Juna heard hurried footsteps approaching her cell. It seemed that she was gonna have a visitor again. Standing up, Juna stretched her body to prevent cramps.

What greeted her seconds later were not other people controlled by Joachim but the fraud doctor himself. Drabbed in a cape that held some weird symbols, the man scowled at her.

"I'm done with Rossi. You're next."

Juna blinked, absorbing his words before she grinned. It seemed like his hurried steps weren't for nothing. Time to shake him up. "Did Lloyd and the others defeat your 'army'?"

"Shut up!"

"They did, didn't they? Oh, Aidios, it's so funny!" Juna had full-blown laughter for the first time since her captivity. "Next, they're gonna storm this place and get you."

"Shut up!" Joachim punched the prison bar in frustration. The resounding sound of bones breaking was music to Juna's ears. This guy was rattled up. Even so, Juna noted that Joachim's power was beyond normal human as his punch bent the bar. Did he also consume Gnosis? "They don't even know this place!"

"Do they?" Juna saved all those questions for later and instead continued sowing the seed of doubt. "Lloyd is a detective, you know. He's gonna notice that there's a suitable place for you to establish a base after eliminating all the remaining possibilities. As a famous detective once said, 'once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth.'"

Oh, how she relished frustration leaking in his body language. He might have tried everything to hold back, but Juna knew better.

"...You..."

He was hesitating. Joachim was hesitating! She needed to capitalize on this! Juna mentally asked for forgiveness from Lloyd for what she was about to do.

"In my humble opinion, it's better for you to shore up the defense of this place, or else the SSS would just walk straight down and bring the fight to you."

Joachim frowned. He looked at her intensely, to Juna's confusion. Was she not persuasive enough?

"How are you so sure that Bannings would come to save you? He's the one leaking your involvement to me."

"How many times do I have to say this? I don't believe you," Juna retorted Joachim's question with a scoff.

"Shall I reveal the moment so that you'd be sure, then?" Joachim grinned. "Oh, MacDowell's despair was delightful when I revealed how I knew of you."

Juna frowned. Joachim was trying to get a rise out of her. She shook her head. "No need. If you say so, then you'll do everything to break my resolve. Unfortunately, my faith in Lloyd is unshakeable."

That was right. Her faith in Lloyd. It might born just because she identified Lloyd as the main character, but it grew because of all the interactions she had with the SSS. The fact of the matter was she believed in Lloyd's sense of justice and responsibility. While Juna still didn't believe Joachim's words, she had faith that Lloyd would try to save her because he felt responsible if it were true.

With the two of them having launched their attacks, the situation was a stalemate. So Juna went to the offensive again.

"What about you? Is this place secure enough? Lloyd would beat anyone you put as a guard."

"I am confident in the system I put," Joachim said neutrally. Dang it. It seemed like he caught on to what she was trying to do. However, it appeared that her needling bore fruit because Joachim started to walk away.

With one last glance, he scoffed before leaving Juna with some parting words. "Be ready to achieve true Wisdom and be freed from Aidios' machination after I dealt with those pests."

Once he left, Juna let out a huge breath of relief.

"I can't believe that worked. Thank Aidios that I know the SSS are the main characters."

It was easy to guess when Joachim was that hurried. The classic trope of the hero overcoming the calculating villain's prediction, usually with the help of the power of friendship. Still, she was not bluffing when she said Lloyd and the others would storm this base. This place was worthy to become a final dungeon. Either they would work things out to figure it out themselves, or people would tell them about this place, mostly because she was held here.

So yeah. Juna could've just relaxed and waited until she was rescued.

But was that the best move she could do?

No, Juna shook her head with a frown.

Lloyd was coming here, good. But at the same time, Joachim had finished playing with Rossi. The next time he came here, Juna would say goodbye to her consciousness.

That set the time limit. She had to escape from the cell before Joachim came back from doing whatever. The problem that made her stop thinking about escaping was that there was nothing in her cell to be used as a weapon.

"Do I really have to sacrifice my arms?" Juna questioned aloud, wondering once again if she should use her arms to break the prison bar.

Juna sat down with a heavy sigh.

If only there was something she could use as a weapon...

She closed her eyes, clearly not looking forward to breaking her arms.

"Hm?" On the corner of her eyes, she saw a yellow butterfly floating inside the cell. "Pretty~"

At times like this, she'd take anything to distract her thoughts. Thinking over and over again that she needed to escape while not doing anything would've just stressed her out. And that butterfly was striking enough to distract her.

