. “Our faith is something that belongs only to us, and we wish to safeguard this in secret.”

Roberto has a final piece of advice for her:

“Something that seems to hold no value for you may not necessarily be worthless to others. There’s a strong possibility that someone is after your secrets. Miss Sara, please be very careful.”

That’s actually good advice, Roberto.

Back at the inn, Dr. Singh calls Hiraga and tells him that he’s run a bunch of calculations on the velocity and mass and consistency of the snow, the ambient temperature, etc. Basically it’s physically impossible for this snow to have happened, especially considering how rapidly it was falling.

Hiraga: In other words, this snowfall displays a profound scientific contradiction?

Dr. Singh: That’s correct. It is a truly unnatural phenomenon - a mystery that defies the laws of mathematics.

Hiraga: So, Dr. Singh, do you also think this phenomenon is a miracle from the Lord?

Dr. Singh: Please stop. I am not the one to judge that. And it is not my business to say whether this video is a hoax or not. What I can say as a mathematician is that, for snow to fall at the speed shown in the video, it must be dense snow with high water content. If so, it should melt and become rain before reaching the ground. Conversely, snow that accumulates on the ground would have to fall more slowly. In any case, it is certainly inexplicable.

Hiraga: Ahh… Thank you very much. [hangs up, sighs]

Roberto remarks, “Dr. Singh is as cold as usual, huh,” and when Hiraga asks how much he heard, he says, “Just the last part, and you sighing. Are you stalled on the investigation? If you don’t mind, you can talk to me about it.”

“I don’t wish to complain, but at times like this I think, if only Lauren were around… And so I couldn’t help but sigh.”

Hiraga frankly expressed his thoughts.

“Well… Dr. Singh’s inadequacy can’t be helped, can it?”

“No, how should I put it… Dr. Singh is truly outstanding. But you could say he’s… not too interested in the investigation? I think this is the difference between him and Lauren.”

I’m not sure if Lauren was mainly interested in the INVESTIGATION, Hiraga, but okay.

“So from your point of view, the doctor’s talents are on par with that great genius Sir Lauren. That’s the highest praise you could give Dr. Singh. But well, if he won’t cooperate with you, won’t that brilliant brain of his just go to waste?” Roberto said, his words somewhat mean-spirited.

He struck his hand. “How about I teach you a magic word?”

“What’s that?” Hiraga asked, frowning.

“A magic word for getting Dr. Singh to help you.”

“Does such a thing exist? But my conscience reproaches me for comparing him to Lauren again.”

“It’s alright. They’re different people, after all.”

Roberto winked and smoothly wrote down some words in Hiraga’s notebook. Hiraga looked at them and blinked.

“Are these magic words?”

“Yes. My intuition tells me they’ll probably work well. You might as well keep them up your sleeve in case you need them.”

“I will. Thank you very much.”

Roberto then flops down and cheerfully remarks, “Aaahh. I’m getting used to the tatami, bit by bit.”

Hiraga asks what he was up to today, and Roberto tells him about Sara and her dead father; Hiraga quietly says a prayer for the dead man. Roberto remarks that as if that weren’t bad enough, there’s even more depressing stuff surrounding it.

Roberto: Looking at Miss Sara and the others reminded me of something. It seems that in the past, missionaries were up to something in Amakusa. The directors of the Christian Museum and the Collegio Museum were friendly to us; they said it was thanks to the missionaries that the Christian faith and culture flourished in Amakusa, and governance was excellent during the era of the Christian daimyou. But…

Hiraga: Did Miss Sara and the others have negative opinions?

Roberto: No - on the contrary. I realised that they hold fast to an incredibly pure faith. Even though it deviates from Catholic doctrine, they would stake their life on their faith. And this made me aware of my sinfulness... As you know, the reason why the Jesuits began missionary work across the world was to counter the rising prominence of the Protestants. But to put it more frankly, it was because of the Vatican’s budget deficit.

Roberto launches into exposition about how the Catholic Church - especially the Jesuits - has messed things up all over the world out of mercenary motives. He basically gives a rundown of colonisation, the spice trade, and how the Inquisition was an excuse to confiscate the assets of people they had issues with. The exploration of new lands in the East was to find more ways to fill church coffers, which paid off richly with the discovery of valuable gold and silver mines in Japan.

“The Jesuit missionaries spearheaded the charge to evangelise in the East. They used the gold, silver, and treasures they brought back from the East to build the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, along with chapels, printing presses, and libraries - I have very mixed feelings about that.”

But then Christianity was outlawed in Japan, and uprisings like Amakusa Shirou’s Shimabara Rebellion took place, spurred along by European powers that supplied weapons to the combatants.

“The director of the Christian museum told me that the Shimabara Rebellion in Amakusa wasn’t a religious war. But I disagree. It was a proxy war between the Portuguese and the Dutch - in other words, between Catholics and Protestants. The Protestant Dutch wanted to seize the Japanese market from the Catholic nations, which had profited so tremendously by trading with Japan.”

The Catholics wanted to protect their interests in Japan, and so they backed Amakusa Shirou as a puppet, but his entire army was wiped out. “What this amounts to is that the missionaries brought the flames of war to this island… When I think about this, I’m overcome by the urge to bow in apology to Miss Sara and the others.”

“Father Roberto, your opinions always surprise me. I’ve never given much thought to the economic considerations behind history. But you have nothing to feel responsible for. Everything that happened was meant to happen - that’s what I think,” Hiraga said, his gaze fixed steadily on Roberto.

“Well… You’re right. I’m not so egoistic as to say it’s my responsibility. It just made me a little melancholy. And of course I couldn’t say this sort of thing to Miss Sara; that’s why I got you to listen to me.”

“Are you feeling a little better?”

“Yes. Thank you. In return, I’ll brew some Japanese tea.”

