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A Little Vice (Trans Magical Girl fic)

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Hm, that's odd. I could swear I've used Discord links since then that lasted longer than that.

But I'll look into it. Thanks for telling me about that.
 
does anyone know any image hosting sites cuz uh
i dont (this isnt a problem i normally have i normally just share my art with my friends help)
 
Doing my reread and this line stuck out to me.
Shadell said:
he was a little weird at first, but we had a pleasant man to man chat in the end and I think he really helped me clarify my thinking on some things and it was nice to talk to someone who's, you know, older and wiser? Get things off my chest for once." I stopped there for a moment, then continued. "I just feel like I can trust him."
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Considering what Lupin knows about Mr. Noir, I'm pretty sure this line helped em with the whole believing C was an incel thing.
 
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Card_Hoarder said:
Doing my reread and this line stuck out to me.

Considering what Lupin knows about Mr. Noir, I'm pretty sure this line helped her with the whole believing C was an incel thing.
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If ey underestimated Superbia's hypnotic bullshit and (more likely) C's ability to lie to herself like most people breathe. I think the realization of the latter is where it really clicked that ey were looking at the Beast of Envy (and a woman).
 
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17. Truth in the Mirror; A Saint Arrives on a Gentle Breeze
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    • I wasn't quite sure how I'd managed to beg Superbia to release Avaritia, or how I'd managed to make myself leave instead of doing something pointless and self-destructive once he'd agreed to let em go. But ey would be free. I'd done it. Only, I'd ended up trading one friend's suffering for another's.

    It couldn't end like this; I couldn't let it end like this. And yet, I'd picked now to get over myself, to promise to hope, if not believe, that I could become better. And that meant whatever power I'd had was beyond my reach. I couldn't even maintain the illusion of being Chiro. So, once Superbia grudgingly agreed to release Avaritia, I'd turned and fled from him and the captive Inessa as fast as decorum allowed.

    Gray Robe found me in the twisting halls between Superbia's throne and my room. They stepped into my path and stared me down until I stopped walking. I shivered and wrapped my too large hands around my too large and too flat chest.

    "How curious," they said at last. The voice itself was familiar, though I had not heard them speak before, at least not in person. It was the voice that had spoken to me through a vision and told me to find a child and make of him into a weapon of Sloth. This was the voice that had pushed Superbia's plans past the edge of tolerance. I did not like it.

    "Who are you anyway?" I snapped back. For all that voice sounded horrible, mine was worse. I had never, prior to becoming Chiro, liked it that much. It had never been deep enough to command respect. It had always been too deep at the same time. But I had been able to drown it out before, to let words stand alone as thoughts more than things I heard. Now I could contrast it to Chiro's brighter tones and the comparison only drove home how awful my actual voice remained. If anything, it sounded even worse than before, with a nasally squeaky quality that did it no favors.

    Grey Robe looked me over, paying no attention to my vocal woes; or perhaps they noticed my discomfort and reacting to it was simply beneath them.

    Eventually they answered. "You may call me Uriel, if you must refer to me. It is rare to see a Beast reject their power."

    The words were an afterthought, as if actually responding to me at all was secondary to whatever inscrutable satisfaction they'd sought in seeking me out. But the name they gave set off a half dozen alarm bells in my head. Uriel was an angel's name. It was impossible not to connect them with Michael, and yet, it was near impossible to connect whatever was hiding in that robe to a plushie who claimed to be an archangel.

    Could the Saints trust Michael if another of her kind was here working with Superbia? I didn't want to say no; just because she probably had some connection to Uriel didn't mean that they were working together. Besides, there were more important things to worry about. The heroes could figure that out on their own once Inessa was safe.

    "You may go do whatever it is you have to do," Uriel said dismissively. Whatever fey curiosity that had made them approach seemed satiated for the moment.

    I scurried away, not needing to be told twice.

    I should have started plotting or getting help or doing anything at all, for all I remained a bruised and exhausted mess. Instead, without the ability to leave the Forest, I found myself perched on a chair in front of my vanity staring hopelessly into a mirror.

    The boy therein was familiar, and yet oddly alien. I'd seen him daily for years; enough of my father and enough of my mother that I had more than enough reason to hate his face. But envy had left some marks on me. My hair retained the bob cut and, more unusually, a pleasant swampy green color. Beyond that, it was hard to say. Was it just the odd color, or were my eyebrows finer than before? Were my eyes just a bit larger, my face ever so slightly rounder? Was it the dark shadows accentuating my cheekbones or were they higher?

    I shook my head. Yes, I could see the faintest ghost of Chiro in my face, but most of that probably had more to do with how unfamiliar my real face had become than any gifts from my transformation. All I was doing was deluding myself with the phantom of a mask that I'd agreed I needed to abandon.

    And besides, I shouldn't have cared about my appearance while Inessa was suffering. Obviously, pretending to be Chiro was a fundamental expression of my power. If I couldn't do that, I couldn't do any of it. But that didn't mean it was okay to focus on something so immaterial while real problems lurked just down the hall and around the corner.

    At the same time, it wasn't like I could actually do anything on my own. Perhaps, as early as that morning, I would have been satisfied uselessly throwing myself at Mr. Noir, choosing oblivion instead of enduring my own failings in a way that actually helped anyone. But Inessa had forgiven me. She wanted to work with me, to discover if I could be someone different. It would just be embarrassing to give up after letting her hug me like that.

