At the twelfth hour, deep within the Memory Zone.
"You should draw that blade, Ranger."
The silver iron cavalry knelt on one knee and clenched her fist. Flames like crimson vipers spread across her armor.
When the thruster at her left leg joint flickered faintly, the tiled ground instantly shattered.
Before her,
Yomi, a long blade at her waist and coldness in her purple scorpion-like eyes, raised her sheath. A desolate, mysterious aura spread from around her, carrying a trace of chill that seeped into the limbs and bones of every living being nearby.
"Huntress." Yomi lifted her furisode patterned with asura demons, serpent bones, and flames, then asked softly, "Do you still dream?"
"Do you dream of those who died because of you?"
Her voice pierced through the armor's layers and reached Firefly's ears.
For an instant, Firefly's movements slowed slightly.
But in the next moment, she clenched her iron fist, and a ring of flame burst from her chassis.
Scattered sparks were swept toward Yomi by the high-pressure gale, stirring her long purple hair and furisode.
As their fighting spirits collided, Yomi's eyes narrowed, and her left hand, covered in silver finger-bone guards, gripped the hilt.
The moment her fingertips rested upon it, memories from the past few days flooded her mind.
She remembered the hoarse flame she had witnessed at Eternal Flame Mansion, one that had already gone out.
She remembered the final choice of that fire demon who had emerged bathed in flames.
He could have left, yet in the final instant of his life, he chose to spread, burn, and destroy until the last fuel was exhausted, leaving only dead ashes across the ground.
Perhaps that had been a magnificent moment of "Destruction."
Yet as that magnificent flame gradually became clear, an echo of chaos