Free Sky

by shahanshah

In the cold darkness of interstellar space, beyond every known frontier of mankind, against the most terrible of enemies, the Goddess protects.

8. None Can Excel

"The Inquisition works tirelessly to determine the true extent of the rebels' guilt, so that we may discriminate the faithful from the heretic. When we find the heretic, we will know what crimes she has been complicit—no, accomplice—to.

"The heretic's hands soak in every drop of blood staining the ground of Genesis, Volve, Enik, and all other worlds fallen victim to the claws of the demons. Where the heretics walk, the screams of the millions dead echo in their wake.

"If they are to surrender, then we are to prop ourselves with the pillar of mercy and treat them with justice, not malice. The words they place on their lips will be proof of repentance for their iniquity.

"But if they continue to resist, and if they continue to aid the demons, then we will strike at them with all the righteous fury that the Goddess above has invested in our Holy Armada. We will employ every terrible weapon at the Hierocracy's disposal, and we will not stop until every last traitor is destroyed. If every drop of innocent blood spilled by the demons must be paid by another drop of heretic blood spilled by the sword of divine wrath, then so let it be done.

"I hereby declare, in my capacity as Prophet-Queen of this Holy and Righteous Hierocracy of Humanity, commander of the armies and mahou shoujo in the Goddess' name, and vessel for the truth of the heavens above, that a Holy Crusade be waged against the following bodies: the Lyudian Liberation Front, the Domersek-Nazra, the government of South Unesol…"

"…and any individuals found to be collaborating with aforementioned organizations. May the Goddess above aid her loyal soldiers in their impending trials."

-x-

"Lord Admiral Leopold, I don't want to patronize you, but you do remember the last time our Hierocracy declared a Holy Crusade against heretics, correct?"

Charlotte Leopold pressed her lips into a thin line stretching across her rosy face. The Lord Admiral's perpetually warm complexion was supposed to strike people as motherly, but Maria registered no such connection.

"I am well aware, Inquisitor General. But precedent does not take precedence over circumstance."

"Well, then let's compare scenarios, "Maria said. "In the Age of the Fourth Servant, the Crusade against the Lyudians was limited to the planets, not the stars. The Prophet-Queen then granted the Inquisition an explicit blank check to prosecute and execute at will. We face the exact same scenario today, except I can assure you, even if Diana Markos were as skilled a diplomat as Victoria Godot, she would still not be able to broker a peaceful solution to this conflict."

"And when we compare scenarios, let's not forget that the Prophet-Queen's blank check then only served to fan the flames of rebellion in the Lyudian sectors."

Maria leaned forwards. "How much farther can we fan the flames of these rebels? The Lyudians have been proven to be colluding with demons. This sort of heresy was unimaginable but one decade ago."

"So what?" Charlotte asked, serene expression finally cracking. "A Holy Crusade means that we draw upon all of the Hierocracy's resources to fight the enemy. It heralds a joint-forces operation."

"The Prophet-Queen has allowed the deployment of Armada troops in this sector to be up to your discretion, Lord Admiral Leopold," Maria said. "And it would be the height if irony if your Admirals scrambled to assign themselves command over the battlefield of rebel planets only after the Holy Crusade was declared, when the Inquisition has been toiling and dying on those same planets for decades."

Maria was somewhat glad that only a hologram represented Leopold, because she reasoned that if she were to be in personal contact with the Lord Admiral, the atmosphere would be somewhat uncomfortable.

Maria sighed. "Let me put it another way. Do you really want to divert your girls to my fight? Or would you rather let them continue to fight the demons? We have already declared one ceremonial Holy Crusade against those. The one against the rebels is the one with actual political weight."

Comforting people took practice. It took hours in front of a mirror, perfecting her smile and practicing her speech. It took years of experience working as an Inquisitor General, listening to the suffering that the average Inquisitional girl went through on a day-to-day basis, and then reassuring them that everything would be better.

And then, she had made everything better.

"My proposition to you," Maria said, "is to let me deal with the politics, while you and your Armada can concern itself with mitigating the existential threat. Does this sound reasonable?"

"Enough."

Instantly, both Maria and Charlotte turned to look at the third person in the conversation. Lord Admiral Virginia Sherman of Hope had a very unassuming profile. She was slumped in her chair; her uniform was slightly wrinkled; there were bags under her eyes. In her right hand, she swirled a tumbler of some unidentifiable liquid.

"Lord Admiral Leopold," Virginia said, "think pragmatically. Is this necessary?"

"Not necessary," Charlotte said. "We don't need to give her an explicit blank check."

"Inquisitor General D'Arco. What is necessary?"

"The rebels are clearly aiding the demons. The extent and significance of this alliance is as of yet unknown, and demon cells on rebel planets remain uncontested. This needs to end. And we cannot remain hamstringed by investigation procedures."

Virginia turned to Charlotte. "The solution is simple," she said. "We will close our eyes and turn the other way. We won't throw our support behind whatever General D'Arco does, but we won't prevent it, either."

Lord Admiral Leopold stiffened. "Yes, Lord Admiral Sherman."

"By the way, Lord Admiral Leopold, get to the battlefield quickly. Prophet he may be, I want one of my Lord Admirals on the front line before Kaname Yoshio. You are both dismissed."

The two holograms of the Lord Admirals disappeared. Maria immediately let out a slow breath.

Maria's door hissed open. "How did it go?" Julia asked.

Maria wasn't smiling anymore. Some years ago, she had realized that smiling around Julia was redundant. "Well enough," she said. "I have earned a victory of sorts."

-x-

Diana rested her fingers against the door to Yoshio's office. A stream of constant skirmishes with the demons had prevented her from speaking to Yoshio since his induction into the Armada. Almost two weeks had passed since the mission at Feraxis, and while she could talk to Christine and May regularly on the Faithful Soldier, she hadn't had any face-to-face conversations with Yoshio in some time.

Yoshio's door slid open softly. In the short span of time since arriving aboard, Yoshio hadn't been able to redecorate the naturally sparse captain's quarters. Even then, Diana didn't think that Yoshio had much to move in anyway. In the Goddess' Seat, Yoshio surely had some floor dedicated to him alone, filled with the luxuries of a galaxy-spanning empire, but he hadn't brought any of them to the battlefield.

Yoshio himself was resting his head in his hands, sipping tea, and making a vacant expression that vacillated between bored and inattentive. He looked up when Diana entered the room.

"How may I serve, Rear Admiral Prophet Kaname?"

"Diana—"

"Or is it Prophet-Prince Admiral Kaname?"

"Diana—"

"You just have so many titles—"

"It's Rear Admiral Kaname," Yoshio said. "No 'Prophet'. Crossing Hierocratic and military positions is always a bad idea."

Diana tilted her head. "You're not wearing your ring anymore, are you?"

"I am not."

"But you're still a Prophet," Diana said, stepping forwards. "There's no escaping who you are by birth, just like there's no escaping who I am by fate. You're not trying to run away, are you?"

Diana yawned and sat down across Yoshio. "Courage is one of the five pillars."

"I'm not running away," Yoshio said. "This is where I belong."

"Suit yourself," Diana said. "Anyway, what did you call me onto the Maelstrom for? I can't complain, though. We all regret that we're still stuck on the dinky little raid destroyers while you get the fucking dreadnought. I could get used to staying on this thing."

"You're needed in direct combat," Yoshio said, "so that's out of the question."

Diana crossed her arms and glanced downwards. "Yeah. Of course."

A tiny, flickering sense of pride and dignity prevented Diana from complaining. The burden of tradition lay upon all magical girls, upon her only slightly more than others. The first magical girls to have publically served the Goddess and the Hierocracy of the Prophet had all, without exception, fought. From the Hearth, who rebuilt cities out of ash, to the fledgling squads that led the offensive into demon-controlled territory, every magical girl had been some form of military or another. There was no place for a magical girl behind a desk, and certainly none for them in theopolitics.

There were two classical routes for advancement: leadership from the front, as a high-ranking Armada officer, or combat in the field, as a foot soldier. Both were honorable and respected choices. The Inquisition and the Hearth were stranger options, and Diana had seen May and Akira field questions about their respective organizations far more often than Christine did.

"So," Diana said, "what did you call me here for?"

Yoshio pressed a button on his desk, and a holographic projection of a planet sprung up. "This," he said, "is Rackba. How much do you know about it?"

Diana blinked. "Rackba's one of the older Lyudian colonies," she said. "And home of the Domersek-Nazra. We have it pretty pacified though, don't we?"

"We do," Yoshio said. "Now that we have secured Feraxis as a base for Armada operations, we have very little business with the heretics. That's D'Arco's job. I…"

Yoshio shifted uncomfortably. "Well, there are reasons as to why I'm not going to interfere in Inquisitional affairs in this region. I have no reason to suspect D'Arco. I'm sure Christine would disapprove of my actions, but she's not here to complain."