Aww, Hiraga, that’s sweet, but we all know that getting Roberto not to feel guilty is a fool’s errand.

They drink tea, and Hiraga comes up with a lighter anecdote.

“Speaking of the Age of Discovery, I just remembered something unpleasant.

“In my first year at the University of Berlin, I had to write a report about Columbus's discovery of the New World, but I remember I objected to the expression ‘discovery of the New World’ itself. ‘It's called a discovery, but weren't the Native Americans originally living there?’ - I wrote a hundred-page report about that. As a result, the professor gave me an E grade. In the end, it blew up into a big argument, and I dropped the course.”

“That was a really stubborn professor,” Roberto said, laughing wryly.

“Right? Thanks to that, I developed a temporary phobia of reports.”

Hiraga Josef Kou is truly a precious treasure.

He’s not done being chatty either - wow, it’s like he really wants to take Roberto’s mind off gloomy historical things.

“Ahh - I remembered something else.”

“What is it this time?”

“The other day, when you asked about Bambi, I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer. So I looked into it more afterwards.”

Hiraga explains that the reason why deer worship became prevalent in Amakusa was because of a superstition - fawns have spots that fade when they reach maturity, and so people who were afflicted with skin diseases would worship these deer, hoping that they too would have their blemishes vanish. Hmm.

Roberto then notices that it’s 6 o’clock; usually the girl Yuuko would have brought their dinner by now. They go out to check, and see Yoshioka pacing around. He’s worried about Yuuko; she’s seemed downcast and worried for the past few days, and isn’t back from walking the dog, even though he’s always told her to come home before it gets dark. Roberto mutters, “He’s even more overprotective than I expected.”

But it’s okay, Hiraga is here to provide reassurance.

Hiraga tipped his head to the side.

“That is puzzling.”

“What?”

“When a young girl goes missing, the worst-case scenarios are that she has gotten into an accident, or that she has been abducted.”

Yoshioka turned ghastly pale at Hiraga’s blunt words.

“But that’s strange, isn’t it? In the case of a traffic accident, there are three possibilities to consider - only Miss Yuuko was run over, the dog was run over, or both of them were run over. Unless the dog was run over, it should have remained at the scene, and it would be strange that you didn’t notice it when you checked Miss Yuuko’s usual route.

“And if we assume she was kidnapped, it would be highly unusual to abduct the dog together with the girl. In other words, you should have found the dog along the route.

“Therefore, this raises the possibility that the dog was in an accident, and Miss Yuuko took it to the hospital. But then a contradiction arises - how could she have sensed this a few days ago and grown unhappy and worried?”

As Hiraga spoke dispassionately, Yoshioka seized his arm and shook it violently.

“You - what are you saying? So what did happen to Yuuko?!”

“In short, it’s unclear at present,” Hiraga answered coolly. Yoshioka glared balefully at him.

“Hiraga, what are you talking about?” Roberto asked, worried.

Hiraga relayed the conversation, and Roberto folded his arms.

“There’s just one gap in your reasoning.”

Hiraga blinked. “Where?”

“Isn’t it possible that Miss Yuuko left home of her own accord and changed her usual route?”

Hiraga doesn’t understand why Yuuko would hide something from her father when they’re clearly close. Roberto points out that might be the problem - Yoshioka is such a doting dad that it gets kind of smothering. “If there was a boy she liked - but maybe I’m overthinking it. For now, try asking Mr. Yoshioka if there’s any sign of Miss Yuuko having a lover. If he has no idea about that, there’s nothing to do except call the police.”

Hiraga conveys this to Yoshioka, who realises IT HAS TO BE ROBINSON BAKER, THAT BASTARD. He must have dragged Yuuko off somewhere! Hiraga tries to call Robinson, but only gets his voicemail. Yoshioka is livid. He dashes off to call the cops.

Back in the room, Roberto has a dream about the Hidden Christians, and when he wakes up from it, “in his head, the scattered puzzle pieces whirled wildly through the air like a tornado, and then clicked firmly into place”. Great, Roberto, share the breakthrough with the class! Or at least Hiraga!

Roberto got up and took a shower. Then he called out to Hiraga, who was facing his laptop as usual, “I’m going out for a bit.”

Oh. I’m sure this will end well.

Roberto goes back to the Hidden Christian village to see the corpse of Sara’s father. The skin is blackened and the body is bloated due to five days of decomposition. Gosh, you know what might be really useful right now? HAVING THE BEAUTIFUL GENIUS SCIENTIST/FORENSICS GUY HERE

The corpse was mottled with inflamed burn scars, covering the face and neck, as well as the chest and abdomen - as though it had been struck by a shower of hot oil. From the blistering on the skin, these burns had unmistakably happened before death.

When Roberto looked closer, he saw that the wrists and thighs were partially marked with scars that had turned dark brown with congested blood, and the surface of the skin was marred by abrasions. These marks were probably from being bound with coarse rope.

Roberto reflexively averted his eyes from this brutality - but the sight of these wounds irresistibly reminded him of something.

Torture.

He had seen the same torture method in classified documents related to the Order of Saint Stephen, which had existed in sixteenth-century Tuscany and Pisa.

When torturing traitors and spies, they had used a device that consisted of a handle attached to a sphere with numerous small holes in it. This was commonly known as a “lead sprinkler”. The instrument had been filled with molten lead and tar, or boiling water or oil, and the searing liquid had been dripped onto the victims to torment them.

The Order of Saint Stephen had been formed to combat the heathen Ottoman Empire and Turkish pirates; they were the Pope’s division of elite guards, and also had deep ties to the Jesuits.

The Jesuits… Is this their doing?

Cold sweat ran down Roberto’s brow. His hand trembled as he adjusted the garment on the corpse.

No, calm down. I have to confirm the facts first.

Hey, Roberto, this might be a REALLY GOOD TIME to call someone!

Roberto took out his cellphone and made a call to Father Andou.

