The sky is bright when 11 leaves the supercarrier, but the light doesn’t reach between the towering walls of the canyon.

Not walls, 11 reminds herself. Ships.

The place I became a murderer.

Dizzy from the visions, she wanders listlessly down the canyon path. She doesn’t know how it’s possible for her to have seen what she did, but there is no doubt it’s all true.

Aiyano, Mia, Hikari… these people really existed.

And they still do. At least one of them.

Something crunches underfoot. It's a red flower petal. 11 pries it off the bottom of her boot. Twirling the broken thing between her thumb and index finger, she watches as shadows darken the sharp edges.

The winds change.

From behind 11, a voice, soft like a bell, breaks through the haze of her mind.

“Sure took your time getting here, slowpoke.”

11 turns.

A girl is leaning by the wall, her gothic one-piece glowing brighter than the snow around her. She has a red umbrella on her shoulder, which turns playfully as she comes over.

The name comes untethered from 11’s tongue. “Hikari.”

Hikari’s smile is hesitant, hopeful. “Missed me?”

Instead of answering, 11 steps over and scoops Hikari up into a hug. Then she twirls them both around, coloring the canyon with Hikari’s surprised laughter.

“I do,” 11 says once they’ve stopped to catch their breaths. “I know I’m not supposed to and it doesn't make sense but I do.”

Hikari’s eyes are big and filmy with tears. “Are you sure?” she asks quietly, almost like she doesn’t dare believe it. “You really remember me?”

“Sisters don’t break promises.”

“Yes!” Hikari breaks from 11 with a triumphant cry. Throwing her arms up in the air she yells, “In your face, Oswald! We win! Didn’t think I’d use your tech against you, now did ya? Did ya?”

“Hang on,” 11 says, cutting into Hikari’s celebrations. “There’s something I don’t quite understand though. How… uh… are you still alive?”

“You let me live. After our fight?”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Oh.” Hikari beams when she understands 11’s real question.

How have you survived for the last two thousand years?

“Anier Syndrome. Ring a bell?”

“I thought that was killing you.”

“It did.” Hikari laughs, pirouettes, her white hair and dress fluttering. “What do you think? Not bad for an undead, huh?”

“You… became a vampire.”

Hikari pokes her tongue out. “I told you there’s a different term used in this world.”

“I got reset again,” 11 says as an explanation. She flexes her right arm to prove her point. It’s been completely rebuilt. All it cost are her memories.

“I saw you go into that recovery pod,” Hikari says. “I almost stopped you but I had faith in my grand plan. Now, as long as we keep you out of Oswald’s reach, everything will start coming back.” She takes 11 hands and starts leading her back towards the frozen ship. “You don’t have to worry about any of that anymore. As long as we stay between these two supercarriers, you’ll never be reset again.”

11 wants to follow but something stops her. She digs her feet into the snow, forcing Hikari to tug.

“What are you saying? That I can’t ever leave?”

“Well, yea,” says Hikari. “I didn’t spend years hauling Michale and Uriel to this place just so you can wave at them on your way back down. And don’t even get me started on how long it took to get their tech working again, and the brain juice required to get all the pieces moving in the right direction so that you’ll actually end up here.” She tugs again but 11 will not budge.

“You planned on me coming here?”

“Come on, Ai-nee. It’s getting cold.”

“What pieces had to move?” 11 asks, staying put until Hikari has no choice but to give up and let go.

“Some questions shouldn’t be asked, Ai-nee.”

“That’s funny. You sound just like Dad.”

Hikari sighs. “I should kick your ass for comparing me to him, but I’m done fighting with you.” She looks to the sky, at the clouds gathering. The canyon darkens, highlighting the red in her eyes.

“It was everything. From the moment you came from underground, I was watching you, planning your journey. I was there when you fought The Mountain That Moved. I was there in Oakroot with the wraith, and I was there in Kesrock, but you know that last part already.”

11 shifts her weight uncomfortably. She can feel something in the ground, like a vibration gradually working its way to the surface.

