Orlan ran down hallway after hallway, navigating the changed environment of the building that had become a skyfaring ship. Leaving the others the responsibility of confronting the remaining enemies felt terrible, and leaving Riina behind to fight against that old man by herself felt even worse. He was the one that had gotten them all involved in this. Even so, he had a feeling his mission was something only he could do. He ignored the pit in his stomach and hurried on.

  Leaping down staircase after staircase, he finally found it. The engine room. An inconspicuous door disguised its presence, but Point Liner had already investigated the inside of the room, skulking around in Recon Mode. It wasn’t exactly a living thing, but it received sensory information that Orlan could interpret. So, as Orlan kicked in the door and rushed inside, he knew exactly what to expect.

  But he failed to anticipate one variable. Felhart had been mistaken. Karmen, the remaining Horde Captain who should have been by their ultimate target’s side, strolled in behind Orlan. She had been waiting for him all along.

  “Looks like I made the right bet. Well, I can’t blame you. Trying to destroy the mechanism that’s keeping you all stranded with us is perfectly logical.”

  She was somewhat unkempt, resulting from their brief skirmish earlier, but carried herself pridefully, head help upright. The bandages wrapping her arm were soaked red with blood, but she showed no sign of experiencing pain.

  “Well, hey there. I’m guessing you’re not gonna back off and let me wreck your ship?”

  “In another life, maybe. As it stands, though, you’d have to kill me. Well, you probably can, especially with me in such a sorry state. But I’m not going down without taking you with me.”

  Orlan’s smile hardened into a grimace. Stalling for time with meaningless small talk hadn’t left him with any ideas. The fact of the matter was that the two of them were perfect counters for each other. He had the advantage of being uninjured, but Karmen’s fighting style didn’t use her arms.

  “This… will probably be a coin toss, huh?” He said aloud, not caring if his opponent heard. When it came down to it, they really might both die. There was only a slight possibility that one of them would come out on top. At that point, it would all be down to chance.

  “So you understand.” She smirked. They had both unconsciously shifted into battle stances.

  “Aguarion!”

  “Point Liner!!”

  They collided. As Karmen whipped her leg up and around in a roundhouse kick, Aguarion extending her range, the two projectiles smashed together.

  “The way you use it… is interesting. You adapted it to your pre-existing fight style. I was never a fighter until I got Branded, so using Point Liner doesn’t come naturally to me.”

  They clashed over and over again. Perfectly matched. Except… that was not the case. Karmen had the advantage. Every time Aguarion and Point Liner were brought together, hissing, boiling water striking the phantasmal ribbon, it took Karmen ever so slightly less time to recover. She used less energy in every attack. Was it that she used Aguarion as an extension of her own body? She did not have to waste time recalling it after every attack. It was imparted with force simply by the kinetic energy of her kick. Even though she was worn down physically, she had the upper hand.

  She was going to win the coin toss.

  She was going to kill Orlan, leaving his corpse behind, and go after his friends. They would be caught off guard, trapped in a pincer manoeuvre, and killed off one by one.

  Orlan gritted his teeth. His face, uncharacteristically, became the portrait of rage.

  “I have to claw it back. The advantage I thought I had.”

  His eyes darted around the room. Weary as she was, Karmen couldn’t tell what he was looking at. In the next instant, they clashed once more. But at that moment, right above Karmen’s head, was a pipe running along the ceiling.

  Point Liner’s Recon Mode had already confirmed the layout of the room. Orlan had it memorised. Heat from the engines was shunted out of the engine room and presumably dispersed elsewhere. The numerous pipes that lined the ceiling and walls all led to and from the engines.

  His only option was to trust that two coins would land heads up. Two assumptions had to be proven correct.

  First, Point Liner divided. As the arrow rushed towards Karmen, a second arrow split off, flying along its own path. It smashed into the pipe with the same diamond-breaking force Point Liner had always possessed.

  Second, hot steam rushed out of the pipe, flowing downwards, dousing Karmen. This time, Point Liner never made contact with her Aguarion.

  Of course, it wasn’t that simple. He wasn’t expecting it to be. She had ducked and rolled away just in time, and now stood unharmed behind a wall of steam.

  Orlan’s eyes widened as he realised his mistake. Dozens of water spirits charged forth from the steam.

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  “Well, if I could do it once…” Orlan closed his eyes, relying on pure instinct. Point Liner split into two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four arrows, countering every rushing Aguarion by chance. The probability that a water spirit would enter the same area of open space as one of his arrows was high enough that he could block them all.

  Not all.

  The limited sensory information Orlan received warned him. But he was already at his limit. He could not spare any more arrows for the Aguarion that flew towards him from Karmen’s side.

  He tasted blood as it burrowed into him, ripping through his abdomen, and slammed him against the opposite wall.

