Heat rose up in one massive wave. Junko didn’t think she would so quickly miss the stuffy stale air that once filled the room as the acrid stench of burning stone filled her lungs. A circular ring of orange flames licked out from the perimeter of the chunk of platform she rode to the bottom, almost reminiscent of the flames of General Daisuke’s jutsu. Jinchi had no shortage of ways to self immolate, it seemed.

Tightening her forearm’s grip around Gou’s cannon, Junko leaned over the edge and thrust its long barrel through the wall of flame. She angled it down so that it quickly ran against the edge of the rotating glass, causing another column of flame to erupt where it touched. The heat vaporizing its metal rim quickly traveled up the cannon’s body with a worrying speed. At the same time, a long trail of burning liquid metal streaked out along the glass as it rotated, as if she were painting with an oversized fiery paintbrush. Even in the few short moments she held the iron to the surface it began to shrink, inching closer and closer to the flames as the Arkspire’s ridiculously corrosive power shaved away its length. A sickening scent of hot rust flooded her senses.

Every second of delay brought Junko closer to the flames as well. With the cannon pressed up against the glass no energy would be lost once the gunpowder detonated. If the cannonball couldn’t pierce the fiery barrier at this range, then it never would. The still functional fingers on her non-severed hand reached back, and she struck a small black object up against the rapidly heating side of the cannon. A close inspection would have revealed it to be Gou’s fake fingernail, pulled off in a very unpleasant way after the former General no longer had a need for it. Now it was just a very gnarly piece of flint. As Junko raked it across the coarse surface a shower of sparks sprang out along its length, many hitting the small thick rope located at the rear of the massive weapon. The wick caught flame instantly and began to fizzle, shooting its own sparks out as it did so. Junko never prayed and she wasn’t going to start now, but she certainly would curse the gods plenty if this failed to work.

Watching from the sidelines Gekko couldn’t help but edge closer. It was difficult to see Junko through the swirling fires and the large amount of material dumped onto the protected glass caused so much flaring up that now the whole chamber was cast in a more hellish and harsh orange light. Every part of him ached, but now even his eyes got in on the action. Through all the unpleasantness the boy could see Junko struggling to keep the cannon pointed flush against the glass. Before, General Gou’s cannonballs simply lost too much energy after he fired them, which is why none of those previous shots broke the glass. At this range, surely...!

The eyeball rattling boom of detonating gunpowder cracked out into the air. The blast carried so much force that even the flames temporarily separated, blown out by the air expelled from the weapon. The recoil forced out not just the air, but even the large Junko herself. Her feet slid backwards and the stone she stood on tilted precariously from the force. As the barrel emerged from the flames its red hot tip steamed in the air like a freshly baked loaf of bread. A combination of gunsmoke and evaporated metal swirled out from its opening. It looked like a successful launch!

All the more terrifying when the room filled not with the sound of breaking glass, but instead the screeching of metal. Junko couldn’t see it well but Gekko watched a huge streak of flame shoot out along the surface of the spherical chamber, tracing out a path that looked like the trajectory of a ball sliding along a funnel. The trail zipped out and away from Junko and wrapped around the room in almost a full circle before narrowing and disappearing into a thin line. It reminded Gekko of the water trail of a melting ice cube. The cannonball didn’t break through the glass. It had just slid along it.

“Yo, Gekko!” Junko’s harsh shouting broke the boy out of the immediate despair choking up his throat. “I don’t know how to load this thing! You have to help me for the next shot!”

A million objections leapt out in front of Gekko at once, but he picked the most relevant to scream back first. “The cannonball didn’t work! There’s no point in trying again!”

Now the burning animals behind the glass grew blackened and the darkness began to swell. If not for Junko’s rapidly shrinking stone platform the whole room might soon be plunged into a lightless abyss. “There’s no point in not trying again! Besides, I have another idea!”