"Wait."

Juna's mind went into overdrive. Butterfly. Butterfly... Where had she stumbled upon them before? She knew she had heard about it. But her mind couldn't come up with the answer fast. It was significant; she knew it.

Butterfly... Yellow butterfly...

"When I finally got out, I saw this yellow butterfly and started to chase it! It was sooooo pretty!"

Juna gasped when she remembered where she had heard about a yellow butterfly. "Colin. That's right, Colin saw a yellow butterfly and chased it to the West Highway."

Was it important? It was only a second time, not enough to establish a pattern.

Juna looked at the yellow butterfly again. Currently, it was perched just outside the corner of her cell. Strangely enough, it didn't perch on the floor or the prison bar. It was perched on a stack of... Huh? What?

"That's..."

Just outside of her cell, close enough for her hand to reach them, there was a stack of metal sheets. Juna quickly approached, and the yellow butterfly floated away from the metal sheets.

"I swear to Aidios it wasn't there before..." she muttered. But, then again, she didn't look closely outside after confirming that there were no other people in her adjacent cells. She only scanned the inside of her cell.

Juna shook her head. She put the weird development aside and instead began working on using it to solve her problem.

"Metal sheets. Metal sheets..." She carefully took one of them and tried to bend it. It was hard but doable. She had to use her strength and the wall to fold it. "Great."

Juna then placed a new sheet on the wall and pushed it with her lower left arm. Using her right arm, she bent the sheet following the contour of her left arm from top to bottom. Once it formed a U shape, she rolled it and folded one of the ends inside the other, making a cylinder bracer on her lower arms.

Testing it, Juna knocked her protected arm on the wall and felt the impact to her arms lessened by the makeshift bracer.

"Yeah, that'll do." She looked at the still-thick stack of metal sheets. "...on second thought, maybe two or three layers would be better, considering how thin one sheet of them is."

Five minutes later, both of her lower arms were protected by the metal sheets, which she turned into makeshift bracers. "Alright. Time to bust out of this place!"

The SSS, plus Estelle and Joshua, had entered the Sun Fort. They were on a mission to save Juna and capture Joachim. On the way, so far, they had defeated lots of monsters such as Prairie Bat, Orgone Spider, Black Onyx, Zan Su, Aka Manaf, and many others. The combination of those monsters warranted the necessity of the group to combine their skills, as some monsters were weak to physical attack while others were to orbal attacks.

Right now, they were on the Second Stratum, and the scenery around them was full of orbal technology.

Elie commented, "All the modern equipment here seems so out of place..."

"I wonder if Joachim modified all these contraptions himself?" Estelle wondered aloud.

"...I'd say so," Lloyd answered before he explained, "If I were to guess, Joachim used the equipment to complete his Gnosis research."

Joshua nodded. "Yeah, that'd make sense. Especially since we never found anything at the hospital that came close to this stuff."

"...!" Joshua and Tio both turned towards the door in front of them.

"Incoming!" Tio reported.

Two mafia goons walked towards them.

"It's them..." Lloyd said as everyone prepared their weapon.

"Tsk, tsk. Managed to stumble your way inside this maze, eh?" Randy muttered.

"All they stumbled their way into is a pummeling!" Estelle growled. "That drug may have made you stronger, but we outnumber y-"

"Wait a moment!" Tio cut the Bracer off. "Something's not right!"

Her feeling was correct. Not a second later, sinister purple light emitted from their bodies as they groaned in pain.

"AaaaAAAAAaaaaaaaaahhhHHHHH!"

"W-What's wrong with them?" Elie asked with some hesitation.

"Are they..." Joshua's eyes widened when the two mafiosos turned into demons.

"Metamorphosis...?!" Tio mentioned in shock.

"We can figure that out later!"

Once the six of them dealt with the two demons, they turned back into humans and fell unconscious.

"Th-They're..."

"It's like watching a nightmare."

Estelle and Elie muttered in sympathy.

"Demonization... I've heard of things like this, but this is the first time I've seen it myself..." Joshua remarked, seeing the two bodies on the ground.

Lloyd moved and checked the two's pulse. "They're unconscious. They'll be out for a while, but their lives shouldn't be in danger," he concluded.

"Phew... That's a relief."

