Bang!

The iron door slammed like a falling portcullis, snuffing Ling’s voice and severing the last red thread between her and Alicia.

Crap… we’re done. That look on Shiki Eiki’s face was fury, no doubt.

Fear surged like icy tidewater; panic stung like needles. She sprinted to the door, fists drumming the iron hide of Yama Hall.

Open up! Listen to me! Alicia has nothing to do with this. Don’t drag her in because of me!

The gateyard was a bare plain of stone and shadow; only Ling’s lone figure wavered there, and only her voice rolled back like waves.

Thud!

Her fist hit harder; the iron groaned, a clear dent blooming like a bruise.

Open the door… sob… really… this has nothing to do with Alicia… if someone must be punished, let it be me… don’t… don’t touch Alicia…

Her voice hitched, threadbare with tears. And that ragged pleading finally drew an answer—hope flickered like a moth at dusk.

Rustle—

The sound sifted from above her head, from directly over the iron door, like sand sliding through a narrow glass.

Yufan Ling, is it? A sinner steeped in vice—no, a person woven entirely from sin. Leave. I thought you were merely a lovelorn girl, and found a trace of pity. But you are a criminal. If I grant a criminal happiness, then I become the greater criminal. So give it up. I will not help you.

Her reply was a blade through silk; every hope-thread snapped. A weight like a mountain yoke settled on Ling’s back, and even her hardened body bowed under that unseen load. Her knees buckled into the cold stone.

So this is… despair? It weighs a ton.

Weariness poured through her like lead. Her heart throbbed with a first-in-history ache. The girl lost even the urge to move and knelt by the gate, letting a bleak wind comb her face like straw.

So tired… so tired… my head hurts… it hurts…

Even without Lian’s separate soul inside, she heard two pests in her skull arguing like crows on a branch.

A mini Ling in black, Daemon-shaped, whispered with a smirk: You’ve done enough. Quit. The world’s full of other girls—why bleed for one Alicia? Think of those protagonists in other worlds: harems by the dozen. Stop clinging to one heroine, okay?

On the other side, a mini Ling in white, angelic and prim, raised a finger and nodded: I think Daemon-Ling’s right. Mm. Makes sense. Give up.

Even her inner good and evil, two clashing oars, rowed in the same direction now. Ling felt the world toss her overboard—cold despair flooded in, and her body sank into bottomless fatigue.

Only her feeling for Alicia burned on like a lone candle in wind, propping up a frame made of contradictions.

A body built of contradictions tears itself. No blow struck her, yet her head swelled like a storm cloud. Pain kept coming in waves; every pulsing nerve carried another spark, another scorch.

Shut up… shut up… shut up…

She curled in on herself like a leaf in frost, whispering the same two words, using them as a pebble to distract the mind, a small noise against the thunder. The pain still felt like death, but it dulled by a hair.

Who knew how long passed? A minute? A day? A year? Time was a blind river; she watched only the whirl of pain.

Maybe it snowed once. She remembered cold seeping into her back, a clean blade of chill. It was the first feeling besides pain since the struggle began, so it etched itself clear.

Does the Underworld… even snow? Heh. Bleak, like me.

Click…

The door that should have stayed shut opened like an eye. But a curled-up girl doesn’t notice gates, nor the figure stepping out from within.

Shiki Eiki looked at the wreck of Ling; a ripple crossed her eyes like wind on a still pond.

She did not understand how this sinner endured the Judgment she had laid, and did not break. She had returned all of Ling’s sins to her—countless wrongs refined into the simplest pain, driven inward like rain into soil. Yet the sinner before her held the line.

Is it love?

She didn’t know. From the moment she became a Yama, she set down most of her feelings like a robe. Pity on their first meeting had been a miracle already.

By setting down feeling, she became a proper Yama—fair as a balance, straight as a plumb line, and hollow of heart.

What was feeling, again?

She glanced at the sinner at her feet.

She knows what feeling is. She can give me an answer.

Centuries—millennia—had left her unmoved by such things. Yet here and now, a thirst rose like a spring, and the answer stood within arm’s reach.

Her hand touched Ling’s back. Cool flooded her like mountain springwater. The Daemon and the angel in her skull fell silent. The pain cooled like metal in snow. Fatigue drained away like mist. The burden lifted like a yoke unpinned.

Startled by the sudden calm, Ling raised her head from her knees and looked up at the petite judge before her.

The girl spoke.

Let’s make a deal.