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Ransomite was starting to worry that the higher-ups were starting to suspect something about his train of thought. First the meeting a couple months ago with Prehnite, the one that Ransomite preferred very strongly not to think about, and then this. Maybe Sylvite was just checking on him after the events in the park? A routine sort of thing.

He hoped so.

He knocked on Sylvite's door and eased it open just enough to be able to hear her response. "General? I'm sorry I'm late."

Why was he late? Because he'd had to slip away from the other three, come up with an excuse why he had to head back toward the rectory and couldn't stay the night. He didn't have prayer or service the next day--at least nothing he couldn't do by himself--and Ransomite wasn't sure what the excuse actually was that he'd managed to come up with. He'd have to try to remember, lest one of the other three realize a flaw in his stories.

But General Sylvite, for all the Negaverse was beginning to make--had been making--his skin crawl, still gave him a second of pause and it wasn't acting to put genuine apology in his tone.

Ransomite appreciated the informality, though he would never say it out loud. The cookies were awfully, incredibly, immensely tempting, and he slipped toward them as he answered her smile with one of his own. "I'm... Well, I'm." He took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm alright." He would have to be, anyway. There wasn't much of a point of dragging the room down with him. Plus, Sylvite looked cozy and comfortable. "I mean, everything could have gone so much worse, right?"

The corruptions--as much as they made his skin crawl--were good news for their numbers. The aliens had technology they'd undoubtedly be able to use, and that could only be good news, right?

The senshi in front of him who fell, whose body mutated--

No, no, he'd managed to stop thinking about the sight constantly. He wasn't going to backslide here, now, standing in Sylvite's office.

"So I guess I've been as okay as you can expect." Trying to get the focus off of himself, the nightmares, the nagging doubt in the back of his mind that grew ever louder, "how about you?"

Well, Sylvite said it had gone well. Ransomite wasn't sure how skeptical he should be about it--it certainly hadn't seemed to go well, but then again his perspective was doubtlessly different than hers. For his point of view, it had been an unmitigated disaster, a profound clusterf--

Everything was good. He could repeat it to himself like a mantra, use it to try and quell the images that insisted on bubbling up every time he closed his eyes or changed into his uniform. Everything was good. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Fine.

"Thank you," he replied in earnest and in honest appreciation of the compliment. It was from someone he legitimately respected in the Negaverse, who so far had not given him the impression that he might find himself shanked in the kidneys, someone who seemed good and reminded him why he was there. To protect Earth. And she said he was doing well.

Even if it was painful to think of what doing well truly meant, because when he had attacked that senshi--

A priest.

His thoughts came to a screeching halt at the reminder that he had not always succeeded in preventing the blending of lives he tried his best to separate, but it was to his credit that he kept it entirely off his face. He'd call it practice from face-to-face confessions or other things, like bald-faced lies about his career to most civilians he came across in clubs. "Ah, absolutely." It, at the very least, kept the attention off the twisting in his gut. "What can I help you with?"

He kept the prayer off his lips, but couldn't help the echo of one in his mind.

'Mother Mary full of grace--'

Sylvite looked uncertain in a way he wasn't used to seeing from her. Confidence was the usual vibe he was used to, or at least friendliness and happiness. The kind of thing that was leading her to ask him questions about religion was likely quite the opposite of something confidence-inducing. It was the faintest bit comforting. It was also incredibly jarring and worrying. Had he done something wrong? Had he given her the impression of the doubts in his mind?

Teshuvah. He had heard of the term. It was familiar from his general theological studies - and Judaism being one of the three Abrahamic religions, and the parent of Christianity, meant that it was one of the three he was most familiar with - but it was also familiar for other reasons. It was a term he had heard two of his life partners refer to on occasion. Zebulon and Tobias had spoken of teshuvah before, especially in relation to Rosh Hashanah.

Oh.

She had another recruit that left for religious reasons.

His heart thumped in his chest even as his expression was a neutral stonewall.

--the Lord is with thee--

"You're right about the definition of Teshuvah." Ransomite's voice was surprisingly even despite his fear. "In the most ancient sense, it was in reference to confessing your sins to God to achieve intimacy with Him, and only in that way may you return to Him. It is often seen as a roadmap to spiritual and moral health. In Jewish mysticism, it can be seen as a way of repairing a rupture or tear in the spiritual fabric of the universe."

Ransomite's gaze was not quite on Sylvite. He was not entirely looking past her, but it was clear he was focusing strictly on his studies and what he knew. His eyes were elsewhere.