The six of them stared at what they just defeated. A real-life demon not from Gehenna but transformed from people. What a terrifying thing Gnosis was.

"I am afraid that this is another power of the doctor's Gnosis. The transformation occurring in the user's mind can become so potent that it alters their body, as well."

At this point, Lloyd would take any kind of justification for what he had just witnessed.

"Whoa, Tio-tot... You aren't jokin', are you? That's freakin' ridiculous. They might've been some good-for-nothin' grunts, but they didn't deserve this..." Randy, who might have lots of connections with ruffians like them, clearly sympathized with their circumstances of being manipulated by Joachim.

"This Joachim... I'm going to rearrange his ugly mug with my staff. Just wait!" Estelle declared by punching the air in frustration.

"Let's go. We should comb the surrounding area for clues. There may be valuable information on the cult hidden somewhere nearby," Lloyd took the lead once more.

"Understood!"

"Eight Leaves One Blade, Eighth Form: Destructive Impact!" Juna went into a stance and pushed her arm forward. However, while the usual Destructive Impact used your hand, this time, Juna used her lower arm to protect them from breaking her bones.

Juna attacked the weak point of the prison bar, which did not exist before Joachim punched them in frustration. The sound of her protected arm meeting the prison bar resulted in a loud clang that reverberated through the empty cells.

It bent a little, but not enough. The power from Destructive Impact was lessened because she did it improperly. Hmm, maybe there existed an Eighth Form that used the lower arms instead of her palm or fist, but she didn't know. She'd ask Arios later. She repeated the attack again and again until, finally, there was a hole in the bar big enough for her to slip out.

"Alright!" Juna jumped in celebration. Getting out so soon was an achievement in itself. After several seconds of celebration, Juna regained focus and scanned her surroundings.

This was a final dungeon. The obvious thing was that she needed to find the way out. But where to go? She had no weapons or items, and Joachim would be coming for her.

"I can think that once I reached an intersection."

Juna quickly ran towards the exit. Once she was outside the prison, she looked around. It turned out that her prison was located on the cliffside. Maybe it was a precaution so strong enough prisoners wouldn't just bust out the wall? She didn't know.

"Thank Aidios, I wasn't strong enough to destroy the wall. I could've jumped to my death, haha..."

Juna saw only a way forward. Ascending the stairs, Juna saw weird eye-lookalike symbol banners plastered on the wall. Symbol of the cult? There was also a strange orbal device that emitted light. An illumination system? It wasn't like the orbal lamp she knew. More cult stuff?

Juna shrugged and entered the hall. The corridor inside was dark, but with the orbal lamps, it was bright enough for her to see the way in front of her.

She whistled when her eyes found the giant figure of a monster. It roamed the hall just before an intersection. It looked powerful with muscled inhuman limbs, but some part of it was clearly similar enough to human, such as the face.

"Oh damn..."

She quietly backtracked outside the hall again. Juna was sure the monster would chase her. She had to find a way to get around it. Or worse, she had to fight it barehanded. Oh, Juna wasn't deluded. She knew she was outmatched. This was obviously the final dungeon where the monsters outclassed her. But she also knew that Joachim would be coming. She couldn't just stay there. She had to move!

Determination coursed her body as she decided to do something.

She would do her best to sneak and run away from the monsters!

Juna entered the hall again and quietly put her back on the wall. Slowly, she moved, trying not to catch the monster's attention.

Right. After evading the monster, there was... Juna held herself from groaning out loud. After the monster, there was an intersection. There were three ways she could choose, and she didn't know what to choose. Damn it.

Which one? She had to choose before committing her entire power to run. Juna switched her attention between the three ways she could go. Left? Right? Or straight? Which one would lead her to the exit?

Just as she was about to choose, the yellow butterfly entered her sight. Juna paid full attention to it as it was ignored by the monster and went straight.

Was that a sign?

"Alright, straight it is..." Juna decided to believe.

She took a deep breath before she entered a stance. She had to match the timing with the monster. She'd go the moment the monster showed its back on her. Hold... hold...

The monster turned, and Juna was now in its blind spot.

Now! "Second Form: Gale!"

Juna kicked the floor and dashed. However, instead of going towards the monster, Juna ignored it and went straight to the other side of the hall. She used the speed of Gale to dash away instead of attacking the enemy.

The monster growled when it sensed her movement, but by then, it was too late. She was already out of its reach.