Footsteps.

“I had strategies,” Hikari goes on. “Many of them. No matter what path you chose, where in the world you went, you will eventually end up here, with me.”

Wind bites through the canyon, bringing the scent of blood. The world darkens. 11 looks up, expecting a storm.

But it is not clouds that have blocked the sun.

An eight-legged creature, so large it eclipses the sky, crawls over the canyon above her head.

11 lets out a gasp and reaches for her sword, but the creature pays her no mind. Looking up, she sees that the monster’s underside is armored and flat, bringing to mind the image of a crab.

“Men call them Striders,” Hikari explains, watching with 11 as the crab-creature treks down the length of the canyon with its eight armored, spear-like legs.

“They’ve made it past the Wall, then. That means the second part of my plan is beginning.”

“What…” 11 flinches as one of the limbs slips and crashes down, throwing up clouds of snow. When she opens her eyes again, the creature is joined by more. They loom overhead, covering the sky like a storm of dark carapaces.

There are people on the back of these creatures, 11 realizes. They’re all wearing hooded cloaks, but she can spot the telltale signs of… well, tails.

“Demonic Entities? But how…?”

“They call themselves yaojins,” Hikari answers, her gaze now focused on the north where they are coming from. When 11 follows, she sees a sea of figures emerging from the snowy darkness. Many are carrying weapons, all are geared for war. There’s even a banner, tattered as it may be, hanging from a pole.

11's breath catches. She recognizes the symbol on the banner. Even faded, she knows the sign of the enemy.

"But they had a different name once," Hikari says. "The Proprietors of Arcadia."

11’s scanners are offline, but even without them she can see clearly the horns, wings, and all manners of monstrous parts sprouting from the creatures’ bodies.

“This doesn’t make any sense. The Mark I God Giers should have wiped the Proprietors all out.”

“The Gate did more than release monsters,” Hikari answers. “Can you see that? Over by the wall?”

11 focuses her telescopic lenses to the north. Three hundred yards away, a wall of black stone blocks the end of the canyon. It is easily half the height of the mountains on either end of it. But that isn’t what Hikari wants her to see. Not the wall, but the thing climbing it.

“Impossible.”

On the left-most section of the obsidian wall, a section has crumbled away. Through this entryway steps a mechanized giant, its two elongated arms grasping the edges of the walls to pull itself over. Then with an earth-shaking crash, the giant descends to the ground.

“How can a Titan be here?”

“It wasn’t easy to get it back online,” Hikari replies proudly. "Took me three years to scrounge up all the parts for one arm."

“Why…” 11 shakes her head, unable to believe that Arcadian tech still exists, much less in this form. “What reason could you possibly have for resurrecting one?”

Hikari grabs 11’s hand again. “That’s none of your concern anymore. Let’s get back on the ship. We don’t personally have quarrels with Jinyu, but that doesn’t mean we should be here when they march through.”

11 doesn’t budge. “I’m not going.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I can’t let these Demonic Entities through. I need to protect humanity.”

“You don’t owe humanity anything,” Hikari exclaims. “Let them kill each other as they’ve always done. This is the way it’s always been, with or without the Giers.”

11 pulls back, making Hikari stumble. “Is Yue’li a pawn in your plans too?”

“Why are you suddenly bringing up her?”

“Do I not owe her grandmother to bring her home safely?”

Hikari frowns. “Sure. But she doesn’t need you. She’s safe.”

“Where?”

“Probably across the border now.” Hikari tries to laugh it off. “She’s a so-called Demonic Entity, too, by your standards. In fact, so is your elf-girlfriend. Even if you want to save them, you can’t. That’s against your so-called protocol.”

“She's not...” The image of Aralyn springs into 11’s mind. She shakes her head to get rid of them but she can’t. She remembers their last days together in Oakroot village, their reunion in the city, and the sour note they left each other with.

The icy walls close in around her. 11 closes her eyes. “Is Aralyn… a part of it too?”

“Not at first. But when I saw you two getting close I adjusted my plan accordingly.”

