Divine Revelation

Owen recalls Guts from his days leading the Raiders and asks his name, but Guts declines, preferring to leave the past buried. When Owen presses about Griffith's whereabouts, assuming the two are still allies, Guts says he does not know and turns away, offering only the riddle that the White Falcon may be nearer than Owen thinks. Owen watches him go, hoping Griffith will return to free the city from ruin, just as the Falcon of Light delivered Midland from darkness in the world's shared prophetic dream.

Some distance off, a convoy of Holy See clergy has halted so the ailing Pontiff can rest. As he seems to sleep, the cardinals weigh who should rise to the papacy should he die, first naming the high-ranking Poliziano, and note that the Pontiff, capable as he is, has achieved nothing memorable in his reign.

The Pontiff is awake and hears every word. Reviewing an unremarkable life of wealthy but ordinary beginnings, a faith taken up to lend the world meaning, and a reign short on initiative, he sinks toward death regretting that nothing extraordinary ever came of him. Yet he does not die. The dark lifts as a vast white hawk with a man's long-haired head shines above him. He reaches for a feather, praying the touch will make his life mean something, and the vision fades just short of his grasp.

Waking, the Pontiff hears new voices bearing a message: grasp destiny in hand and follow the guidance of the feathers of light. He orders the speakers admitted, and in walk Mule and Sonia, at whose faces he hallucinates a burst of white feathers. The two kneel, and Mule explains they invite him to meet their lord. The cardinals distrust them and move to expel them, exactly as Mule foretold, but the Pontiff stops them, resolved to go. When a messenger warns that Vritannis has fallen to the Kushan, he reads even this as a sign and proclaims that a revelation has come.

Guts refuses Owen his name and hints cryptically that Griffith is closer than expected. The ailing Pontiff, overhearing the cardinals plan his succession, nearly dies before a vision of the Falcon of Light revives his sense of purpose. Mule Wolflame and Sonia arrive as messengers of Griffith, and the Pontiff, treating the warning about the Kushan attack as further proof, resolves to follow them. This marks the Pontiff's first appearance.

This is chapter 264 of the manga in the Millennium Falcon Arc, spanning twenty pages. It ran in Young Animal issue 21 on October 28, 2005. The Pontiff appears here for the first time.