"She would if she could," Diana said. "I suppose you don't want to piss off D'Arco? That sounds strange, though. Someone of your position should be able to pull that shit off, right?"

"It's complicated."

Diana threw her hands up in the air. "Okay, okay. Have at your shady shit; I don't care."

Yoshio shook his head. "It's certainly troubling," he said. "I'll look into it later. But that's beside the point. D'Arco tells me that heretic attacks, primarily led by organizations affiliated with Domersek-Nazra, have flared up since the heretics and the demons revealed their hand."

The holographic projection of Rackba zoomed into the urban centers of the planet. Areas of fighting were highlighted in red. "The Inquisition reports that fighting has grown the most intense over the past twenty-four hours. And, at the same time, demon fleets began appearing at the fringes of the system."

Diana snorted. "Surely a coincidence."

"Which is why I've received a request from the Inquisition to cover them," Yoshio said. "If the Inquisition withdrew, it's likely that the demons would withdraw their forces also, and we'd battle elsewhere, on perhaps more favorable terms. But I am willing to gamble that whatever D'Arco finds on this planet will make up for the risks I am taking for her."

"How generous of you."

Yoshio's lips twitched. "It really is. Anyway, the simulation AIs agree with me that we will have our main force around the system within the next thirty-six hours, which is not enough time for the demons to mount a serious offensive on the system."

"Got it," Diana said. "So, this is the part where you tell me what you want me to do, right?"

Yoshio's shoulders sagged as his gaze flickered to the ground. "It feels strange giving you orders."

"Aw, don't worry. You can always just ask politely."

"A group of Domersek leaders have expressed their desire to open communications with the commanding Armada officer of the system. As it turns out, matters took an unexpected turn when that officer turned out to be the former Prophet-Prince, brother of the Prophet-Queen."

"So if the talks go through, they'll have an extra layer of legitimacy?"

"Yes," Yoshio said. "There is a transport bringing these leaders to the Maelstrom. If we get through to them, they'll be critical to shift power away from the Domersek-Nazra. As a radical splinter sect, Domersek-Nazra already faces hostility from the main churches anyway. We only need the mainstream Domersek clergy to publically support the Crusade and condemn their fundamentalist counterparts."

"But you don't know what might happen to the transports on the way up," Diana said. "Something like that just screams assassination. So, of course—"

"You will provide the best protection. No matter what happens, I cannot imagine that you won't be able to take care of it."

Diana shrugged. "I guess I've been getting used to combat."

"I know. Christine told me."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "Did she?"

"According to her, the routine parts of magical girl combat have now been mostly ingrained in your head," Yoshio said. "She also said that it seemed like you had adopted a healthy attitude towards combat as well. The last couple raid skirmishes went perfectly, didn't they? No casualties."

Slowly, Diana slipped her hands into the pockets of her uniform. "I guess."

The sound of Yoshio sipping his tea filled the air. A moment passed after Yoshio put the teacup down. Diana still hadn't said anything, and Yoshio was only staring at her.

"I used to be terrified in the middle of battle," Diana said. "Sweaty and jittery. And now here I am, three weeks after we left Earth, and I'm definitely calmer in battle now. The fear just creeps up on me in other places."

Diana giggled. "I thought about what it'd be like to be back at home. There's a cliff overlooking the ocean right by my house. I'd sit there, draw the waves, and be free from people, obligations, and worries. A couple days ago, I thought how much I'd rather be there than here."

Yoshio still stirred his tea. Diana could read nothing from his face.

"So I guess my point is that I definitely don't have the fucking attitude down."

"It's all right to be afraid," Yoshio said. "I have a different faith in you than the people do. They have faith in you on the basis of your reputation. I have faith in you because I know you, and I know that, despite what you may say, you are much stronger than you give yourself credit for. On that destroyer above Genesis, I saw a frightened girl rise up. That's part of what inspired me to take this position."

"I don't feel strong."

Yoshio shrugged. "Strength isn't something you feel. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's a way you act."

Yoshio's cup clattered as he set it down. "I haven't really been tested in battle yet," he said. "Everything has just been skirmishes. The AIs could handle them just as well as I did. But, I guess it was a good experience to work with my officers. You should meet them, sometime."

"We don't run into each other very much," Diana said, running a hand along Yoshio's desk. As she had walked to Yoshio's office, the hallways had been unfamiliar. The respect she had received from the personnel had been the same, though.

"All military personnel have their breaks," Yoshio said. "I'm sure we'll have a chance to speak later."

Yoshio slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew his ring. His thumb danced a circle around it. "It does get lonely at times, though. I could use more visits."

"The next time Christine comes, she might bring May with her," Diana said. "You two haven't spoken that much, so that would be good. Goddess knows you need to practice speaking to normal people in a normal way."

"Your comments are as appreciated as always, Diana," Yoshio said, sighing. "Well, until next time?"

The last time they had said goodbye like this, Diana hadn't been sure whether or not she would be seeing him again. But now, war, though still terrifying, was becoming less and less alien by the day.

"Take it easy," Diana said, turning around and waving a hand in parting.

-x-

Diana wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little in the cold night air. The cloth draped over her shoulder didn't do much to provide warmth. An image of girl she had seen conjuring fire during battle came to the forefront of her mind.

Whenever Diana transformed, wings sprouting from her back, magic flowed through her. The sensation couldn't be explained by any words describing purely physical senses—magic took root deeper than the flesh.

Diana closed her eyes and concentrated. She could feel the magic in her. All she needed to do was make the flame.

Her fingers sparked, and flame shot out, before the fire suddenly sputtered and died with a hiss of smoke.

Diana blinked in surprise. The magic was still flowing inside her. It didn't seem like she hadn't been concentrating on making the flame, but that something inside her just wasn't compatible with the fire.

For her, the flames were just a trick anyway, and Diana knew that there were probably other more practical solutions. As Diana slowly inhaled and exhaled, warmth diffused itself through her body, and she stopped shivering.

Diana's communicator beeped, drawing Diana's attention to the runway below her. She was perched on top of a hill overlooking a small Hierocracy base nestled in Rackba's central metropolis. This planet was certainly more developed than Feraxis was. But, despite the bustling streets lined with vendors and the crowded, uniform apartments that marked human civilization, there were no churches to Hashal. There were quite a few Hierocratic cathedrals, but to a Domerseka, building monuments to Hashal was only arrogance in the face of the monument's inevitable destruction, an antithesis to the very nature of the deity himself.

They did build statues to Victoria Godot, though.

There were definite Lyudian influences in Victoria's costume. Two pendants hung from her neck—one to the Goddess, and another to Hashal. She had been distrusted and feared by both sides of a seemingly inevitable conflict. As Himmelsschloss stripped away whatever civil liberties the Lyudians had had, the Domersek clergy began calling for an uprising.

It had been expected that Victoria would win the war for the Hierocracy. Nobody had expected a peace settlement.

In the distance, Diana could see her figure sticking out of the skyline. Two jets of flame spurted from her back, casting shadows across the city. On Critek, they had a temple in her name—all because of her wish to give fire to the freezing planet.

What was Diana compared to that? Victoria Godot had saved her people twice over, once from the cold, and once from war.

I want to be free from fear.

Wasn't that just the sort of wish a scared little girl would make?

Diana scanned the runway's surroundings, looking for any places assassins might hide. Even if they were out of sight, Diana was reasonably certain that she would be able to intercept any attacks. Plasma bolts were slower than the hand of the Goddess above.

The vessel took off without incident, and, after waiting for a second, Diana followed, extending her wings and taking to the air. The lights of the city glowed warm and bright in a mat of campfires and torches below her. This colony still kept those strange remnants of old colonial days.

Diana realized that she felt uneasy about a minute before the vessel would clear the planet's atmosphere and make it to space. In an instant, she summoned her bow, partly to defend from attack, and partly to have something to wrap her sweaty fingers around. The feeling that she was being hunted pressed down on her.

"I hate this," Diana whispered.

In one moment, Rackba was calm.

Diana looked up to see a writhing mass of flesh, as large as a skyscraper, burst through the clouds and head straight towards the planet.

The Servant and the demon battleship reacted at the same time. Diana was between the convoy and the ship just as the demon fired its laser. Fire and light washed over Diana in a wave of searing pain before she extended her wings to deflect the blast.

She reached out blindly in a wide telepathic message: Hey, pilot, if you're listening, this would be the fucking time to get into orbit!

The transport's engines roared as it raced to space, disappearing from sight. The demon ship had let it go. There was better prey.