  “Haah… that’s… my kidney, right…? I’ll have to… get Haritte to check…” He spoke only to keep himself from recognising the pain. If he felt it, he would lose the will to fight. Indeed, he would lose the will to move. Pressing his back against the wall, he pushed himself up against it with his legs, slowly moving half-upright while leaning against the wall. The wall of steam parted, and Karmen emerged through it.

  “Come on, now. If you weren’t expecting at least this much resistance, you had no right to play the hero and go off on your own.” She taunted him, looking down into his pained eyes. “Well, I shouldn’t get too cocky. This isn’t your all, right?”

  “What are… you talking about…”

  “You’re not using it the way it’s meant to be used. Well, that’s all I’ll say. It’d be stupid to give my enemy any big hints.”

  For the first time, Orlan saw her eyes flicker, briefly clouded with… something. Guilt, fear, exhaustion. He couldn’t be sure. Gritting his teeth, he thrust his arm out in front of him, his fingers splayed, shaking with exertion as he pointed towards her.

  “Point-“

  “Don’t bother.” With nothing more than a nod, Aguarion shot out and smashed through Orlan’s shoulder, nailing him to the wall once more. He cried out in agony as his arm, now useless, dropped to his side. “Hm. This is depressing to look at. I’ll end it here, and hurry off to deal with your friends. That is, if Marinus hasn’t killed them all already.”

  “Why… why do you stay with him?”

  “Hah! And why do I have to tell you that? Are you just trying to stall for time? Why? It’s over.”

  “… Someone who had… a good reason… would say it in… a heartbeat.”

  Karmen’s face contorted. She spun and kicked Orlan in the face, sending him to the floor. He held up his good hand in what could only be described as surrender.

  “I swear… I don’t have some plan that I’m stalling for. I just want to know. Before you… kill me. Why?”

  “… Because I have a good life. Because doing the kinds of things I have to do in this business doesn’t upset me. I found the first person who’d give me everything I wanted, and swore to stick by him for the rest of my life. Does there need to be anything else?”

  “… No. I’m not so different. I don’t have noble motivations. I kill for… the sake of my own survival. I can dress it up… say it’s for Elka, to… leave the world a better place, as her legacy… but if that was all, I could give everything I have away and… live like a hermit until this War comes to an end and takes me with it.”

  “Huh? That’s completely different.”

  “No… it’s similar enough. Enough that I know… what kind of person you are. You’re the kind of person who would let me stall for time while pretending not to know that’s what I was doing.”

  Orlan lifted up his destroyed right arm, fingers clenched as if gripping an imaginary bow. With his left hand, he pulled back the “drawstring”. And when he released, Point Liner, wrapped around itself until it was as thin and sharp as an arrow, shot forward, propelled by wound-up kinetic energy.

  “Yeah, I lied. I was keeping… the conversation going. Long enough that I could think about what you said.”

  The arrow pierced neatly through Karmen’s chest, lodging itself in her heart.

  “I can’t do any fancy martial arts like you… but I thought, maybe I could do something like this.”

  Karmen gasped, choking on her own blood, before falling backwards, hitting the floor with a wet thud. Painstakingly manoeuvring into a standing position once more, he looked down at her body as the life drained from it.

  “Sorry. I tried to make it painless. Hope I succeeded.”

  Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. I knew this was coming, but I thought I could stop it. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why did I think that? Why was I so stupid?

  Why did I follow him in the first place? Why? Why? Why? Why?

  Oh, right. I’m selfish. I wanted Marinus to lead me, Egrid to teach me, Haeldr to protect me. I couldn’t do anything on my own, so I had to make other people do it for me.

  … But that’s alright, isn’t it? Isn’t it okay to live that way? Was I wrong to want that? Was I? Was I? Was I? Was I?

  Maybe. I don’t know. In the end, is this a sinner’s penance? It’s too late to repent, but maybe I can do better next time.

  Next time? Is there such a thing?

  I hope so. After meeting this man, who is like me, but different… I think there was some other choice I should have made. In another world, the me who made that choice… might be even happier.

  Yes. Even without a life full of luxuries, even if I became the type of person who would feel guilt over killing so many… I think I could be happy.

  Well then, other me. I hope you’ll continue to think about me. I should be… the version of me that keeps you up at night, worrying about how you could have turned out.

  Aah. I can’t distract myself from the pain any longer.

  It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

  Goodbye. See you again soon.

  I… love… you.

  He was slumped against the corridor wall, gasping with the exertion of having dragged her body out of the engine room. Karmen sat, lifeless, against the wall. Orlan wasn’t sure what the smile on her face meant. He decided to see it as a sign of encouragement. He didn’t want to think that he had made her sad.

  Repeating the same motion with which he had struck her down, he fired an arrow at the closed door to the engine room. It slipped through the gap between door and doorframe, then began to multiply. Splitting off, unfurling. Soon, a storm of ribbons filled the room.

  And, with an almighty crash, an explosion that left his ears ringing, the engines were smashed apart. The Black Barghest began its descent.