Justin drifted through the streets like wind skimming alley dust; he knew the last shard of the Deity of Justice was in SkywardCity, yet it stayed hidden.

Long ago, he’d found the first fragment of the Deity of Justice—Justus—the corpse of a Divine Being, cold as moonlit stone.

The god had asked, voice like thunder muffled under water, if he knew the greatest difference between the last era and now.

He’d answered, heart a blank field in winter, that he didn’t.

Justice, the god said, like pillars torn from a temple: this world had lost absolute Justice, the single Truth, the promised shore.

Because He died, slain in the Seven-Day War; the sun of Justice set and never rose, and the mortal world fell into gray.

When the god showed him that most holy radiance, a dawn tearing the night’s veil, Justin believed.

He ached like a wound under armor; he wanted to raise the god, to straighten a world buckled by pain and grief.

The god stayed his hands, then asked again, like a bell in fog: Do you know who killed me?

He said no, a dry leaf answer in a winter wind.

Head did, said the god—leader of the gods, the future’s Seer—Head plotted my murder, and the heavens fell silent.

So Justin turned from the Heretic Inquisition; he walked alone beneath a mountain of pressure and guilt, a blade in its sheath.

For the sake of a greater Justice, he would commit evil, like fire used to cauterize a wound.

The Deity of Justice’s cast-off remnants were scattered like stars in gutters: a jewel in a sword’s pommel, Kavat’s royal trove, elven pigment ground from gems for paintings, a ring on an anti-magic city crime lord.

He spent ten years crawling through the world’s corners like a stray cat, gathering every fragment that touched earth.

In those years he did what curdled the heart: he slew Heretic Inquisitors who hunted him, killed to barter with Demonfolk for shards, even steered Demonfolk to butcher a town to reach a lord’s vault.

“I, Justin Senier, am beyond forgiveness,” he would murmur to the Deity of Justice, voice a stone dropped in a well.

He held to the old pride of a Heretic Inquisitor like a banner in rain. He prayed: I ask no salvation; let this world find Justice; let heroes’ blood not bleed into sand.

Child, the god always answered, warm as a fire behind a screen, all you’ve done is for Justice.

But what I’ve done are evil acts, he said, a bitter cup he kept raising, with no words to wash it clean.

When I return, the god promised, I’ll proclaim your righteousness like a trumpet over the square.

No, my god, he begged, hands stained like rust; if you revive, punish me first. Innocents’ cries cling like wind in the eaves; they keep me from sleep. If you truly can reset the world’s scales, so those who face the light won’t cross blades, then grant me rest.

…If that’s the price you choose, the god sighed, like embers settling.

For Justice, I betrayed my brother, my mentor, my lover; someone must stand where the lash lands, an evil to scourge evil, a demon to hunt demon. Even if it’s not me, another would carry it. How could I shove that weight onto him out of fear? Still, my god… I’m tired, like a traveler under winter stars.

For Justice, he watched old friends die, and he chose to stand aside like a stone in a river.

For Justice, he killed his own kind, a knife cutting its own shadow.

He didn’t cry; ten years had sold his heart to necessity, and tears dried into salt.

He’d walked Justice to this brink; he no longer sought rescue; nothing could turn his road, straight as a blade.

All earthly fragments were gathered; only two pieces in the sky remained, like birds that refused a net.

Three days ago, Demonfolk brawling in the Abyssal Prison stirred a hornet’s nest; with the headquarters emptied of elites, he slipped into the Heretic Inquisition’s vault and took their relic.

Only one fragment remained, the last star before dawn.

He palmed the small crystal sphere in his chest pocket; it glowed warm as a hearth coal, and it pointed everywhere like a compass gone mad.

Where was it then? Surely they hadn’t ground it into SkywardCity’s foundations like glitter in concrete?

Justin sighed, a cloud blown from tired lungs. He sat on a bench; a little girl stared at his iron claw of a hand, bright-eyed, until a maid tugged her away like a kite yanked from wind.

Am I that frightening? He touched his chin; his beard was a bramble left wild, his forehead wound a weeping seam, his torn cloak showing chainmail and steel like bones.

Fine. Maybe he was a scarecrow on a city stage.

He meant to tidy himself, when the Demon Blade set into his left hand shivered like a hungry wolf.

It was warning him; it was craving someone’s blood again.

Which meant a hero was near, a torch moving through fog.

Justin tightened his muscles like bowstrings and touched the Heretic Inquisitor’s standard weapon at his waist, ready for a storm.

A youth with a longsword at his hip sprinted past; as he passed the bench, Justin’s fingers coiled, then loosened, as the boy never looked his way.

Only when the boy faded like a shadow down the street did Justin exhale, rise, and turn to leave.

Several Heretic Inquisitors pounded after the youth like hounds on a scent. Curiosity pricked him; in ten years, a rare moment without a target left him hollow.

If duty didn’t shove me forward, he wondered, heart like a room without furniture, what would I do for myself?