    So I stared in the mirror and tried to see beyond my reflexive hatred for the boy therein. Were the changes notable? Did it matter? Could I call upon any of Chiro's power without betraying that promise?

    "Hiya Chiro," someone said, marching through my door with a breezy familiarity, as if nothing had changed, as if I still wore Inessa's face. It was so like my partner to cheerfully brush aside eir own torture and my obvious turn from sin.

    "Avaritia! Are you okay?"

    I turned to face em, a smile coming easily to my face for all that eir presence only made the situation marginally less hopeless. Ey deserved that much and more after what they'd endured.

    At least Avaritia looked almost well, if I ignored the hitch in eir step as ey approached and the bags under eir eyes.

    "Sure, it'd take more than getting locked away like that to keep a good dog down, you know?" ey tousled my hair, a gesture made ever so slightly less pleasant by the change in our relative heights.

    "It's okay," I told em. "You don't have to pretend that I haven't changed. I know you probably don't want a partner who looks like this instead of like Inessa."

    Ey tilted eir head to the side and looked me over for a few agonizing moments. It was all I could do not to curl into myself like a dying bug.

    "Why? I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole futch thing doesn't really feel like it's you the way your last face did, but you still look good."

    Ey was lying. I knew exactly how I looked in a mirror. I found myself blushing anyway.

    "It's okay, I know I'm back to being an ugly, useless boy again. I don't look cute, I don't look like her anymore. You don't need to pretend to be interested in me if I don't look like her anymore." Even letting go of some things, I still couldn't name her to Avaritia that easily.

    Ey surveyed me once more, then, nodding to emself, grabbed my collar, and pulled me up until we were only inches apart.

    Obligingly, I squeaked.

    Ey lingered there, eir eyes inches away from mine, something unspeakable crackling in the air between us. Then ey planted a single finger against my lips and shoved me away.

    "Hey!" I glared at em. Here I was trying to welcome em back and beg em to help fix this whole thing with Inessa somehow and they took the opportunity to… whatever that was.

    "Nope," Avaritia muttered to emself. "Still into it. And, like, if you want to be a guy now, that's cool and all. But you're like an inch or two shorter than when you started and your face looks literally nothing like it did before you took the seed. And you still have boobs."

    To punctuate eir remarks, ey jabbed me in the chest, hard. I winced and rubbed the affected area where, okay, perhaps the skin was a little tender. But that didn't make em right!

    Resentfully, I turned to look back in the mirror. I couldn't see it. Oh sure, there was maybe a bit of curve around my chest and maybe I was being uncharitable about my face. But the second I so much as breathed that impression fled with it and it was just Charlie looking back at me.

    "It's true. You're just a terrible judge of yourself," ey said as if it was settled. "The seed's done good work."

    "That's not important right now. We can sort out," what was I supposed to call whatever that had been, "whatever this is later!" Besides, it was one thing to fret over my appearance while I waited for help, another entirely to waste time on it after help had arrived.

    "I'll admit, I'm a little curious how the whole saving me thing ended up in a new look." Ey spoke with a careful carelessness, a thin veneer of ease over a roiling sea of anxiety.

    Again, ey deserved an explanation. Besides, I couldn't expect Lupin to help without explaining where I'd messed everything up. So I talked. I left out some of the details of course: exactly what I'd admitted to Inessa, how she'd reached me in the end.

    "I see," Avaritia said with an uncharacteristic solemnity.

    Then ey laughed and smiled and rubbed the back of eir head. "So, I guess you're going to try and save Castitas, huh?"

    "I…"

    How was I supposed to respond to that? Avaritia had forced me how to face my own desires, to see the things I'd buried away. Ey'd encouraged me at every turn to embrace the strange and terrifying potential in being Chiro. And yet, the envy ey'd had me admit had gotten people hurt, had led to me hurting people. And here I was at the end, barely able to explain what any of it actually meant.

    "It's okay," ey faked a grin. "A greedy greedy wolf like me won't let go once ey've sunk eir teeth into someone, you know? So run, run as far as you can and know that it won't stop Avaritia Wolf from finding you when I want."

    Then the laughter died, and ey looked at the floor.

    "Just," ey said more flatly than I'd ever heard em. "Promise me that, even if you don't come back to me, you'll make it out of this okay."

    I took a deep breath to calm my rapidly beating heart. So, my efforts to hide that part hadn't worked after all. It hurt to have that ugliness be seen; it was almost a relief to have em know. At least, for once, I had an answer to that kind of question that someone would want to hear.

    "I promise." Even when the words were true, they still felt like a lie. "A part of me wants to go off and martyr myself. But, I think, if I can save her, then, well, I don't want to go back to the way things were, but Inessa talked about going forward instead and…" I didn't believe it was possible, not really. I wasn't the kind of person who could hear a big speech and have a big fight and turn her life around. But, maybe, I owed it to myself to try, even if I didn't believe it would work.

    "And I want to try." I finished.

    "Do you need to?" ey asked. "Your sin can do this for you you know; give you all those little things you envy, everything you need."

    I sat down again, awkwardly picking at my nails.