GODDAMMIT NOT THAT

But Father Andou doesn’t answer, so Roberto hurries off to the church of our FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD JESUITS. My Roberto-whump senses are tingling.

The only person at the church is Nishimaru (aka Father West, who has really not been relevant so far); he seems confused when Roberto demands where everyone else is. Roberto chills enough to remember that nothing is confirmed yet and Nishimaru might genuinely be out of the loop, and he apologises for snapping at him.

Nishimaru speaks some English; he says head priest Gerard went back to France for a visit. He has no idea where the other priests went or when they’ll be back. There was a big argument yesterday between Andou and the others, and then they all left together and haven’t returned. Nishimaru says he’s not much of a priest, so all he really does is cook and clean for the others; they don’t tell him what they’re up to. But he does keep track of their schedules.

Roberto looks at the priests’ schedules and sees that they’re usually very regular - but since the miracle on Kamishima, they’ve gotten very disorganised, and they’ve been staying out at night a lot recently. Including the days Sara’s father was missing. And they were also out last night when Yuuko went missing.

If they’re behind Miss Yuuko’s kidnapping too…

The mangled corpse of Sara’s father resurfaced in the back of Roberto’s mind.

I have to save her. Where are they now?

Roberto ran through the dizzying possibilities.

He figures that the hideout can’t be that far from the church, but must also be somewhere that people don’t go near. A place that’s taboo. The place of the oil presser spirits.

Roberto is on a ROLL with the deductions now. He figures out that the oil presser story was originally about people who extracted Hydnocarpus wightiana seed oil; there were lots of those trees growing on the Kamishima mountaintop, and around the alleged lair of the oil pressers.

The oil from those trees is specifically used to treat leprosy - a disease which has strong associations with Christianity, only rivalled by smallpox. Both these diseases cause lesions or sores on the skin. Roberto realises that the prevalence of these diseases was precisely why deer worship caught on in Amakusa.

The history of infectious disease was inextricable from the existence of religion - the latter served as salvation from the inexplicable and indiscriminate suffering caused by the former.

This was demonstrated by how many early followers of Christianity had suffered from disease. Christianity had originally been for the sake of the weak and persecuted.

This was probably the same reason why Christianity had been accepted in Amakusa…

Roberto double-checks with Nishimaru whether there was an outbreak of leprosy and smallpox around the time the Jesuit missionaries arrived in Amakusa. Nishimaru confirms this. “But the Jesuit missionaries, who were firmly devoted to their work, bravely entered the land of Amakusa.” As a result, they managed to convert about 400 heathens.

Was it really their firm devotion to their missionary work that drove them to set foot in the dangerous land of Amakusa?

Roberto knew that the answer was no.

They had a secret - they had no need to fear the smallpox.

Roberto says he’ll come back tomorrow, and skedaddles.

Good detective work, Roberto, but seriously, maybe it’s time to phone a friend.

Roberto flagged a taxi, and headed to the place of the oil pressers.

Or not, I guess!

He didn’t know if Yuuko would be there. It would be better if she weren’t.

I hope it’s all a misunderstanding on my part, Roberto thought.

With this prayer in his heart, he got out of the taxi and entered the depths of the forest.

You know, I now understand why these books are published under a horror imprint. This is like every classic horror scene where you’re yelling at the protagonist not to do some idiotic reckless thing like CHECKING OUT THE MONSTER’S HIDEOUT ALONE, and then they DO THE THING ANYWAY

From the shade of the trees, Roberto peered at the buildings.

At a glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

So it had just been a misunderstanding after all. He let out a breath, and took out his cellphone to contact Hiraga.

In that instant -

There was a violent impact on the back of Roberto's head. He collapsed to the ground.

Before his vision faded, he saw his cellphone crushed under someone's black shoe.

OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE NOT THIS AGAIN

And then, in truly cinematic style, we cut back to Hiraga. I’m so sorry I ever yelled at him for recklessly climbing down a cliff alone. THIS really puts it in perspective.

Hiraga is still watching the footage of the summer snow, and having a mental block.

He slapped his palms repeatedly against his own head.

SAME, but for a different reason.

Hiraga is still blissfully unaware that his problems are about to get a whole lot bigger. Instead, he successfully figures out that the so-called snow is actually inversion fog caused by the sudden cooling of the air near the ground. But why did the air over Kamishima abruptly cool?

Oh look, HIRAGA knows how to phone a friend! Or, well, a colleague. He emails his hypothesis to Dr. Singh, who checks and confirms that it’s inversion fog, but, “As for what caused the cooling of the atmosphere over Kamishima, I do not know. It is outside my area of expertise.” Hiraga calls him anyway to press it further, and Dr. Singh points out the difficulty of calculating localised weather phenomena using general regional data.

"It might be possible if you had accurate weather data for the skies precisely over Kamishima that day - but you don't, do you?" Dr. Singh said coldly.

"Yes, I don't. Who do you think might have it?" Hiraga asked, his expression earnest.

Dr. Singh seemed to be taken aback. He sighed.

"Who? Well, I have no idea. How about you go make inquiries among aliens? Now then, I'm busy. Excuse me."

The call was cut off.

Hiraga gazed at the dark screen of the monitor, imagining telescope-wielding aliens monitoring Kamishima from their spaceship.

It was true that, with observational data collected from space, the state of the skies over Kamishima that day would become clear.

And even if not aliens, there were existing entities which might possess such data. The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintained satellites for military navigation, through the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. They certainly had a vast store of observational data on meteorology and oceanography.

However, even if the request were to come officially from the Vatican, it didn't seem likely that the United States government would hand over such data.

"And I can't ask Dr. Singh to carry out hacking..."

Just as Hiraga let out a short sigh, there was a knock on the door.

Open up, Hiraga, it’s a WHOLE NEW PROBLEM

Outside the door are the boy Shirou and another youth - and Yuuko’s dog is with them.