"Yeah!"

One obstacle cleared! Juna slowed down her movement when she sensed the monster not following her. Catching her breath, Juna leaned on the wall.

"Phew. I hope my decision to follow the obvious clues in the yellow butterfly is correct," Juna muttered between her panting. She had to wonder, though, what exactly was the yellow butterfly? Why was it helpful to her twice but almost sent Colin to his death?

Lloyd had just released Marconi and his underlings from the prison. It was a hard decision since it was Marconi, the leader of the mafioso. But ultimately, Lloyd decided to do so.

"This is only because it's an emergency. Incredibly strong monsters wander around this place like it's their home. Trying to escape is tantamount to suicide. My advice is to stay put and wait for the police to start their rescue mission."

Lloyd warned the mafiosos, but the elderly man just scoffed.

"Hmph. Don't go barking orders at me, brat! Your job here is done! Scram!"

Lloyd just sighed. He then remembered something.

"Don Marconi, I have one last question."

He fished a CPD badge out of his pocket. It wasn't his, but rather, the one they found in the Revache's base. It was Guy's CPD badge, which had a big slash on it.

"Do you recognize this?"

As he showed the badge to the head of Revache, Marconi looked on to the badge.

"I feel like I've seen this one before..." Moments later, he recognized whose badge it was. "Th-That's the badge of that insufferable detective...! How did you get your hands on that?!"

"Funny. I was going to ask you the same thing. Did you kill the owner of this badge? Did you kill Guy Bannings?"

Despite asking in a firm tone, Lloyd's eyes were not angry. He did not accuse. He just wanted confirmation. Juna said that the truth about Guy's murder case would be revealed. But as she had told them before, while she still thought her prediction would come true, there was no harm in Lloyd investigating it himself, just like KeA's memories.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about. Besides, you might meet the same fate as him if you get carried away. Better learn your place quick and make sure to keep us happy, or else..." Marconi tried to threaten the SSS.

But he cowed once Lloyd glared at him fiercely.

"F-Fine! I'll talk, okay?! That pest was named Guy, right? Well, sorry, 'cause we weren't the ones who killed him!" Marconi revealed. "Y-Yeah, we might have been planning on taking him out since he was such a pain in the ass to deal with... but still! Before we could act, some other guy did the job for us! That badge was just some piece of junk that my men took from the scene of the crime!"

"..."

Lloyd fell silent.

"Is that really the whole truth?" Elie questioned.

"He does not seem to be lying, at least. Though it is possible that he's simply an incredibly good liar," Tio offered an alternative take on the situation.

"If everything he said was true, removin' key evidence from the victim and hidin' it like a treasure... You got quite a strange hobby there, don'tcha, Marconi?"

"Ugh, shut it," Marconi sighed. "A-Anyway, we didn't kill him! Yeah, he was probably... No, absolutely killed by Joachim! After all, that detective was conducting an investigation into Joachim while annoying us, too!"

What? Everyone turned their attention to Marconi.

"My brother was..."

"So he had the mastermind pinned down long before we found out about it..." Joshua nodded in respect.

"Lloyd's brother really sounds like he was an amazing man..." Estelle smiled despite their situation.

Lloyd shook his head and refocused himself. "It doesn't matter. We'll learn the truth once we capture Joachim. We've spent enough time here. Everyone, let's move out."

"Right!"

After resting for a while, Juna exited the hall only to see more cliffs. She scanned her surroundings and found another monster. This time, it was even more menacing than before. It was a chimeric fusion of five big snakes. Clearly, it was inspired by Hydra. However, what caught her attention was the coloration. Its scales were brownish gold. She'd bet just the skin was tough, probably earth-element aligned, too.

Juna had to be careful here. Five heads meant five eyes to see everything around it. She quietly leaned on the wall again to make herself smaller. Slowly, she took one silent step. Unfortunately, it was at the time the monster turned one of its heads to her.

"Shit!"

Juna quickly abandoned subtlety and went into a stance. Tough skin. So she wouldn't risk attacking it.

"Second Form: Gale!"

Juna ran on the wall as one of the snake heads struck her previous place. Without looking back, Juna found an entrance to a building. She dearly hoped it was a way to the exit, but since all around her were bottomless canyons, she couldn't go anywhere but that building.

She entered and took a turn to one corner. The classic trope of a chaser was that they'd miss looking behind them. Juna hoped it'd work in her favor. But thankfully, the Hydra-inspired monster didn't even enter the building.