Diana waited until her breathing was under control before telepathically contacting the Maelstrom. Yoshio, what the hell is going on? I thought you guys had orbit controlled! Why am I seeing demon ships in Rackba's atmosphere?

We have control! Yoshio said. I don't know what's happening! The Maelstrom is getting strange readings from all over the planet.

The demon battleship fired another laser, this one racing straight at Diana. This time, she was more prepared, magically reinforcing her body to disperse most of the blast.

Diana drew and notched an arrow. She felt the bow creak as tension ran through the wood. She breathed out slowly as she took aim. The demon battleship hung over the sky like the clouds of a storm.

Her arrow struck against the side of the battleship with kinetic energy equivalent to that of a planetary bombardment charge. Fire blossomed from the side of the battleship, lighting the grey sky with color. Debris rained down onto the ground below. Diana allowed herself to whistle softly in satisfaction.

Three more battleships emerged from behind the first one, and Diana caught herself forgetting to breathe. Out of the possible complications she had considered, no matter how outlandish, none of them included this.

Telepathic noise from the ground caught Diana's attention. Inquisitional agents, now surrounded by demon swarms, desperately called for help—aerial support, reinforcements, anything.

But, as Diana looked across the sky, demons and miasma stretched from horizon to horizon, blanketing the planet. Ordinarily, a planet could only be taken from orbit. Now, the demons had taken hold from the surface, spreading so quickly that nobody could have reacted.

And Diana knew that the heretics had to be involved. The heretic on Feraxis had confirmed that they had been helping the demons escape containment. This had to be the result of a coordinated effort.

Yoshio, are you seeing this?

I am. This has happened once before: Earth, at the onset of the First War.

There are some demons in between me and orbit. You probably don't want me trapped down here, do you?

No. Get back to the Maelstrom now.

Then, something else burst through the clouds. Diana could see that these weren't demon battleships. Instead, these were ships of metal, bearing the sign of the Goddess. Distress signal after distress signal pierced Diana's head.

Yoshio, what's going on?

Demons began swirling around the Armada ships, trailing them as they fell to the ground. Once they crashed, Diana knew that the demons would devour everyone inside.

Demon battleships manifested behind us, he said. They took out several of our ships by surprise. Our destroyer force has been decimated.

Were any of my friends aboard?

Yoshio was silent.

Answer me.

Yoshio's voice was cold and sharp, nothing that Diana would have expected him to be capable of when she had first met him. My orders were to return to the Maelstrom. Servant you may be, you are a member of the Armada, bound by your contract to loyalty to the Goddess. That means that you are loyal to me.

Diana notched an arrow and aimed at the ships blocking her escape. The first shot had already taken a toll on her soul gem—she could feel exhaustion creeping into her limbs, and the connection to her magic was beginning to fray. Generating the energy to destroy three battleships would drain her for at least a couple hours. By then, it would be too late for anybody on the surface, Armada and Inquisition alike.

Slowly, Diana lowered her bow and turned around. The battleships didn't give her any trouble as they did so. The demons were sapient. They knew that what the Servant of their enemy planned on doing, and these ships had a planet to subjugate.

Diana!

When we first met, you talked about how my life was precious, Diana said. Why is it, then, that every single Servant until now has died in combat, fighting for the Goddess? On the frontlines, facing the enemy, protecting humanity? From Akemi Homura to Victoria Godot, each one has faced the exact same fate.

That's irrelevant! I need you here now!

Because you care about me, or because I'll be more useful on the Maelstrom?

You can't possibly fight all those demons, and you're of no use to anybody dead. And of course I care about you.

Diana sighed. You need to have more faith in me. I'm the Servant of the Goddess, right?

Aren't you scared?

The wind whipping around Diana made her eyes sting. It was quiet here, far above the turmoil that had engulfed the world below. The calm let Diana's mind burst out of her skull and surround her. Fear was like water, and Diana could easily imagine that the grey color of the sky was a storm, and she was drowning in it.

Of course I'm scared, Diana said. I'm terrified.

Then why are you doing this?

Diana tightened her grip on her bow. If she held onto it, she wouldn't drown.

Christine's safe, isn't she?

How do you know? Yoshio asked.

Imagine you're in my place, Diana said. And Christine's the one in a ship plummeting to the surface, about to be set upon by the demons. You have the chance to give her the possibility of survival. It's a small possibility, but if you do nothing, she's going to die.

Diana began pouring magic into her wings. She felt them expand outwards, glowing bright enough to compete with the sun.

What would you do? Diana asked.

Yoshio didn't answer.

If I'm not brave enough to fight for my friends, then I'm nothing. So, you shouldn't worry about me. I'm not going there to die, Diana said. I'm going there to prove that I'm alive.

Diana felt a shockwave boom around her as she let her wings launch her forwards to the demons. As she neared the demons, she used her wings to shield her face and blasted through the swarm.

The demons were nearing the downed ships now. Most magical girls were resilient enough to survive the crash, and either way, all ships had landing compartments embedded deep within the ship strong enough to protect even an ordinary human. Diana would only have to hold off the demons for a short while, long enough for the magical girls to clear the wreckage.

Diana looked above her, to the sides, and even below her. Everything was a swirling, frothing mass of death. She was in the eye of the storm, a pocket of tranquility about to implode. And though she held onto her bow like it was her salvation, any anchor, no matter how strong, could be uprooted by the waves. The demons' attention was turned entirely towards her, now. The Servant had walked willingly into their midst, and her death this early in the war would be worth the escape of a million humans.

Diana scanned the mass of demons and spotted a group flying towards her. In an instant, she had notched, drawn, and released an arrow. As it flew, the tip shone bright blue before the arrow exploded in the midst of the demons, scattering them.

A shadow passing over Diana drew her attention skywards. Several dozen giants hung down from the sky, reaching for her.

Far below her, the downed ships crashed onto the surface of the planet.

The demons are generating telepathic interference using the miasma, Yoshio said, his voice distorted. We won't be able to communicate.

Good luck, Diana.

Yoshio's voice disappeared entirely.

The demons swept forwards simultaneously, a giant rolling wave of white that blotted out the sky. Diana drew her bow and fired over and over again, darting out of the way of demon lasers, trying to single out and eliminate the biggest threats.

When the demons finally came close enough to rake at her with their claws, she used her wings to keep them at bay. Bright fans of light swept out from her body to cut at the demons.

In the distance, something fired a laser bright enough to outshine the rest of the demons combined. Diana only managed to put her wings up an instant before the energy washed over her. Ten minutes ago, she would've been able to take the blast, but now, her soul gem was exhausted. Pain washed over Diana's body like molten lead.

The mixture of pain and weakness crackled like static in Diana's mind. No matter where she turned, all she could see was the blurry images of demons rushing towards her.

Laser after laser sliced at Diana's body, each adding another layer of wounds already crisscrossing her skin. There were deeper wounds, too, and Diana knew that an ordinary body would be dead many times over. Her body was just about to give out.

I don't want to die.

Diana was reasonably satisfied with her body and mind. Sure, she was a bit too hostile to make many friends, and there were other people who were prettier and smarter, but still, living with herself for the rest of her life wasn't a bad thing.

There was a very fragile rope that tied her to existence, and each time the demons' lasers dug into her body, that rope became a little more frayed.

In that moment, Diana was very certain that she would die terrified. The Hierocracy always depicted its martyrs as glorious heroes, defiant until the very end. But nobody except the martyrs themselves would know what it truly felt to sacrifice their own lives, would they? At any rate, Diana was a disappointment of a Servant. She hadn't even gotten her true wings yet.

I don't want to die!

Diana was blinded by the light of her own soul gem as it flared to life. Heat, shockwave, and sound registered all at once as her soul gem ignited. A magical shockwave spread from her body, obliterating the demons surrounding her.

Her wings had once provided her with an anchor to the sky, but now the explosion ripped her from her perch and sent her tumbling to the ground. Diana managed to remain conscious and extend her wings long enough to slow her descent to what was hopefully a non-fatal speed before slamming into the earth.

-x-

Diana had hoped that she would wake up when her soul gem was finished healing her body. She didn't. Instead, it was the stabbing pain from her soul gem running out of magic that startled her awake.

Summoning one single arrow made Diana's body convulse in pain, but she did it anyway. At the brink of death, Diana was getting to know fear and pain better than she had ever before.

Diana slowly rolled her head around, scanning the ruined city that she had landed in. If she thought about it, it was rather disturbing that she wasn't surprised by the fear and pain. She had always known that eventually, something horrifying like this would happen. There had always been the anxiety of combat gnawing at her.

A shadow passed over Diana as a single demon loomed over her, clearly not recognizing this specific magical girl. Diana summoned the last bits of her magic to lash out with her arrow at superhuman speed. It was different and strange to not use her bow, but stabbing the demon in the neck worked just as well.