"It is arguable that from a religiously-based perspective, the Negaverse is violating God's Will. Some of the abilities that the Negaverse grants enable interference with the soul. From a religious perspective, the soul is seen as God's dominion, and God is the one who determines what happens to the soul, no one else. A human daring to interfere with God's Will in the way that the Negaverse can enable could be seen as a sin."

His gaze returned to Sylvite, then. He kept the fact that he took a hard swallow to himself. "That could be why your former recruit is reinforcing Teshuvah. He believes he violated God's Will, or worked in an organization that permitted the same, and he is returning to Him after confessing to those sins."

Blessed art thou amongst women--

His smile in reflex was wry, lopsided for a brief moment before Ransomite answered her question. "Well, people do all sorts of things believing it's for God and a higher purpose. Historically, the first step has always been dehumanizing your enemy." Not hard to do when the senshi and many of the knights did not have starseeds that came from Earth. Though, it was not necessarily true that the Negaverse's starseeds were guaranteed to be Earthan in origin--

He'd think about that later.

"Ezekiel chapter nine, verse five and second Chronicles, chapter fifteen, verses twelve and thirteen." Ransomite shook his head slowly. "They're particularly bloodthirsty, but both of them extol the concept of not showing mercy to anyone who gets in your way." He paused a moment in contemplation, running through his memory. "Ezekiel chapter eighteen, verse four. 'Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die.'"

Ransomite supposed it depended on your interpretation and application of sin.

"James five twenty reads 'let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins'." The concept of forcefully corrupting someone's starseed--there was that word again, 'corrupting'--still stuck in Ransomite's throat, and he could not entirely convince himself of his own reasoning. But he shoved this down and looked back toward Sylvite. "The Tanakh--and its components--and the Talmud both have similar sentiments, but I'm not as well-versed in them obviously." Well, he'd devoted quite a bit of time and effort to studying Judaism even before he'd met Zebulon and Tobias, but that was neither here nor there.

Ransomite watched as she took out her pen and started noting down the verses he mentioned, finding himself in a strange place where he felt gratified his knowledge was useful and was helping her and also, on the contrary, sickened that his knowledge could be twisted in such a way. Was he saving Earth? Were these really things they could tell their recruits, people like her former recruit who was now a member of the White Moon? Or were they simply gentle lies and soothing half-truths as he pulled from the energy of the populace?

Depended on the definition of sin, of personhood, of soul, if they had the rights to be the arbiters of any of that-- "There are, yes. I can reflect more on it if you need me to. A good portion of my day is spent in spiritual contemplation, and this is more or less the same."

His chuckle was lighter than his heart felt.

Oh.

Him.

This was one of the reasons he appreciated Sylvite; she wanted to know if there was anything she could do for him specifically. By the same measure, he worried. He felt he was safe with her but also wondered if voicing the fullest of his concerns was one of the many, many ways to get him in trouble, too. He trusted Sylvite to not do that, but the guilt ate at his mind, at his soul--

That senshi's body had mutated--

What separated youma from demons, and what did that make him for willingly dealing with them--

"I appreciate check-ins like this. They're a good stabilizer and help remind me why I'm here." Namely, that there did seem to be good behind the Negaverse's actions. If Sylvite remained, surely-- "I," he pushed beyond nausea, "at that battle, I witnessed one of their people become a youma. I understand why we do what we do," or, at least, he understood the bend of definition, "but that feels hard to justify, and I have had trouble sitting with it. Do you know if we make a habit of this? Creating more monsters?"

More demons?

He could do more questions later. He nodded in agreement despite making a mental note to dig further through the Old Testament--no doubt where most of these words could be found, though perhaps there might be something useful in the letters or Revelations.

Ransomite would ignore the sinking in his gut related to reflecting on the Justification of the Negaverse by His Word--

He supposed the Rift was proof enough that the Negaverse had once morphed humans into youma with much more regularity. It was hard, sometimes, not to equate the Rift with hell. It was tempting to pretend it wasn't, that he wasn't part of an organization that in some ways freely made demons out of humans. A reassurance from Sylvite that it wasn't done currently often would be a comfort, a salve, a temporary illusion he could will himself to believe as he segmented his life into more and more pieces, smaller and smaller pieces.

Yet, she didn't sound terribly confident when she said that, either, which felt damning all in itself.

Pieces that had sharp points and jagged edges--

"I hadn't, either," Ransomite shifted in his seat, "but it troubles me. What is the purpose of turning humans into youma? Aren't we supposed to be protecting them?" His brows knit. "I understand the White Moon is our enemy, but," how did turning them into demons and associating with demons make the Negaverse the good guys in this situation?

"I appreciate the reassurance that you haven't seen it before then, yourself. I'm sorry. I'm not questioning our purpose."

He was lying.

"I do not like the youma."

That, however, was not a lie.