The army is marching close now. 11 can feel the snow by her feet shaking with the strength of their steps.

“Was changing her into a vampire part of it?”

“I told you, we’re called Blood-”

“I don’t care what it’s called!” Fury bursts from 11’s back in the form of wings. She turns to Hikari, her words crackling with electricity. “Was it you who stopped her heart?”

All the previous joy on Hikari’s face vanishes. “W-why are you so mad?” she asks, her voice sounding so quiet in comparison to 11’s. “She consented to it all.” Her red eyes double in size when she sees 11 draw her sword. “Wait. What are you doing?”

11 holds the sword to her side, blade facing up to the steadily brightening sky.

“All this time…” she says, only to laugh. First a tickle at the back of her throat, the laughter builds until her entire body is shaking.

“All this time… I thought I was protecting you!”

Light descends from the clouds, crashing into 11’s blade. She raises the sword over her head, and with Hikari crying out, “No, wait!” she brings it across the wall behind them.

The sky screams as a blazing purple eye opens along the ice. Behind it, the E.H. Michale ignites into an inferno, fisting through the canyon with a flash of fire.

Hikari shrieks as the blast knocks her down. She covers her arms over her head, her lolita dress rippling in the scalding winds.

“Stop! What are you doing!”

11 can’t see anything. Her world is ablaze. “I gave up everything to save you,” she says, stepping around the falling chunks of melting metal to face the other wall. The other ship. “And you took two of the most important people I had from me.”

She slashes, lines of lightning leaping from her blade.

“No!”

With a groaning explosion, the E.H. Uriel erupts in a mushroom cloud of hellish green. Fire covers the sky, coating the world in ash.

Hikari cowers under her umbrella, cringing away from the glops of molten metal falling from the sky. “You’re insane!” she cries. “You’ve lost your goddamn mind!”

11 rips her sword out from its nest of lightning bolts. She’s only ten feet away, but Hikari feels like the Earth has split between them.

We were making so much progress. And now it’s all gone.

The heat is immense, transforming the snowy terrain into flat desert. Fire spreads from the destroyed ships, consuming what’s left of the ice walls.

Hikari feels the heat near. She looks up to see the tip of a glowing blade pointed at her forehead.

“Two minutes.”

“What?”

“In two minutes, my connection with the S-M-S will be back online.”

Realization burns hotter than the raining hellfire.

“But I’m your sister.”

“Not in this world. Not after what you did.”

11 raises her sword above Hikari’s head like an executioner, but Hikari doesn’t move. There’s no way this is how it ends. Not after everything she’s done. Then, the God Gier seems to hear something that makes her step away.

A second later, a spear crashes into the ground where she stood.

Hikari looks north to see the yaojin army bounding towards her with their weapons aloft and their clothing and banners singed.

They probably think we were trying to ambush them.

11 starts walking, meeting the yaojin head-on. She raises her sword and cleaves through the first attacks easily. Steel shrieks as the old metal swords break against her superior one.

Hikari tries to hide, but the fire leaves no shadows and the ground is pockmarked with still-burning debris. She remains crouched under her umbrella, and watches as 11 carves her way through the front line.

At first, the yaojins seem surprised. Then they appear angry. Breaking formation the front line parts to let the spearmen behind them throw projectiles at 11. But whatever they throw bounces right off the God Gier like droplets of rain against a rock.

It’s over, Hikari thinks with growing dread. She’s going to kill all of them and there won't be any left to lure out the King.

But something is different. Hikari doesn’t pick it up at first, but when she does it seems obvious.

There is no blood.

As 11 marches through a sea of shattered steel and lobbed projectiles, she’s not retaliating with her own attacks. In fact, it looks like she’s using the blunt end of her sword. The moment Hikari notices this, the yaojin seem to as well. Slowly, the bombardment stops, so do the blades until no one else is attacking.

They stand there, stunned at the display of absolute power in front of them.

She managed to terrorize them more by not killing any of them.

11 has made it to the vanguard now. The yaojin part ways for her, their faces slack with disbelief.

