sakura and kakashi

Viktor then walked past them with a confident smirk. He was Noah’s next target. What concerned him, though, was that Reiss was nowhere to be found. He was down in the hypogeum during the intermission. Was he using the lavatory? Viktor was standing by the ref, waiting for his opponent to show. If Reiss didn’t show up, he would win by default. The crowds quickly started to murmur in confusion, wondering what the hold-up was. Eventually, the ref had to act.“Since Reiss has not appeared for his fight, he is declared—”

“Seraph overstepped and suffered for it. The clergy overstepped and suffered for it. You are all suffering for the choices you made. It’s as simple as that. However, I consider myself a sensible, forgiving man.” Noah released Bojena and stepped back. “I don’t want to kill you, and I don’t want to get into a pissing contest with the church. In fact, I would like to form an alliance, so tell me, what do I have to do to make this all go away? What mountain must I move for the church to get off my back and on my side?”

Maybe you and I do deserve to suffer for our wrongdoing. If that’s so, then it means that when things get painful, when things get difficult, we don’t have the luxury of quitting. We don’t get to end our lives to escape what we did. Whatever form the pain takes, we bear it, we endure it, we welcome it, all while we try to make this world a place where people like us, like how we used to be, have no place, and the people who would be hurt can instead live in peace. The next time you encounter an obstacle you cannot overcome, when you just want to curl up into a ball and quit on the world, remind yourself that you don’t deserve the peace of surrender. You have to keep working, to keep fighting, to keep suffering, until the day when you’ve fully repented.