At least now, she had some baseline of competency to ease her fears.

Three grief cubes fell into Diana's hands. Then, with a hiss, two of them dissolved into nothing before Diana's eyes.

Diana stared in shock and confusion at the sole grief cube now resting in her hands. Then, she pressed the cube to her soul gem and savored every bit of pain and fear the cube siphoned out.

In the distance, Diana could see a demon swarm growing in size. She had no idea how long it had been since she had fallen, or what the situation of the planet was. She still couldn't use her telepathy to communicate. All she knew was that light was flickering with increasingly dimmer sparks in her soul gem, and if she had to die, watching as her magic flowed out of her would be one of the more unsavory ways to do so.

Diana looked around her for a moment. Everywhere, the planet was blanketed by emptiness. She was alone, and if she were to die here, she would die alone.

But what scared her more, death or failure? If she failed here, she might live on, but she would forever walk in the shadow of the deaths she hadn't saved. And wouldn't that be the greater curse?

Gritting her teeth, Diana spread her wings and took off for the swarm.

When she found them, the demons were surrounding three people, pinned down in the ruined remains of a city square. As Diana punched through their line, wings sweeping them aside, she could feel the attention of the demons turn towards her at once.

Without firing a shot, the demons dispersed, flying away like dust carried by the wind. Diana looked around her in confusion before notching an arrow and tensing her legs to pursue them.

Then, she glanced downwards, and caught sight of the darkness in her soul gem. Slowly, Diana retracted her wings and lowered her bow.

"Diana!"

It took Diana a moment to respond to the voice. She had been expecting, given her luck so far, that her stay on the planet Rackba would be generally characterized by suffering and misery, so any sort of lucky break—

"Akira?"

Diana felt a trembling torso press itself against her own. She wasn't sure when she had become the anchor, but if that was what Akira wanted from her, she would do it.

"We need to get to cover," Diana said. She tried to pry Akira away from her as gently as possible. "Get whatever grief cubes you can find, and then follow me."

Diana looked over Akira's shoulders to make eye contact with the two people behind her. It took Diana about half a second to realize that they were Lyudians, natives of the planet. From their faces, they were probably brother and sister.

"You coming?"

In the gaze they shared, there was fear and mistrust and hostility, but the one tiny bit of hope in the brother's eyes compelled him to walk forwards, with his sister following close behind.

As the four of them moved towards a building that was somewhat intact, Diana glanced down a side street. There had been a few bodies, branded with the scars of lasers, scattered around the square, but it had been strange to Diana that there hadn't been more. Now she knew where they were—fleeing from the square, body after body choked the roads leading away from the center of the city.

Diana slowed her pace to keep her body between the streets and Akira.

When they had ducked into the building, Diana had the time to examine the two Lyudians that had joined them. The brother had a scar running down his cheek, twisted and pale, with stringy blonde hair matted to his face. The sister wasn't much shorter, and Diana certainly felt more at ease looking at the brother.

Diana turned to Akira. "Have you seen any other magical girls?"

Akira shook her head. "My end of the ship got blown off in the descent," she said. "Before communications got screwed, the AIs gave us a rough estimate of where the ships were going to land, along with the last reported locations of all the Inquisitional agents in the area."

Akira took a holographic map out of her pocket and projected it onto the floor. "Here it is."

Most of the Armada magical girls, along with their Hearth support units, had landed in a hilly, undeveloped area in the outskirts of the city. Then, to the west, in an area of urban density, the Inquisition was dug in against the newly materialized swarms. Maria D'Arco's last position had been there.

Diana shook her head. "Okay. Before we start making any decisions, I need grief cubes."

They had procured only a fraction of the expected yield from the square. As Diana arranged them around her soul gem, she knew that the despair wouldn't even be completely cleansed. Still, compared to the miniscule amount of darkness that had been removed from her soul gem earlier, this was heavenly.

Diana ran the Litany of Courage through her mind again. The Goddess above had taken and saved millions of magical girls who had sacrificed their lives before her. She stood for eternal Hope, the light against the darkness. And even if it wasn't Diana's duty to stand by the Goddess, she still knew, despite all the outward cynicism, that she still believed.

"All right," Diana said. "Grief cube shortages are going to be an issue. I think it's another miasmal mutation, because the demons aren't dropping as many grief cubes as they should be."

Akira took the remaining grief cubes and began to recharge her soul gem. "There were so many demons spawning that nobody thought that shortages would be a problem."

"Right," Diana said. Only half the grief cubes were filled when Diana moved her soul gem away. "I'm saving some empty ones. You should probably too."

After pocketing the empty grief cubes, Diana stared at the filled ones for a moment. "Do Incubators…"

Yes.

Diana turned around and faced the Incubator behind her. "I thought that telepathy was down on this planet. How can you talk to me?"

Not all methods have been obstructed, the Incubator said. Disturbingly enough, the demons somehow knew how to block our primary means of communication. But there are other, more limited methods. I can speak to all of you given that you both are in close proximity to this physical form, but I cannot relay your messages to other magical girls not in my immediate presence.

"All right,"Diana said. "Well, which Incubator are you, Mephis or Kyubey?"

You can't tell?

"Kyubey?"

Incorrect. I am Mephis, the Incubator said. Kyubey has other business occupying his attention. I was tasked with managing grief cube disposals on this planet. I have observed something quite strange.

Diana furrowed her brow. "What are you talking about?"

Do you know why grief cubes are disappearing? No, of course you don't, you can only guess. I really must stop using these human figures of speech. The answer to the question is entropy.

Akira leaned closer to Mephis. "You guys always told the Hearth that grief cubes were magical exceptions to thermodynamics."

This was once considered true. It is now considered true only on a general basis. As the emotional energy stored inside demons undergoes a transformation into usable energy in the form of grief cubes, the amount of energy yielded is less than expected. This is not of huge consequence to us Incubators, in that miasmal energy is still spontaneously generated from nothing. But it is quite unfortunate for you magical girls.

Snarling, Diana buried her face in her hands. "Thanks for the fucking explanation."

If you ever decide to take a more productive attitude towards the expansion of your knowledge, you will be quite welcome. Presently, it is likely that my usage of the stock human phrase 'you're welcome' would ring somewhat hollow.

"Just do your business and go, please."

Mephis scooped up the filled grief cubes with its tail and dumped them into its back. I will be operating with maximal efficiency on this planet. So much of my business is ordinarily occupied recruiting magical girls for your army. I am presently free from those duties. This being the case, you are free to simply drop filled grief cubes after you fill them.

Each one of the four humans crowded around the Incubator regarded it with suspicion. Diana could easily see the Lyudian siblings avoiding eye contact with the Incubator, instead looking into each other's eyes for some sort of security. They were trying to dance around the magic in the room.

As Mephis stepped into a shadow cast on the room's floor, the darkness seemed to bend around him and envelop him. You do not need to be concerned that I will not take care of the cubes in time. I always follow a step behind.

"Okay," Diana said, turning away from the spot where the Incubator vanished. "You two. I'm Diana Markos, Servant of the Goddess above. You probably already knew that. That's Tanaka Akira, member of the Hearth. What do I call you?"

After some hesitation, the brother answered, "Alexander Tolteth."

"Rebecca Tolteth."

Both of their voices were heavily accented, the words taking on a strange, silky tone as they spoke modern Japanese.

"Pleased to meet you both," Diana said. She didn't move a single inch from her position at the wall to shake hands, and, try as she might, she was reasonably certain that her attempts at injecting warmth into her voice had failed. These people were Lyudians. Being suspicious was just pragmatic, and being scared was natural.

Akira flashed a tiny smile at the Lyudians. "Now that we've found you, you're in better hands than most! We have Diana with us, after all."

"That's me, Ms. Reliable," Diana muttered.

The scar across Alexander's face rippled as he worked his jaw. His entire body seemed to be comprised of thin lines, like he was a mosaic made up of the same rocks as the planet. If he was of this planet, then it made sense that he was alien. Every single rosary bead on the Domersek prayer necklace wrapped around Alexander's wrist was one light-year of distance between him and the Hierocracy.

"How do you intend on getting out alive?" he asked.

Diana glanced at Akira's map. "Well, the Armada's ships have been busted, so going there won't be much help. The Inquisition doesn't have orbital capabilities, but they might still have some equipment that they can use to call in help. It's a long shot—"

Movement, sharp and prickly like a needle, caught Diana's attention. "We're not moving towards the Inquisition," Rebecca said.

"You got something to hide?"

Rebecca stared at Diana. There wasn't any fire in her eyes, or any dark expression on her face to indicate her anger. There was only the same stony iciness that gripped her whenever she looked at the two magical girls.