    "It doesn't," I said at last. "It gives me what I want, but it's all fake, still too perfect and it'll never let me forget how fake it all is, not by itself. It's not really me if it's not something I choose to do,"

    "Well then what does choosing look like?" Avaritia's claw wrapped around my wrist, and ey pulled me oddly close, a familiar smirk burying any hints of sobriety once more.

    "I don't know. Look, I get that this is important, but he has her right now. Can we just work this out later?"

    "I can help," ey said, rubbing eir fangs against eir lower lip. "But since I'm just such a greedy, greedy wolf, even my partner needs to pay a price here. So tell me, if it's so important that you take charge and make your own choice, what does that actually look like?"

    "I don't know." That phrase was fast becoming a refrain. For all I'd fallen for Inessa's siren song of an offer, I still found myself unable to picture what that would entail.

    "Well," ey was grinning now, pulling me close. "Let's start with this. Do you want to be a boy or a girl? Neither?"

    I shook my head, "I can't do this right now. I need—"

    "You need to convince me if you want my help. You're stuck here, as long as you look like that, Chiro." The name felt like a slap. "Don't get me wrong, you look cute, but it's not the kind of body that screams 'embodiment of all you envy.' That means you're not leaving the Forest, you're not getting the Saints and you're not fighting anyone on your own. So, convince me this is better for my partner."

    It was unusual of em to be so confrontational. The paternalism wasn't new; Avaritia would do whatever ey felt was best for those ey cared about, regardless of how we felt about it. But ey wasn't the type to talk it out or make eir case. No, Avaritia moved from impulse to impulse, doing what felt best and hoping for forgiveness after the fact. Perhaps ey knew ey couldn't hold on and that was forcing eir hand. Perhaps all the sudden flirting and aggression were just a way to reassure emself after ey'd emerged from eir prison and found the status quo ey'd held onto so greedily shattered around em again.

    "I…" What did I want, anyway? I didn't want to go back to being Charlie. It was easier to think in the negatives like that. Actually naming what I did want, instead of letting my envy take it for me? That remained frustratingly hard.

    I couldn't become Inessa, not if I wanted to change. Did I want to be her friend again? I loved her like family. I didn't want to hurt her, even if I struggled to escape her shadow. And yet, not only did she eclipse me, she burned so brightly it was hard to look at her. But, at the very least, the thought of trying again didn't trigger any instant panic or revulsion.

    What about escape? Could I take Avaritia and run away from all this and everyone? That one was easier to dismiss. I'd promised to try going forward, and running away just felt like a retreat.

    Avaritia flicked my forehead.

    "Don't think about what's possible; just decide what it is you want."

    Avaritia wasn't expecting much from me, was ey? Just a little proof that there was an after, that I wouldn't be using this to end everything, or worse, retreat to what I'd been before the seed had shown me what I really was deep down inside.

    "I want to try again," I admitted. "With Inessa, that is. I want to apologize to everyone and I want to become the kind of person that can be open with others, that can really genuinely talk with them and then change and grow until I can look in a mirror and see someone I like."

    It was such a tiny dream. And yet, merely putting it into words felt harder than climbing a mountain. But it was a good kind of draining, a step in the right direction. Sadly, for all my newfound resolve had completely short-circuited my otherwise convenient superpowers, it still didn't give me anything resembling the faith that I wouldn't simply revert to Invidia at the first setback.

    "That's great. It's good to hear that, with sin or without it, you're not just running away. But—" Whatever playfully cruel impulse had pushed Avaritia into asking these questions in the first place reared its head in the sudden narrowing of eir eyes as ey grabbed tightly onto my shoulder.

    "The important part! What does that person in the mirror look like in the end?"

    I flinched. I should have seen that coming. I started to speak, to admit I'd have to take some steps back if I wanted to go forward. And yet, If I was just imagining, is that what I would actually choose?

    I wanted to be the girl I'd spent weeks pretending to be. I ached for her smile, for the cute ways she looked in a skirt, for the way people seemed to instinctively like having her around. And yet, the idea of her burned me up inside. She was a fabrication in the purest sense, a distorted reflection or Inessa. She was the sweetest poison to me.

    I couldn't be her again. But did that mean I wanted to go back to being a boy instead?

    My dad had always told me how men were supposed to be stoic and strong and powerful and everything, and for all those sounded good on paper, none of that appealed. Similarly, none of the men I knew were people I could envy on any level. The thought of becoming my father filled me with nothing but disgust. So did the thought of resembling Mr. Noir in any way whatsoever. I thought of the boys at school that I had barely talked to in four years, I thought of my teachers, good and bad. No, none of them inspired me.

    Inessa's dad? That was a little different. He was kind and gentle in a way that I admired. I respected him, and yet… the thought of becoming like him didn't spark any want in me. I admired him, but I didn't envy him, at least, not beyond a few disaggregated traits.

    And that was the root of it. I envied Inessa, Temperance, and Ida. But I couldn't think of a single man I really envied. No, the bitter longing in my heart pointed in a different direction.

    I wondered what it would be like, to look in the mirror and see a person I wanted to be. It wouldn't be Charlie; that much was obvious. But it couldn't be Invidia either. She was a daydream run wild. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be me, but changed in ways that Lupin seemed to see in me.

    I couldn't quite picture it.

    "I don't know," I said at last, not entirely sure if I was telling the truth.

