Amelia arose in an endless snow field. A blizzard ensued but she could not feel the harsh weather. Perhaps she was already dead or the cold had already frozen her body. The tip of her nose was reddish and the winds made her teary eyed. Her first thought was how she went from a cave to the cold outside, remembering the calm weather during her small battle with Faval it didn't feel natural to emerge back onto the endless white snow.

Her eyes darted to a bright glow in the sky. A light too blinding to perceive fully but along the faint edges she could make out 4 wings. An angel? She thought before her headspace was invaded by a stoic voice speaking in a foreign tongue that was both too old to understand and too advanced to fully grasp, yet she felt she could understand and turned around. On the horizon she saw the mountain Imperia stood on. Her mind scrambled wondering how she ended up so far from the place she was just at.

The sky reddened under a cloud and within an instant an explosion, a nuke, fell Imperia. Instead of a mushroom cloud lying in its aftermath, the cloud took the shape of a cross. Amelia was starstruck in awe, all she thought about doing was begging for her friend Sharrion to look and see if what occurred was real. Even though no one was around to listen to her call for the maid, not even the maid herself, she still did so. It felt too real to be a dream but dreams can be real within themselves as a visionーthis wasn't just a vision but a pretense to a future where she failed in her duty to stop Warui.

But the voice would say otherwise. "This is the result of thy ambition. Be wary of the precedents you set."

Amelia turned around and caught a glimpse of the divine being that had been speaking to her prior to her waking up in Sharrion's arms.

Noisy.

Was the city Clarette strolled through, hiding her face under a blue hood. A surprising amount of civilians were living in tents on the streets and outside of buildings. Packed suitcases, tables with items to sell and so on.

Lively.

It was full of innocents living out the last of their days like the rapture was tomorrow. Though it wasn't, and Clarette couldn't trust a soul after escaping from Warui's grasp again. This time she would permanently leave Imperia for good and abandon her morals and abandon Seraphim and abandon what the city formerly represented; human progress. Gone were the faithful seeking to better themselves to one day see God. Replaced by hubristic power to reach God on their own terms; to take fate itself into human hands. The collective power of mankind's ambition couldn't be stopped. Was that the reason Midare did that?

On the road, Mark caught a glimpse of a woman hiding the shiny blonde hair he knew all too well and white cat on her shoulders. "Clarette…" he muttered softly.

Mikael looked where Mark's eyes were drawn and nodded "That is her! She’s good at escaping. Let's grab her then regroup back at our room."

Mark stepped ahead of Mikael taking initiative and tapping Clarette on her shoulder. Naturally she tensed up her shoulders and slowly turned her head, and upon seeing Mark's face, her brow furrowed.

Not out of spite or anger but upset and disappointment over a lack of answers. "Mark, I want to know… that day… Why didn't you stop her?" Disorganized just like her thoughts.

And Mark responded "I don't know what you're talking about."

Clarette turned her head, closing her eyes away "Then I won't return. I refuse to continue to listen to my friends lie."

"What?!" Mikael exclaimed "You're going to leave on your own? What if you get caught again? It's too dangerous."

This made Clarette sigh "I did not want to hear that from the church."

"It's not from the church It's from us, your friends." Mikael retorted. A tempting argument.

Mark added, "I'm still trying to figure out Midare myself." Despite being lovers, Mark did not understand Midare at all. It was a mystery how they ended up together at all rather than sworn enemies because of their opposite views.

Clarette opened her eyes staring into Mark's empty grey irises "I will join you briefly, and then take my departure. I'll find the answers I want on my own since the church's hands are full."

They gathered into their 2 bed hotel room. The funds they had saved up was just enough to allow them to stay for a day in a plainly decorated room.. But a day was all they needed to prepare then leave.

For now…

"Aah~" Mikael tossed himself onto the soft white bed, almost sinking in it like slime. All his stress was gone in an instant, nearly forgetting that Mark and Clarette were in the room with him.

Clarette took off her hood and Akagi hopped off her shoulder and landed on the bed. "Now isn't the time to be lazy!"

The sudden unknown voice alerted Mikael back up "What was that voice?!" He looked around frantically then pointed at Akagi "Did… Did that cat just talk? That can't be my imagination."

Akagi was unamused at his response. "You can't be serious... Do you lack a brain or something?"

Mikael rolled off the bed and reached for his weapon. Clarette hurried to grab his restless arm, "Be calm! Akagi here is an EXover from the experiments. He helped me escape captivity. Warui locked me away in Imperia HQ and that's where I met Akagi who snuck in keys for me to escape. But, we encountered Warui during our run..." She covered one of her eyes, the alluring bloodlust rushing through her veins when she struck him with her weapon "I could've killed him right there…"

Mark frowned, figuring that she hesitated to kill just as he did. It wasn't sympathy for her capture but… to say Warui is bad would be an incorrect statement. There could be a chance to stop this war without killing him, and the other cardinals. Mark thought about Warui's upbringing and the experiments he conducted. The unstable child experiments he encountered came to mind. What was she supposed to be? "Tell us what you know about the child experiments."

Akagi snickered with a small purr "At least someone has their head on their shoulders. Listen well, I'll elaborate more about the experiment's purpose.

It is Warui's way of trying to achieve immortality."

Tension grew in the room. Mikael wanted to interject to ask how or why, but withheld to hear the rest of the story. "He wants to be immortal to reach God at the peak of this mountain. The young children subjected to his experiments are his angels, you could say. He believes he'd be recognized as a divine entity and granted a place to see God. What he needed to achieve his goal was one perfect angel, someone with the highest EXover ability and then he could take the reins of fate. And the only person with that EXover power strong enough to reach heaven is the green haired girl he keeps by his side."

The room was silent for a moment with Mark, Clarette and Mikael having various thoughts. His mission wasn't entirely to take Japan, but to buy enough time to contact heaven. It was the same plan Imperia had many years ago where they constructed a tower beyond space, hoping to reach heaven. The tower of babel, and the tower that was destroyed by Midare for unknown reasons. Mark was cursed by her decisions, always being questioned and pulled aside to answer a question he didn't know; why did she do it?

Mark rubbed his head, "Sounds like he has his entire plan figured out." Hoping to avoid topics of Midare's decision he swayed the topic. "I'm more interested in stopping him, but I also can't allow the TGA to win."

Akagi tilted his head, "Why not Mark? If I had to choose between Imperia or the TGA then I'm choosing the latter."

"They're totally corrupt." Mikael said. "There's no doubt they'll annex Imperia and place the people here on trial."

Clarette frowned "More reason for me to escape on my own. I don't want to drag the church into my problems, and you have a war to stop. Focus on the needs of the people and not solely me."

Mikael lowered his hat, unable to say something that would change her mind. She was set on leaving, it was for the best not to add more casualties to future battlefields. "Then we'll end this war as fast as we can."

Clarette nodded slowly "I'll be praying for your success." She called the cat's name and he hopped back on her shoulder. She bowed and bid farewell to Mark and Mikael and told them to tell Amelia of her departure. The two boys averted their eyes as she left the room, leaving them back in silence.