"Your Inquisition doesn't need to know that a Lyudian is hiding something before they begin investigation. The Holy Crusade your Prophet-Queen declared has only removed the pretense of restraint."

Diana's mouth was halfway open in response when Akira's hand gripped her forearm. At the same time, Alexander turned to glare at his sister. "That's enough."

"Either way, it's a really long shot that anybody on this planet can contact orbit," Akira said. "Our best bet would just to be in the right place, at the right time if evacuation somehow breaks through. Alone, neither Diana nor the Armada stands much of a chance in this blockade, but if we manage to coordinate an attack, we might be able to break through."

Diana's eyes wandered to the ceiling. How far would she have to fly before she met the Armada's forces? And what sorts of battles were Yoshio involved in up there?

It didn't really matter. She was still trapped down here.

"I can't do anything with this soul gem," Diana said, pointing at the darkness swirling inside the crystal. "I'll need to take out a lot of demons before I can be useful at taking out demon battleships."

Akira nodded. "Going to the predicted landing spots of the ships would ensure that, when Diana brings down evac, we can save the most magical girls. If we want to go there, we'll have to move through a bunch of unfamiliar city and countryside. So, we'll need guides."

"We'll help," Alexander said.

"Great," Diana said. "How do we get there?"

Alexander coughed. "Legs. Earth humans still use those, right?"

There was a tiny moment of silence and confusion, a bubble of something that was decidedly not war in the midst of a war-torn city. An irritated expression crawled onto Diana's face, which only grew more irritated as she saw Akira glance away and smile.

"You're a funny guy, Alex," Diana said. "Let's hope you don't die."

-x-

They moved slowly across the landscape. Alexander had estimated that they would make it to the general area where the ships had landed within a day, and given that none of the Armada magical girls had any means of transportation, they would probably still be there when Diana arrived.

Alexander and Rebecca spoke mostly to each other, their words veiled by low tones and a foreign tongue. A mental fishhook dug into the back of Diana's head and kept trying to pull her around to glance suspiciously at the two Lyudians. Instead, she allowed herself to walk and crawl and climb resolutely forward, content to bear their whispered words, pounding away at her back, in silence.

She had never seen a Lyudian in real life before, only in textbooks and news media. She could joke about quasi-heretic pacifists in the core sectors, but a Lyudian heretic was something strange and frightening.

Akira closed step with Diana and leaned inwards. "You seem nervous."

"I'm not afraid."

"Diana, please don't try to lie to me."

A large piece of rubble blocked the path. Leaping into the air with her wings, Diana made it to the other side and moved the rubble out of the way.

"Okay," she said, after Akira and the two Lyudians had made it across. "I don't trust them. Lyudian heretics have been aiding the demons. Something weird happened on this planet to let the demons take over from the inside out, and both of us know who's to blame."

Akira shook her head. "That doesn't mean that these two people are directly responsible."

"I know. But isn't a little fear a good thing in times like this?"

"I don't think so," Akira said. "Fear makes me regret my choices."

A rock jutted out of the ground, presenting an inviting target for Diana to kick. "You can't tell me that you're not a little scared also."

Akira shrugged. "I am," she said. "But the Hearth started out helping people rebuild their lives. And a mahou shoujo's job is to serve the people. I might be scared of them, but they're people first and foremost, and that outweighs the fear."

Something in the way Akira's face stood out from the gray wreckage and smoke of the burning city and the swirling pale hues of the miasma drew Diana's eyes to her. There was color, blood flowing to her cheeks, and her dark eyes glinted with determination Diana knew was nowhere in her. She was the Servant of the Goddess, but she might just as well vanish into this ruined landscape.

Diana's eyes followed Akira's hand as she tucked her hair behind her ear, before she remembered to snap her gaze back to Akira's face. "Is something wrong?" Akira asked.

"Nothing," Diana said.

They had made their way out of the city by nightfall. Whenever they came across demon groups, they forced themselves to either sneak around them or kill them before the demons knew they were there. If the things were sapient, they could also communicate, and if they could communicate, alerting the demons to their position might be disastrous.

Still, the fact that they avoided some of the demons they encountered meant that there were fewer cubes than Diana had expected at the day's end. It was sufficient, though, and she still had the ones she had saved.

As the sun set, Alexander pointed out a small structure in the distance that they could use for shelter. Ornate houses nestled in the countryside were popular amongst the more affluent Domersek clergymen, and, even if they weren't the most defensible structures, they provided shelter enough.

"Anyway," Alexander said, "what with the demons prowling the entire planet, the owner was probably killed."

After trying the door handle, which was locked, Diana bashed the door in and walked inside.

Alexander peeked through the now-ruined doorframe. "No demons here, though," he said. "I'm surprised that we haven't encountered more of them."

"Most of them would turn their attention to the Inquisition," Diana said. "Two birds with one stone—take out the primary magical girl force on the planet, and cut the ropes tying the hands of their heretic friends, I guess. A lot of demons must also be involved in keeping the planet from the Armada's hands. We're small enough that we slip under the radar."

"Lucky for us," Alexander said. His sister remained silent.

When the two Lyudians left to look for supplies, Akira turned to Diana. "You know, I could see the bodies," she said.

A jolt of surprise ran down Diana's back, settling into disappointment as it cooled. "Well, I thought I was being a bit more subtle than that."

"Diana, this was an entire city," Akira said, "We didn't meet anybody living. The dead had to go somewhere. Even if I couldn't see the corpses, I'd be smart enough to figure it out."

The softness in Akira's voice only drove the guilt deeper down Diana's spine. Bowing her head, she said, "I wasn't trying to patronize you."

"I know," Akira said.

Diana, after a moment, broke eye contact with Akira and examined the room. Even though the supposed upper echelons of Lyudian society used places like these as their retreats, it seemed to have about as much luxury as the average household in a core world. The architecture was different: compared to the more ornate, soaring styles of Himmelsschloss, the Lyudians used a very utilitarian aesthetic. It made sense, given their philosophy.

Propelled by curiosity and boredom, Diana drew closer to the walls and examined a digital display mounted prominently at the front of the room. It seemed to be displaying a Domersek holy text. Most holy texts had some Domersek-Nazra elements in them, so distribution and possession of the things was grounds for heresy and Inquisitional prosecution.

Diana didn't miss the irony of thumbing through the display, but it wasn't enough to make her smile.

The prose of the Domersek text was certainly less readable than the holy texts of the Hierocracy. Those told a narrative, the struggle of the first Prophet and his allies against the darkness in the First War. The ideology of the Goddess was cleanly presented in five pillars. The message was simple: the Goddess above will deliver you from despair.

Domersek certainly took a more tortuous route in explaining its own ideology, which was probably why there were dozens upon dozens of splinter sects. The text spoke of accepting fate, but at the same time, claimed that it was the fate of the Lyudian people to spread the message of Hashal. There were two currents at play in the text's words, and Diana supposed that any point between the two extremes could be called Domersek.

Akira's voice pulled Diana's attention away from the display. "When's the longest time you've been away from civilization?"

There were a couple moments when Diana's mind was paralyzed by the weight of memories from a life she could no longer live. Then, she said, "I think it was back in middle school. I don't…I don't know if I've told you this, actually, but I didn't grow up in the Sol system. All of my extended family lives on planets in the Alpha Centauri sector."

Akira nodded. "I know."

"How?"

"I guessed," Akira said, shrugging. "Your last name and your costume are Greek, and Alpha Centauri had that ethnically Greek settlement founded a couple centuries back. You knew enough about Earth culture to clearly be from a core sector, but I knew you weren't from Earth."

"Oh," Diana said.

Why hadn't she ever told Akira that? They were friends, weren't they?

Diana rubbed the back of her neck. "I mean, I guess I just thought that you guys lived…more interesting lives than me. Mars and Himmelsschloss and the Xinjiang sectors matter so much more than some stupid vanilla Alpha Centauri colony. So I never told you guys where I was from."

There was some hint of amusement in Akira's face, but it flickered and waned. She had drawn blinds over the light that usually shone out of her.

"My bad, I'm getting sidetracked," Diana said. "Anyway, I was never super close to my parents. We functioned as a family well enough, but I just never formed a connection with them. Really goes to show how social I am, doesn't it?"

"You've never mentioned your parents before," Akira said. "Have you talked to them?"

"Briefly. Their daughter had just become the living incarnation of the Goddess' will. It wasn't uncomfortable at all."

"Diana, I'm sure they still love you."

Diana glanced down at her soul gem, nestled in the clasp of her toga. "Yeah, I know. Anyway, one year in middle school, over Remembrance, I just decided that I wanted to get away from everything. That year, when it was October on Earth, it was the equivalent of summer on my planet, and there was the best sailing weather you could imagine."

