On the plateau, only two Spirits remained, plunged into immense grief by the "passing" of the same boy, along with the silent, suffocating despair that spread around them.
One was heart-dead and vacant due to the "passing" of her beloved, the other was silently sorrowful due to the crushing of hope.
The two Spirits, on this ruin soaked in sunset and blood, were connected by the same immense sorrow, and plunged into a deathly silence by the same absolute despair.
Only the tense defensive posture of the AST Unit in the distance, and the relentless screaming of the Spatial Quake alarm, proved that the world's cruelty was still ongoing.
The body of the Heavenly Judgment trembled slightly, as if resisting some invisible, massive impact.
The hand clutching her chest slowly lowered, and her tightly clenched fist gradually loosened, though her fingertips still twitched uncontrollably.
The violent gasping gradually subsided, not because the pain lessened, but because something deeper and colder had frozen and crushed all her intense emotions.
She no longer attempted to touch Shido, as if the "remains" had become an insurmountable boundary stone representing humanity's ultimate answer.
She slowly, extremely slowly, raised her head. The last faint glimmer of light in her golden eyes was completely extinguished, leaving behind only boundless emptiness and dead silence.
However, beneath this dead silence, cold undercurrents seemed to be surging.
— It was a resolve mixed with ultimate sorrow, absurd mockery, and... finally, the complete severing of all hesitation.
Her gaze no longer focused solely on Shido, but pierced through his "corpse" and looked further afield.
— It fell upon the ready yet fearful AST Unit members, upon the human city where the Spatial Quake alarm still blared but which held no meaning for her, and even upon the Fraxinus, which might be observing this place from afar.
Her lips moved slightly; her voice was soft, yet carried a strange clarity that pierced all noise, like the bell of final judgment ringing in the hearts of every living being who could hear her:
"...Is this..."
Her voice paused, as if savoring the heavy, sickening implications behind the word.
"...the ultimate answer... that you humans have given?"
There was no frantic questioning, only a cold calm born of absolute realization.
The sorrow in her tone was not for the individual who had passed, but for a minuscule possibility that might once have existed.
She was silent for a moment, as if waiting for a refutation or explanation that would never come. Finally, she softly, almost sighing, uttered three words:
"...I understand now."
These three words were light, yet they seemed to drain the last trace of "humanity's" warmth from her being.
All confusion, all probing, all the faint expectations for this world—which were hidden beneath her pride and schemes, and perhaps not even clearly recognized by her—vanished completely at this moment.
She slowly turned around, no longer sparing a glance for Shido on the ground, as if he were merely wreckage that had no further connection to her or this world.
Her gaze fell upon Tohka, who stood beside her, feeling uneasy and even more sorrowful because of Chinatsu's state.
Tohka, at this moment, was like an abandoned cub, her anger replaced by greater confusion and helplessness.
Chinatsu extended her hand toward her.
The hand was steady and fair, no longer trembling in the slightest.
Tiny sparks of electrical light, representing the authority of space and thunder, wreathed her fingertips, seemingly announcing a path completely severed from the past.
Her voice was still calm, yet carried an undeniable finality, like a declaration of fate:
"Tohka, we are leaving."
Her golden eyes met Tohka's purple pupils, revealing bottomless coldness and a nearly cruel lucidity.
"This world... which cannot tolerate him, and cannot tolerate you..."
"...does not deserve to have us."
The moment the words fell, the restrained spiritual power around her began to slowly surge like a waking dragon; space subtly warped around her, signaling that the will of the Heavenly Judgment Herrscher would no longer pause for any "Understanding" or "coexistence."
The hand she extended to Tohka was both an invitation and a cold, merciless line drawn between two opposing sides.
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