Soon, she passes the last combatant to find herself at the half-demolished wall.

Hikari stands up to get a better look. The Titan has cleared the wall now, and looms above 11 in all its one-hundred feet tall glory. With a stooping back and arms long enough to reach the ground, the Titan’s single glowing eye shines with calculated fury.

11 fires first. A beam of light tears out from her arm, spearing through the Titan’s chest. The whoosh of electricity bellows down the cavern, tossing Hikari back. She clutches her umbrella to stop it from flying away and regains her balance just in time to see the Titan doing the same.

With a grinding groan, the Titan lashes out at 11 with a tremendous moss-covered arm.

11 severs the limb with a single swipe of her sword. Another swipe takes off the other arm.

Hikari’s stomach twists like a wet rag.

Is this the real power of the Mark II?

The Titan lumbers back, its ancient gears tumbling out of its torn chassis. It crashes back into the wall, emitting a hollow whale-like noise in its distress. Hikari finds herself wondering if the simple codes running through its elementary computer system allow it to feel fear, and stops herself.

Best not to think about those things.

11 is now in the air, her wings trailing blue. The Titan’s giant eye follows her, glowing brightly as it builds energy.

Hikari yells for it to stop but the Titan’s eye explodes, shooting a pillar of firey plasma up at 11. But before the beam can reach her, 11 turns in the air to meet it. She brings her sword around and the clouds behind her tear open, following her swing with thunderous glory.

The canyon ignites as god and energy meet.

Hikari is thrown back. Light pierces into her eyes, burning her skin. She claws at her umbrella, bringing it in front of her face. Hot winds rip at her arms and legs, forcing her to get down and dig her nails into the dirt to hold on.

When it’s all over, Hikari takes a second to breathe and gather her composure, before peaking over the edge of her umbrella.

The Titan lies in ruin. Its chest is blown wide open, pieces of its insides embedded in the wall and mountain behind it. Plumes of dark smoke rise from the place its head used to be, and fire consumes the rest.

11 walks out from behind the wreckage, unharmed.

A light rain begins to fall, washing away the soot clinging to her as the God Gier makes her way back. One by one, the yaojin drop to their knees around her, crying out in their crude tongues for mercy and forgiveness.

But she pays them no mind. She’s coming straight for Hikari.

Feeling something akin to fear stir inside her, Hikari closes her umbrella and stands firm.

It ends here, she’s decided. Either I die or get my oneechan back.

11 reaches the frontline again, but one of the yaojin steps out in front of her. It’s the general of the army, Hikari notices when she sees the decorated feathers drooping across the fur-covered yaojin’s shoulders.

The yaojin lowers himself onto his knee.

“God. Dess.”

His common speech is broken and ugly, but considering he has a hawk’s beak for a mouth, it is much better than what Hikari is used to hearing from these half-monsters.

“Will God-dess spare us?”

Even on one knee, the yaojin general is taller than 11. But he’s stooping his entire body so that he isn’t.

“Get up,” 11 says. “I don’t like talking to the top of someone’s head.”

Hikari isn’t sure the yaojin understands, but with deft movements, the creature stands.

“Will God-dess spare us?” he asks again.

Silence follows as all wait on the God Gier’s reply.

11 doesn’t seem in a hurry to answer, though. She looks up, eyes half-closed as the rain sprinkles onto her face, running down her cheeks.

Finally, she says, “You have thirty seconds.”

This time the general gets it quicker than Hikari does. He turns and flees for the wall, shouting commands for his creatures to follow. Within seconds, the yaojin army is disappearing back across the wall, leaving behind broken weapons and carts filled with supplies. They clamber over the dead Titan without so much as slowing down to mourn it.

Hikari watches, sighing as her plans crumble to ash before her.

"I planned for everything," she says to the approaching 11, "but forgot about you, clearly."

11 looks down at Hikari, her eyes blue and unknowable.

“I’m leaving.”

The rain laces warm fingers through Hikari’s hair, but her soul is cold.

