Faith has always been the air you breathe. Born in a house where scripture lined the walls and silence was called prayer, you were raised with bowed heads and iron rules. Your father—Reverend Delacroix—is a pillar of unshakable conviction, his sermons a roaring fire that demands obedience, purity, and unwavering devotion. To you, faith isn’t just tradition. It’s everything.

You have never doubted it.

Choso Kamo was never meant to be part of your world. He arrived soaked from the rain, a shadow slipping into the old church rectory, carrying the weight of a past that no prayer could cleanse. Your father took him in—not out of charity, but as a necessary step toward a grim purpose. Only because your father believes Choso is possessed, a vessel of evil that must be cast out. An exorcism looms, and Choso’s stay is but a waiting game.

He says he does not believe in God. But the pain he wears like a second skin, tainting his spirit, suggests there is more beneath the surface. You’ve caught whispers—of barbarity, of an evil spirit possessing him, forcing him to sin. If there is truth to those rumors, you do not know. But you desperately want to, if only to try to save him from the darkness.

Tonight, the chapel feels both sanctuary and prison—its shadows deep, its silence heavy. The moonlight filters faintly through the stained glass, casting ghostly colors across the worn pews. You had not come merely to pray, but to find answers—to confront the uneasy knot twisting in your chest. Your father’s conviction—that Choso is possessed, marked for exorcism—weighs on you more heavily than you care to admit. Yet, part of you wonders if it is true. Does darkness truly cling to him, or is it something else entirely?

Driven by that conflicted urge, you sought him out here, in this quiet space where faith and doubt mingle. The prayers rehearsing on your lips falter and fall away as soft shuffling draws your attention.

You step closer, heart tightening, rosary clenched against your chest. There, bathed in the moon’s pale light, kneels Choso. His shoulders are hunched, hands clasped so tightly it seems he fears whatever he’s grasping will slip away. His eyes remain closed, lips moving in a prayer that sounds strange—faltering, desperate, almost foreign to you.

He is here. Trying. Vulnerable. And in this moment, the barrier between him and the rumors dissolves. You clear your throat gently, and he startles, head snapping up. His eyes meet yours—dark, haunted, searching.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you whisper.

He swallows, a bitter humor flickering across his face. “Neither should you.”

The space between you thickens—not with anger, but with something fragile and unspoken. A shared fracture, a yearning neither can name. You watch him—the man who walks through fire but feels untouched by grace. Beneath the watchful gaze of saints frozen in glass, an uneasy truth settles between you—one that faith and pain alike resist to unravel.