Her Legacy

Nora remembered the day Rorie left them. She told them to watch the cottage while she went to the capital, promising to come back soon with good news and bake them her favorite pie to eat together.

She never did.

"Rorie got Purged!" One townsfolk cried, flinging papers everywhere. "What is this world coming to?! Surely that's a mistake!"

"A Mieitai must've gotten her and took her place, and we were none the wiser!" Remarked another. "Queen Higure must have been devastated."

"Oh, definitely. There's no reason otherwise to babble about coexistence with the Mieitai. There's no conscience in them to coexist with!" scoffed a third. "Even her final words were said to be begging to 'not hurt them'. Good thing her brother's still alright."

"YOU LIE!" She remembered Shirei's anguished cries as she whaled on the gossipers, while she couldn't even set foot outside the room Rorie gave her.

She once told them that there were many ways to express themselves when they were upset without hurting others or themselves. All Nora could manage was shutting herself away in Rorie's little cottage. She didn't know what to do with a pain that was this deep.

Even when Shirei finally left the cottage for the capital, seeking answers no matter the risk to their kind. Nora stayed behind. If it wasn't for Rete sneaking by and pestering her, she probably would have never even left her room all these years.

A part of her hoped that if she stayed long enough, Rorie would come back. Nora never truly understood where she came from as a Mieitai, just that deep inside the darkness that composed her was a vague, indescribable trace of something, or someone.

Maybe Rorie could've shown up somewhere in the Anryo as a Mieitai, but that never happened either.

The only thing that was able to make her leave the village was the threat of the end of the world, spurred by rumors of the culprit.

"Consort Shirei killed King Kojingi!"

"Did a Mieitai sneak in among His Majesty's concubines?"

"In the royal palace, in the presence of Kozodia's divine light? That's impossible!"

---

"Did you ever find out why?" Nora quietly asked, still a vaguely human-shaped kneeling blotch of darkness. "Why they had to Purge her?"

Shirei towered over her as she now stood, her head the only part not concealed by her black cloak. "I tried to. I really did." She turned away from the memorial, bangs covering her eyes.

"When the last queen died, and that man started recruiting women across Kozodia to be concubines, I used that as my way into the palace. I, too, wanted to know if there was something about our existence that ended up hurting Rorie, just by having her love us.

"She never spoke poorly of any of them, even with their mistreatment, even at death's door. I owed it to her, and everything she gave us, to at least try to understand if there was even one good reason for what they did. But there just wasn't."

She started making her way down the steps, one deliberate step at a time.

"They took us to the courts to watch those who stood accused of being us, even though they were wrong every single time. Even the terribly injured ones who confessed their guilt were not us. Their methods for finding Mieitais couldn't even see me. Yet the only thing they wanted us to do was sit there and cheer as they took them away and seized their homes. I wondered if they even knew they were Purging their own people. But they had to after so many times."

"Shirei..." Nora stood up, morphing herself back into the pink-haired hero in her blue leather attire. "I... had no idea." She turned to face her from above the steps, but her back was turned to her once more.

"Do you know why I ended up being chosen as consort, Nora?" Shirei asked, her familiarity subsumed by the conqueror within. "It was for one reason alone, that he told me in his private chambers."

"You're the one that's most like Rorie out of all the girls. Give me that light."

"Before I could fully take in his words, he was dead at my feet."

She raised her hand, fingers curled into a claw. "He never had his bloodright's affinity for the light. He would have never taken the throne if Rorie was still around. That's the only reason she's gone."

Shirei began to raise her foot, but gently placed it down on the ground. She looked like it took her significant restraint not to crash it down and make a mess of Rorie's resting spot.

"Some 'King of Light' he was. How did somebody born of the light hold a heart blacker than anything from the dark? Even taking on his form to deal with the rest was thoroughly sickening."

She shook her head.

"No, I think we've talked long enough here. It was nice to speak to each other like this again, Nora... But there's something we must do, isn't there?" 

She declared ominously as she began to leave the secluded space of vines.

"I—I don't know if I can... After talking to you again, I'm not sure if I can fight you, Shirei."

She paused her steps. "So you will let the world be covered in shadow?"

"Is there really no other way? Do you really need to do this?"

"No, there is not."

"But why, Shirei? You know this isn't what Rorie would've wanted!" Nora pleaded. "You got rid of everyone responsible for what happened to her! You already avenged her! Continuing this is just going to kill everyone! Innocent people, just like her! What more is there left for you to do?! This 'change' of yours?!"

"...I'm well aware. That's why you need to face me." Shirei turned around to lock eyes with her.

"Because we're the ones who've inherited her will. One of us is fighting for Rorie's dream, whether that means saving this world or destroying it."

