The Vatican isn't quiet anymore.
It hums.
Walls tremble with the murmurs of unwritten hymns, and beneath the Sistine Chapel, the catacombs are lit with a light that is neither fire nor divine.
It is the glow of the Final Score.
And it is spreading.
Bombombini Gusini walks the halls like a heretic and a prophet.
His coat is torn.
His pen is gone.
But in his hand he holds a letter that bleeds.
On its parchment is a single line, rewritten in three languages, each one trembling with power:
"If They Kiss, the World Ends."
But beneath that?
Written in ink that shifts like an eclipse:
"Or Begins."
He is brought before the Pope.
Not the one seen on TV.
Not the man with flesh and robes.
The True Pope — the one behind the veil, kept alive by sacrifice, seated upon the Throne of Silence that sings backwards.
A thousand eyes.A mask of bone.A mouth sealed by a crown of thorns made from old violin strings.
The Pope does not speak with words.
He speaks with choir.
The Choir emerges.
Not boys.
Not men.
But beings made of voice — no mouths, no eyes, only sound shaped like souls.
They sing his thoughts:
"You burned your verse, Bombombini.""You betrayed the Score.""Why return now?"
Bombombini kneels.
"Because I have seen what the world becomes if they don't finish the kiss."
"I have seen the unfinished end."
"A world without music. Without choice. Just silence, made holy by fear."
The Choir shifts. Harmonizes.
The Pope's fingers twitch.
"You beg for sacrilege," the song says."To let two heretical souls choose love over obedience."
Bombombini rises.
"No," he says. "I beg for balance."
He throws the bleeding letter on the floor.
"Let them kiss."
"Let the world end — or begin."
"But take me instead. Let me pay the price."
Silence.
Then:
Laughter.
Not human.
Not divine.
Choir laughter.
Like glass shattering in perfect harmony.
"You think one death replaces Armageddon?" the song mocks.
Bombombini's eyes harden.
"Not one."
He tears open his shirt.
Revealing his chest — engraved with every note of the Score he burned.
A human manuscript.
A living page.
"Take me. Take the music inside me."
"Let them have one kiss."
The Choir falters.
The Pope's mask cracks — just slightly.
And in that moment…
A candle goes out.
But its flame doesn't vanish — it appears hundreds of miles away, in the hands of Tralalero, who wakes in a forest chapel, her heart racing.
And across the sea, Lirilì's body — once vanished — appears, breathing again, in a long-destroyed temple off the coast of Sicily.
The universe is listening.
And the Score is changing.