Copia didn't speak to anyone on the way back to the Ministry's abbey in Italy. He sat alone in the back of the private jet, gaze unfocused and eyes wet with tears as he stared blankly out the window at the clouds drifting by. Didn't make eye contact, didn't acknowledge what was happening around him, seeming almost like a corpse. One moment Copia had been joyfully waving farewell to the adoring fans that came to see his final show as Papa, and the next he was waking up from collapsing after discovering his mother had passed shortly afterwards.
His ghouls tried to talk to him, offer their condolences for the loss of his mother, but he gave no response. The normal cheerful light seemed to have gone out behind Copia's eyes, leaving them seeming almost devoid of any life or emotion. Hollow. By the time they reached Italy and arrived at the abbey gates, night had long fallen. Copia disembarked slowly, almost robotically, as if disconnected from his own body. His ghouls trailed helplessly behind, wondering what the days and weeks ahead would bring for their grieving master, and for the future of the Ministry itself.
In truth, Copia didn’t know what the future would hold either, the concept was so foreign now. It was something he had worried about all his life and now it seemed so meaningless. He didn’t deserve his new title as Frater Imperator. Didn’t deserve to lead the clergy. Right now, he was just a man grieving the loss of his mother.