(Alt title: "Quickstart Manual for Sacred Arrest, Cosmic Cameos, and Ethically Questionable Art Theft")
CRASH.
The capsule smashed into stone and marble.Cracks spread like spiderwebs across the underground hallways.Renji Kurogane: emergency landing, apocalyptic edition.
Alarms blared across the Vatican.
Guards in ceremonial armor — like a fusion of high-budget crusaders and exorcists with Wi-Fi — descended.They carried electric spears and anomaly-containment weapons.
—"Who the hell travels like this?" I muttered, limping out of the wreckage.
Too late.
They swarmed me in seconds.Bound me in cuffs that smelled like incense and religious anxiety.No trial. No coffee. No mercy.
They dragged me through sealed corridors covered in crosses, runes, and trauma.
Until we arrived.
The cell.
An ancient prison.Carved into living stone.Sealed with runes so old even time had stopped updating them.
They shoved me in.The door slammed like a tomb closing on a bad punchline.
And then…It got weird.
Darkness.Cold.Silence...
Until I heard footsteps.Not normal ones.
Footsteps that already knew my name before I remembered it.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
Simple robes.Barefoot.Eyes that understood pain… and forgave it anyway.
Jesus.
Not the stained-glass-window kind.
This Jesus was real.Tired.Worn out.Like he carried not just the world's sins, but its collective stupidity too.
He looked at me.Not with hate.With resignation.
Then he spoke:
—"Centuries ago… someone asked me to wait here.Not to question.Not to judge.Just wait."
He stepped forward.
In his hands, an object.
A Journal.
Identical to the one from my apartment.To the one in the hotel.To the one found in the pyramid.
But this one… glowed faintly.Its symbols shifted every time I blinked.
Jesus held it out like he was handing over a burden, not a gift.
—"If a human with an Eye in their chest is ever locked in this cell... I was told to give them this," he said, voice trembling with duty and dread.
I didn't know if I should say thank you or start apologizing.
But before I could speak, he added:
"You're not a mistake, Renji.You're not a monster.You're the overdue echo… of a forgotten promise."
"Run. Learn. Remember.And when the end comes...Don't ask for forgiveness."
He gave me the Journal.
Smiled — sad, distant.
And vanished.
Just like that.Like a sigh inside a long-abandoned church.
I stood there.Journal in hand.Soul… kind of vibrating.
Then I noticed something else.
A symbol.
Carved into one corner of the wall.Two letters: T and P.Faint. Ancient.
I didn't know what it meant.
But something in me —something deep and instinctive— recoiled.
Like the Eye in my chest recognized it... and hated it.
I backed away slowly.
And then I saw something else.
A statue.
A Jesus sculpture in the back of the cell.Head bowed.Wearing the Crown of Thorns.
My chest burned.
The Eye pulsed.
I approached like I was sleepwalking.
Touched the statue.
ZAP.
No sound.No light.
Just a quiet pulse.
The statue didn't move.
But the Eye…absorbed something.
Without me knowing, a perfect replica of the Crown of Thorns was created in my symbolic internal space.
An artifact.Dormant.Waiting.
And somehow, out of impulse or respect, I pulled out an old coin and placed it on the statue's base.
"Multiversal loot code: if you steal sacred stuff, leave a damn tip," I whispered.
Then—
The Eye vibrated.
Hard.
A new direction.A pulse in my mind.
A Gem.Close.
I followed the signal.
Damp corridors.Walls whispering half-remembered sins.
Until I reached an altar.
And floating above it…
A Gem.
Red.Bright.Pulsing with a rhythm I now knew too well.
I reached out—
WHOOM.
Absorbed.No pain.Just certainty.
I wasn't just Renji anymore.
I was something else.
Something the world hadn't prepared for.