He could barely see the form of the woman now through the wall of flames. Even getting down there would require jumping through that mess, and doing so without igniting another one of General Gou’s gunpowder charges. Before he could really rationalize it Gekko already scooped up another of the small bundles of explosives and found himself standing again at the brink of the stone platform. “I’ll throw you the ammo! You can reload it yourself! Just unscrew the latch on the back-”

“It’ll explode if you throw it through the fire, idiot! You need to protect it!” Despite the incredible peril surrounding Junko, her voice sounded more agitated than worried. “I don’t know how to work this thing anyway. It’ll take no time at all for me to fire it after it’s loaded, don’t be a baby! You’ll be on fire for like, ten seconds, max!”

Frantically Gekko looked around for protection from the flames, but of course nothing in that lonely death chamber would work. The rain water from up above long ago had all but evaporated. The only other liquid here was blood but it wasn’t like Gekko had a lot of that lying around to spare. Someone did, though.

The less he thought about it, the better. After a quick coating of what he hoped would keep his clothes from bursting into flames instantly, he darted back to the edge of the platform. Gekko tucked the gunpowder far away within his clothes as well. An icy cold sensation gripped his heart. Hajime would have made the jump in an instant. Ringo would have done it without a thought. Maybe every Annitou soldier would have thrown themselves into the flames if ordered to do so. That wasn’t Gekko. He couldn’t just discard his doubts so easily, surrendering himself to fate for the cause of some higher belief. That was exactly the thing he hated doing almost more than anything else. ‘Do it because I said so’, ‘do it because it has to be done’, ‘do it or else’...

“Or don’t!” Junko’s callous voice roared out in frustration. “Just watch me die and hope for the best! That’s worked out great for you so far!”

If only it could have been an impulse. An instinct. Or even momentarily insanity! Alas the longer Gekko lingered at the gates of hell, blood falling off him in thick, sickening drops, the more unlikely those motivators became. He wasn’t the type. Even something as simple as swallowing bitter medicine came hard to the boy. Gekko began to retreat from the edge. Making that jump, with a lethal amount of highly flammable explosives in his pocket, all for some wild scheme that already failed once...there was no rational basis he could construct to justify it.

Well, apart from the one. It was probably the right thing to do. That reasoning felt so worthless it made him feel sicker even considering it. When had the universe been fair to him, exactly? What lives was he even saving? A bunch of mindless sailors, violent thugs, pilfering thieves, and murderous soldiers? Each one of them would have let him burn! Some, perhaps even most of the people Gekko knew and worked with every day would have killed him if Gou gave the order. Some of them had even tried! Not a soul on Jinchi would have made this jump, except if they were insane or stupid!

Did that matter? He didn’t like the answer his mind kept giving to the question.

How frustrating.

Having gained enough distance from the edge he could get a running start. Gekko unfortunately could process the next chain of events all too well. He forced his legs to push him forward, then up, in one huge jump. His moistened arms desperately clung to his torso to protect the dry gunpowder. The approaching wall of flame engulfed his entire field of vision moments before his eyes snapped shut. Even with his eyelids tightly closed the intensity of the surrounding light blinded him. It took just a bit longer for the immense heat to flash across his skin and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help but imagine his ratty clothing catching flame as well.

At least the soaked in blood might provide a bit of protection. Gekko’s outstretched legs hit something solid and he stumbled. Junko’s little chunk of rock wasn’t flat and level, as the flames below ate away at the bottom at different speeds. He felt his balance go out, and his body tilted precariously. His bad arm was still bound in its makeshift splint, so he couldn’t even wave his limbs around to try and correct his posture. He was going to fall off!

Gekko’s eyes only opened when a strong set of fingers grabbed him by the shirt and tugged him back onto his feet. “What’s the matter with you? You get a huge nosebleed? You’re bloody...bloody!” Junko didn’t feel the need to shout anymore, or maybe her exhaustion was finally doing her in. “Calm down! Breath! You’re fine, you’re fine. Load the damn cannon and let’s get this done!”

Gekko most certainly wasn’t fine but he quickly brushed off Junko’s outstretched arm, his heart beating so hard he felt like it was going to explode before the gunpowder did. An immediate surveying of his person made it clear the flames hadn’t ignited him. Looked like even in death General Gou could still protect his cadets just a little bit longer. Junko slid Gou’s detached fingernail to Gekko then positioned herself back towards the cannon, again lifting it up for another attempt. “The barrel melted pretty short, so I’m going to have to get real close to the edge here.” Junko patted the side of the cannon with her stump of an arm. “You’ll need to light it.”

