Since publicly stepping down as Chairman of the Heretic Inquisition in Skyward City Atlante, he’d lain belly-down in the dust around the Savior Demon King Army’s base, tracking their every ripple.
From a high seat to a still stone, he lay in an earth pit for two weeks on tasteless rations and water, and Maki didn’t complain.
Because before he was a chairman, he was a Heretic Inquisitor, a blade-hardened fighter with steel in his bones.
He brought no entourage this time; he moved like a lone wolf under a thin moon, ready to break whatever plot the Demon King unfurled.
But...
“...Did I guess wrong?”
A man who’d lived his life in shadows finally straightened; newborn sunlight hit Maki’s face like a blade, sketching his edges and making him squint.
A tremor soaked in hatred rolled from the direction of the Hero Academy, like a revelation from a Divine Being: the place he sought to die was there.
Good thing the Savior Demon King Army’s base sat near the Hero Academy; at Maki’s stride, the distance was a pond’s width to a goose.
He still couldn’t fathom why the Demon King was foolish enough to build a nest across from her greatest foe, like a wolf den beside a butcher’s yard.
It didn’t matter; let the past drift like smoke, and let the aftermath fall to the young; the headaches could sit on a successor’s brow.
Right now, Maki was just a plain soldier, a pebble carried by the flood of war.
He ran through the woods in a silent frenzy; wind tore off his hood, showing a bristled face meant to be forgotten, like a mask without paint.
Like every Heretic Inquisitor, his only trait was no trait; he’d sanded his self away and worked as a cog of the Heretic Inquisition.
Today, though, he tied his slightly long hair into a ponytail, and, after a beat, he hung his oath-ring on the tie like a bell on a warhorse.
That ring wasn’t meant to come off, a seal of his vow before a Divine Being to erase himself; but death fixed the rule like frost on a leaf.
If he was fated to fall here, even the Divine Being that witnessed the oath felt gentle, allowing people to remember a hero’s last face like a lantern in dusk.
He cut through forest and plain like an arrow; far off, the City of Heroes rose, and a city-scale binding spell hung like chains between sky and earth.
Those shining chains pinned the horned Demon King to the ground, a thunderhead moored by iron.
He saw his foe, and his fists closed like flint on steel; here and now, a meeting meant a killing.
Even without personal grudges, a primal accord had set them as life-and-death opposites the moment its ink dried like blood.
He exhaled, tasting iron, felt his steel gauntlets and greaves weigh like anchors, and sprinted toward the place that would be his grave.
Along the way, he saw a maid standing on rubble like a white flag, directing civilians out of the city.
He saw a young Divine Healer chanting like rain over ashes, trying to mend the already dead.
He saw a white dragon ferry people into the distance, old words rolling from its mouth like snow that calms a fire.
He saw teachers from the Hero Academy shepherding crowds like herders under a black storm.
He saw ragged refugees, and he saw a champion trying to bar the Demon King—a single pillar in a flood—Andor.
The Demon King’s vast body was laced by chains that speared the sky; she flailed in hollow fury, clawing at the last seal on a century of revenge.
And Andor, the youth Maki rated highly, stood at the edge of the calamity’s eye, head lowered as if dazed, his Greatsword point-down in the flagstones.
The blade’s breadth hid most of him like a tower shield, a wall of steel in rain.
Maki bound from broken roof to broken roof and landed beside the young hero; he opened his mouth, but the Demon King’s bulk caught his soul like a hooked hand.
A dais forged of flesh and bone thrust roots into the deep Demon Realm, each knotted bulge a tormented soul wailing like wind in a tomb.
From it sprouted a thousand sky-lifting arms, and each arm was studded with scarlet eyes that cursed all creation, a field of blood-red stars glaring at him.
Every palm uncurled a mouth that never knew enough, lined from rim to throat with shark-short, broad teeth that would gnaw themselves if denied human flesh.
It was the world’s ugliest, cruelest tree, growing out of the corpses of humankind like fungus after rain.
