Cutesy softness isn’t Stini’s selling point; I usually shut that door like a windbreak slamming against winter gusts.

But right now, relief runs warm as tea through frost—she’s willing to listen.

I know she wants a hug; I pull her in like a cloak against night, arms tight as a knot.

I know she wants a kiss; I give her a sugar-thick kiss, tongues twining like ivy around a lantern.

All yours, like rain poured into cupped hands.

Only after a long while do our mouths part, like waves easing back from a dark reef.

Stini licks the shine from her lips, cheeks lit like cherries, and says,

“Okay, I’ll hear your nagging.”

“Mhm, then the preachy part starts,” I say, voice steady as a temple bell.

“Sorry, but—” she begins, voice small as a moth in candlelight.

“No matter what, you promised to try to understand others,” I say, words falling like stones into calm water. “You didn’t swear to me. You swore to yourself.”

“Sometimes I wanna throw a tantrum...” the girl puffs her cheeks like a sulking sparrow.

“That’s a different river,” I say, stepping back to a teaching distance like drawing a line in sand. “Abandon your oath and run, or grind it through to the end—both are paths through the woods, and I’m not judging that.”

“What matters is this: you don’t get to blindfold yourself and call your bias the sun,” I say, the tone rigid as an iron bar.

How do I judge whether someone’s a person? For later ages there are endless scales, but my measure’s simple as a blade’s edge.

A sound soul, a whole mind, a readiness to understand—three lanterns in one hall.

Miss one, and the hall goes dark; have all three, and I’ll call you human, like a name carved in stone.

Feels like Head uses a similar yardstick, like twin compasses pointing north.

Betrayal? Fine—like a storm breaking across plain. Hatred? Fine—like fire roaring in a brazier. Oath-breaking? Fine—like a rope snapped under strain.

To choose by your own will, to carve your path like a river through rock—that’s human, whether it shines or stinks, and I’ll acknowledge it.

But don’t blind yourself! Don’t lie to your own heart like fog smothering a lighthouse!

“To try to understand Justin, you have to try to understand his good and his evil,” I say, words clear as frost on glass. “Try to feel his stubbornness, even if you won’t accept it; at least reach for it like a hand through rain. If you won’t understand him, then know this—this is you betraying your own resolve and grinding your own dignity underfoot, and you should keep the pain like a thorn in your boot, not hide it with excuses.”

I love to fool others, but I never fool myself; that vow sits in me like a nail.

What I see and what I’ve done—I tally them like beads, no excuses, and swallow it all like bitter medicine.

If I can’t even do that, forget “Hero”—I’m unfit for human, like a mask with no face behind it.

Mortal strength is a flicker to gods and demons, a candle to noon; what matters to their gaze is soul, will, and awareness, like steel, spine, horizon.

In the Silver Era there were no heroes with paper hearts; in this age of brute courage and polished rites, if you can’t, another will, like a relay of torches. Other heroes will fight in your stead, carrying your name and your deeds like banners.

And the weak, once they’ve seen their own thinness like ribs in a mirror, should go home and live a safe, sunny life. If pride still keeps them from stepping down—

—then only death waits, like a cliff under loose gravel.

Stini already has her philosophy, her credo, her gridded map of good and evil, inked neat as calligraphy. But this time, anger burned through the paper; she threw it aside—pretending she hadn’t violated it, pretending she still walked the bright road.

That’s dangerous; many heroes crack under pressure and paint over the fracture, then drift into anti-hero gloom like a ship into fog.

So I lay it out like a table under noon light.

“Do you get it?”

“I get it,” she answers, steady as a held breath.

I’ve etched every word like a chisel on stone, and I’ve checked that Stini listens with both ears, like doors swung open. Good—this is where it ends; the delayed choice finally comes to its seal and coffin-lid.

Now it’s Stini’s solo, a single spotlight on a bare stage.

