I Shall Stand in the Heavens
"I don't think I betrayed any of you."
"Hah?"
"I never had the slightest interest in that little family act you people were playing. I move for one thing only — pure love. The greatest puppet theater that blooms at its very peak."
"Yeah, figures."
Maestro delivered the words with perfect composure, and Arin nodded as if she'd expected nothing less.
"It's not like you've ever taken a mission seriously in your life."
Even within Redanis, Maestro had always been the odd one out. The organization nursed a grand ambition of vengeance against the world, yet she remained consistently, almost aggressively, uninvolved. And on the rare occasion she did take a mission, she would veer off on some tangent about eradicating NTR, or simply chase her own self-interest.
"Which is why you need to die."
"Says who?"
"Old man Dyer said so. He told me that someday, you were definitely going to need taking out."
"Hmph..."
A purge order had been issued, and Maestro seemed almost willing to accept it. She had never cared about Redanis's goals in the first place. She would simply go on staging her puppet shows — and a collision with the rest of them had always been inevitable.
"But tell me. Do you really think you can kill me that easily?"
"What? Of course I—"
"You and I are only one Finger apart. Worth a try, don't you think?"
Arin froze. For a split second, Maestro's sheer audacity made her flinch.
And then—
"Pfft... Pwahahahaha! You really have lost your mind! You got your ass handed to you by Ryushia, and you have the gall to stand there and say you can take me on?!"
She threw her head back and roared with laughter, as if she simply could not hold it in.
"I fail to see what's so funny."
A low rasp of steel.
"That's it. You die here."
The conversation was over. Arin's face went blank, stripped of all emotion, and her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword.
"My knight. Protect me."
"Ohh!!! I shall fight even if it costs me this very body!"
Maestro, for her part, finished preparing to meet the challenge, and began calling forth her dolls.
Clack-clack-clack!!
Marionettes materialized from every direction, packing themselves tightly around her in a living wall of wood and wire.
"Wow. You already got cleaned out once, and you still have this many left?"
"An army that neither dies nor ages... Orchestra. My eternal ensemble."
A cascading rattle swept the air, and in an instant the ground they stood on was packed wall to wall with wooden dolls. The Corrupted Angel's Heart had been stolen by Rabi — but the power Maestro drew forth now was something altogether different from what she had wielded in that boss fight.
"Here's the thing, though..."
Arin watched the spectacle and smiled, faint and cold.
A sharp clink of metal on metal rang out.
"...!?"
"Oh my God...!!"
A flash of steel. Wooden bodies hit the ground in a scattered rain of pieces.
"If you think a bunch of wooden dolls can stop my blade, you're making a serious mistake."
"Hmph..."
Three or four marionettes dropped like rag dolls before Arin's lightning iai, cut down before they could even raise a guard.
Clack. Clack-clack.
"...Huh?"
But the scattered splinters twitched, writhing unnaturally, and pulled themselves back together. That was the nature of Maestro's puppet theater — it did not end until the main body was destroyed, or her mana ran dry. And of all the Fingers, her mana reserves ranked among the very highest.
"I told you. My eternal ensemble."
"Ha. Then I just kill the main body and we're done."
A low rumble built between them as the two women locked eyes, sharp as drawn blades.
"Reine Premiere."
"Fes."
⟨ Waltz of Death ⟩
The death waltz performed by Maestro's ensemble came crashing down on Arin.
"Hhk?!"
A dark-crimson melody lashed from the conductor's baton like a whip, and Arin sucked in a sharp breath as she threw herself aside.
"Hey, hey! You're so slow I'm yawning over here! Can't even handle 1.5x speed?"
A streak of steel. Alone against the army Maestro conducted, Arin carved through her enemies with a Swift Sword so fast the eye could barely follow.
"Verminderte..."
"Septime."
⟨ Diminished Seventh ⟩
A grinding, bone-deep crash.
"Khhn...!! Okay, you actually hit pretty hard!"
The crimson note that came flying this time was heavy enough to send a tremor through the hilt in Arin's hand.
"You are nothing but a member of the audience."
Shielded by her marionettes, the doll-girl played on without pause, driving Arin steadily onto the back foot.
"Dunno... I don't pay if the show's boring!"
Steel screamed through the air. And while the two Fingers tore into each other—
Elsewhere, the seeds of conflict were beginning to sprout as well.
Fucking Swagger
Golden hair whipped through the air as the girl drove her fist into her opponent's face, and a thunderous boom erupted as if the entire space had been shaken to its foundations.
"Improved."
Tarkan took the blow, a thin trickle of blood running from her nose, and fixed the Saintess with a hard stare.
"...!!"
A heavy, bone-jarring thud. She answered Elia's attack at once, driving a palm-heel strike straight into her abdomen.
"Fast, I'll give you that. But you've gotten weaker than before."
"Correct."
Tarkan had been diminished, just as the Saintess said. The thick muscle and towering bulk were gone without a trace, replaced by a frame that could have belonged to any ordinary woman. Her attack power and durability had dropped considerably — but in exchange, she had gained speed. And with that brutish face softened into something far less threatening, slipping into the Holy Kingdom had been almost trivially easy.