Blue, green, aquamarine—Diana tossed words through her head as she stared at the colors dancing through the gem. "So I took a boat out, and just sailed for the holiday. I used this ancient fucking pole to fish, and threw whatever I caught into the survival unit on the ship. And besides the boat, I didn't see any signs of human life for the entire weekend."

When Akira didn't say anything, Diana asked, "Why did you ask the question in the first place?"

"Oh," Akira said. "I…well, you know I was raised on Mars as part of the nobility. I've always been surrounded by wealth and luxury. I was just wondering how you've lived. I come here, and compare what it's like to how I've lived, and what's happening now, and—"

"—you feel bad, that these people have to suffer and persevere, while you got a free ticket through life?"

Akira glanced up at Diana in surprise. "Yeah."

"That's really fucking stupid," Diana said. "What your train of thought did right now was trip and fall flat in a puddle of dumb. Life isn't about wondering whether or not you could handle the problems of other people, it's about how you deal with your own shit. So don't feel guilty about being spoiled or whatever, because nobody but you gives a fuck. We have to deal with the shit we're in right now."

Diana stepped forwards. After biting her lip in hesitation, she looked Akira in the eye. "I need you," Diana said, in a softer tone. "Look, I'm just being realistic here. I might be the Servant, but I can't handle this shit alone. So when I say that I need you, I just need you to be here with me. Not somewhere else, drowning in stupid regrets. Got it?"

A second of silence passed before Diana broke eye contact. "Fuck, I am the world's worst friend," she said. "I'm sorry for shouting at you, if you can ever find it in your heart to forgive this disgrace to the Goddess—"

Akira reached over and wrapped her arms around Diana, which Diana took to be a reasonably obvious sign to shut up.

"Thanks," Akira said, smiling at Diana.

"I still probably shouldn't have yelled at you."

"Well, yeah. But still. You try, which is cute on its own."

Akira had to stifle a giggle as Diana blushed. The giggle turned into a yawn of exhaustion halfway through.

"One of us needs to keep watch while Alexander and Rebecca look for supplies," Diana said. "I'll take the first shift. You look pretty tired."

"Right," Akira said. She tried in vain to cover up another yawn. "Well, have fun," she said, before dropping her head to the table. Her breathing grew heavy and slow.

A lock of Akira's silky black hair had fallen across her face. Diana reached forwards, paused a moment, and then dropped her hand.

"Fuck it," she muttered, before standing and leaving to take watch.

-x-

After the night passed, they ate whatever food Rebecca and Alexander had found for breakfast. The rising sun split the darkness and the light into jagged angles in the house. Diana had thought that she might find the morning comforting, but the house was as still and empty as always, and the shadows on the floor only seemed to remind her of how hollow the house was.

Diana curled up in a corner of the room to eat her breakfast. The walls creaked as she leaned against them, and a cloud of dust swirled up from the floor as she sat down. Nobody was willing to speak, so the house was silent.

Here she was alone, like she had been on her boat, but now, fear instead of serenity enveloped her. What was the difference between the two anyway? Both came to her most readily when she was alone.

It was only after Diana finished breakfast that she noticed something strange.

"So," Diana said, "Lyudians don't pray?"

There was a moment of silence as the attention of the three other people in the room turned towards Diana. Akira, who had been tinkering with a rifle she had found in the house earlier, slowly lowered the weapon and pushed it out of sight. Rebecca dropped her silverware and tilted her body away from Diana. Alexander only raised an eyebrow.

"Some don't."

"I'm sure the lack of prayer is great for the spawn rates," Diana said.

Alexander shrugged. "I'm sorry. But before the war, demons were under perfect control, and now that war has begun, we can hardly be expected to pray the things to death."

Diana would ordinarily point out the irony in Alexander thinking that demon containment had been perfect before the war, but that information was classified. Instead, she crossed her arms and shrugged. "Fair enough," she said.

"So then the question would be why you two continue to pray," Alexander said, "when it can't possibly have any pragmatic benefits."

Praying wasn't something that Diana thought about doing anymore. It never was in the first place. Prayer simply existed as something as natural as thinking and as necessary as breathing. Who didn't do it?

But of course, Diana had examined her own motivations behind the practice from time to time. Alexander couldn't possibly hope to doubt Diana better than she could doubt herself.

Still, though, Diana thought.

"A religion purely based on achieving some material gain isn't really a religion," Diana said. "There are tons of prominent theologians and senior magical girls who just flat-out say that heaven doesn't exist. I mean, they make some sketchy-at-best historical claims that this was what Kaname Tatsuya first said, but still. We're not in it only for the perks."

"Well, neither are we, obviously."

Rebecca turned back around in her chair to face Diana. "Do you really want to know why?"

The empty house seemed to lie in suspension for a moment, drifting in air so thick that Diana couldn't help but think that it was suffocating her. Tension crawled back into her shoulders. The fatigue that had been chasing Diana ever since she had been struck down caught up with her. And yet, despite the fatigue, Diana still narrowed her eyes at Rebecca. Maybe she wasn't tired enough, or maybe she wasn't yet aware of exactly how tired she was, or maybe the pointlessness of it all hadn't fully struck her yet.

"Our people have been trodden upon by the Hierocracy for centuries," Rebecca said. "The Prophet-Queen purports to represent the Goddess, and if the Goddess has any problem with how the Kaname family has dealt with us, she hasn't spoken up. Why would we pray to her?"

Alexander was about to open his mouth when Diana raised a hand to stop him. It was becoming clearer and clearer to Diana exactly how tired she was.

"I asked the question in the first place," she said, looking at Alexander. "I'm sorry."

Diana slid her gaze towards Rebecca. "Look, what you've just said is, like, four different kinds of heresy and probably grounds to get you thrown into jail for the rest of your life. Lucky for you, I don't know what the word 'Inquisition' means. Also lucky for you, Akira promised that we'd help you."

Plasma artillery crackled in the distance. Diana wondered who was firing at whom, and if it even mattered at all. How did one instance of violence compare to an entire planet engulfed by despair and emptiness?

"But you know what?" Diana said. "I've seen girls die for the Hierocracy and the Goddess above. I wasn't really close the any of them, but I knew their names, and I saw their faces, and I know that they had some dream that they were willing to trade for a life of service. So please, shut the fuck up. I don't give a fuck what you think of the Hierocracy's political philosophy, but don't disrespect the Goddess, because if you disrespect her, you disrespect the girls who died with her name on their lips and her message in their hearts. Got it?"

The sound of the artillery was slowing driving Diana insane.

"Fuck," she muttered, before standing and heading outside. A scraping sound followed her as Akira pushed her chair out to go after her.

Outside, the wind whipped hair into Diana's face, which only served to annoy her further. Her hand twitched, looking for something to grasp, so Diana settled for her thigh. It was soft, and her fingers pressed into the skin and fat and muscle.

She stared for a few seconds at the vast emptiness that now engulfed Rackba. Maybe, if she felt like it, Diana could rip a piece of paper out of her notebook, title it "Rackba Landscape," and be done. It was pretentious, and probably unoriginal, but accurate enough. Infinity was always a strange concept, but if infinity was empty, it became easier to grasp. It was easy to imagine that the emptiness stretched on forever, like the insides of her eyelids, encompassing the entirety of her existence.

Akira opened the door and stood next to her. "Hey."

"I don't know why I asked that stupid question," Diana said. "No shit, they're Lyudians. Why did I think they didn't pray?"

"It's not your fault," Akira said.

There was a moment of silence as Akira fiddled with her costume's sleeves. Neither of them had transformed back into their uniforms in over twenty-four hours. "Sometimes I wonder if I would be like them if I had been born on a Lyudian planet," Akira said. "Everything's relative, isn't it?"

Diana sighed. "I guess."

"Here," Akira said, taking a grief cube out of her pocket. "Do you…"

Diana shook her head. "I saved some, remember?"

"Oh, right. I just—I just thought that you looked like you could use one, you know?" Akira said. She sped through the sentence so quickly that Diana could barely catch the last few words.

"Uh, yeah," Diana said. The cubes in her pocket clinked together as she dug them out and pressed them against her gem.

As the despair was sucked from her soul gem, something wrenched Diana's attention from the empty landscape to Akira's face. Of course, the media had portrayed the Japanese woman as classically beautiful for the past couple centuries, so black hair dye and the hime haircut were perpetually popular, even as fashion trends changed, but still, Diana thought, Akira's wide face and pigtails were hardly the Japanese stereotype, so it didn't explain why—

"Is there something on my face?"

Diana opened her mouth in a way that was probably reminiscent of a fish. "Um."

"We're ready to go," Alexander said, opening the door between them. "If you're all right with it, we'd rather keep the weapons that we found. You can't be blamed if you protect yourself before us, after all, so we need some means of self-defense."