I step aside from the path blocking Justin, and I let the girl face the dark hero who betrayed the Heretic Inquisition for justice, like a hawk staring down a storm.

“Now you choose,” I say, voice like a drawn bow. “My captain knows what she’s doing. As long as you know what you’re doing, I’ll follow.”

I open my hand and gesture “please,” like a host parting a curtain.

She smiles at me like dawn peeking above roofs, then turns to Justin, her face gathering into seriousness like clouds before rain.

“First, I’m sorry,” she says, simple as a bowed head.

“I’ll try to understand others. As Andor said, I promised that to myself once, but revenge smoked my eyes like incense gone sour, and I need to apologize.”

“Then, I want to understand—I choose to understand. Justin, speak your obsession, your justice. I want to hear,” she says, each word a step on stone.

Justin, who’s waited on our side for a long time, looks ragged as a scarecrow—blood smearing him like red leaves, two fingers missing from his right hand like broken prongs. But when Stini names his justice, his eyes light up like twin lamps in a storm.

A bright light.

Too bright for someone like me; heroes are troublesome creatures, with power like tigers, spells like riddles, and minds like spinning wheels.

I step back a few paces like a tide receding, and leave their talk to them.

In the end it’s Stini who decides; I only need to lift my sword like a final flourish and help.

——————

“I’ll witness your sacrifice, and I’ll vouch for the justice of the Divine Beings,” Stini says, pressing the Holy Sword to her chest, fist thundering against armor like a drum.

…Maybe it’s because there’s no padding, the sound rings clear as an empty bell?

I stoop and pick up Abigail’s Godslayer Sword, “Awaken,” like a black fang found in snow, and I ready for battle.

“If the Divine Beings aren’t our shared ‘justice,’ then—”

Justin looks worried, lines carved on his face like dry riverbeds.

“Haah, what are you fretting over?” I say, words flicking like sparks. “Didn’t you betray the Heretic Inquisition because you believed in the Divine Beings? Why not carry your faith to the end like an arrow to target?”

“…Only because someone has to do it,” he says, voice quiet as ash. “Someone has to play the villain, to betray the mortal world, betray the gods, betray every good. If not me, then it’ll fall on some innocent, so the only way to end this villain’s role is for me to shoulder it all, like a pack mule under winter weight.”

“Villain? Role?” Stini frowns, brittle as ice.

“Don’t mind it; a maid said a lot of hateful things,” Justin says with a crooked smile, pulling out a crystal orb and shards that glint like winter glass from his coat.

“I’ll probably fail,” he adds, the words falling flat as wet charcoal.

“Saying that before you try is gloomy as a rain-soaked banner,” I say.

“When I communed with the Deity of Justice, it felt weaker than praying in the temple,” he says, gaze distant as a far bell. “Maybe the Divine Being hasn’t fully recovered, but… I had a feeling.”

“Then why keep walking this road of evil?” Stini asks, voice clear as streamwater. “Knowing what you’re doing, giving it up is also a choice; that’s not shameful, it’s human.”

She glances back at me, eyes flicking like swallows, asking for support.

I just shake my head, a no like a tree swaying once; the captain acts, and the vice-captain only steers once the course is set.

“Because it’s hope, however thin—like a candle under wind,” he says, breath white as smoke. “I still hope—

—that the world won’t split and hurt because of different justices,” he finishes, voice like a prayer placed on river stones.

“I, the Hero, Stini Saya, respect your choice, and I grant you—a hero’s funeral,” she says, each syllable a tolling bell.

“Heh, a hero…” he chuckles, dry as fallen leaves.

The old inquisitor makes the sign of prayer one last time, then kisses a cheap, paint-flaked, time-worn holy emblem, a piece that’s seen long years like driftwood. The Heretic Inquisition’s emblem bears a shape that can pray to all gods at once, like a wheel of spokes.

He says,

“Repentant or not, death forgives all sins, like snow burying tracks.”

