Moana couldn’t read the ancient tongue. She started to yawn when Laphicet pointed to a passage. “Hey, this might be it!”

He read, “In ancient Haria, ‘Kamoana’ was what they called the great blue sea blessed by the Empyrean Amenoch.”

“Kamoana!”

“Yeah. The ancient Harians used the word ‘kamoana’ to mean ‘the vast blue ocean.”

“That’s right, the ocean! Mom told me she used to hold me when she walked in the sands and prayed for me to become big and strong like the ocean! That’s why she called me Kamoana… she said…”

The daemon swordsman nodded. “Yeah, your old lady put her wishes for you into your name. Good thing you remembered it, huh, Kamoana?”

“Yeah! The big blue sea! I’m gonna be big and strong!”

The water sparkled outside the window.

“So what’s Rokurou?”

“It means the sixth son born to the family. Simple, right?”

“Way too simple! Your parents must have been slackers, Rokurou!”

“Why you!” Rokurou grabbed Kamoana and she giggled.

“By the way.” Rokurou turned to Eizen. “I hear malakhim have truenames, right? What’s that about?”

“A truename is a name that expresses a malak’s true nature. Once we know who we are, the name just comes to us and represents our identity.”

The part about “expressing your true nature” got Laphicet’s attention. “How do you know when you know who you are?”

“One day,” began Eizen, “when my sister was little, she got in a mood and wouldn’t stop crying, no matter what.

Malakhim aren’t like humans. Baby malakhim don’t get hungry and rarely get sick. And they don’t usually cry just because they feel like it. Eizen didn’t know what to do. He tried lifting her up like he’d seen humans do, playing peek-a-boo, shaking a rattle, even singing to her.

Eizen kept all that to himself.

“Finally, I was ready to give up. I was just about to start crying myself. And then, our door just swung open. A spring wind was blowing in, a warm and gentle wind.”

It was like it was calling him. He took her and walked and walked, not knowing where or how far, until finally, they emerged from a dark forest into a shimmering clearing.

“She stopped crying and smiled the sweetest, most innocent smile, and just like that, all at once, the entire field was covered in bright red flowers.”

Kamoana was smiling too. “Wow!”

Eizen nodded. “The flowers vanished soon after, but I still remember how strong and vivid their color looked, and I thought that when she grew up, she needed to wear one. And then I heard her voice in my mind. ‘I want to grow up fast.’ I thought, what a precocious little squirt. But that’s just what she was.

Hephsin Yulind — “Edna, the early bloomer.” But that name was only for Eizen to know.

“Good story,” interrupted Grimoirh, drily. “But that means you didn’t know your own true name, even though you’re much older than her, right?”

“I’m a late bloomer. I didn’t know my own true name until pretty recently.” Eizen tried to change the subject.

“What does ‘Eizen’ mean?” Kamoana’s eyes shone up at him.

Ufemew Wexub — “Eizen, the explorer.”

“Not telling.” Eizen didn’t usually avoid a topic like that.

“Wait,” said Rokurou, suddenly remembering. “Didn’t Magilou say something like ‘the true name I bestow on thee’ when she made a pact?”

“Forming a pact as a vessel is a bond between two souls. The Exorcist, by bonding with the malak, learns the malak’s true nature and translates it into a name. And the malakhim who are tethered without will don’t actually have true names because there’s nothing to feel, so the Exorcists just go through the motions.”

“Really? That how it was for you, Laphicet?”

“Well… I don’t really remember how it was with Lady Theresa, but when Eleanor made her pact, I felt really warm and nice. When she said my true name, I felt like I had always known it somehow.”

“So you did connect with her. Almost like marriage vows, you might say.”

“M-m-m-marriage? What are you talking about, Rokurou? I don’t think of Eleanor that way at all!” The young malak’s face was crimson.

“Hey, relax. It’s just an analogy. Right, Eizen?”

“Some analogies just don’t work! Right, Eizen?”

Eizen sighed and shook his head.

Kamoana tugged on his hand. “Hey, do I get a true name?”

“No. Humans don’t have true names.”

“Hey, that’s not fair! Malakhim are so lucky.”

“Your name came into your mother’s mind the same way. ‘Kamoana’ is already your true name.”

Moana frowned and fell silent for a while. Eizen looked at her kindly, as if she was his own sister, and finally spoke.

“Don’t think too hard about it. As long as you remember your name ‘Kamoana,’ your mom is always with you.”

