The flames cried out. Crumble, crack, perish. The eighteenth floor was no home to paradise now; only a burning arena that trembled and sparked amid the dueling forces of justice and evil.
“Those adventurers with you… Followers of Hermes, I presume?”
Atop a bluff commanding a view of the entire floor, Erebus looked to each of Astrea’s escorts in turn: a male elf, a chienthrope thief, and a human girl.
“I suppose that makes sense,” said Erebus with an aura of calm. “After all, your own followers are otherwise occupied, aren’t they?”
“Yes. But Hermes was kind enough to lend me his own from outside the city. It was pressing I meet with you, you see.”
Her indigo-blue eyes were stoic and firm, like an arrow of justice. The corners of Erebus’s mouth crept up.
“And why is that, Astrea? Come to pass your judgment on me, have you?”
Erebus was alone, unbacked by any of his followers. Most had given their lives to protect their dark master from the ire of the monster Delphyne, and Astrea’s escort had swiftly dispatched those who remained. If Astrea wanted to deal with Erebus right here and now, there was no doubt she could do it.
But instead, she gently shook her head.
“That is not why I have come, Erebus. After all, if you die here, you will not return to see the light of heaven.”
“………”
“The Dungeon will devour you, and you will be forever lost.”
Erebus shrugged. Astrea stared at him and continued talking.
“I only came to see you and be with you as the ordainer of justice, while the fate of our children plays out.”
Standing by his side, Astrea looked out over the Dungeon floor, where the black wind fought Delphyne, and the followers of justice kneeled at the feet of Silence.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Show me,” the woman said; it was a silent scream from the lips of the most powerful beauty to ever walk the battlefield. “Show me a greater power. Show me proof I cannot deny. Show me will! Show me resolve! Show me justice! Show this evil what your light can do!”
Nobody could answer her. Lyra, Neze, Noin, Iska, Lyana, Celty, Asta, Maryu—all of them wore bitter scowls across their bleeding faces.
Even Alize could only ball her fists in frustration.
Lyu was no different.
All of Astrea Familia lacked the power to teach the witch her errors.
However…
OOOOOOOOOoooooo…
The roof of the Dungeon shook. A rumble from the surface, spanning the long distance, as if to spur the girls on.
There was no way they should have been able to hear it, and yet hear it they did.
The sound of those who fought.
Was it Warlord? Braver? Was it Andromeda? Or was it a funeral dirge for adventurers whose names would not be remembered?
Either way, it was the howl of heroes—of those who seized their future, and of those who passed it on.
Lyu felt it, too, in the very depths of her soul—and made a choice. Planting her hand on the ground, she bore her bruised and battered body to its feet.
“Leon…!” said Alize, wide-eyed with wonder.
Alfia turned to the girl, her eyes closed as ever.
“Erebus’s favorite,” she said. “Do you have an answer for me?”
Lyu looked down at the wounds on her right hand.
“…No,” she said in an almost imperceptible voice.
“What?”
“Right now…in my current state… I cannot persuade you, or even say for certain what justice is.”
Lyu spoke the truth of her heart. She didn’t lie or try to show off. Instead, she laid her weakness bare.
“I’d be lying,” she said, “if I said your tale just now—of destroying Orario to save the world—didn’t shake my faith a little.”
“Leon…” said Lyra, looking up at her.
“Even now, I’m nothing but a lost traveler on an endless journey…” Lyu went on.
Then she clenched her right hand tight.
“But there is one thing I know for sure, Alfia! With your solution, justice will never go on!”
“What…?”
“You look only to the past! Not to the future, or even the present!”
Alfia’s ultimate aim was to revive the world of antiquity. A return to the Age of Heroes from thousands of years past. She looked not to step boldly forward, but to undo the progress of history, and that was something Lyu could never accept—for one simple reason.
“You’ll be casting away everything we’ve been given—everything we’ve inherited from people like Adi!”
“!”
“That’s why I can never accept your way! You’ll be wasting all their lives—all their deaths!”
Alfia wore a look of utter shock.
And it wasn’t just her. Alize, Lyra—all of Astrea Familia were stunned.