“Heretic Inquisition, commence,”

“Heretic, Justin Belieu—submit to judgment,” he intones, each word a nail in wood.

Justin presses the crystal orb and shards together, and a brilliance no mortal eye can stare at bursts out like a newborn sun, blinding him in an instant like burned paper.

“O Divine Being, I submit,” he says, voice level as a still pond.

He rams that worldless radiance into his chest like a brand; light flares from every inch of him like molten gold, burning all that’s tangible and earthy.

But in this small world there’s only blank white, a page without ink.

Stini tears a strip from her skirt like a swan shedding plume and wraps her eyes. The Hero’s technique, “Immunity Privilege,” isn’t enough to screen a true god’s power yet; she barely endured the last burst of radiance like a lone tree in gale. That tells her if she looks straight, the thought the Divine Being embodies will overprint her, and even “Immunity Privilege” can’t shield that, like paper under flood.

She raises her weapon and points a blade at a god, like a thunderbolt held in mortal hands.

“Divine Being, without my limiters, your first breath would have flooded SkywardCity in radiance like a tide. Tell me—are you good or evil?” she asks, voice keening like steel.

“For you, this may seem harsh and wicked,” the voice answers, calm as stone; “but to me, who grasps the essence of justice, it’s necessary cleansing—a return of this dirty world to justice, to the gold the Creator forged,” the presence intones, like wind through a cold hall.

I tear a strip from my black coat, copy Stini’s blindfold like a student, and refuse to look at the Divine Being.

Even blindfolded, my eyes sting like salt; the holy brilliance pricks like needles, and the weight of that most-holy presence crushes like a mountain.

“Then it’s judged—you’re evil,” Stini says, voice flat as a guillotine. “Even as a Divine Being, you’re an evil god.”

“Stini, how do you dare speak so to a Divine Being?” the voice asks, already knowing her name without any introduction, omniscience reaching like a net. There’s no anger, only stillness, like the center of a storm.

To a Demon King, human rage is an ant’s roar at a lion, a thing below notice; this Divine Being feels like that, a degraded edition of a Demon King’s spirit, a statue with colder eyes.

“Because human justice isn’t defined by anyone else,” Stini says, stepping toward the god like a flame walking into rain.

“I vouched for your justice once, alongside humankind,” she says, blade steady as a horizon. “I guessed wrong. I’ll pay the price now—

—godslaying. That’s the promise I made for the person you called evil,” she says, oath sharp as frost.

She lifts her sword and brings it down like lightning.

No hesitation, no tremor—only edge.

——————

Radiance bursts like festival fireworks over SkywardCity; during celebrations we fling blossoms of light often enough, that’s normal. But this time’s different; the power of a Divine Being draws every Demon King’s gaze like wolves to a red moon.

“Andor…” Anna rises suddenly, slicing through Andor’s speech like a scythe through wheat; she grips her Giant Scythe till knuckles pale, her face flickering light and dark like storm-shadow.

The other Demon Kings close in on him with hard looks, like a ring of iron.

Right now, “Andor” can guess what Anna’s painting in her head, a whole gallery of plots about the World Saving Demon King colluding with a Divine Being to butcher their own kind, like ink bleeding under rain.

Good thing, this divine entrance and its tremor were inside the plan like chalk marks on stone.

“Please be at ease,” Andor says, voice smooth as lacquer. “This is a small interlude, unrelated to us or this Peace Conference—no malice, and not within the scope of our talks,” he adds, palm open like a placid lake.

“Then answer me—what is it?” Anna snaps, words slicing like her scythe.

“Oh, just a pitiful, incomplete god,” he says, smile thin as paper. “The only evil god in the world, and it’ll be killed soon—no need to worry,” he says, as if talking about a stain on white silk.

Beside him, the contract god, Appoint, seems to hear nothing; he lifts a too-small cup in his big hand like a toy, and sips quietly, savoring like a cat with cream.