Disclaimer: I do not own the title "Shadow Hearts" nor any of the characters within the series besides the characters I have created myself in this fan fiction.

Author's Notes: Finally received some motivation to write this!

Shadow Hearts

Last Judgment

2nd Judgment

Chapter I

Vatican Heaven

"You," the Friar Knight leader pointed to a female knight clad in silver armor, "Escort the maidens of the Lord to their quarters and lock them in until further notice." His voice remained gruff, slightly annoyed that an intruder has breached the basilica before they could, "This is truly troublesome."

The female knight began to group the group of nuns centered within all the commotion and began to lead them into a dark hallway, all of them frightened at the events unfolding before them. However, one nun seemed rather calm and kept a stoic attitude throughout it all, her eyes closed as she followed the group in-front of her pouring into their respective quarters.

"Milady," The calm nun was confronted by the female knight, "Please go into your quarters. We will inspect the area and let you go free once we find the intruder." The female knight spoke to her with a calm and polite tone, "This way, please." She motioned her hands towards the entrance of a small room.

The nun entered the room, "I must say my thanks to you for escorting a maiden of the Lord through this mess," she snickered, "But I'm afraid I must now offer my sincerest apologies."

The female knight had a look of confusion pasted across her face, "Apologies for what?" she asked, curious as to what she meant.

"This."

Without hesitation, the nun quickly charged at the knight and delivered a swift uppercut fist, completely rendering her unconscious on the ground with a loud thud. The nun scanned the surroundings for anyone, her red eyes peering into the darkness to see any movement. She sighed with relief before removing the hood that enveloped her head, revealing locks of snow white hair, a rare thing to behold around parts of Europe.

Surprisingly, her physical strength was capable of lifting the knight off the ground, dragging her body into one of the quarters, forcefully dropping her into one of the corners with yet another loud thud, "You Friar Knights are really stupid, aren't you?" she smirked, "There's so many of you around here that it's impossible to know if one of your own men is missing."

Finishing with those words, she began to undress herself from the suffocating nun outfit she had been wearing throughout most of the day. It was bad enough that the thing was itchy as all hell, but wearing that thing while the humid air in the basilica lingered was hell, "Ugh," she exclaimed with relief, "So glad I'm out of that damn thing."

With a careful and steady hand, she turned the knob of the door and slowly opened it silently, stepping out of the quarters in a different set of clothing. She was now wearing a soft blue leather tunic with several laces, a white sleeved shirt tucked underneath with a blue skirt covering most her legs, and leather tan boots.

She carefully scanned the surroundings once more, "Seems like the area is clear." And with that, she began to make her way towards another dark hallway to her right, "Getting inside this hellhole was easy enough," she chuckled to herself, her cocky confidence fueling her mind even more so than before, "Now I just need to get down to the underground dungeons and I'll be home free."

She continued to press on towards the dark hallways of the basilica, hoping to find a staircase that will somehow lead her down to the depths of the grand church. The hallways were getting much darker and narrower, making it almost impossible to see anything with the human eye, "Damn it," she began, "I should've lit a candle."

She quickly halted her movements and stood perfectly still within the envelope of the dark. Her ears began to pick up footsteps from behind her. Placing her hand on her waist pocket, she gripped the handle of something as she slowly turned her head back, only to collide head on with a shadowy stranger.

"What the hell!?" she yelled, her girlish voice bouncing from wall to wall. She quickly stood up and held the weapon she was concealing in her pocket at the shadowy figure before her, "Who are you!?"

The figure shook its head, trying to shrug off the pain, "Ugh, my head hurts." It was the voice of a male human, "You know you shouldn't stand here in the dark. Accidents like that one are bound to happen." The figure stood up, rubbing his head with his right hand. His gray eyes shifted forward to see the other person holding a gun at his face in point blank range.

"Are you with the Friar Knights?!" she questioned, a tone of anger carried the question with seriousness, "Answer me!"

The male figure shook his head, raising both of his hands up in the air as if he were some sort of culprit caught in the act, "I'm terribly insulted," he began with a playful voice, "To think that someone could mistaken me for one of those bastards. A shame really." He gave off a light chuckle, trying to make a joke out of it all.

Bang.

She pulled the trigger, a single bullet fleeting by the male figures face, leaving a small scrape on his left cheek as a tiny trail of blood began to form, "Do not joke about this. I have a job to do and I will kill those who get in my way." She took several steps back, her gun still aimed at the male figure, "The next shot will be an accurate one if you don't tell me who you really are!"

The man sighed with disappointment. He hoped he could play with her for a little while, "I'll tell you who I am if you come into that room with me." He motioned his hand towards a black door to her right. She carefully looked towards that direction and was surprised she hadn't seen it before, "Your eyes don't see very well, do they?"

"Shut up." She retorted, "You're such a smartass."