    Avaritia chewed on eir lip for a moment, then shrugged. "Weellll, you can always just drown yourself in envy until your seed finishes whatever remodeling it's been doing in the background."

    I put my hands on my hips and glared at em, "You know I can't do that!"

    Avaritia sagged, eir ears drooping for a moment, before ey smiled even more brightly, trying to convince me that that had been a joke, not a request.

    "Well," ey said with enthusiasm far too explosive to be genuine. "Let's figure out how to save Inessa."

    The change in topic nearly gave me whiplash, and I fought down the urge to provide comforts that wouldn't be true. When I thought about that person I was slowly imagining into existence, I wanted them to be close to Avaritia as much as I wanted to regain my old friends. But, as much as I wanted to reassure em, ey were right; saving Inessa had to come first.

    "Can you tell Temperance and Ida what happened?" I asked. I couldn't leave the Forest on my own at the moment, but Avaritia could. "I don't think either of us are in any condition to fight Superbia and," and Avaritia wouldn't cut the last threads tying emself to the man who'd saved em. Ey would not deny eir sin, would not betray its demand that ey hold onto a love long since rotted, even if that same sin drove em to help me as well.

    "And what'll you do while I'm away getting help?" Was I mistaken, or was the question a little too innocent? Had my reassurances about the future felt as implausible to em as they had to me?

    "I'll look around and try to see if I can distract him. He's not going to come after us or anything, and having a sense of what's happening could make it easier to rescue her."

    "Just be careful, okay?" Avaritia said, hiding worlds of emotion behind the almost perfunctory gesture of care.

    I nodded.

    "One more thing before I go," ey said, tossing me something small, dark and green. My seed stirred resentfully in my chest at this new presence; it knew its own. I held it up to my face, basking in the way it practically sang to me.

    "Another seed?"

    Ey stuck eir tongue out mischievously. "Welllll, you know, Avaritia is obviously the greatest thief among the Beasts. And I might have been a little tiny bit upset, so I might have maybe-sorta stolen one or two of the new seeds after Superbia let me go."

    I swallowed.

    "What? How?" Hadn't Uriel had those? It seemed improbable that Avaritia would have known to grab one or more.

    Ey shrugged and gave me a performative wink.

    "Just be careful; that'll make you stronger. But, it could be a strain to use it normally. If you're already on the outs with your seed, and if you're trying to…" Ey stalled, unwilling to admit the part they hadn't asked about my future. That imaginary me was not Invidia. "It might do something unpredictable," ey finished awkwardly.

    Suddenly, holding the seed felt a lot more worrisome. Carefully, but quickly as I could, I shoved it in a convenient purse, one of a few Avaritia had procured for Chiro.

    Then I put over my shoulder and tried not to wince. As Chiro, I had felt cute carrying it around. I had liked it. And now, it was wrong, like the strap was too small, too tight, too awkwardly placed relative to my waist and my gangly arms.

    I didn't have the courage to look at myself in the mirror again and verify how off it was on the current me. Instead, I smiled at Avaritia, nodded, and made my way to the door. I didn't want to say goodbye. I wanted to ask em to join me in the uncertain future.

    "What are you going to do after you find them?" I asked instead.

    "You know me; I'll figure it out, partner." Whatever vulnerabilities Avaritia had exposed during our conversation were hidden once more as easily as that.

    Then I shook my head clear, buried all apologies and thanks in a corner of my heart and gave em my best smile as ey raised a hand to tear through the fabric of the world.

    "Oh!" ey said, letting it fall to eir side. "There is one more thing before I go, if we're going to settle the bill."

    I started to speak, only to find Avaritia's lips pressed against mine. Ey pulled me closer, pressing emself against me. Before I could even work myself around to process what was happening, Avaritia was already pulling away, eir teeth tugging at my lower lip for a moment as ey did.

    Avaritia flashed me a particularly lupine grin and, before I could ask for an explanation or comment on it at all, eir claws tore a rift in the air and ey were gone.

    Slowly, I raised my hand to touch my lips, feeling the phantom of an event I was half-sure I'd hallucinated. What had that been about? Was that a friendship thing? A particularly silly way of reassuring me that I was still cute even if I couldn't be Invidia? A goodbye?

    I slapped my cheeks twice and shook my head clear. I would ask em later, after I'd apologized for leaving, after I told em what eir partnership had meant. I owed em far more than that. In a way, that was a relief; one more anchor to keep my worst impulses at bay.

    ---

    I waited a few minutes, then cautiously slipped out of my room. As much as I'd have liked to wallow in the coils of familiar self-pity, the wheels for Inessa's rescue had been set in motion. The time for staring in mirrors and hating what I saw had passed.

    I couldn't save Inessa. I couldn't go get help. But, I had made sure help would arrive and that meant I had no excuses not to do whatever else I could.

    Huddling and terrified, I made my way through the Forest's bizarre architecture. At every turn, I stopped and looked around, half-sure Uriel would appear to reclaim the stolen seed. Soon, though, I stood outside the throne room.

    The muffled sounds of a grandstanding Superbia echoed through the large doors, and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. If he was bragging or trying to talk her over to his side, that might mean he hadn't started doing anything worse.

