“You four are the last trial, then?”

“How observant. I thought your girlfriend was supposed to be the genius.”

“And I thought Shiko was supposed to be the antisocial one, yet here you are, brooding in an empty room and sniding anyone who comes by.”

I suppose I should have guessed that our last trial would be Flame. This stupid world seems to love cliches like that. Still, part of me was actually somewhat glad to see Kagami before me. She still looked mostly human, though she too had small horns growing from her head.

She didn’t seem too far gone. I could still bring her back to humanity.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t need saving. This is the only place left where I could possibly belong.”

“But it doesn’t have to be that way, Kagami. The Director is dead. There’s no vendetta left for you here.”

“The old man really croaked, did he? And I was so looking forward to butchering the pig myself,” she sighed, looking genuinely disappointed, before shaking it off and speaking again, “but that changes nothing. I’ve shed too much blood to belong on Earth. I’m a killer and a slaver. Fortunately, hell is full of those.”

“You’re a coward.”

“Excuse me?”

“This isn’t about ‘belonging’ at all. You just don’t wanna pay your penance for the things you’ve done.” I wasn’t entirely keeping my anger in check. The Director had dodged accountability by killing himself, I wasn’t about to let Kagami do the same. “Come back to Earth with us. Pay for your crimes properly. Don’t add to your list of sins by perpetuating a war that could end civilisation.”

If I was bad at hiding my anger, then Kagami wasn’t even trying.

“You don’t know a damn thing, Shin! My crimes couldn’t be paid for in a single human life. I have no other path than this. So don’t you dare call me a damn coward!”

That seemed to be the last straw, as she dashed toward me and threw a punch at my face, causing me to dodge backwards. She threw two more, forcing me to bob and weave between them, before shoving her away to put some distance between us.

“I don’t wanna fight you, Kagami. Let us pass, we can fix this, I swear.”

“Fix it? This situation is so far beyond fixing. All that’s left to do is watch in horror as the world burns. Stop trying to believe in anything different.”

She approached again, starting with a low kick into my calf and followed by a punch at my head. I once again slipped the punch, catching her arm and placing my foot behind her leg to throw her to the ground.

I didn’t want to hurt her if possible. Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted to believe that the girl I considered a friend was still in there.

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“Fight. Back. You. Coward!” Kagami yelled as she threw herself to her feet and launched four more punches at me, all of which I dodged backwards. On the last, I waited for her to overcommit and swept her leg out with my foot, sending her to the ground.

She once again jumped back to her feet, her frustration seemingly growing by the second.

“Maybe ‘Kei’ was never a real person, but I still believe you were really our friend, at least on some level. I won’t hurt you if I can avoid it.”

“That just makes you weak!”

“Weaker than the person who lashes out in violence instead of accepting her wrongs and paying her dues?”

“Arghhh, shut up, shut up, shut up!”

She threw even more strikes after me, all of which I dodged with relative ease even in my somewhat fatigued state. Something wasn’t right. The last time she and I fought, it took everything I had to not get beaten down at every turn. Now it felt like I was fighting a toddler, lashing out with unrestrained anger.

It was as if her mental state had collapsed completely.

“You don’t want to fight either, do you?” I asked, weaving past yet another violent and uncontrolled punch.

“You’re an idiot. If I didn’t want to fight you, I wouldn’t have volunteered for this job.” She didn’t slow down one bit, throwing a snap kick that just barely missed my chin. With every attack she was getting more and more aggressive, but less and less precise. Her attacks were becoming predictable and telegraphed, making them increasingly easy to dodge.

As I stepped in and gently threw her to the ground again, I tried to make sense of the situation in my head. There had to be something I was missing here, something that was making Kagami act out like this. When we had fought her before, she was certainly sadistic and volatile, but she always seemed like she had a good grasp on her sanity. So why? Why was she now falling apart before my eyes?

She rolled over backwards to get back to her feet before rushing at me with hatred in her eyes, aiming a punch for my throat, which I sidestepped effortlessly as she once again telegraphed her attack.

She was violently lashing out at me specifically… me… as if there was some sort of personal vendetta… but what had I done? Our last fight didn’t exactly end on good terms, but if anyone should have been pissed off about it all it should have been me. So what was inducing so much rage into her.

‘You and I, we’re mirror images.’

Kagami’s words from the day we captured the Director echoed in my mind. She says me and herself as reflections of one another, the identical inverse. Similar enough to use one as a surrogate for the other. In other words…

“The person you’re trying to lash out… it’s yourself, isn’t it?” After hearing my words, Kagami slowed to a stop, as if waiting for me to continue. I was still piecing it together myself. “You… you have some sort of self-hatred, and you’re projecting the parts you hate onto me. That’s the truth, Isn’t it?”

She didn’t suddenly start attacking again, but she also took a long while to answer.

“Why would I be lashing out at myself?”

“Simple. You’ve realised too late that joining hell was the wrong move, and now you’re blaming yourself for the blood that’s been shed during this war.” I was taking an educated guess, but by the way her eyes widened I guessed I was along the right track. “You think, without you and your girls, the Director's plan might have fallen through, and Earth would be safe. You’re blaming yourself for what you believe is the inevitable conquering of Earth.”

She didn’t respond with words, or even a change in facial expression. She simply continued to look angry, frustrated and miserable as she had since I got here.

“That… that’s a stupid thing to say. What do you think makes you qualified to guess at what I’m feeling?”

“I can guess because I know that feeling of guilt. After all, you and I, we’re mirror images.”

For a moment, I thought I had completely talked her down. She didn’t move a muscle, not even to speak, as if she had given up entirely.

Unfortunately, my ‘victory’ was cut short.

“I… I’m nothing like you. You have no idea what you’re talking about.” There was quiet rage in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. She raised her arm in front of her face, and I reacted a hair too slowly. “Time Dilation!”