“I’ll never forget what ‘Kamoana’ means! It’s the name Mom gave me, so it’s precious to me!”

It’s precious, thought Laphicet. Because your name is the first step to feeling like you’re yourself and alive.

“I’m the same. When Velvet named me ‘Laphicet’… when I went from ‘Tethered Malak Number 2’ to ‘Laphicet’… that’s when I started thinking for myself. That’s when I started living as myself.”

Chapter 2 — Tethered Malakhim

Three years earlier, the land was just beginning to adapt to the Advent and the appearance of malakhim in human civilization.

The great door of the villa in Lohgres that served as Abbey headquarters slammed open.

“Here I am, Artorius.”

With a bestial fury, Legate Shigure Rangetsu swung his blade, as long as he was tall, at the other man. Artorius drew his sword with his left hand and calmly parried the massive sword. Both weapons sparked as the two men locked eyes, and a tremor shook the stained glass windows of the chapel.

“So you are, Shigure.”

Both men lowered and sheathed their swords together as if nothing had happened.

“Your right arm still doesn’t work, huh?”

“As you see.”

Shigure narrowed his eyes and glared past the cape that hung over Artorius’ right hand, at an old exorcist and a masked malak.

“Melchior and Seres. What’s taking you two so long? At this rate, his arm’ll heal itself before that Armatus thing is anywhere close to done.”

The swordsman wanted a bout with Artorius more than anything, but he’d been waiting years since being told that the completed Armatus arte would enable Artorius to use his right arm again. He’d pledged to serve the Abbey to help that succeed in any way he could, to hurry along the day when he would have the best fight of his life.

And yet.

“We have the location of Siegfried. It is the last piece we need.” There was the subtlest hint of anxiety in Melchior’s voice.

“The Brynhilde within me is nearly ripe as well.” Seres voice, on the other hand, betrayed no emotion at all.

“Well then hurry it up already,” Shigure grumbled. Suddenly, he noticed the malak boy behind Series. “Hey, what’s the shrimp for?”

“I think we know him already.” A large white cat emerged from Shigure’s body, landing before the boy. “Yes, he’s Lord Artorius’ child, the one formed at the same time as Seres.”

“Huh. I don’t remember that, but I’ll take your word for it. What’s your name, kiddo?”

The boy didn’t — couldn’t — answer. Artorius spoke instead.

“He has no name.”

“Why?”

“Because true names are only given with a pact.”

So Artorius hadn’t formed a pact with his own son.

“Oh man, so even you wouldn’t use both your wife and your kid to save the world.” Shigure laughed. He didn’t intend to hurt, but he never made any effort at tact. Still, Artorius’ face was stone.

“You could at least give your kid a name, though. Doesn’t have to be a true name, but you have to call him something, one way or another. Hell, Morgrim here took to a true name that means ‘tiger eyebrows’ or somethin’ weird like that. Eventually.”

Morgrim’s tail drooped. “Don’t tease. If you hadn’t said it was a ‘pretty cool name,’ I’d still be sensitive about being called Lyudwin Miqa Sep. I’m quite fond of my eyebrows now, actually.”

“It’s a weirdly cool name. Tigers are the king of beasts, you know.”

“That’s lions.”

“You sure? Tigers are definitely stronger than lions.”

“Enough. We’ve annoyed Lord Artorius.”

Shigure turned to look.

“The exorcist who binds the malak may name it,” Artorius said tonelessly.

“You okay with that, Seres?”

“It is Lord Artorius’ judgment.”

A father and mother who won’t name their child. Oh well. For men of the Rangetsu clan, the name you’re given is meaningless. What matters is the name you decide to take for yourself. Shigure forgot the matter.

Morgrim spoke again. “But I feel a very strong latent potential in this boy. Wouldn’t it make more sense to unbind his will and form a pact?”

“Lord Artorius is aware of the situation, but believes that the risks if we were unable to control it are too great.”

“We will assign him to an exorcist until the Armatus is completed,” said Melchior.

“So you’re putting him up for adoption.”

Seres nodded. “That is what reason dictates.”

“Lord Shigure… what they mean is, the boy is Arthur’s son. He has nothing to do with Lord Artorius.”

Shigure took her meaning and cracked a grin. “You know, Seres, you’ve got a good bad girl face under that mask. Maybe I should say a good bad mom face, huh?”

Shigure could sense Seres’ desperation, so he couldn’t resist a barb at the man who had been Arthur, but it didn’t seem to affect Artorius Collbrande. In that sense, he and the young malak seemed very much alike.