Shadow Hearts: Covenant Part #124 - Episode CXVIII: The Oath

Part 124: Episode CXVIII: The Oath

Episode CXVIII: The Oath

The laboratory door unseals.

You made it out okay! Huh?

Noticing a distinct lack of my niece...

Welcome back!

Glad you're not a monster mash!

Awroo!

Awroo! (Awroo!)

Did you meet... Alice?

...Yeah.

For like... twenty seconds.

It didn't work at all. I'm a failure! I beg forgiveness of God for having committed this terrible sin. I swear! Never again will I transgress against the holy word of Our Lord!

Even if I am the only wizard in history to successfully do a resurrection miracle, no matter how short-lived. Eat it, Albert Simon!

He seems a little too perky, no?

<nods> Mhm!!

<coughs> But our Lord is merciful and He has given me the answer!

The answer? Do you mean to say you know what Kato is planning?

I... honestly have no idea how you came to that conclusion but...

Exactly! ...By the wheels of the Cherubim, take this soul beyond the gates of Time! "Beyond the Gates of Time." That means Kato is planning to create a warp in the fabric of time-space.

A warp in time-space?!

When the Émigré power is activated and new life is generated, there's a momentary change in the flow of time. I believe Kato is planning to use that to destroy the world as we know it.

Is that pretty easy? That "flow of time" thing?

Well, it's not easy, but I'm sure he can do it.

Wait... did we just make his plan work by trying to resurrect Alice?
...Maybe.
Frick...

What's going to happen?

It's hard to guess, but maybe we'll be sent 1,000 or even 10,000 years into the past.

I have never met the guy before so, I'm just winging his motivations...

Oh, no...!

But whatever happens, the world that we know will disappear. That's certain.

You do not want to F with the timey-whimey stuff when it comes to magic. It's a bad scene. Do not cross the chronology or you could trigger disaster!

......

Where do you think Kato is now?

If my guess is right, he'll choose a place on a ley line with a strong magnetic field... If I was Special Agent Kato that's what I would do.

Not that I'd ever perform the time magicks. Unless my skill of wizardry was challenged...

Don't you think we should ask Kurando's mother where he is?!

She's right...

...OK. We'll ask my mom. She only turned into a demon the last time we asked her something like this.
So it's decided!
Mhm.
Yep!
......

And with that, our time in Wales is concluded! We'll be back here for sidequest nonsense later. But barring one of the endings, Roger Bacon evaporates from the main plot at this point.

In any event, we are going to take the Bacon Jet back to Japan and visit Inugami Village once again. Although, doing so immediately throws us into...

Music: Holy Mistletoe ~ Graveyard

I gotta admit... when I first saw you hanging there like that, you... scared me pretty bad. But now I feel like I've become a little bit closer to you ...almost like a brother.

I mean like a cursed brother that keeps ending up in jail and you wish you had to stop dealing with, but...

Maybe when you wake up... maybe that's when I can finally let go of my past and be free.

Or I die and be with Alice again. Hopefully... I really don't know how any of this works and am winging it.

Yuri must past through the northern weird gates not associated with the elemental affiliations. Where he meets Jeanne again.

Jeanne?! You're all right!

Tee hee! Of course, I am! I'm here in your heart. Nothing in here can hurt me.

...Oh, okay. But I thought I'd never see you again. I was frantic!

Please stop going through the weird mind gates. Those lead to... stuff you don't want in your life, kiddo.

They must've been scenes from your memory, Yuri.

Scenes from my memory...?

<big sigh> That sounds like that time I blew up Shanghai by accident and I was brain broken in a Romanian vampire's Castlevania tower for half a year digging my own grave while my ghost dad psyche was being a jerk.
......
...I will not lie. That is a lot, Yuri.
Yeah, the Shanghai thing was absorbing a maleficent deity into my soul and it going out of control and I... never really dealt with that. So watch your step down here, kid.
...Noted. But...