"Right, cool," Diana said. Akira shot her a confused look, which she promptly ignored. "Weapons are fine. Let's go."

-x-

Farms were automated now, and rows and rows of wheat were cut daily by simple AI robots. The wheat was genetically engineered to survive in Rackba's soil. While it would have been more straightforward to just import food from the Hierocracy's breadbasket planets, the Lyudians had always maintained some degree of self-sufficiency.

Akira and Alexander had started a conversation a couple minutes after they had entered the field. Diana insisted that they keep low profiles and use low voices, so the conversation looked somewhat silly, but neither of them seemed to care.

"On Mars, they have huge celebrations every Remembrance," Akira said, "but that happens in all the core sectors. I think the most unique part of Martian culture is the labor memorials."

"Labor?"

Akira nodded. "Unions fought for decades after Mars' initial colonization for increased representation from the Prophet-Queen. Prominent labor union leaders are practically their own class of nobility on Himmelsschloss because of that, and because the factories play such a huge role in Martian life, we have celebrations."

"The Kaname house does have its moments of surrender after all," Alexander said.

Akira glared at him.

"That was said in jest. I do realize that the Lyudian situation would be much worse if it were not for Kaname Haruka's willingness to concede to some of our demands."

Diana bit her lip, but couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"Enough politics," Akira said. "What do you guys celebrate?"

Alexander turned his head to look back at the city. His eyes scanned the torn skyline as if searching for something.

"Godot."

"The Fourth Servant?"

Alexander took his time to speak, enunciating each word carefully in his silky Lyudian accent. "Let me try to explain. Domersek teaches us that we must accept what comes. No matter what great accomplishments we attain, or whatever failures we suffer, all is equal before the hands of time."

Slowly, Alexander ran his hand through the wheat. "So then, you ask us, why do we struggle against the Hierocracy? Here is what a member of the Domersek-Nazra would say: do you see those robots, tending the wheat? They are filled with serums to combat viruses or fungi that might destroy the crop. Like the farmhand robot, the Domerseka's job is to strike at the contamination in the wheat, so that the crop may be fit for the inevitable harvest."

Akira smiled. "You're not a part of the Domersek-Nazra, are you?"

"No."

"So then, what do you believe in?"

"If Hashal comes for me and finds that I lived a life without meaning, or a life of evil, his harvest is empty. Domersek was first taught to its disciples in a series of questions that the disciples had to answer. My question is this: where is the value in life? The answer is in death. If we know that we must one day cease to be, then are we not compelled to strive for good?"

Alexander removed his hand from the wheat. "The Domersek-Nazra have lost the way. Instead of seeking to do good, they are driven only by blind vengeance. Victoria Godot knew the way. In her life, she saved billions, both from Earth and from the Lyudian sectors, from war. War is hell, and I will not let Hashal take me if I have spent a life dedicated to its mindless destruction."

It was strange to hear someone couch their ideas in terms of Hashal, as easily as a Hierocratic citizen would appeal to the Goddess for their reasoning. But still, what Alexander said was reasonable.

Diana was about to comment when she felt a tingling in her spine and saw her soul gem begin to glow.

"Get down!" she shouted, before lasers sliced through the wheat.

It was a microcosm of what had happened to the entire planet. One moment, there had been nothing but a soft breeze and small talk. Then, as if time had frozen, miasma flooded into the area, and demons spawned almost instantaneously.

Well, to Diana, it was fortunate that they now knew that the demons could replicate the trick used to conquer the planet in a matter of seconds.

She saw tall, robed figures flash in and out from the stalks of wheat, as if illuminated by strobe lights. Immediately, her bow flashed into her hands and her wings burst out from behind her.

Akira was being held down by laser fire. Her staff could send out magical bolts fast enough to intercept lasers from one demon, but she was being targeted from multiple sources, and Diana could see that she would soon give out. For one moment, the world was a blur as Diana leaped in front of Akira, sweeping laser fire aside with her wings. Then came the deafening boom as she unleashed an arrow that blew a crater into the field.

Alexander and Rebecca were pressed to the ground. Occasionally, they raised their weapons and took potshots at the demons. The air hummed with the whine of plasma scorching through it.

"Stay close to me," Diana said. When she wasn't putting too much power behind the arrows, she could release a rapid storm of them into the demons.

As Diana dodged one bolt of light, something made her mind stutter and freeze. That wasn't a laser—it was a blob of plasma, but not as concentrated as Hierocracy-issued models, and Alexander and Rebecca were over there.

When she saw the humans mingling with the demons, she realized. Her magically-enhanced vision zoomed in on the prayer beads they carried. Engraved on each black bead was the symbol of a sword sticking through an hourglass.

Diana didn't bother making her shots non-lethal when she took the heretics out, human and magical girl alike.

An armored demon burst out of the wheat and swiped its sword at Diana's face. Instinctually, Diana raised a hand and caught the blade, before wrenching it out of the demon's hands. Draw—notch—aim—pull—release—took a fraction of the second, and then the demon was blown away.

For that fraction of a second, Diana didn't have time to look behind her. In that fraction of a second, something slammed into her back, lifting her high into the air, before slamming her back down to the ground. One hand grasped at Diana's throat, pinning her. The other hand was transformed into a shining blade, raised over her head.

Diana looked up to see a pale, sickly-colored face. Its features were relaxed and neutral. Its glowing eyes stared into Diana's own. Her guts twisted into a tangled mess as she saw intelligence in that awful face.

It spoke, in a smooth, light, echoing voice, Do you ever wonder why this happens?

Diana's wings shook the ground as the demon brought its blade down towards her face. Both of them were launched upwards, and the strike went wild. Diana didn't have any close-ranged weapons, so she knew she had to increase the distance between them.

The two of them landed a couple meters apart. As she scrambled to her feet, Diana drew an arrow back. By the time she was standing, the arrow was halfway to the demon.

Diana's magical vision let her watch as the demon's eyes flashed with light, destroying her arrow in mid-flight. She had no time to dodge before the laser caught her in the gut.

She had been hit by a demon's laser before. This felt like getting struck by the hand of a God. The blast launched Diana backwards, her magic straining to repair the damage done to her body.

The demon leaped forwards and caught Diana before she could hit the ground. Its hands bound her as if she was pressed beneath the weight of the world, and all she could do was struggle as it spoke.

When you learned we were sapient, it had to bother you. Right? You asked yourself, 'How did a thinking being choose to slaughter hundreds of millions of innocents? How did we choose to be evil?'

It was nothing like the harsh, guttural words she had heard from the dying demon on Feraxis. This demon spoke as casually as Diana might to her own friends. Through the demon's grip, Diana choked out, "Are you trying to taunt me?"

The demon locked eyes with Diana before letting loose another laser bolt. It was a nail driving itself through Diana's skull, into the soft, grey flesh beyond, and she didn't even register herself screaming in agony.

The thing is, the demon said, there really isn't such thing as a choice. There is freedom, but nobody can take it. Whatever happens, happens. That's just how things work.

After the demon finished speaking, in that transition period between thought and action, idea and word, Diana realized, with perfect clarity, that she was going to die.

The demon didn't even have the decency to seem engaged as it mechanically drove Diana into the ground. She heard Akira scream something, before seeing the demon's eyes begin to glow once more.

I know what I am, and what I want, and what I do, the demon said. Isn't that more than can be said for humans?

Well, whatever. Nothing personal.

There was searing light, and then blackness.

-x-

The same blackness was reflected in a pool of water. Sand whispered half-heartedly along the oasis shores. There was some turbulence in the wind, but the desert had the sense of decorum not to cause too much of a disturbance. Anyway, infinity was a bit too large to give the desert any real character.

Slowly, the blackness faded away, and a reflection of a pink-haired woman with glowing golden eyes took its place.

"So that's where your pawn in the mortal realm stands."

The Goddess of humanity looked up from the pool of water. "What happens next?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes?"

"We're a layer above the fabric of reality. Right now, we exist in an infinitesimal differential of time. No more, no less, although that figure of speech falls flat when you can't really get any less time, doesn't it?"

The voice echoed from every grain of sand in the desert, every molecule of gas in the air, and every cell in the Goddess' body. It was everywhere, and so it was nowhere. Its form was everything, and so it had no form.

"This was how your first pawn pulled her tricks," the voice said. "So I would think that you would be pretty familiar with it already. Not to mention you've existed as an abstraction for all of eternity by now."

Madoka stood perfectly still. "I know what happens next."

"Then why'd you ask the fucking question?"

"I was wondering why you decided to stop showing it."

"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea, isn't it? Why don't we try to understand the ineffable?"