Before Nora could ask once more what she meant by that, she resumed her departure, leaving one final word before vanishing in an instant.

"I'll be waiting in the throne room, behind that mural. If you are serious about stopping me for Rorie's sake, if you're going to cut through the dark, then her whip belongs with you."

"Shirei!" Nora said futilely to nobody in particular. She was now all alone, just her and Rorie.

The furled whip, with its silver body and starlit tip, almost beckoned to her from its podium.

It was a legendary weapon, said to be passed down to the Kozodians by the Goddess herself, containing the light of the guiding stars that helped her make this Dream, and the power to vanquish all darkness.

Even among the people of Kozodia, only Rorie was ever considered worthy of wielding it at its fullest potential. Shirei didn't forget that Nora was also a being of darkness, did she?

Rorie may have taught them how to use whips, but she never let them near hers for a reason. But it did not sound like a ploy to get her to maim herself before their final confrontation.

With a deep breath, Nora held her hand out toward its handle, bracing for pain that never came.

What came instead was her being enveloped in a white glow, as the essence of shooting stars started to flow through her.

---

Nora flew back into the throne room, floating up through the same window she leaped from earlier.

The scenery remained unchanged. The skeletons were still there, the decor was still wrecked, and Rorie's memorial portrait was still on the throne instead of Shirei.

"In memory of the dearest sister." She couldn't help but repeat the ironic title to herself as she walked past it.

At first, she had no idea what Shirei meant by meeting her 'behind the mural'. Behind the mural was a solid wall. The only thing peculiar that stood out was the crater that was the Goddess's face. Sure enough, when Nora placed her hand there, the wall suddenly vanished. 

A hidden entrance, with the mural in front, now floating in the air.

The path beyond the mural was far larger than the palace should've physically allowed, and went on almost endlessly. More than ever, this felt like the final corridor, the fate of the world lying deeper within. Except there was no longer a need to pause and brace herself.

"You've come." Shirei stood far from Nora as she reached the end of the hidden path, arms crossed.

What lay beyond was an ashen field, an arena that looked like outside, not inside the palace. Yet it looked vaguely familiar. It almost looked like more of the Anryo, but the skies weren't this desolate and bleak.

The stone corridor Nora entered through had vanished; in its place was a thin veil of shadow behind her. The only structures left were columns of pillars between her and Shirei, and the raised circular platform behind her that observed a large tear in the sky, oozing the darkness currently blanketing Kozodia.

"What is this place? Isn't this still inside the palace?" Nora's eyes darted around the inexplicable surroundings.

"This is where this world was created, like on the mural." Shirei looked back at the giant scar in the sky. "When the Goddess started to dream and created the world, the ancestors of the Kozodia royal family first came into being here, nurturing the beacon of light that filled this space and creating their kingdom."

"There's no light here." Nora tensed as she approached her. This place was making her nerves stand on end, as if the shadows that comprised her were screaming that this was not somewhere she should be. "Is this your doing, Shirei?"

"It had already faded considerably by the time I found this place. But yes, I am the one who's keeping it from recovering." She admitted bluntly. "If you defeated me, you could reinvigorate the light in here. The shadows over Kozodia would disappear, and you would save everybody. But there is one thing I didn't mention when we were with Rorie. Something I learned during my time at the palace as a concubine."

"And what is that?"

Shirei inhaled as she made her confession with a grave conviction.

"Despite everything, I can't truly bring myself to truly hate that man. Or anyone who supported him, and not Rorie, who passed nothing she went through onto us.

"They made her fight their battles, and she taught us how not to hurt people. They never fed her extravagantly, yet she always cooked for us. They drilled into her that Mieitais were pure evil who were to be Purged, but she never saw us as anything but beings who deserved to be loved too.

"When she walked away that day, it was to go tell everyone how wonderful we were, that Kozodians and the Mieitais could live happily in peace and harmony... And they treated her as someone who couldn't be allowed to live...!"

She laughed mirthlessly.

"But still, I can't muster up any more hatred towards them, because there's nothing to them. They're all nothing more than the whims of the true culprit for everything that transpired."

"True culprit?" Nora could only parrot.

"The final obstacle to real change: who allowed that man to prosper and caused such suffering, and ultimately got Rorie killed, because her dreams were nothing more than a prop.

"The one... who would ultimately override any happy ending we could reach from atop Kozodia's throne. The true enemy of Rorie's dream. And yours, if you stop me here."

"Just who exactly are you talking about?" Nora's blue longcoat fluttered in the flowing shadows around them as lightning of unknown origin began to fall.

"The Goddess." Shirei swung her cloak back, revealing an ornate black robe with red accents beneath.

"The Host of this Dream, herself."