The male figure shrugged, "Well, what can I say? I was born that way." He replied, "You know, they're on our tail. I can hear them coming just about…"

"This way! I heard the gunshot from this hallway!" a voice from the other end of the hallway echoed out, "The intruder must be here!"

"Now." He quickly charged towards the woman, picking her up over his shoulders. Without any hesitation, he quickly opened the black door and proceeded through, turning the mechanism on the back of the door clockwise to lock it shut.

"Put me down you buffoon!" she demanded, flailing around furiously like a fish out of water.

"Okay." He let her off his shoulder forcefully, letting her fall on the ground with a loud thud.

"You asshole!"

"What? You're down, aren't you?" he scoffed. He shook his head as he began looking around the room they were in, engulfed in pitch black. Fondling with around the walls, he felt the presence of a switch nearby. He flicked it on and soon, the room was lit up with a dim light.

The noise of footsteps flooded the door outside, passing them by like a wild stampede of bulls, pieces of metal clanging everywhere. Soon, the noise dissipated.

"Where are we?" she looked around, trying to remember which place of the basilica this is. She had wandered around the basilica as a nun, spying around the place long before the Friar Knights came into the picture. She shook the thought off after remembering that she was with a strange man, pointing her gun yet again at the now visible figure before her.

He was a rather average man with short black hair, silver strands of hair protruding out. He wore a worn black leather jacket, black jeans, and sporting dirty 'Chucks' on his feet. He smiled at the woman, having no fear of the weapon pointed directly at him, "Since now we're in this mess together, let's get acquainted shall we?" he laughed a bit, shaking his head at the thought of making a joke at a time such as this, "James Zecharia," he introduced, "And you are, my lady with gorgeous scarlet red eyes?"

She blushed heavily. Her face would always brighten with a reddish glow anytime someone commented on her appearance, "S-s-shut up! I don't have to give you my name, nor do we have to get acquainted." She fired back.

"Man, you know you're incredibly rude?" He taunted, a faint smile appearing on his face, "It's fine, you don't have to give me your name now."

"Whatever the case is, it seems your actions dictate that you're not one with the Friar Knights," she reluctantly lowered her pistol down slowly, though still keeping it gripped within the grasp of her right hand. She was never trustworthy of strangers but this one seemed different in her eyes, "It seems we're in the Bishops room." She explained, "I've been here before earlier."

"Great!" he said with excitement, his eyes filled with the desire to loot everything in sight, "I can make money off his stuff!" he said greedily.

"Ugh, don't tell me you're just a petty thief!" she asked furiously. In her mind, thieves were the worst kinds of people, living off the property of others. It made her sick, "Don't even think about stealing anything here or I'll shoot that dirty hand of yours." She warned, "I'm serious."

James' eyes widened with slight fear, even though he was still joking around, "Okay, okay." He smiled yet again, a smile that was getting on her nerves.

"Ugh," she said with disgust, her face literally making a puking motion, "Anyway, let's just try to find a way out of here."

She soon found out that she was being ignored by the strange man she encountered. He was too busy peering through cabinets and drawers to find anything worthwhile, "Didn't I tell you to lay your hands off!?"

"Hey, look what I found." He reached for a magazine inside the wooden drawers, hidden within piles of clothing, "Vatican Heaven, eh?" he began flipping through the magazine, only to have his face blush intensely, "Holy shit." He said surprisingly, "Are they even allowed to read this stuff?" he began to flip through the pages excitingly.

"What are you talking abou—what the hell is that!?" she closely examined the magazine that was in James' dirty hands, "A porn magazine!?"

"You bet." James stashed the magazine in his coat pocket like a perverted teenager.

"I can't believe it," she ranted, "I'm stuck with a perverted thief. What a lucky day I'm having today." She shook her head in disappointment, "I'm going to look around for a way out. You should do the same." She began to search every nook and cranny inside the room for a hidden passage of some sort, "There should be a passage in here that will lead out into the dungeons below."

"After seeing the dirty magazine, I'd assume there are a LOT of secrets in this room," he chuckled while searching around, "Perhaps he drags little boys and girls into this room and gets his way with 'em, heh." he stood there for a second and thought about it, then realized what he had said and shook the disgusting thought off, "Ugh."

While his hands grasped the floor, he felt a small hard bump protruding from the soft carpeting. Clenching his fist, he lightly knocked on the floor and heard a hollow echo come from it, "I think I found something." he called over to the woman, who was still searching around.

"Hm, this has to be it. It has large lock on it. How stupidly obvious." She proceeded to take out her pistol, reloading the chamber with several bullets before aiming it at the large lock, "Here goes nothing."

Bang.

The bullet cleanly destroyed the lock away from the hatch it tightly secured. James lifted the hatchway open, to find a gaping dark hole descending all the way down to the dark depths of the church.

"Guess we found it."