After catching her breath, Juna started walking along the hall and arrived at another intersection. However, this time it was different. There was a single platform in the middle, and hers and the path to the right had bridges, while the path straight and left had a gaping hole. Juna looked around and saw a lever on the path to the left.

"Ah..." The infamous puzzle to be solved by the players to progress through the dungeon. Wait. Since she hadn't encountered Lloyd yet, did that mean this was the correct path to the exit? Or had he completed the puzzle on this path, and the path to the right would lead to a dead end?

Juna was broken off of her thoughts by a growl from a monster. Damn it, she cursed inside her mind as she retreated before the monster could see her.

Wait. Now that she thought about it. Falling down from this place would lead to doom, wouldn't it? Why didn't she just lead the previous snakey monster to fall down the cliff? Ah, well, she'd do that if she had to backtrack. Right now, Juna prepared herself before she stood on the middle platform.

"Hey, you monster!"

The monster roaming had a humanoid torso complete with the arms, but its bottom was just a single limb. And it creaked whenever it moved. A golem? It turned its head when Juna called out.

"I'm here!"

Juna waved her arms, getting its attention. The monster ran towards her, brandishing its scythe.

Juna took several steps back so that she was standing on the edge of the middle platform. She went into a stance for Gale. Her timing had to be precise. She couldn't go too early or risk the golem stopped before it fell, but she couldn't go too late that her path of running was closed.

The monster growled as it ran.

"Now! Second Form: Gale!"

Juna kicked the ground and ran.

Was the monster wearing armor, or was it just living armor in the first place? Juna didn't know. However, the mass of the armor was enough to force momentum against it. The monster roared as it couldn't stop and fell into the chasm below.

"Fuuuuuhhhhh~"

Juna let out a breath of relief. She didn't believe it worked. If monsters were this stupid, she was very- no, she couldn't jinx it. Please be careful, Lloyd.

Juna saw the yellow butterfly floating past her toward the path to the right, which was now in front of her. Without hesitation, Juna ascended the stairs and was greeted with an open door. The next room was another intersection, but a quick glance to the left showed that it was a dead end. Juna then turned to the right immediately. Once it reached a corner, there were several steps of stairs going down and a locked door to her right.

"More part of the puzzle?" Nevertheless, Juna ignored it and continued past the locked door.

She took the stairs up, feeling a little hopeful that this was the way to the exit. Juna concluded that this place wasn't a tower but an underground dungeon. The way to the exit is up.

As she walked, she heard the sound of explosions and clashes of weapons. What? Juna crouched around the corner, peeking from behind a torch.

"That's..." Juna's face turned into a big smile because she was seeing the SSS and Estelle and Joshua fighting a big bipedal monster wielding a... Wait, that demonic-looking sword!

"Haaaaa!"

She saw Randy jump and smash the monster with his poleaxe.

"Star Blast!"

Then Lloyd and Elie combined their power and finished the monster.

"Gaaaahhhh!" It screamed in pain before its body was enveloped in malevolent purple light and turning smaller and smaller until...

"So it really is Ernest..." Juna whispered. Unconsciously, a grin found its way onto her face. But she had to restrain herself from running towards them because of one thing: post-boss battle cutscene. Juna waited until Lloyd confirmed Ernest was unconscious before she came out of her hiding place and shouted.

"Everyone!"

The look of surprise and delight on the six of them was something that Juna would treasure all her life.

"Juna!" Lloyd shouted.

"I'm glad...! I'm truly glad!" Elie fell down to her knees, crying.

"You certainly made us worry, Junie," Randy grinned.

"Thank Aidios, you're alright," Joshua smiled.

Juna ignored them because she immediately embraced Tio and Estelle.

Slowly, tears began falling down Juna's eyes.

"I'm happy that you're safe," Tio sighed in her embrace.

"I..." Juna sobbed.

"Ehehe... It's okay, Juna. Cry as long as you want. I'll just hold you like this," Estelle said as she tightened her own embrace on Juna's body.

Juna couldn't see it, but Joshua let out a small laugh at Estelle's words.

Thus ended Juna's lone adventure inside the final dungeon.


A/N: Trails protagonist has thier own personal 'get out of prison' sequence each arc, ergo, Juna is now a Trails protagonist. Also Estelle is Bestelle