    Carefully, I set my purse down next to the doors. There was a risk to that, but the risk that Superbia would sense the seed on me was far greater. And I wouldn't need it for what came next.

    That done, I hesitantly knocked on the door. The speech didn't stop, so I knocked again, quiet and timid.

    I let a few moments pass, then pushed the doors open and stepped inside. Superbia stood there, facing away from me and blocking my sight of Inessa as I approached. I should have paid some attention to his words, but my heart was hammering too loudly in my head as I slowly circled around to get a clear view of the girl who'd tried to save me.

    Castitas didn't look much worse for wear, for all that she was bound hand and feet in manacles of light and suspended off the ground. And yet, even beaten and bound, wearing an angry snarl that seemed entirely off on her, she was radiant. Her eyes sparkled with determination and her wings stretched behind her, having returned to their original almost cartoonish pure white. Even like this, she was beautiful enough to send my seed into a frenzy, putting out hair-thin roots until I tore my eyes away from hers. As I did, I saw the briefest flash of recognition on her face.

    Did she blame me? A part of me craved it. If she blamed me, she might actually finish what I'd promised not to let happen. And yet, luxuriating in that guilt wouldn't save anyone. It wouldn't make things right. It wouldn't let me change.

    I cleared my throat and put on my most fearful expression. It didn't take much acting. For all he hadn't even noticed my existence, Mr. Noir's presence filled the room, a cold radiance that tolerated no light but its own.

    "Superbia, sir?" I called quietly. The clock was running; the heroes were on the way. Every minute I spent distracting him from Inessa was a minute of torment she wouldn't have to endure.

    He turned his head, the full force of his attention shining down on me like one of those desk lamps they use in interrogations in all the movies.

    "Yes?"

    He was a hollow shell of a man, beaten and chained and so desperate to prove he was neither that he'd kept his heart in his prison long after his escape instead of doing anything to change the world. Even if I had been the kind of Beast he wanted, I would have never been more to him than a bit of reassurance. For all his power, the Beast of Pride was as pathetic as any of us.

    "I—" I let my lip quiver. He needed the world to align with his vice, and he'd use any force he could bring to bear to make it so. He would never accept me as Chiro, as a Beast whose needs would never mirror his own. And yet, I could use that.

    "I need your advice, umm, if it's okay to ask."

    Inessa stared at me in mute confusion. Superbia frowned as he looked between me and Castitas. Vanity ever loves to assert its superiority, and asking for advice could only play into that. But I disgusted him, while Inessa was a choice prize.

    "S-she won't come around fast," I said at last. "B-but, if you let her stew a little, and realize that no one's going to come save her and that you have her trapped, completely under your power, that might wear her down."

    Was I laying it on too thick? Mr. Noir was ancient. He had to know something was suspicious, even if he hadn't said anything about my changed appearance.

    If he had, he didn't let it show as he silently sized me up.

    Finally, as I began to feel that this was how it all ended, he nodded curtly.

    "Very well, I will spare a moment. Speak."

    I looked meaningfully at Inessa, "Umm, I… Can we go somewhere else? I don't want her to hear."

    I tried to fill those words with every ounce of jealousy, every crumb of resentment I still felt for the girl who'd dared to pull me back from the brink. He appreciated sin. More, he would appreciate my own weakness, yet another difference between us. Why not humor it if he was going to humor me at all?

    Inessa let out a muffled moan of betrayal and it took everything I had not to break down.

    Mr. Noir quirked an eyebrow, then realization struck him and a cruel smile played across his face. With a snap of his fingers, a bubble of searing light encased Inessa's head.

    "I will not allow her to see or hear. Now." He gestured for me to continue.

    I winced. I'd hoped to draw him away, hoped that by the time he finally came back, Inessa would be safe and gone and I would only have to find some way to follow her rescuers into that impossible future.

    But that was not to be. Still, even silence had to be better than whatever Superbia might do to Inessa if he grew impatient.

    "That's…" I flailed. I knew what to say and how to say it, but the words stuck in my throat. For all I understood my script , playing it out for this snake still hurt. At least that humiliation only added to the act.

    "Speak," he repeated, cruel amusement slowly losing out to impatience. "Or leave."

    If only leaving was so easy.

    "During the fight with Castitas, my seed didn't like the idea of, umm, bringing her back. It was angry with me when I grabbed her and…" I gestured to my body.

    "I can't use any of my powers either."

    Mr. Noir looked me over, if only for the barest moment. Had he ever been different before he lost that ancient war, before time alone with his failures stole that away from him? I didn't want to give him even that much.

    "Such things can happen to those poorly suited to the Abyssal Forest's wisdom," he reached his verdict. Condescension was thick in his voice, but his words held a trace of something else. Pity? Compassion? It was hard to say. "Wait, indulge your sin however you choose, and it shall pass in time."

    He waved a hand in dismissal.

    Inwardly, I grimaced. I had hoped I would hold his attention for longer. I needed to give him something else, a reason to care.

    "I," I simpered, "I was hoping we could capitalize on the Saints' confusion over their leader being gone. Is there no way I could recover faster?"

    That sparked his interest. Another victory, and a decisive one at that? That would erase all of the failures against the Saints. And yet, he refused to act himself in every instance, hiding in his little burrow instead. If he wanted the Saints defeated, he would need an instrument to act out his will.