Yup. Looking at those scenes, I think I kind of understood something... ...Why I can't find your happiness here. It's because you haven't decided what happiness means to you yet.

That's right. Your reason for living. Your purpose. You told me that your purpose in life was to get revenge for me and the other villagers. But that's just too sad... I want you to find out what makes you happy, Yuri. And then I want you to really become happy.

Jeanne... I really appreciate that. But, to tell the truth, I don't really want to be happy...

I frick'd up. I got the bad ending. I don't deserve to be happy. And the thing I just tried with Roger in Wales. You don't even want to know about that...
I already know. I exist in your heart and soul.
...Frick.

<steps forward and covers her heart> That's because you've forgotten what happiness is! When Alice died, you decided your happiness died with her. When you were digging her grave alone, you cried until the tears wouldn't come anymore. You put Alice in that coffin, wrapped in that special coat, and gently covered it with dirt...

You knew you looked better with a coat and you did it anyway. That is true love.

OK. Not really proud of being a perv initially. I was having a weird night. I mean I was speaking Japanese...

Or that time I got seasick and there were ghosts...

Beating Ghost Dad was pretty rad.

What in the hell is that?!

Can we stop? This sucks...

I-I...

Listen to me. The Holy Mistletoe curse is going to kill your soul. Nobody can stop it. You're going to lose yourself, Yuri.

......

Look, I can talk to other curse ghosts in the afterlife. It is a bad scene, as they put it.

You don't have much time left. You've got to find out what happiness is. It's the only way to defeat the curse.

...Okay. I'll try.

Do you promise?

<nods> Yeah.

Jeanne vanishes.

A new gate has opened past the magical guilt power-point presentation. Which leads to...

<gasps and looks around frantically> Somebody! Talk to me! Call my name or something!

I think I'm in the Shadow Realm! I don't want to be here!

H-hey, Karin! Hey! Umm...

Gepetto! Sorry about all the creepy doll talk! Gepetto!

Uh... wait a second! Lucia!

You can get in the main party again! Just see me!

Old man!

Big guy! We can strength train! Anastasia! Blanca! Argh!

You stupid dog!

<collapses> W-Wait!! Ahh... I-I'm disappearing...!!

No, I don't want this... Somebody make it stop!!

Yuri is engulfed in a flash of light and arrives at a new gate.

Music: ENDS

This train...?!

......

<gasp> A-Alice...

<smiles> Yuri, you're back!

Uh... Umm....

I guess that I feel asleep here waiting for you to arrive.

Uhh... Y-you did...? Ohh...

Yuri sits down across from Alice.

Did you have a hard time?

O-oh, I... Umm... You know, same as always. I-I, umm...

Y-Y'know... fought some monsters and wizards. T-The usual junk... But umm... uhh...

What?

Can I sit next to you?

Sure, go ahead!

<nervous laugh> I umm... haha... you know always umm... feel kinda sick...

Yuri switches seats.

Umm... heh sitting backwards... hehe...

Was it hard for you?

Huh?

To find your way here?

Uh... oh. Not at all.

Really?

W-well, a little, I guess!

I'm proud of you.

<scratches head> Oh, c'mon!

Music: ALICE (Piano Arrangement)

I'll never forget.

What?

Taking this journey with you. And meeting you. Being with you.

Alice.

Don't worry. Whatever the curse is, I don't mind.

I'm sorry.

Don't be.

I wonder if God will punish me?

Why?

Roger and I used the Émigré Manuscript to bring you back to life.

......

But we couldn't do it.

......

Your body didn't turn into a bug monster or anything. Don’t worry!
I know.

So you really meant what you said then?

Mm-hmm.

I-I love you too.

...I know that.

If there really is a God, and if he'd grant me just one wish... I-I'd go back to the day we met.

Hee hee. Then we could take a trip together again!

Hehe. That was some trip, all right!

I would try to avoid blowing up Shanghai on a redo but other than that, it was a lot of fun.
Yeah... there were a lot of deaths we probably could have avoided.

They both laugh.