“Is Father Roberto in?” the boy Shirou asked.

“No, he said he was going out for a bit. He’s been out since this morning,” Hiraga replied. Shirou frowned.

“He said ‘a bit’ - but he’s still gone at this hour?”

Now that he mentioned it… Hiraga looked at his watch. It was past 7 pm.

“He really is late. It’s strange that he hasn’t contacted me. I’ll give him a call.”

Hiraga made a phone call to Roberto, but all he heard was a message informing him that the phone was out of power.

“I can’t reach him. That’s rare…”

Hiraga’s face clouded.

“So… it really is like Sara said. I’m worried about Father Roberto.”

“He went to look for the missing Yuuko, didn’t he?”

Shirou and the other youth spoke simultaneously, looking at each other.

“Father Hiraga, do you know Father Roberto came to our village today?” Shirou asked.

“No,” Hiraga said, shaking his head.

“Sara says he was acting strangely. She got the villagers together, saying she had something important to tell everyone - she wanted to pass on a warning from Father Roberto.

“Father Roberto was worried that one of us had died. He said there’s a strong possibility that someone is after the secrets of the Hidden Christians, and we ought to be very careful…”

“Roberto said that?”

Hiraga frowned.

Yeah, that was good advice. Pity he himself IGNORED IT COMPLETELY

The other youth introduces himself as Shinichi - Sara’s older brother, and also Yuuko’s secret boyfriend. Looks like Roberto was right about this, despite being a COMPLETE DUMBASS

The couple had agreed that after the snake ritual, Shinichi would leave his family to be with Yuuko - but then he had to take his missing father’s place in the ritual, and he couldn’t be in contact with Yuuko, which is why she seemed so anxious for the past few days. They were supposed to meet when she took the dog for a walk, but he only found the dog, with no sign of Yuuko. So now it seems likely that whoever killed Shinichi’s father abducted Yuuko too.

“But no matter how hard I try, I can’t figure out where Yuuko is. My last hope was that Father Roberto might know something, so I came to ask him.”

Shinichi’s appeal was desperate.

“...Yes, I think so too. Roberto noticed something, and went alone to save Miss Yuuko. That’s the kind of person he is.”

Roberto's personality was such that he would be satisfied with warning other people to be cautious, while he himself dived into danger alone.

Why didn’t he discuss any of this with me - his partner? Hiraga bit his lip.

“Do you have any idea where he went?”

“Did he give any hint of where he was going?”

The boys Shirou and Shinichi leant forward as they asked.

Hiraga stood stock-still and silent, recalling what Roberto had said last night. Had he said anything that might be a hint?

There didn’t seem to have been anything of the sort.

“Looking at Miss Sara and the others reminded me of something. It seems that in the past, missionaries were up to something in Amakusa.”

“You have nothing to feel responsible for.”

“Well… You’re right. I’m not so egoistic as to say it’s my responsibility.”

Hiraga remembered their conversation.

Roberto had appeared to feel a sense of responsibility towards the people of Amakusa. He had seemed to feel guilt towards the people who had been unknowingly dragged into the gambits of the European powers, and lost their lives as a result. More than that, he had said that he himself was a sinner.

Even so, you don’t mean to let yourself die as a scapegoat, do you?

You’re such an idiot.

Hiraga clenched his fists. His anguished tears were on the verge of spilling over.

With trembling hands, he once again dialed Roberto’s number. But the power really had been cut off.

I LOVE THIS BUT I ALSO HATE IT

Hiraga realises that the one way to pinpoint Roberto’s location is through cellphone GPS signals, the way phone companies track lost cellphones. If not, they’ll have to call the cops, but they don’t have time for that.

Hiraga sat down before his laptop and called Dr. Singh.

Dr. Singh’s annoyed face appeared on the monitor.

Roberto, I’m using your magic.

Hiraga clutched the note in his pocket.

hey I wonder how the magician’s doing

This prize idiot wakes up and finds himself in a candlelit cave - it looks like a ward formerly used to treat leprosy patients. He’s lying down and tied hand and foot to a bed. I’m almost too stressed to appreciate the bondage. Almost.

He can hear a woman crying softly, and when he looks around, he sees Yuuko, also tied up. He calls out to her but she seems too terrified to talk, and it occurs to Roberto that he doesn’t speak Japanese anyway.

Roberto is trying futilely to yank himself free when he smells the distinctive whiff of hot oil. Turns out there’s a cauldron of oil boiling near him.

WELL THEN

Hiraga told Dr. Singh how Roberto had gotten caught up in the case and his life was now in danger.

“Then you should go to the police quickly,” Dr. Singh insisted firmly.

“I know. But this is a race against time. Roberto’s cellphone has lost power. We can’t search for him through ordinary means. But his cellphone's location history should still be on the servers. If we check that-”

“That’s why the police-”

“There isn’t enough time. Only you can do it!”

“Ah- you- surely you can’t be telling me to engage in illegal activity. What do you take me for? In the first place, asking me to act outside my duties puts me in a difficult situation.”

“But you’re our friend!” Hiraga cried out.

Dr. Singh, who was angrily moving to disconnect the call, instantly froze.

“Huh?”

His eyes widened.

“Doctor, how- how are your dogs?”

Hiraga spoke forcefully, as though latching onto the topic.

“What? Wh-why are you asking now…?”

Dr. Singh looked startled.

“I’m asking if they’re fine.”

“T-they’re fine.”

“Are those dogs your family?”

“Eh… What does that…”

“Roberto told me. Transporting those dogs to the Vatican was very difficult. I can only say this now, but he had to go outside the law a little, to smooth over that risky situation. All of that - for the sake of his friendship with you, Roberto…”

Hiraga made it this far before his breath caught.

The note Roberto had written was worded more elegantly; if it had been Roberto in his place, he could probably have deftly negotiated with Dr. Singh and persuaded him.