Even as he was loading in the gunpowder Gekko couldn’t stop the doubt from gushing out. “I saw the last cannonball, it didn’t do anything. If you fire another one it’s just going to melt off again!”

Junko tilted her head, then pointed with her remaining hand at the melted barrel of the cannon. “Take a look. We’re not using that weak, cheap Annitou iron here. City of King steel can’t be broken. It’ll work this time.” Confused, Gekko slammed the back of the cannon shut and put Gou’s metallic nail in position. It wasn’t until Junko moved forward (dragging him along as well) that he saw what she was gesturing towards.

Poking right out at the very threshold of the cannon’s mouth was the unmistakable tip of Sahori. It was like a scene from one of those insane pirate stories Hajime loved to try and recount but often screwed up. In a final act of defiance, Junko loaded her own weapon into the cannon. At this point Gekko gave up on trying to process anything else. The only thing he could do was try and survive the madness.

Holding the cannon close to her body Junko roared as she thrust it, and her own body, into the wall of flames. It caught Gekko off guard as he was close enough himself to catch fire, but for once his own intuition didn’t fail him. He raked Gou’s nail across the cannon body and it exploded into sparks-

And disintegrated completely before getting even close to the wick. Junko’s last attempt scraped the severed nail too hard. The fatigued fingernail crumbled into dust in an instant. Gekko stared at his empty hand with an incredible look of disbelief, even as Junko continued howling in agony from the fires surrounding her. After all that! After all of it! Even now, Gou was abandoning Gekko! The cruelty of it all!

The universe really was an unfair place.

In the end the only person Gekko could count on was himself.

That extended specifically to igniting cannon firing mechanisms. He defaulted to using a body part he knew would work. Positioned so close to the edge now Gekko ripped the already shredded collar of his Annitou uniform off and balled it up in his hand, then thrust it out into the ever encroaching wall of flames. As expected the material caught fire after only a few moments, along with the entirety of the boy’s limb. He would have a few seconds before the pain could even be registered, and in that moment Gekko slammed the entire length of his arm along the cannon’s exposed wick. He couldn’t tell if it ignited at all, as Junko’s yowling (and probably a good deal of his own) meant he couldn’t hear the fizzle of the burning fuse. Nor could he see much as his whole body began to burn. Everything, every sense, and every thought became consumed by that all consuming Jinchi inferno.

An eternity passed. Hajime once told Gekko that before death, as the brain started to shut down, it released chemicals which could induce euphoria. At that moment Gekko wanted to punch Hajime in the mouth. That would have given him more euphoria than dying seemed to be putting out.

A sound sundered the storm of hell. Gekko couldn’t parse it at all, as his eardrums simply gave up trying to make sense of the world. All he heard was an agonizing, scraping ringing as the air around him broke and tore apart. An immediately, irresistible force thrust him backwards- the unmistakable recoil of the cannon expelling something massive from its innards. Gou’s cannon successfully bellowed and released its cargo.

But would it work? Even as he felt himself thrown backwards Gekko tried to force his eyes to see past the searing heat and curtain of red and oranges that engulfed his body. But the boy no longer faced in the same direction, or even stood in the same spot as before. So much of the cannon melted that the recoil it incurred was much, much stronger, as the reduced mass of the barrel couldn’t resist much movement anymore. It hurled Gekko’s tiny body backwards and again he felt the ground beneath his feet disappear. He couldn’t see anymore but he knew there was nothing beneath him but the lethal surface of the Arkspire’s inner chamber. He wouldn’t last a tenth as long as a solid iron cannonball had. The second he touched the glass, it was over.

That sensation of landing was the only thing Gekko could still register. Fire even felt like it flooded down his throat. His deafened ears could do little but ring. The smell of charred hair and flesh filled his burning lungs. The taste of blood still filled his mouth. Who knew dying the second time would be so much worse than the first? At least Motonubu finished Gekko off quickly.

Gekko’s feet sank down, and then disappeared. Not into ash, but into darkness. The world, and his reality, shattered forever.