Maki watched twisted arms snap and tear to show bone spurs; the clack-clack was softer than the roar of hate, yet it tapped his ribs like Death’s fingers.
The sound reached in, dug his heart out, and hauled it into the sky, to a height no ladder could reach.
Hollow spread through his chest like cold water, and he almost dropped to his knees; he gulped air to claw back the feel of life.
“Now you see It, too.”
Andor raised his head, cut Maki a sideways glance like a flicked blade, and said lazily, as smoke curls from a lamp:
“If you dare stand before the Great One, you need a resolve that treats death as a given—and now, even without it, you’re dead.”
“That’s exactly what I want, Andor; it’s you who shouldn’t be standing on this storm line.”
“But someone has to, Chairman. If not me, someone else. Someone is bound to die here, like leaves in autumn.”
“There’s still someone waiting for you. I don’t have anyone anymore.” The ache came first, the words after, like rain following thunder.
That piqued Andor’s interest; this time he turned fully, eyes on Maki, fingers brushing his cravat and flicking nonexistent dust like a cat’s paw.
“Chairman… oh, right, you resigned already, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. The Heretic Inquisition is a hated job by design; and like you said, someone has to do it, to play the villain and scare the curious from the dark.”
“As for me—no, as for every Chairman of the Heretic Inquisition—none of us die well; better to shoulder years of grudges while I can still swing a fist.”
“Find a reason, find a place, find an enemy, and take those grudges into the earth like coals sealed in a jar.”
“Sounds noble?”
“I only hope you read the meaning of what we’ve done, like reading weight in a stone.”
“I’m in the same boat as Stini and Ferrel, more or less.”
“How so?”
The hollowed-heart feeling ebbed like a receding tide; worldly Maki judged it a kind of “qualification,” a toll you pay to challenge the Great One at the gate.
Watching the Demon King’s thrashing, he also judged the luminous chains not so easy to break, as if stars had been welded into iron.
“The emergency seal can hold a few hours, enough to evacuate the Hero Academy; in that time… set aside positions and reasons, and try to understand each other.”
“Talking is fine, but forcing understanding is silly. Are you the sort who needs a tidy answer to muster grit?”
“I don’t think I am.”
“Then die with your pride crooked as a horn; hah, we’re alike. You’re driven by the Inquisition’s piled-up hate, and me—my span’s short.”
Ah. A Shadow Sorcerer... Light rose in Maki’s eyes like dawn.
“Looks like you get it. No matter what I do, I’ve got at most a year. I fretted for ages over how to say goodbye.”
“In the end, there’s no need; a hero should end like a hero, like a banner that falls clean.”
To crave a death-duel, to have bones buried on the field, not moulder on a sickbed—that’s a hero, iron singing in the wind.
In contrast to Maki’s bitter gravity, Andor looked light and merry, like a breeze over a sea of spears.
“So the Demon King’s appearance is lucky for me. I can fight while I can still lift a blade, show backbone and grit, and die hard.”
“That kind of farewell spares us all the spring-sadness and the cloying tears that tire the soul.”
“Truly no saving you?”
“Hard. The board of the Mephi Group won’t stint on treatment, but even healed I’d be half-ruined.”
“So call this a last ball, lavish and wild; don’t dither, don’t leave regrets, dance once like you mean it, and let the music cut.”
Andor grinned, teeth flashing like a strip of moon; he’d clearly dressed with care today.
A pure black suit edged in gold; shirt and bow low-key yet luxe; the palette clean and sharp, elegant as midnight wind and moon.
He’d prepared, and he was ready to die here proud, like a blade already oiled and set out.
Maki felt there was nothing to console or exhort; more words would be chaff in a gale.
Andor had thought hard and chosen what he believed best; let him go the way he chose, like a hawk let loose.
Even if we don’t live only for ourselves, with death certain, why not be a little mad and take one clean joy?
Maki shook his head and couldn’t help a laugh, a sound like ice cracking under spring.
He reached toward the youth he admired—steel claws—thumping them against the Greatsword’s flat like a drum.
“Count me in.”
Valor carries its own measure; no words need weigh it.