But he himself couldn’t do that.

Hiraga’s gaze frantically ran across the words, but his mind wasn’t following them. His mouth wasn’t moving. It hurt to breathe, and his eyes couldn't focus properly.

His gaze felt strange.

“…Father Hiraga?”

Dr. Singh stared at Hiraga, who had fallen silent onscreen.

Hiraga’s eyes were wet. A tear slid down his face.

I NEEDED THIS IN MY LIFE BUT ALSO I NEVER NEEDED THIS EVER

Dr. Singh quietly hangs up and lets Hiraga sob over his dumbass husband in peace, while he considers his conundrum.

Singh was troubled.

It was not that he did not know how to check the location history of Roberto’s cellphone. He knew that perfectly well.

The truth of the matter was that Dr. Singh had worked with the Rome police to thoroughly investigate everything from Hiraga’s call history to his cellphone location history. Even after that, he had continued monitoring for over a year, retrieving information to track any irregularities around Father Hiraga, and whether he was in contact with the terrorist Lauren di Luca.

[...]

Of course, misusing this data was forbidden by law, and the data on the servers was protected by formidable security measures. The information would only be disclosed to the police by court order, in the case of severe crimes, or if the cellphone owner was clearly involved in anti-social activity.

But if they followed formal procedures, it would take some time for the court order to be issued. Singh knew this.

He swallowed.

The question isn’t whether or not I can do it.

It’s whether or not I will.

Our damsel in distress is still trying to wrench himself loose, but it’s time for his regularly scheduled “being tied up and menaced by a villain”. Head priest Gerard, who was supposedly in France, strolls over with the classic Hollywood line, “I see you’re finally awake.” Naturally, he’s accompanied by minions (the three younger priests, including Roberto’s friend Andou).

He’s also holding the lead sprinkler. I recommend following that link so you can really picture it.

“Father Gerard, what are you doing?!” Roberto shouted.

“‘What are you doing’ - need you ask? I’m reclaiming the treasure of the Pope - the Vatican - from the heathens in this land. That is my mission.”

Gerard stepped closer, expressionless.

“Treasure?”

“Indeed. Before this, when the Vatican was on the verge of a crisis and fell into financial difficulties, it was rebuilt splendidly using the treasure of the Hidden Christians here. But the Jesuits were expelled from Japan before they could deliver the final treasure to the Vatican. Now that the Vatican once again faces a financial crisis, it is necessary to recover the medieval treasure.”

“Ridiculous. And that’s why you killed Mr. Futou?”

“I had no intention of killing him at first. That family should know the location of the treasure, and if he’d obediently handed it over, all would have been well. But he obstinately refused. He was frustratingly tight-lipped. And so I had to make use of holy torture.

“Those fellows don’t seem to value their own lives at all; if we’d taken his son, it’d have ended the same way. That’s why we took his fiancee.”

“What are you going to do with Miss Yuuko?!”

“Make a deal. What will that man’s son choose - faith or his lover? If we slowly send him more and more pictures of the girl being tortured, he’s bound to hand over the treasure at some point. I was planning to enjoy myself to my heart’s content, but then an unexpected obstacle showed up. Father Roberto, now that you know the secret, you must be dealt with.”

With these words, Gerard dipped the frightful “lead sprinkler” into the cauldron of seething oil. There was a strange sizzling sound.

Then Gerard came into sight. He was gazing with pleasure at the steaming instrument as oil dripped from it.

“Now then… Who should I start with? Should I begin with the girl’s ankle? Or Father Roberto, would you like to go first?”

Gerard's smirking face drew closer. Drops of oil fell from the lead sprinkler, and as they landed on the flagstones, steam rose with a hiss.

Gerard whispered into Roberto's ear, "We who serve the Pope should be of one mind. Submit to me and you will be saved."

He then turned on his heel, and approached Yuuko.

"Maybe I’ll start with the girl after all..."

Yuuko's eyes were filled with tears. She cried out, her voice fraying like a silk thread.

"Wait! Don't hurt Miss Yuuko! She has nothing to do with this!"

"Then you will be the first to receive punishment!"

Gerard raised the lead sprinkler. The next instant, he poured a stream of boiling oil down towards Roberto's foot.

The bed was scorched, and smoke rose from Roberto's cassock. He felt a momentary heat, but there was no pain.

He was so afraid his teeth were chattering. The sound echoed in his skull.

"Oh my, I missed? You're a lucky man."

Gerard grinned, and stepped back towards the cauldron.

Roberto shook off his terror. Feigning calm, he called out to Gerard's retreating figure.

"Father Gerard, how about making a deal with me instead? I know where the treasure is located."

"What...? Don't talk nonsense."

Gerard slowly turned back.

"No, it's true," Roberto declared.

In fact, he had no definite proof, but he had a rough idea. And if he convinced Gerard, it would give him time to consider his next move.

Gerard stared at his face with deep suspicion. Roberto hoped fervently that his demeanour seemed confident enough.

"If that's true, then tell me the location right now," Gerard said threateningly.

"It’s difficult to explain. That's why I'll show you directly. Take me to Kamishima."

"Hmph... Very well. Then, what are your terms? Are you begging for your life?"

"No. I want you to let Miss Yuuko go."

Gerard chuckled.

“Only if I get the treasure. The girl will be confined here as a hostage. If you lie or run away, both of you will be done for. Got it?”

“Of course. I understand.”

Roberto has a good heart but a TERRIBLE BRAIN

The Jesuits hustle him out of the cave bound and gagged and at knifepoint, and put a bag over his head, because we’re really committing to the bondage.

Roberto does notice that the priests are basically invisible in the darkness, because they’re wearing special black cloaks (which explains that floating disembodied hand Robinson saw in happier times). They get on a boat.

It should take about 30 minutes to get to Kamishima.

