Shadow Hearts: Covenant - Plot

Plot

The town of Domremy has stubbornly refused to fall to the German advance at the beginning of World War I thanks to the aid of a "demon." Lieutenant Karin Koenig of the German army is sent along with Nicolas Conrad, a person who claims to be an Inquistor from the Vatican, to acquire a means of exorcising this demon, the Holy Mistletoe. However, the "Demon of Domremy" is actually the Harmonixer Yuri from the first Shadow Hearts. Nicolas casts the curse of the Mistletoe on Yuri, which causes him to lose his fusions and weakens him; in addition, this reveals that Nicolas is a member of the sorcerous faction called Sapientes Gladio who wishes to rule the world through dark magic.

Karin and a weakened Yuri manage to escape with help from Domremy residents Blanca and Gepetto and make their way across Europe, gathering their strength and new some allies, Joachim and Lucia and two subordinates of Nicholas: Lenny Curtis and Veronica Vera, while seeking out a cure for Yuri. After some searching, they locate Roger Bacon, from the previous title, who points the group to the real leader of Sapientes Gladio, Rasputin. Bacon's tip sends the group to Petrograd in an attempt to stop the dark wizard realizing that they must save the Russian royal family from his nefarious plot. Inadvertently, they recruit Princess Anastasia Romanov into their fold. At first, Rasputin thwarts the groups efforts, so they seek out the former leader of Sapientes Gladio for advice. They meet the great sage, Jovis, who resides in Turkey among a small number of supporters who left Sapientes Gladio after Rasputin took control. Jovis allows Karin to enter Yuri's unconscious to free him of his internal binding, releasing his hidden power. Using Yuri's rediscovered abilities, Yuri and his group return to Russia and soundly defeat Rasputin, who had fused with the great demon Asmodeus to obtain his dark power. Nicolas, or "Nicolai", reveals himself to be a bastard son of Czar Nicholas II, with sights on the Russian throne, who had hoped to use Rasputin's plot to gain rule over Russia. With Rasputin gone, he makes one last attempt to inflict evil on the world by opening a sealed door which releases malice. Although Nicolai is fused with another powerful demon, Astaroth, he is defeated as well. Nevertheless, the door is opened and malice is released into the world. As Yuri and his group recover, Nicolai is taken by his ally, Japanese Envoy Kato, to Kato's homeland.

Due to malice being released, the war's brutality escalates. The group follows Kato and his agents to Japan in an attempt to find and destroy Nicolai, who still contains the demon Astaroth, once and for all. However, this leads the group to be in conflict against the Japanese government because Nicolai is under the custody of the Japanese government. With the Emigre Manuscript, Kato creates the Mutant Apes, powerful warriors who loyally follow his command. One of the Mutant Apes, Ouka, is created from DNA of his deceased lover, Yoshiko Kawashima, who died six months ago in the first Shadow Hearts. After Yuri's band stops the Japanese government from starting a war with Russia using the captured Nicolai and his powers, Nicolai himself escapes and intends to destroy the world. Yuri and Kato's groups both go after Nicolai, now completely corrupted by the demon Astaroth. Although Astaroth is eventually defeated by Yuri, Nicolai causes the death of the Mutant Ape Ouka before he is finally destroyed.

Kato is completely devastated by the second death of his love, and after he kills Nicolai, decides the world is full of too much evil and suffering and must be destroyed. Using the magic of Emigre Manuscript, he begins a ritual that will transport him 100 years into the past, where he can use his power and foreknowledge to remake the present world according to his own desires. Believing that the future they want is the one that they create for themselves, Yuri and his friends and allies stop Kato from carrying out his apocalyptic plans.

Like its predecessor, Covenant has two endings, depending on a choice made by the player earlier in the game. In the "bad" ending, Yuri's personality and memories are erased by the Mistletoe's curse, and he lives out the rest of his life in Wales under the care of Roger Bacon. In the "good" ending, Masaji Kato tells Yuri that they must wish for the world they want to return to and that they can return there, they all pray and start to disappear one by one, Yuri stays and Alice narrates that she realizes he stayed and chose death because he didn't want to lose his soul and memories to the Mistletoe's curse. Yuri then dies and Alice narrates they will be together forever, showing the Yuri growing out of the tree in the Graveyard starting to rise out as Alice arrives, then credits start just as she pulls him out. Yuri then finds himself at the beginning of the first Shadow Hearts (Alice narrates that this is where he secretly prayed to be), yet he has his memories of the events after it (as evidenced by him referring to the train in past tense). In both endings Karin travels back in time to 1887 and meets Yuri's father Ben, and it is revealed that she is actually Yuri's mother.

Of the two outcomes, it is unveiled in the Japanese Shadow Hearts: Covenant guidebook by the developers that the "good" ending is canon.