"Let them grope my chest. Entry. Permitted."
"Those damn horny buffalo!"
Tarkan recounted how easily she had walked past the guards, and Elia ground her teeth at the incompetence of her own subordinates.
"Those people clearly haven't been training enough. To fold that easily to lust..."
The Saintess made a firm, silent vow: the moment she got back, those guards were going to answer for this with a regimen of strength training so brutal they would wish they had died at their posts.
"No. You cannot go."
"Hm?"
"Arin is with Maestro..."
Tarkan quietly stoked her fighting spirit and spoke, each word dropping like a stone.
"To eliminate the Pope. Luman. Went."
"...!!"
Only then did the Saintess realize she had been put in checkmate.
"You cowardly E-cup bitches! Out of my way!!"
"Cannot allow that."
A solid, unyielding grab. Tarkan stepped into the path of the Saintess, who was now drowning in a rising sense of crisis, and blocked her way cold.
"Big Father!!!!!!!"
Pinned fast, Elia wailed in a voice raw with desperation.
"What seems to be the matter, Student Elia?"
"“?!”"
But the panic lasted only a moment. A faint silhouette resolved itself above their heads.
"Professor Vagina, who I respect the hell out of!!"
"...You look well."
Long brown hair, and that distinctive half-mask. She appeared with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
"...Demon King!"
Tarkan felt a familiar pulse of mana and cried out in shock.
"I am Professor Vagina now. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Don't make me laugh. The Demon Realm needs Daredevil!!"
No matter how Tarkan shouted, the professor let it slide off her with nothing more than a quiet scoff.
"S-something... something's going on here..."
Elia, unable to parse whatever history lay between the two of them, could only hop from foot to foot in agitation.
"Cadet Elia. You need not worry about the Pope."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"A specialist will already have arrived there."
"...!!"
The professor murmured it like a reassurance, and Elia had a faint, dawning idea of just who that specialist might be.
"Uooo! A Demon King like that!! I'll set you straight!!!"
A roar of force exploded through the air.
"Ah, to hell with it!"
Tarkan lunged as her plans came apart at the seams, and in a tangle of clashing interests, a chaotic brawl erupted.
"D...dammit."
Bodies hit the floor.
"Every last one of you has gone soft."
The muscle-bound priest beat the Holy Knights down and flung them aside like so much trash.
"Luman..."
"Yes. It's been a while."
His eyes met those of the Pope, who looked back at him with a gaze full of pity.
"Redanis, the Empire, and the Kingdom Alliance... The Holy Kingdom is a neutral nation. Why, then, do you turn your blade on us?"
"In an age of war, neutrality is the most fleeting position of all."
"So in the end, you have abandoned every duty you once bore."
The aged Pope rebuked the man who had betrayed the faith of God and turned himself into an enemy.
"Religion is power, and power is authority! A faith without strength can no longer be called a religion!"
"...That body of yours. How many taboos have you broken to obtain it?"
The old man's eyes narrowed as he took in the wicked mana coiled through Luman's flesh.
"Do you remember how many holy communions you've taken over the years?"
"How far you have fallen... Luman!!"
"From the very beginning, there was nothing at the summit. Not you, not I... not even the god you worship."
A single, deliberate step. Luman closed the distance until he stood directly in front of the Pope, and spoke.
"...How arrogant."
Luman denied the existence of the deity the Holy Kingdom worshipped, and declared that he would take that seat for himself.
"Does the pagan faith you follow have no concept of blasphemy? Why do you insult God?"
"He yearns for every gym-bro to receive His grace and ascend to the same heights as Himself. In that place, even the distinction between Creator and creation would be meaningless."
The Pope listened, and found himself more bewildered than before. A being who did not call himself God, and yet sought to raise all of humanity to a god's station — a walking paradox.
"Just what is he..."
"We've talked long enough. Disappear."
A fist veined like coiled cable came howling through the air before the Pope could even finish forming the question.
A heavy, bone-breaking crack — that never landed.
"Oh my. Isn't that elder abuse?"
"You..."
A swordsman of quietly mysterious bearing had appeared from nowhere and stopped the blow cold.
"Hello there, Mr. Luman."
"Traitor. Tainted soul. Byproduct of a hideous experiment... So it's Ryushia."
"That's a little harsh..."
She had greeted him with perfectly polite manners, and received nothing but ice-cold venom in return. Ryushia's face fell.
"I'll just kill both of you and be done with it...!!"
Unfazed by the interruption, Luman drove a straight punch forward.
Moon Flash
The blade Ryushia drew from its scabbard flashed like a streak of moonlight and split the sleeve of his priestly vestments.
"...You've gotten stronger."
"Perhaps it's because I'm still in my growing phase?"
Luman looked at the dark-crimson blood running down his forearm and bit down hard on his lip.
"Well then... shall I crush this sprout before it grows?"
"In that case, I'll give you a piggyback ride."
A surge of killing intent roared to life between them.