Until then, Roberto had to prepare to decipher the code. He marshalled his thoughts.

...as a reminder, he doesn’t even know for sure, he’s JUST BLUFFING and planning to SOLVE IT ON THE SPOT. You’re playing a dangerous game here, pal.

They get to Kamishima, and Roberto leads them to the spot where he saw a figure vanish the other day, and he spots a very faint Hidden Christian crest. They find a small cave and enter it, but then the path forks. There are pictures carved over each fork - the serpent tempting Eve, Jesus being crucified, sun-worshippers, stuff like that.

“Let me think for a bit,” Roberto said reflexively. Gerard glared at him murderously.

Roberto closed his eyes and tried to organise his thoughts.

Even with knife-wielding Jesuits deathglaring at him, Roberto slips into the codebreaking zone and blithely starts internally monologuing about religious symbolism. Hey, remember the Lullian Circle he was working with at the start of the book? The medieval Jesuits used that pretty extensively! So what Roberto has to do is identify the component parts of each picture (e.g. Adam, Eve, and the snake), derive their initials, and then match them with that mysterious inscription on the Hidden Christians’ cross, once that inscription is run through a mental Lullian Circle.

So simple, really.

Anyway, the first string of characters is SSL, which he realises stands for “Sol”, “Sanctum”, and “Laudo”, so he chooses the path with the sun-worshippers engraved over it. He repeats this process every time they reach a new fork, but then they arrive at a rock wall.

“Shit - it’s a dead end!”

Gerard stamped his feet, enraged, and grabbed hold of Roberto.

But Roberto sensed that there was no mistake in his codebreaking.

“This must be the goal. Surely there’s a hidden door somewhere.”

Oh, naturally.

Of course there’s a secret door, and they emerge into a chamber containing a stone altar and a box decorated with gold and silver. It looks like the legendary Ark of the Covenant - knowing VME, it might be. Gerard is thrilled. “We’ve finally found it! The treasure that will save the Vatican from its crisis!”

“What should we do with him?”

A smirk crossed Gerard’s face, and he turned to Roberto.

“Father Roberto, you’ve really worked hard to guide us here. We no longer have any use for you, but in honour of your efforts, I’ll give you a special choice. You can die here like this, or you can become my subordinate. Choose one or the other.”

Gerard drew a dagger from under his cloak, and held it to Roberto’s throat. Nanjou, too, brandished his gleaming knife.

Roberto made no reply. The heavy silence drew on.

I bet he’s about to say “guess I’ll die”, but fortunately, before that happens:

“Father Roberto!”

A loud voice echoed nearby. It was Hiraga.

“Are you alright, Father Roberto?!”

This time, it was the voice of the boy Shirou.

Then there’s a stampede of footsteps, like 20 to 30 people are headed their way.

Seeing the tide turn, Gerard violently shoved Roberto away. Roberto lost his balance and fell to the floor.

“Let’s go! Help move this!”

Hiraga and the Hidden Christians burst into the room, and Shirou rushes after the priests who are getting away with the treasure chest. Naturally, THIS is when Roberto loses his chill and yells, “Watch out for the knife! They have knives!”

I give up on this man.

Hiraga knelt down next to Roberto and started cutting his ropes with a Swiss Army knife.

“I’m glad you’re alright… I was worried I wouldn’t make it in time.”

“More importantly - Hiraga, Miss Yuuko is still a captive,” Roberto said hurriedly.

Hiraga shot a glance at him.

“She’s alright. She is with her lover right now, and is going to Mr. Yoshioka.”

“That’s a relief, then.��

Hiraga explains how Dr. Singh tracked down Roberto’s cellphone location, so they managed to find Yuuko; she was being guarded by Roberto’s former friend Andou, but he answered their questions honestly and vowed to turn himself in to the police. Then Shirou gathered the villagers and led them all to this hideout on Kamishima.

“I see… Hiraga, thank you for coming to save me,” Roberto said seriously.

“It wasn’t me - everyone came to save you. Please learn from this experience and stop being reckless, and give thanks to God for your rescue.”

Hiraga, speaking in a slightly angry tone, jerked the knife.

CALL HIM OUT, HIRAGA

Shirou returns and gloomily announces that the priests got away with the treasure. Hiraga casually explains that their cloaks must have been made with Vantablack, because VME will never miss the chance for a meme.

Roberto wants to apologise for letting the bad guys get away with the treasure (TWO BOOKS IN A ROW, SERIOUSLY). Shirou explains that the chest was very important to the Hidden Christians - it held a seemingly-empty pot that was supposedly a sacred relic. Roberto guesses that the pot contained the residue of something like dried fruit peels or burnt charcoal, and Shirou confirms this.

“It’s good you didn’t touch them. That was smallpox.”

Specifically, they were the scabs of people suffering from smallpox - these were historically used as a sort of immunisation.

“Father Gerard and the others might be disappointed when they see the contents of the chest,” Hiraga said mildly, and Roberto spontaneously burst out laughing.

“Right?”

Roberto talks about how colonialism has historically been furthered by introducing diseases to the indigenous populations, and that’s what happened in Amakusa. “Diseases don’t just cause mental and physical suffering. Societies ravaged by disease also experience religious turmoil - you could say it’s an ideal opportunity for religious conversion. Ordinarily, no one would set foot in a place where there was a smallpox outbreak, but the missionaries went ahead with their proselytising without hesitation.”

“But, Roberto - at the same time, surely there were also missionaries who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to serving people. The scabs of Saint Silvester here also saved many lives, didn’t they? I want to believe this. There must have been many people like Father Almeida, who were not simply driven by aggression and profit,” Hiraga said.

“That’s true,” Roberto replied, nodding deeply. "There are always villains, but there are also good people."

Hiraga looked Roberto straight in the eye, and said, smiling, "Yes."