    "What, precisely, broke your bond with your seed?"

    Of course he'd ask that. The thought of letting him see any part of me was crushing. I couldn't tell the whole truth. But, I could stand to give him my most obvious shame. My inability to answer once more showed the unsuitedness of the instruments he was reduced to using, that his failures could be laid at our feet and not his own. Besides, it was becoming for envy to refuse to bare itself to pride.

    And yet, eventually he grew bored of watching me squirm.

    "I envied her," I said at last. That much was so obvious it was no admission at all. "I wanted to be brave and heroic and purehearted like Castitas."

    "And?"

    "And I couldn't. No matter what, I could never win. But then, I tricked her; I won anyway, and now…" This was a lie I could tell. Even if I could have let myself give it to him, Mr. Noir would never have believed the truth, that Inessa had pushed me to take a step toward being someone I couldn't yet envision. Mr. Noir would never understand that temptation, would never understand how something so fragile could push back the power of sin.

    Superbia Dragon began to pace around me as he finally began to think for real. I, it seemed, was unworthy of keeping his council on this issue. That was fine; the longer he took to think, the better I was doing.

    "Realize," he said at last, "that it was not your doing that brought her low. My plan, my methods, gave you the edge."

    As angles went, that almost made sense. If I had won, the knowledge that it was only through someone else's plan might have sustained my feelings of inferiority.

    "But," I looked at her. "We won't fight again."

    I wondered if that was true. Inessa had promised to help me discover that future me, and I wanted to try. But it simply remained much easier to imagine myself giving up and sinking back into the Forest.

    "One way or another," Superbia said, "I will convert her to sin. You may compete however you wish, then. Perhaps even then, she will outshine you."

    Perhaps I was fortunate to have lost my claws. Had I still possessed the weapons, I would have thrown everything away and gone for his throat. Even my seed shook in its slumber, razor-thin vines scratching at the walls of my heart in protest.

    As it was, I bristled, and nodded, and woodenly marched away at his dismissal, lest I ruin things.

    I let the throne room's doors close behind me, then grabbed my purse and made sure that the seed was still there. Only once I was reassured that whatever time I had spared Inessa wouldn't cost me the power to make a difference did I stumble away from the room, angry and sad and desperate in my impatience.

    I wondered if I had ever been so impatient for rescue when I was the one being held captive.

    ---

    And it was like that, lost between my own thoughts and temptation Avaritia had given me, that I ran into the Saints.

    "Ow," I said, stumbling.

    Diligentia's catchphrase may have been 'steadfast as the earth' but 'hard as steel' might have been a more accurate descriptor.

    Three sets of eyes—two human and one plushie—turned to stare at me. Diligentia was geared for war, her shield on her arm as she led the group, dark eyes glancing to and fro for any sign of an ambush. Even so, she remained a steady presence, a bright yellow light amidst the omnipresent gloom of the Forest. Temperance followed, a plushie perched safely on her shoulder. As always the Saint of water was impassive, blending into the background, ready to strike at a moment's notice, for all she had not summoned her weapon.

    I should have been focusing on the more important things, but I couldn't help but wonder what they thought seeing me like this. I felt my heart crack in my chest, the seed of envy pushing out of its shell in a silent offer.

    Were they staring at me as a traitor? As Chiro unveiled? As the one responsible for Inessa's suffering? Or were they looking at the changes to my body and drawing conclusions about what it meant? I wasn't sure what would be worse.

    "Chiro," Diligentia said, somewhere between acknowledgement and accusation.

    "That's not, I'm not… I mean… I'm not really her. She was never real."

    Temparantia sighed and Michael looked at me curiously.

    I hunched my shoulders and sunk into myself. I'd been aware of my body, stretched out and wrong in all sorts of ways, when I was dealing with Mr. Noir. But it had been easy to set it aside then, to take his disgust as a given value, a way of manipulating him.

    "Chiro," Temperance said, with surprising force.

    "I'm sor—" I stopped myself. Apologies were easy. Being better was hard. "That's not important right now. Castitas beat me, but then Superbia's trap activated and he has her captive. We need to save her."

    That 'we' was nearly as indulgent as the almost-offered apology. I had already done enough. And yet, it felt sweet to act like I could be part of this, even if the disaster was of my own making.

    I shook my head. That was the kind of thought I'd promised to leave behind. I would help. I was helping.

    "Why should we trust you?" Ida crossed her arms, standing firm. I could hear the hurt in her voice, the exhaustion. They'd ventured into enemy territory to save Inessa. They'd believed we had her. But that didn't mean they had any reason to believe this wasn't all a trap.

    Temperance started to speak and cut herself off, deferring to her taller teammate.

    It hurt. Of course this would be the betrayal that made them give up on me. I wasn't owed tolerance, for all I couldn't let the guilt crush me.

    "I don't deserve it," I admitted, then shook my head. "I mean, I haven't earned it. But this isn't about me. For once. Inessa is here and she's suffering and…" I choked.

    "She wouldn't give up on me," I said it at last. "I wanted to end things—to make her end things—and I kept fighting her and hurting her and trying to make her do it and she kept sticking out her hand."