Lyu’s gaze was fixed firmly on the future, not the past. She did not run from the fear and despair that lay ahead, but stood to oppose it.
“All their rights…and all their wrongs! I carry all of them with me and reach for whatever lies ahead!”
Perhaps it was naive of her. Perhaps it was youth. Youth blinded her to the horrors that awaited her. Youth allowed her to dream.
Perhaps, to someone like Alfia, who had personally witnessed the brutality of the world, Lyu’s thoughts were a fanciful fiction. A wish that could never be fulfilled.
But Lyu had known despair once. She had tasted loss and grief. She, too, had seen how harsh the world could be, and she had not given up. Her chin remained lifted, her eyes directed ahead. Lyu chose to keep walking despite knowing full well what she might find.
Her will was noble; her journey long. Even if she were to fall again, she would get up and keep walking. It was her righteous sense of justice that allowed her to do so.
And so, with that fire in her heart, and starlight in her eyes, she looked at Alfia and said, “That is my duty to those who came before me!”
Justice would never die. In order to pass it on, Lyu looked to tomorrow.
The torch she received would burn away the darkness. That was what she believed. That was what Lyu declared.
She would uphold her vow, both to Adi, and to those who still fought on the surface, even now.
“………”
Alfia was frozen. She was still trying to make sense of what she’d heard, as if the concept of something other than despair were alien to her.
Meanwhile, Lyu’s words lit a fire in the other members of her familia.
“…You said it, kiddo.”
It was Neze, the animal girl, a grin on her face. Hearing those words from the lips of their newest recruit, she slapped her knees and pulled herself upright.
“Hah. That’s our baby sister for ya. Such a simpleminded idiot,” said Lyra, climbing to her feet and wiping the blood from her cheek.
It was then that Alize, somehow the most energetic of all, leaped to her feet and proudly thrust out her chest.
“I think Leon’s onto something here!” She beamed. “Future! Yeah, that’s right! Future! Just keep saying ‘Future’ and it sounds all justicey! Yeah! Now that’s what I call justice!”
“…Oh, I forgot. We’ve got an even bigger idiot on the team, and it’s the eldest sister…” said Lyra with a sigh.
“But it sounds like we’ve got our answer,” said Lyana, the human mage, swinging her wooden staff.
“Yeah. Thanks to Lyu,” said Maryu, the healer, and the actual eldest sister. She chanted her spell and restored the other girls.
“We’ve got to chase after the future, no matter how bad it gets,” said Noin, the human.
“Because we’re the only ones who can carry on Adi’s words, and her smile,” said Iska, the Amazon. The two of them lifted each other, shoulder to shoulder, and stepped forward.
“Until the day comes when we return to stardust…” said Asta, the dwarf.
“…we’ll all keep walking forward,” Celty, the elf, concluded. The two of them shared a smile that transcended race.
Alize looked around at her fellows, and with a bright, sunny, smile…
“We follow our duty! We balance the scales! Until the day the stars claim us!”
Without further prompting, the girls all looked at each other and shared a nod.
“Like comets in the sky above, we leave our starry trails on this earth where’er we go!”
Lyu and the rest of her family completed the oath.
““““““““““This I swear, on the sword and wings of justice!!””””””””””
The ashen hair of Silence fluttered in the combined wind of the maidens’ vow.
“Not the past, but the future,” she muttered. “To look not to proven history, but the unknown and unwritten. Then to you girls, I must seem a specter, bound to the past…or perhaps a dusty old memento of times gone by.”
To anyone paying close enough attention, it must have seemed as though the witch’s lips formed a gentle smile. But the very next second, that illusion was lost amid the whirling sparks.
“Very well,” she said. “This is the end…of you foolish children and your impossible dreams. I swear on my own life that I shall bury you all. There will be no salvation. There will be no mercy. All will be erased. You have brought your noise to me…and now you shall pay.”
“Oh, we’ll pay, all right!” chirped Alize. “And we’ll take you down!”
“This is it, Alfia!” yelled Lyu. “This ends here!!”
The scarlet flames raged, and the gale wind blew. Lyra and the other girls followed. Ahead of them stood the conqueror of evil, eager to put an end to their ongoing justice.