The wind blowing through the sands grew slightly stronger.

"It's sad, really," the voice said. "Of course you know what happens next. Both of us do. But you try to pretend like you really don't, like you're still a normal human being. I've seen you talk to them like that."

Madoka closed her eyes and saw a universe behind her eyelids. "There's nothing wrong with being attached to my humanity."

"It makes you a fake."

Madoka took a few steps forward and kneeled by the pool. The water was cool to her skin as she splashed it against her. A tiny smile danced across her face. "I wouldn't think that you'd be concerned with what's fake or real."

"It's part of who we are," the voice said. "And there's no pretending otherwise. Both of us chose this path, and we're the only ones who have. Although, for a first meeting, I'm singularly unimpressed with how my only company is presenting herself."

"You seem lonely, Hashal."

"I haven't figured out how to do that yet, so that's unlikely," the voice said. "I've gotten irritationdown very proficiently, though. Quite proud of myself on that front. It's such a useful emotion. I know everythingthat happens, and it's quite rare when I can't use the emotion irritationto express my response."

The sky above Madoka was perfectly flat. She had never known that the sky she had seen when she had human eyes had tiny gradients in color, turning the canvas into fluid paint. This sky was a block of one inoffensive shade of blue, stretching into infinity. Madoka gazed up at it and relished the feeling of losing herself in the sky.

"It's not quite accurate to say that I know everything that happens," Madoka said. "I know, but I have yet to experience. So when I told Yoshio—"

"What the fuck is that, and why should I care about it?"

"—I thought you knew everything?"

"That doesn't mean that I remember every single insignificant lifeform that ever blinked into existence."

"Fair enough," Madoka said. "Well, I told one of my 'pawns' that I suspected that you were involved with the demons. I knew that you were, and I knew how. But I hadn't been told yet. And if I'm never told, I'll never know, so you have to tell me, so I can tell him."

"I really don't want to do this."

"But you do it anyway," Madoka said.

The sand picked up speed, slowly losing its previous subtlety. Madoka had to admit that she liked it better when the wind blew faster.

"Demons were always the most interesting phenomena in the universe," the voice said. "Far more amusing than that parlor trick magic, at any rate. So I observed them. I allowed myself to manifest the most insubstantial projection in the physical world and watched them in their containment, laid low after your pawns reduced them to humiliation."

Madoka straightened up from the pool. She was done taking in the landscape.

The voice grumbled, blending in with the sound of the wind. "Well, the demons evolved sapience on their own. Give them the credit for that. It was only a matter of time, anyway. But it took life several billion years, and it only took them a couple thousand. Impressive, if you ask me."

Sand began swirling up in a column before Madoka. "They noticed my presence. A few of them reached out and grabbed me. They devoured me, assimilating me into their miasma. Do you know what the smallest fraction of my power can do when released into the mortal realm?"

Madoka's heart panged with sympathy for Diana.

"The demons who took my power on that lonely Lyudian planet became archdemons," the voice said. "Their planet was in near-constant disarray, so they escaped the containment of your pawns without much difficulty. They collaborated with the local population years before they made their presence known. With their aid, they were able to stow themselves on spaceships and begin breeding miasma in space. They were able to sow the seeds of attack without a single one of your pawns noticing. But even more impressive, the Incubators didn't see a thing."

"And how did they do that?" Madoka asked.

"I have many tricks for impeding the Incubators," the voice said. "The demons learned them all when they took me. They used them then to evade detection, and they are using them right now to block the telepathy of your magical girls. They're also using mytricks to dematerialize their own grief cubes. I do represent decay, after all."

The column of sand grew thicker and more defined. Madoka, in a flash of light, summoned her bow and rested it against her hip.

"So ultimately," Madoka said, "this is all your fault."

"You could say that, yes."

"Do the demons worship you?"

The voice laughed. "Some do. It's hilarious. I might admire them, just as I once admired a few select humans, but I don't give a fuck whether or not they worship me."

"I must admit, your language is much worse than I thought it would be," Madoka said.

This time, the voice's laugh was harsh and ugly. It didn't come from everywhere, but instead, from the pillar of sand advancing towards Madoka. "You know, I once thought that you and I stood on a somewhat equal level," it said. "But you are a deity, like an Incubator, whereas I simply am. So I can be whatever I want. You might have come here expecting something different—maybe a pale, hooded figure with a skull for a face and carrying a scythe—and really, I could've been that, as easily as breathing. But I am not, so I was not."

The pillar twisted and looped in on itself. At its tip, a head, flat and pointed, formed out of the sand. The eyes of the serpent were hollow and sunken, and its fangs, despite their insubstantiality, looked sharp enough to cut bone.

"Enough about me. Why don't we talk about you for a bit, Goddess?"

Madoka absent-mindedly adjusted the ribbons in her hair. "Just a moment."

The desert exploded, sending sand flying into empty space. As the sands receded, they revealed a marble floor, decorated with ornate patterns of roses and lined with gold. Above them, a high, vaulted ceiling swept over the sky. Walls of stone erupted out of the ground to surround the two of them. Stained glass windows towering high above the earth cast colored light onto the ground.

A gilded throne, entwined with roses, materialized behind Madoka, but she did not sit down. Instead, she raised her bow and took aim. The pink light from the flare at the bow's tip cast half her face into shadow. The serpent remained still and silent.

The Goddess, terrible and mighty to behold, fired a bolt of energy at the serpent. It entered the serpent's jaws and exited from the roof of the mouth, instantly dispersing the sands in a burst of light. A scream of agony and frustration echoed throughout the hall.

"You are omnipresent, like me," Madoka said, "so if your power is diminished in one place for even a moment, then it is diminished throughout the entire universe for that moment. Am I correct?"

The voice was a raspy whisper in Madoka's ear. "You're just trying to buy your pawns time."

"You told me that they use your power to block telepathy," Madoka said. She propped up her elbow on her throne and rested her cheek on her closed fist. "Not to mention that the archdemons derive their power from you. I like to help my people in any way I can."

"This is what I hate about you," the voice said. "You've intervened at every possible opportunity. You shattered the foundations of reality into a billion pieces just to help the most miniscule fraction of a population that hadn't even gotten off their planet yet. You wrote yourself into the new universe so you could ascend to divinity. I didn't even know that sort of temerity was possible."

Madoka tightened her fist around her throne. "I don't think it's unreasonable to demand some respect inside my own hall."

The voice was silent for a couple seconds.

"Well, it was very amusing to watch you screw the Incubators in such an ironic way," the voice said. "In the old universe, the mahou shoujo program was their pride and joy, you know. Pubescent human girls really were the best shot they had at saving the universe. And, in a way, you ended up destroying it, didn't you?"

"You seem to be very involved with the Incubators," Madoka said. "What exactly are you?"

"What am I?" the voice said. "Well, that question is a bit complicated."

Something brushed against Madoka's shoulder. She whipped her head around to see, but only the back of her throne was there.

"I've been called many different names across many different worlds," the voice said. Now, it came from the foot of Madoka's throne, outside of her sight. "I've been called Erishkigal and Thanatos and Yama, but that's only by your people. It doesn't really matter what my name is, because I'm always there, and I don't care what I'm named.

"There are people who think that I'm going to take them to a better place, and there are some people who think that I'm there to pass judgment on the guilty. There were some humans that once thought that I made morality, and they called me God, but you're responsible for the end of that, aren't you?"

The sound of padded feet pressing against the marble floor circled Madoka's throne. For all its grandeur, the hall of the Goddess was very empty.

"It doesn't really matter what people think I'm going to do, because all I have to do is be. I'm pretty good at that. I know what I am, and what I want, and what I do, which is more than can be said for you.

"Once I didn't have a name at all, and I was one among many. Then I was called the Irregular, then the Traitor, and then the Enemy. Now I'm called entropy, and everyone has forgotten that once I didn't have a name."

A white tail flicked at the boundaries of Madoka's vision before it slipped out of view.

"You called me Hashal, and that's reasonably accurate, because Iam Hashal, and the Lyudians are the closest to really knowing what I am. But I really don't like taking names that other people give me.

"I'm called many different names across many different worlds," the voice said. "I exist in every single second that passes in this world, from beginning to end, and I'm in every single point in the infinite expanse of space. But no matter when I exist or where I walk, and no matter what I'm called, you can call me Death."

-x-

(i mean, i guess I could have made hashal use a more conventional "extremely powerful being" voice, but…mm, i don't know)

(anyway, another review shout out to randomnumbers523156, and thanks to everyone who's reviewing so far)

(as always, leave a review if you have anything positive or negative to say)

-x-

(as of 4/4/13, there have been a bunch of mistakes concerning me mixing up akira and may's names. because i keep track of my shit like a champ. thanks, jebli)