As usual, this tender moment is interrupted by a weird discovery - looking closer at the altar now that the chest is gone, Shirou finds a strange mechanism that reminds him of a puzzle. Roberto tries out a bunch of codes.

As Roberto dexterously manipulated the dial, lining up one word after another, Shirou and the others watched wide-eyed, sighing with admiration.

(Don’t be fooled, folks. He’s still a moron.)

Naturally, Roberto solves the puzzle, and the altar cracks and slides open to reveal a pool of water, containing hundreds of huge, dazzling white pearls. Turns out that the Hidden Christians cultivated pearls, which is a surprise even to their descendants.

“So there was something like this lying under the altar… This must have been a worthy offering to God. From now on, we will abide by our ancestors’ beliefs, and reveal this secret to no one. And we will continue our steadfast prayers to God for the rest of our lives.”

Shirou and the Hidden Christians all kneel and pray. No one touches any of the pearls, despite how valuable they must be.

Roberto helpfully reminds us that church dodginess knows no limits, and the missionaries probably set out to convert the people of Amakusa specifically so they could get their hands on the pearls. Hiraga does not take this well.

“The main components of pearl are aragonite - crystallised calcium - and conchiolin, which is protein. It’s the same composition as shell. When something slips into the interior of a mollusc’s shell, the mantle, which secretes the components of the shell, undergoes cell division. This forms a layer of calcium and organic matter that encases the object. Pearls appear iridescent to the human eye simply because of the structure of these overlapping layers.

“It’s far too cruel to sacrifice human lives for something like this.”

“I know. Deceiving such pure people… I can’t stomach it either.”

Hiraga suddenly realises that hey, the book is ending and they still haven’t solved the miracle! Time to tie up all the loose ends at once! Also, Hiraga hasn’t given that much exposition so far; he needs to catch up.

A rundown, because this recap is so long by now that it probably needs its own recap:

Q: Why were there jute fibres in the cliff soil?

A: The Hidden Christians were harvesting soil from the top of the cliff, putting it in sacks, and dropping it off the top of the cliff.

Q: Who was the black-haired angel Robinson saw?

A: A tall, buff Hidden Christian dude wearing a black headscarf, who was collecting soil when he saw Robinson on the beach. The Hidden Christians didn’t want to be found on Kamishima, but they signalled for help with an emergency searchlight, so the fishing boat came by to pick up Robinson the next day. Roberto thinks this is pretty hilarious. “Robinson would be shocked to find out that his first love, the angel, is actually this big man.”

Q: What was the figure of Christ that Robinson saw?

A: This cave on Kamishima contains an underground chapel with a massive relief of Christ, covered with luminous moss. Because of ~science~ and the way moss grows into cracks, the image of Christ also became visible on the other side of the rock face, and glowed brightly in the typhoon. It vanished soon after because the moss couldn’t survive the storm.

Q: What was the cross that appeared in the sky above Kamishima?

A: The Hidden Christians were working on the island that day as well, and when the dense fog formed, the lamps they were holding were refracted by the fog, creating a mirage that looked like a cross.

Q: Okay, but why did the fog form?

A: [shrug emoji]

Shirou invites our heroes to the Hidden Christians’ church service the next day, and naturally they go. It’s very lovely and moving. They also get to check in with Sara, and they talk theology a bit.

Sara: I was born as a Hidden Christian, and when I studied Christianity later on, I found something puzzling. Christianity holds that humans have original sin, but I wasn’t taught anything of the sort. According to our doctrine, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of wisdom that God had forbidden, but they sincerely repented, and so God forgave them. We are also taught that if you worship Mother Mary, you will be blessed with a child as wise and virtuous as Christ, and if you worship Christ, you can be a good person yourself. Our teachings are simple - they’re too naive, aren’t they?

Roberto: There is no original sin…?

After the service, Hiraga weighs in on this.

“Roberto, perhaps the people of Amakusa truly are without original sin,” Hiraga said earnestly.

“Miss Sara said that their ancestors Adam and Eve ate the fruit of wisdom but were forgiven. I think that doctrine is not necessarily mistaken.

“After all, if humans are solely descended from the single couple of Adam and Eve, in biological terms, it would be difficult for humanity to thrive the way it does now. In other words, don’t you think it makes more sense if there were other couples besides Adam and Eve? It may be irreverent to say such a thing, but the Bible is set down by humans, after all - perhaps some parts were omitted in the writing.”

“So there were people who ate the same fruit of wisdom, but some were forgiven and others were punished?”

“Yes, that’s right. Perhaps God looked upon the people who had sinned and saw the state of their souls. He pardoned those who honestly apologised, and punished those who laid the blame on the serpent. If so, then I don’t think it’s strange that people without original sin exist.”

“Hmm…”

Roberto thought of the people he had met in Amakusa, and the history of the Christians who had held fast to their faith amidst persecution.

The tossing waves of history had brought many twists of fate to this small Asian island, and sometimes, the people here had been randomly afflicted by unreasonable violence.

But throughout this, there were those who continued to love God with pure hearts. There were those who set aside their self-interest to generously help others.

The apostles without original sin - they were raised in the furthest East.

The people who had tended to the sick, harbouring faith in God. The people who had gathered pearls. Shirou and the others, who had chosen to protect the pearls rather than seizing them. The nameless boy who had fallen in battle at the foot of Amakusa Shirou’s banner. The unnamed youth who had rescued Robinson. Each of them was undoubtedly such a person.

Roberto thought that he wanted to believe Hiraga’s words.

“Apostles without original sin, huh… That’s right. That’s certainly what they are.”

But now it’s time to return to the wretched hive of scum and villainy, aka the Vatican! One week later, Dr. Singh messages them to come see him.

Roberto took a step into the room and was shocked. Previously, the room had been devoid of any unnecessary objects, but now it was decorated with several potted plants with brightly-coloured flowers. This brought a trace of warmth into the dreary space.

