In the end, the choice was abandonment, like a candle guttering in a silent wind.

In the end, there was no saving anyone, like a lifeline fraying under black water.

This was never a tale of love and beauty, nor of redemption and gentleness; it was a road of thorns under a pall of ash.

Good people don’t always reap good harvests, like rain that falls where it chooses. The man who called himself a swindler, a musician, a storyteller, and a messenger kept rambling that Vangibia was just an ordinary fishfolk girl. Her childhood was a shoal-side blur in some shallow-sea tribe; the first time she reached Takinia, she fell for the city like coral catches sunlight.

She spent her youth at Constansen Academy, a place that bred bards like orchards breed birds. In a few years, she learned every picturesque street and alley of Takinia, loving every shop, every stone, as if the city were a quilt she stitched by hand.

She had no gift for verse and no taste for battle; her heart was a quiet pond, untroubled. It didn’t matter. With her map of the city etched like constellations in her mind, she was good at guiding poets to vistas, like leading cranes to a lake at dawn.

After graduating with a low score, she cheerfully became a guide, hoping every traveler who stepped into Takinia would feel its beauty like spring wind touching skin.

She loved her work, sharing what she thought was lovely, the way one shares tea steam and moonlight; each day felt bright because of it.

“…But she’s dead now. Whether you call it a glorious offering or something everyone can live with, she’s dead. Maki, do you get what I’m saying?” The words fell like stones into a still basin.

Stini smelled of wine, eyes half-lidded like dusk clouds, slanting against the temple ward door. She kept swapping the leg that held her weight, swaying like a reed, barely able to stand.

“I don’t intend to understand. This isn’t about Catherine.” Maki’s face showed nothing, like a mask carved from iron.

The Head of the Heretic Inquisition did not look as calm as his voice. The signature black robe of a Heretic Inquisitor was gone; chainmail lay flat against a tight suit, scored by ragged tears like claw marks. A wide bandage wrapped his brow; beneath it, blood seeped like rust through linen.

“My duty is to confirm heresy and judge heresy. I care only about Catherine’s condition—though I expect little, like waiting for snow in a dry season.”

“Honestly, after Nagash, I never wanted to see your face again.” Stini’s tone was a blade wrapped in smoke.

“Likewise. If I never show up, it means you haven’t strayed from the path.” Maki’s reply was cold stream on cold stone.

“The path! That damned righteousness! Like when you hunted Nagash?”

“Nagash…” His voice dipped, like thunder hiding in cloud.

“He wasn’t pure good. I know. A messenger told me many stories, Nagash’s included. He’s better at stories than Andor, better than you by far. Maki, you only lecture, and sometimes not even that—you bury it under pitch-black fear, so people step back out of awe like deer from a wildfire.”

“A Heretic Inquisitor doesn’t explain himself. Our actions are the fear we give fools toward evil. We are punishment; we are iron law; we are terror. Hero, we are monsters. Monsters that prattle don’t frighten anyone.” His words rang like bells in a storm.

“Maki, do you have… anything you can’t forget, can’t let go of? Strong enough to make you abandon… abandon what? Hell if I know. Abandon justice? Or abandon everyone’s hopes? None of it feels right.” Stini rubbed her foggy head, searching for a word like sifting sand for a single pearl.

“Hero, are you rating values?” Maki’s gaze sharpened, a bone-scraping blade. “Unified measure. Equivalent exchange. Cross-comparison. Assign numbers to right and wrong. Quick and easy. But that’s not our work. Especially you, Hero—you must not price the priceless.”

“I asked if you have something you won’t abandon, won’t forget.”

“…Yes. Though I should tell you no.” His answer fell like a pebble into a deep well.

“Did you regret abandoning it?”

“…Yes. Though I should tell you I did not, because I gained more—so the saying goes.” His voice carried ash and iron.