    "And…" Even after everything else, it still hurt to say, to let them see that spikey emptiness at the heart of me. "I promised her I would change. That we'd work together and change and I don't know if she still wants to do that after I got her hurt again, but she's right there and she's suffering and we can stop that, so…"

    It was hard to tell how they took the words. Somehow I'd started crying, tears stopping me from seeing whether I had reached them. I rubbed away them away to get a better look, only to freeze as something warm and much softer than recent experience would have suggested wrapped around me.

    "It's okay." Ida's voice carried as much hope and determination as I'd envied in Inessa. Where Castitas was a bright-burning font of passion, Diligentia was sturdier and stabler, confident in her ability to bear all the evils of the world. "We've got this."

    Then she stepped back, and Temperance spoke, calm as still water.

    "Chiro," she said yet again, refusing to drop the name despite my objections. "I'll trust you."

    I stared. It wasn't fair. I shouldn't have been able to resolve their doubts that easily. A few tears, and they choose to believe in me.

    "But," Temperance added with characteristic apathy, "if you betray us, this will be the last time."

    Something in Temperance's eyes told me exactly how final a betrayal here would be. In a way, that was an easier response to accept.

    "So," Ida said, nearly as scared of Temperance as I was. "What's the plan?"

    I wiped away my tears and tried to focus. They'd put their trust in me. Avaritia had put eir trust in me. And yet, it wasn't like I could do anything to help.

    "Superbia has her in the throne room. I tried to distract him and get him somewhere else, but he was really insistent on not leaving." If only I had been able to pull him away, this would have been an easy task.

    "Avaritia isn't going to interfere," at least I assumed ey wouldn't. My partner wouldn't betray me after helping this much, but if ey was going to help, ey would have come back with the Saints.

    "But," I glanced at Michael, "there's someone else helping Superbia. I don't know much about them, but they go by the name Uriel and, well, I think they're probably dangerous."

    "I see," Michael said, barely seeming to register surprise at this revelation. "I do not believe Uriel would personally join the fight. But, if they have begun to act, that may complicate matters in the future."

    Both of the Saints stared at Michael, mirroring my own confusion. It was no surprise that the two were related, but it was a disquieting feeling to see that admitted so easily. How much of the conflict around us remained beyond our understanding?

    "Okay," I managed. "If that won't stop us from saving Inessa, then can we set it aside for now?"

    Ida nodded and Temperance failed to object, which was agreement enough. I continued.

    "Superbia's strong, terrifying even. But, he's not perceptive. He sees what he wants to see and we can use that." I wondered if I was right, or if I was going to ruin everything yet again. I kept talking anyway.

    "So if you two distract him, make a show of fighting and let him push you away from the throne room, then I can sneak in and try to free Inessa and we can all retreat together."

    Ida frowned. "What, just pretend to fight him? We're here, he doesn't have anyone to help him and we have him outnumbered!"

    I looked to the other two, hoping for a save. Temperance met my eyes, bit her lip, as she looked me over.

    At last she spoke.

    "Could you even defend yourself if he attacked you?"

    It hurt to have her, of everyone, see my outside my beautiful disguise. She'd always known it was me. She, more than anyone besides Avaritia, had wanted me to be Chiro. And now that I'd failed, what? Was she dismissing me, writing me off as useless?

    A root pushed its way out, growing thick as it supped on my emotion, gently promising what I could still pretend to be if only I would abandon my pretensions of change.

    "No," I admitted instead. "But you can't just fight him. He's…"

    Temperance looked past me, silently conveying something to Ida. The other girl frowned at Temperance, then clapped her hands together. "You wait here with Michael. I'll distract him and Temperance will rescue Inessa, then we can all run together. If we have to run fast, you won't be able to keep up like you are now, so…"

    There was an apology in Ida's words, as if she should feel bad for pointing out how useless I'd made myself. I expected the admission to keep stinging. But I'd shared with them what I needed to share. I'd helped. Letting my own need to matter rule me wouldn't do any good.

    I would live with that. For Inessa's sake, for our promise, I would have to be able to live with that.

    "Okay," I said. "I—" My voice cracked. "It scares me. No, it's not fear, I just hate being powerless." I forced the words out, every admission making the next more bearable. "But that's the best I can do to help right now, and we need to save Inessa, so, just, please stay safe."

    "Of course," Ida answered with the same confidence she'd had when she promised to help. Temperance merely smirked and waved.

    Then Saint Temperantia led Diligentia toward the throne room and Michael and I found ourselves in the hell of waiting and hoping that the Angelic Saints would be okay.

    ---

    We waited, and waited, longer than it should have taken. Longer than I could bear. I clutched the purse tightly. I could almost feel it through the fabric, offering me power without realization, a chance to transform myself in ways that would let me help. I wished I could have thrown it away, but if things went wrong, I might have needed it, and that meant I had to endure the silent temptation. Until I did.

    Worse, this section of the Forest had walls decorated with all sorts of mirrors. No matter which way I looked, my own face stared back at me. At least it was a distraction.

    I touched my reflection, trying to force myself to stop imagining dead friends and think about what it would be like to see the person Avaritia had demanded I envision instead. Who were they?

    At the start of this year, I would have only seen myself, a person I couldn't even admit I hated with every fiber of my being. A week ago, I would have seen Invidia, too beautiful, too perfect and undeniably fake. Avaritia had invited me to imagine the person I could become, months or years in the future, for all they remained a blurry mess.