“I burned down half the world for you,” she says softly. Her eyes hurt, making her squint. She expects to be angry after 11 destroyed everything she's worked on, but she realizes with a hollow pang there’s really nothing left inside her after so many years, so many centuries.

She just feels… tired, as if defeat has always been the goal and she’s simply prolonged its coming.

“I just… thought you’d have done the same for me, Ai.”

Surrounded by burning chunks of metal, 11’s black suit makes her look one with the destruction, like a charcoal statue left behind after a long raging fire.

Then, those blue eyes soften. “I will. Only this world isn’t ours to burn, Hikari.”

The pain in Hikari’s eyes trails down her face as tears. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, smearing blood all over her knuckles. She tries to clean them by raising them to the sky, but it isn’t raining hard enough for that, and the blood trails down her wrists to her elbows, staining the sleeves of her dress.

“Alright then,” she says, her voice quivering like a child’s. “Go, then.” Her hands are shaking so much her umbrella slips from her grip, splashing to the soggy ground. She tries to crouch down to get it but her knees give up and she ends up kneeling.

Humiliation and resignation make the tears come faster.

Standing in front of her, 11 says, “Hikari,” and starts to reach for her.

Hikari slaps her hand away. “Just go! You’ve already made your choice, haven’t you? At least have the guts to stick to it!”

Her outburst over, Hikari hangs her head and squeezes her eyes shut. She hasn’t felt this much agony in so long, it’s all she can do to keep her body from falling apart right here.

Perhaps this is how it should end, she tells herself, biting down on the wail working its way up her throat. Perhaps she’s happy like this.

Above her, she hears 11 say quietly, “Alright,” and then the sound of her footsteps crunching away.

The wail is inside Hikari’s mouth now, pressing on her tongue. She clamps down and clutches her chest, holding it in, but a sob slips out and the flood gates burst and -

“SCM.”

Hikari opens her eyes. 11 is standing not far away, shuffling her feet in the mud. The God Gier looks uncomfortable, almost shy.

“What?” Hikari croaks, her throat tight with the desire to scream.

“I need an SCM,” 11 says, this time looking at Hikari. “A supply chain manager.”

“Are you joking?”

11 shrugs. “I need someone who can establish trade routes and coordinate all the logistics. You seem like someone who is well-connected to this world, and... I might've almost killed my last candidate.”

Hikari blinks back the tears. Her vision is red from the blood but the God Gier’s eyes are still as blue, still as beautiful.

“Are you talking about your coffee shop?”

11 smiles. It’s so surprising Hikari doesn’t even register it in time to be surprised.

“I’m going to make it happen after I rescue Yue’li,” she says, rocking on her heels in excitement. “So, if you don’t have much else to do, pop by and we’ll talk about it, okay?”

Then, with the rain at her back and sunlight through her golden hair, 11 turns and walks away.

Hikari stares after the android with her sister’s nervous system implanted in its carbon-chromium skeleton.

That smile. It is everything her sister is not. Full of excitement and hope and the belief that the world will be better with just a cup of coffee. It is the smile of someone who has made peace with her past and is ready for a future of possibilities, a future of amended relationships and new memories.

It is a smile that invites Hikari to do the same.

Rising, Hikari dusts off her dress and picks up her umbrella. Looking up, she sees that the rain has stopped. Stretched between the wreckage of her life’s work is a rainbow, the same color as the dead Titan’s beam that tore half the Wall to pieces.

Hikari looks at the Wall now. The yaojin can still come through, but without the Titan, their chance of taking Gandolia is small.

But not impossible. If they can harness the Gate…

Hikari pops open her umbrella. She shall go check on the Gate. There is still much to do if she wants to free Aiyano and the rest of the God Giers completely from Lindsey Oswald’s grasps.

And with the death of Gier 5, the King will only try harder to get 11 on his side, or kill her so he can move on to the next one.

Turning from civilization, Hikari begins north, towards the broken obsidian wall.

"I'll be your manager soon, Aiyano-neechan, right after I save this world."