“If there were a second chance…”

“There is no second time. The fallen don’t return; they’re forbidden to return. The gone should not come back and cannot come back. Hero, we only choose once; we only live once.” His words were doors slamming in a cold hall.

Stini’s eyes opened fully now, night polished into onyx. She stared into the Head’s pupils, black and lucid like Andor’s—lake-deep and starless.

“You mean it?” Her breath was frost on glass.

“Of course.” His certainty was a spear planted in earth.

“Looks like we’re not the same.”

“From the beginning—our attributes, our stations, our obsessions, our loves, our theories—are opposed like flame and flood.”

“Mm, got it. I understand now. I won’t beg you anymore, or say something naive. We’ve run out of words we both understand, so no point talking—though we barely talked to begin with.” Her smile was a cracked mirror.

“Then, Hero, step away from the door.”

Stini met Maki’s eyes with an unreadable look, then glanced aside and smiled at herself, a sip of bitter tea. She dropped interest in the Heretic Inquisitors outside like a bird dropping a seed. She pushed into the ward, didn’t bother closing the door, grabbed Raven—flustered and frozen—and pulled her aside.

“Uh… Stini, how did you…”

“Raven.”

“Ah. Ah.”

“Got any water?”

“Water? The tap’s got it. Low-concentration HolyWater, safe to drink—Stini, what’s wrong?!”

The girl lunged for the sink and started retching hard, as if she meant to pull out stomach acid and bile, purging last night’s dinner in coarse, ragged waves. The sound was iron scraping stone.

She calmed quickly, breath easing long and slow, like waves falling after a squall.

“Hoo—hoo—hiss—”

“Stini, are you okay?” Raven’s worry was a sparrow fluttering.

“Yeah. Sorry, Raven. Hangovers are hell—like thorns under the tongue. Do you have normal water? Only normal water works. The stuff in the pipe—I don’t dare drink it right now…” Her voice faded like dusk light.

Raven handed over her bottle, let Stini rinse out the grit, then wiped her friend’s face clean of wine-stain, oil gleam, and stomach bloom—dirty streaks like war paint.

“Why don’t you dare?” Raven asked, voice soft as gauze.

“No, don’t—Hero, don’t do this…” Maki’s head dipped lower, his voice sinking like a stone in a well. He knew what would happen; duty chained his hands.

“…Because I’m afraid it’ll melt my organs.” Stini’s answer was a thorn under silk.

Dark-gold dust gathered from every corner like dusk pollen. Then it cracked apart like brittle powder. A bare greatsword, unadorned and ruthless, formed out of air into Stini’s hands. It carried the breath to split sky and earth, and it swung for Maki’s back like a lightning hew.

This blade was named “Malignant Justice.”

“This is what I fear most. Two swords that yearn for justice, cutting against each other like crossed storms.” Maki spoke without turning, still at the bedside, gaze on sleeping Catherine like a moon on a lake.

“It’s my fault. I should’ve stopped this at the start. You should have been a pure, stainless Hero. This is on me—on my failure to catch the spark before the fire.” His regret hung like smoke.

His steel gauntlet flared with molten light, heatless and fierce, and he caught Stini’s first cleave like a mountain catching wind. Stini copied Andor’s motion, shifting her body with the sword; slash, then leap, skimming over Maki’s flank like a hawk over a cliff. She scooped up Catherine—still asleep—and smashed the wall with her back, shards flying like winter hail, ducked into the next room, then went out the window in a single breath.

“Raven! With me!” Stini’s familiar call flew like a kite in strong wind.

Raven stared at the hole in the wall, then at the line of Heretic Inquisitors, sweat beading like dew on her brow.

“Uh—say it sooner next time, idiot Stini!” Her half-complaint was a cat’s hiss.

She yanked a small hammer from her bag and raised it high, as if to throw it—more warning than strike—while inching toward the window, one tiny step at a time, like a crab sidling.

“I… I hope you understand. Stini isn’t a bad person.” Her voice wavered like a candle flame.