Dr. Singh drops a load of exposition on why the atmosphere over Kamishima cooled so rapidly that day. Basically, a military aircraft experienced an equipment malfunction due to solar flares, and accidentally jettisoned its cargo, which was a large amount of dry ice and cloud-seeding materials.

“But Dr. Singh, how were you able to get this information?” Roberto asked. Dr. Singh cleared his throat loudly.

“Please do not misunderstand. I did not employ any illegal methods. Several days ago, I took a vacation and returned briefly to my hometown; while I was there, I got clearance from a relative in the Indian government and obtained this information. It was all completely legal.”

In other words, he’d pulled some strings.

Roberto is surprised at the level of clout Dr. Singh’s family has, but he also knows that even with familial connections, it’s tough work getting your hands on classified military intel.

Why would the doctor go to these lengths when he supposedly had no interest in the investigation…? Roberto tilted his head thoughtfully.

Next to him, Hiraga bobbed his head in a bow.

“Thank you for going out of your way to investigate. But the results of this miracle examination will not be officially published. I apologise for having put you to all that trouble researching.”

They explain that with the Vatican in its current state of upheaval, revealing the evil priests and how they got away would make for bad press, and the higher-ups don’t want that. Also, the Japanese government wants to hush up the secret of the Kamishima cave shrine.

Dr. Singh listened to this, but his expression did not alter in the slightest.

“Political considerations and the like mean nothing to me. I became curious about an unsolvable mystery, and so I wanted to know the solution on my own account - that’s all. I do not act to impress the Vatican higher-ups.”

Then he shows them a 3D simulation he made of the miracle at Kamishima, which renders the fog and the light in loving detail. He’s very proud of it. Hiraga thinks it’s super cool too.

“It’s truly wonderful. May I show this video and these materials to Archbishop Saul?” Hiraga asked, leaning forward, his eyes alight.

“Yes, that’s fine, but please dispose of the materials in the shredder after looking at them.”

Roberto abruptly remembers that he also owes Dr. Singh for saving his dumb ass.

“Dr. Singh, I’m sorry for the belated thanks. I heard from Hiraga that you had to trace my location from my broken cellphone. I’m truly grateful for what you did then.”

Roberto bowed deeply, and Dr. Singh’s expression softened.

“No, I should be the one to apologise for not thanking you properly. I’m deeply grateful for all the effort you put into bringing the dogs to the Vatican. For a long time, I had no wish to visit my hometown, but it is thanks to those dogs and you that I decided to return to my country.”

Dr. Singh dipped a graceful bow, and then cleared his throat.

“But there is one thing I would like to clarify with you. If you think that I carried out any illegal activity to determine Father Roberto’s location, you are mistaken. All the procedures I undertook were thoroughly legal. Do not misunderstand.”

He took out a document from his desk drawer and showed it to Hiraga and Roberto. It was an official notice from an Italian court, ordering the phone company to release its GPS information to the police.

“But that’s strange,” Hiraga said, gazing keenly at the date written on the document.

“Father Roberto’s abduction was on the 30th of July, but the date on the document is 2nd August. So, Doctor, you did…”

Roberto cleared his throat loudly, cutting Hiraga off mid-sentence.

Dr. Singh’s face flushed bright red. He whisked the document away from Hiraga, and quickly turned his back to the two of them.

“Y-you must be mistaken about that, Father Hiraga. Now, I am very busy with my work - please take your leave.”

Dr. Singh is the best tsundere, I will accept no substitutes

They go talk to Saul, who plans to speak to the Pope about the Hidden Christians and get him to recognise their existence and the strength of their faith. And also, hey, he has good news! Roberto and Hiraga get to go on a date! I mean, the Vatican is bringing a Japanese orchestra to perform Hidden Christian music in St. Peter’s Basilica, that’s cool.

The day before the performance, Hiraga emails Roberto, inviting him to attend the rehearsal together.

“It’s rare for you to make invitations like this,” Roberto said on the way to Stadio Olimpico.

“Actually, I received an email from a person who wanted to meet with us. And I also have a message for you from someone else - it’s in Japanese, so I’ll translate.”

Dammit. And here I was proud that Hiraga was capable of TAKING HINTS

Anyway, the Japanese message is from Shirou, who’s been busy restoring Kamishima, and hopes our heroes will drop by again sometime. Yuuko and Sara’s brother Shinichi have gotten married, as have Robinson and his fan Haruko.

Finally, it turns out the person who wants to meet them is Father Nishimaru, i.e. the one Jesuit priest who wasn’t evil, just very confused. He’s here for the music performance, and also to look at Vatican art. Roberto obligingly drops a bunch of exposition on architecture and fancy ceilings.

Hiraga blinked at Roberto’s words.

“Is that so? I didn’t know that this dome was decorated with pearl oysters, despite having passed under it so many times,” he said.

“Well, when you look at artwork, you aren’t moved the way he is. So you don’t ask me anything,” Roberto replied.

Nishimaru sees the original version of the painting that Andou was crying over in the Amakusa museum, and he cries too. Apparently it was their shared dream to go to the Vatican and see this painting in person someday. Hiraga pats him on the shoulder like “uhh, sorry about all your friends turning out to be evil and/or in jail, dude.”

Roberto is feeling bad again about all the colonialism that went into building and decorating the Vatican so lavishly, but Hiraga makes a long and heartfelt speech about how they can learn from the mistakes of the past, ending with:

“In our day and age, even people with different religions and ideologies have reached the point where dialogue can take place. Don’t you think so, Roberto?

“It’s alright. I’m sure that the tragedy of conflict will vanish from the world someday - it may be far, far off in the future, but the world is headed in a better direction. That’s how I feel.”

I don’t know about that, Hiraga, but here’s a nice musical number to end the book! In Latin!

#vatican miracle examiner #translation

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