“Kagami what are you…”

“Doing here? Ain’t that obvious? I’m doing what you told me. Paying my penance.” Kagami, along with the rest of Flame, casually strolled over the rubble that remained of the door, seemingly unphased by the death barrier that had been used to keep us in.

“What are you talking about? Steal my thunder? What do you mean?”

“Didn’t the big man upstairs tell you? You’re not the only one with that power.”

With a gasp, I recalled what God had told me in that dream where he had given me the power of 「Soul Sacrifice」.

Just one other has been offered our intervention

“You…you’re the one other…”

“Took you long enough to figure it out. I kinda assumed it’d be obvious to you. After all,” she passed by me as she spoke, pausing to look back at me, “you and I are mirror images.”

This was her idea of paying penance. To sacrifice her own life in place of mine.

“You can’t-!”

“Why not? After all the harm I’ve done, can’t I go out with this one good deed under my belt? You’re so cruel, Shin.”

“But there’s still time! You can still turn yourself around!”

“Without you around to kick my ass when I step out of line? That’s never gonna happen. This… this is my one act of good, to expunge as much of the bad as I can.”

I took a step forward and outstretched my arm, but couldn’t move any further. Had I been this exhausted this whole time? I had let adrenaline push me this far, but my entire body ached. Why now? Why couldn’t I stop her?

“Juno! What the hell is this!” To my side, Saki yelled at the enigmatic leader of Flame, anger and despair in her voice. “I thought you did everything to protect your friends! What do you think you’re doing!”

“This is the desire of all of us, Saki. Was it not you who told me to respect the will of my friends? This is their will.” Nakama took Kagami’s left hand, as the two stood in front of the mighty beast that had almost killed us mere seconds before.

“What is this farce? Those behind thee are thy enemy, what treachery causes thee to pass them by and face me down?”

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“Can it, fly boy. You said it yourself, demons don’t know ‘loyalty.’ And at this point, we’re just as demon as we are human.” Nakama spat as she spoke down to The Devil Himself like he was no more than a petulant child.

“Kyoko… you too?” Asked Mai sadly, to the girl a few paces in front of her.

“Sorry, Mai. Might need to take a rain check on that Shogi game.”

“I… understand.”

Though the conversation was practically meaningless to me, the two seemed to come to an instant understanding. Mai didn’t try to stop Yokoshima, and Yokoshima invited no argument. Her mind was simply made up. She took Kagami’s right hand and joined her friends in confrontation with Baal.

“Aya…”

“Thanks, Nao,” said Shiko bluntly. “I appreciate everything you said to me. Really, I do. But… I think I’ll have to turn down your offer. I already have people to be my strength.” She took Nakama’s left hand, the four of them now creating a wall between us and Baal.

“I-I… I didn’t mean like this… I…” Nao started to break down in tears. “I… wanted you to live, Aya. I wanted you to see the beauty in the world…”

“My world is ugly, Nao. It’s ugly and cruel and terrible. But if there’s one thing left for me to do in it, it’s to protect that beautiful world you told me about. That way, I might see it in my next life, right?”

Myself and my friends, exhausted and drained from everything we had been through, watched on helplessly as the girls we swore we would save prepared to sacrifice themselves for us.

“This… this isn’t the way this was supposed to go…” I muttered, just loud enough for them to hear it. “We… we were supposed to bring you back… we were supposed to make this all right…” Just like Nao, I felt myself starting to well up with tears. But I was powerless to stop what had already been set in motion.

“Make it all right? You’re more naive than I thought, Shin.” Kagami chuckled sadly as she spoke. “Nothing about any of this was ever right. It never could be. We… were never destined for some grand redemption. The four of us… we’re rotten through and through. So, where better of a place for us to die, than in the most rotten place of all?”

“But you don’t have to! We could-”

“Die in our place? What good would that do? You think Earth would be better off with us than you? You’re heroes, you damned fool. You’re not meant to die here.”

I tried to argue again, but had no words to argue with. Her determination to die… why was it so damn strong? Why was she so insistent?

I breathed in as deeply as I could, trying to cool my mind before speaking one last time.

“I…won’t forget you. Kei.”

“Heh… still calling me that even now? You’ll make me cry. Now get moving. This room won’t hold for long once “That Power” is triggered.

Wordlessly, I nodded and accepted the situation as it was. I had failed. I had utterly failed to bring her back. But… this truly seemed like what she wanted. I couldn’t tread on that.

With one look at my comrades, we silently agreed. We’d live to fight another day.

“Juno… wherever it is you all end up… take care of them, yeah?” Said Saki.

“Betrayers of hell, rejecters of heaven, exiles from Earth… I don’t believe there’s any world left for us to go. But… I will protect them, afterlife or no.”

“Guess that’s the answer I should have expected. We’ll meet again.”

“Perhaps. But now, you must leave.”

The four of us reluctantly turned away from the scene. There was nothing left for us to say. Nothing except.

“Goodbye.”

I don’t even remember which of us it was that said it.