Maki lifted a hand and stilled the Inquisitors ready to pursue. A low rumble swelled in his throat, anger like distant thunder, but he forced his tone down, his cadence slow, and spoke to Raven:

“Raven, carry these words to Stini.” His gaze was a seal pressed in wax.

“What? Something that’ll pardon her?” Her hope was thin silk.

The rumble deepened; his expression grew harsher, like iron in frost.

“We advocate good and justice. But the decision is yours. You must choose the side you judge right; this is the Creator’s will—the first gift given to mankind, free will. So we grant you the chance to choose; no coercion. You have always had that chance. Only, for the fruit—sweet or bitter—since humans choose it themselves, they forfeit the right to lament.” He paused, a winter breath. “Raven, tell Stini. Make her hear it. Catherine’s case is not as simple as it looks. There are deeper causes, born of gods and demons.” His eyes were midnight.

“But the one who decides is still Stini, right? From start to finish, Stini thinks and decides by herself. Even if I pass this along—what changes?” Raven’s question was a plucked string.

True. Yes. Even with gods and demons in the loom, the great ones hadn’t reached in to tangle the thread. No Divine Being’s counsel. No Demon King’s whisper. All sprang from Stini’s own resolve, like flint striking steel.

The Shadow that plotted everything kept it fair. No one else had room to denounce or to overturn the board.

“…Hmph.” Maki shut his eyes and shook his head, heavy as a bell. “Maybe it’s recognition from the Divine Being. Or… or comfort. Maybe it won’t bring Stini back. But the will of the Divine still ought to be carried.” His voice was a low river.

Raven had inched to the sill, hip by hip onto the ledge, feeling safe at last. She set the hammer down and smiled bitterly.

“Can’t you just pardon Catherine? You could monitor her, restrain her—of course you could. Why force Stini to run?” Her plea was rain asking stone to soften.

“Technician, why run with the Hero? Loyalty? Sure, some. But more ‘necessity.’ If the Hero can’t be a paragon of justice, then you under her shelter won’t stay safe. Same for us. Duty binds us. The Heretic Inquisition never compromises with the wicked. We never retreat. No quarter. Life or death, the line holds.” His words were iron rails. “So we’re all bound by rules we forged ourselves. Next, we’ll chase by the code. You’ll flee by conscience with her. Everyone’s swept by the storm of the situation. The only one with reason to be willful, the only one who can flatten a board headed for certain death, is the Hero.” His gaze cut like winter light.

“…” Silence spread, a white sheet.

“Go. We—everyone—can only hope the Hero realizes what she must do, what she must protect, before the world twists too far. Even if that burden is unfair for a girl of eighteen, when has the world ever been fair to anyone?” His voice held the ache of old wounds.

“Maki…” Raven’s whisper was a leaf in wind.

“Go. One hour. For you. For all of you. Go.” He shook his head; Raven squinted and shook hers. Silence settled again like dust. No consensus, only cold air.

“Go. If you wait, the Hero will return. Then… I’ll have to kill her.” The sentence fell like a guillotine.

The girl gritted her teeth and let herself topple backward, falling like a petal in night.

The magitek armor “Crystalflame” assembled midair—parts locking, reweaving, renewing—until it became a war machine few could match. It caught itself a few meters above ground, reversing gravity like a falcon halting in mid-dive. From its back, cold light streamed like astral wings, beautiful as starfire.

She chased the Hero’s footsteps, and flew toward the horizon like dawn skimming the sea.

Maki walked to the window and looked out, slow as a tolling bell. “We depart in one hour. We hunt the rebel Hero.” His words were frost on iron.

“Head, the level?” Another Heretic Inquisitor—Maki’s adjutant—stepped forward, voice tight as bowstring.

“…Kill on sight.” Maki’s answer was a blade unsheathed. “Maki, Head of the Heretic Inquisition, issues this command.”