— — —

Justin stood on a rooftop, the wind combing his hair like cold fingers; he laid out his weapons along the eaves, one by one, like offerings.

Realizing he couldn’t wake the god soon, he decided to see what the Heretic Inquisitors were doing, a moth circling old fire.

Maybe it was habit; he’d lived busy as a mill wheel, and stillness felt like drowning.

Or maybe he had forgotten how to do anything for himself, as if his name had blurred in rain.

He tuned the hand crossbow’s draw like a lute string and clicked his tongue, a spark of displeasure.

He saw the Heretic Inquisitors surround a small chapel like crows on snow; through a window he caught their target.

An injured woman in a white dress, pale as milk; her hands had mutated into claws, and they gripped an old Divine Healer’s throat.

He remembered brushing past her; then she’d cut down the Inquisitors who rushed in, like wheat under a scythe.

Demonfolk, he breathed, a chill threading his spine.

He meant to leave like a man stepping out of rain, and then he noticed who the hostage was.

Damn it, Lord Ambroliel… His fist hit the wall with a dull thud, dust jumping like startled moths.

He clicked his tongue, checked the sightlines like a fox, then vaulted to the next roof; he met a startled Heretic Inquisitor with a fist and dropped him cold.

Sage Ambroliel, a member of the Council of Sages—if a Demonfolk held him, a storm would gather, and Maki would be on his way.

But even Maki might not save Ambroliel; fate sometimes cuts the rope while you climb.

Justin could watch old friends die with a stone face, but if a Sage was threatened, the whole garden would suffer.

“That would be a loss to all mankind,” he hissed, breath a white blade.

The Inquisitors understood the stakes; their sniper leveled an Aerian-enchanted hand crossbow and prototype anti-mage bolts, the best tools yanked from an emergency chest.

Pity the shooter’s hands were reeds in wind.

Justin drew a deep breath that tasted of tile and soot; he cocked, loaded, and aimed in one smooth flow, calm as a lake.

Now, the heretic hunt begins, he murmured, words falling like black seeds.

Before they’re trusted alone, Heretic Inquisitors study many crafts; to hunt heresy, one art centers on the hand crossbow.

That art teaches you to sink your breath, let wood and steel become your bone, and turn aim into certainty.

It’s not quite a technique or a spell; it’s a state you enter, a bell note that never misses.

They call it the Kill Quota, a ledger written in iron.

The woman loosened her grip on the Sage; Justin let his heart settle like silt, gathered mana like dew, and whispered a prayer to Death.

Heretic Inquisitors keep that custom before executions, as Divine Healers do for the dead—a rite under a gray sky.

He said, voice soft as ash: Whether you repent or not, Death will forgive your sins.

He pulled the trigger. The first bolt sprang like a hawk.

He grabbed the second hand crossbow, a dwarven masterpiece; in his cohort, he was first to master the Kill Quota.

His mentor, Maki, had given him that crossbow as a gift, a torch in a dark hall.

He kept it after he left the Heretic Inquisition, a weight of memory in his hand.

He fired. The second bolt stitched the air like a needle.

He lifted the third crossbow and paused a heartbeat; in that beat, time thinned like ice, enough to plot the last bolt’s arc.

First bolt to harry, second to seal, third to kill—three strokes to write a name.

At most, in one Kill Quota, he could loose three certain bolts; he had three crossbows like three fates.

The first he’d stolen from the stunned Inquisitor, warm from another man’s grip.

The second had been his companion, worn smooth as river stone.

The third he’d taken from a friend’s body on a field where Demonfolk and Inquisitors burned; he’d kept it for this one clean kill, an incense stick for the dead.

As the bolts hissed, someone sensed the ambush; the youth from the street slashed diagonally, stance like a destined lord, a king of hosts, one blade splitting sky and earth.

Hero, huh. Justin’s smile was cold; scars on his face folded like dried riverbeds.

The Demon Blade in his left hand snapped out, a horizontal slash meeting that vast sword-light like steel meeting a tide.

Meanwhile his right hand held steady as an anchor; he pulled the trigger a third time and let fate fly.

A wave of fatigue broke over him like surf; today’s Kill Quota was spent to the last grain.

He shook his head to clear it, rode the clash’s recoil a step back, then turned and ran, a shadow darting over tiles.

“Amanda… my brother… our feud is done. You can rest,” he breathed, a leaf on the wind.

The youth bounded onto the roof in pursuit; the Demon Blade met the holy sword again, sparks like fireflies, and the rebound lent Justin speed.

At the same time, a Shadow peeled off him in the fight’s wake, flung like a cloak, and melted into a nearby shade.

— — —

Vega sighed, the sound a ripple in dark water; to avoid Abigail’s notice, she slipped deeper into the Shadow, cool as ink.

— — —

Victor slid his empty hand crossbow away, a snake shedding skin, and glanced up at the rooftop clash; nothing but night and tile.

He shrugged, a quick, dry motion, and packed the little nest he’d built to land Kairi’s last hit, neat as a folded map.

Then he ran the opposite way from Justin, feet drumming the street like rain.