    But there, in that hallway, it was impossible to name the person I actually saw. They weren't Charlie or C. But they hadn't been able to make being Invidia feel real either. They had yet to become someone new.

    And yet, Inessa's promises made me want to try; Avaritia's demands had kindled the faintest spark of hope. All I had to do was wait, trust in the others and then I could work with them to discover just who that person was, to discover just who she was.

    I couldn't see in myself what others seemed to find so valuable in me. But, for all that the seed called to me, for all that I could feel its siren song urging me to earn my redemption through sacrifice, that thread of hope was enough to keep it at bay.

    "Are you going to use it?" Michael asked, once I had finally torn my eyes from my own reflection.

    "You know?" My voice faltered as I spoke, wondering why Michael hadn't said anything about the seed for however long we'd been waiting in silence.

    "It is as obvious to my kind as the dawn. Will you use it?" The plushie's tone was oddly intense, as if she desperately needed me to answer.

    "Would it even work?"

    "Yes," Michael said with complete confidence. "Using a second seed carries grave risks. In your present condition, there would be permanent consequences Perhaps even your own destruction."

    The angel floated toward me, ancient eyes seeming to see right through me. "But wouldn't that be what you want?"

    "What?" I stepped back despite myself, making some distance between myself and the plushie. She had always been kind, if oddly intense, and the sudden starkness of her words made them land like needles in my back.

    "To save them all, to show them what you can do; would that not be a perfect excuse to hurt yourself once more?"

    My hand was shaking. How dare she. How dare she legitimize every temptation I was fighting against.

    "It would be a perfect excuse," I admitted, feeling my seed push even more, vines extending through my chest.

    "I see," she stated solemnly. "But you don't. You have resisted this temptation, denied everything that drove you to sin. What gives you the strength?"

    Why was she pressing me like this? I bit my tongue and clamped one hand over the other before I did something that could interfere with our escape, clenching inwardly to stop the growing network of roots inside my chest from spreading any more than it already had.

    "I can't," I said at last. The roots finally gave up, retreating into the seed. I forced myself to relax. "I mean, if it's absolutely necessary, that's different. If I know I need to do it or they're all lost, I will. But… I promised to at least try to change, even if I don't quite know what that looks like. Using it now, when I'm not sure I have to, would just be another way of hurting myself. And I promised Inessa."

    "At last!" The angel smiled brightly. "Then, allow me to present another option. Some powers were never meant to mix and doing this may still lead to unexpected outcomes. But your own life will not be in any danger."

    Without giving me a chance to react, the angel flapped her wings and a ball of soft green light emerged, floating toward me until it shattered, revealing the bracelet within.

    "I–what!?" What was she saying? This wasn't fair, not after everything, not after I finally decided to make my peace with my own incapability.

    "You are qualified," she said by way of explanation.

    "Stop it," I snapped. "After all of this you don't get to torment me with something I'm not. You said I wasn't worthy, gave me all the time I needed to figure out why that was true and now I finally, finally, get how right you were. You can't just turn around and offer me everything I wanted in the first place!"

    Michael stopped and considered for a moment before speaking. "Perhaps I have been unclear. The talent to use the tree's gifts was always yours and you have always been kind. You see the virtue in others, admire and care for them. And then, again and again, you twist that same insight into a cudgel to hurt yourself. Self-hatred overtook whatever capacity for compassion you might have had, blinding you to anything you saw save in ways that you could use to better flay your soul."

    "That hasn't changed." An irrational part of me wanted to throw the bracelet away, to march right up to Superbia and use the seed in protest. My hand refused to move.

    "You have not overcome it," she admitted. "But, it is easy to be kind to those you love. Forgiving those you loathe more than anyone else, that is the conduct of a Saint."

    Something close to laughter, hollow and broken as it was, made its way out of my throat. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be denied to me at every turn, forcing me to face all my own desires and move past those petty self-aggrandizing dreams only to be offered to me here, at the end of everything.

    "I apologize for the harm this realization may have caused, and the distress that was needed to push you into the right admissions." Michael said, far more gently than her prior words. "The choice is in your hands, but they will need you either way."

    She floated around me, pushing her head into my chest until I stumbled back. I turned and began to move.

    My footfalls were agonizingly loud as I jogged toward the throne room, still uncertain of what to do. Michael was mysterious and she seemed to know things she shouldn't. I trusted her if she said I was needed.

    But I didn't deserve it. Not after everything. Maybe, maybe, I could listen to Inessa and try and hope that one day I could become the kind of person who could be a heroine with pride. Then and there, I was a liminal freak who wouldn't go back to being C; who couldn't even imagine who else I might become. I wondered what the others would have said about it.

    Ida would have reminded me that she wasn't worthy either at first. She had to work for it and change, so why couldn't I do that too? I would have told her that I wasn't like her, but I wouldn't have been able to find the words to make the rebuttal convincing.

    Temperance would have joked about the girl part, and maybe I could almost let myself be someone who could go along with that game of pretend.

    Avaritia would have grumbled and glared and made some obligatory comment about how sin was still better before telling me to just take what I wanted instead of finding reasons I couldn't have it. Ey would have reminded me of that person I wanted to see in the mirror and told me to go meet them.

    And Inessa… Before everything, I think Inessa would have told me that I deserved it, that she'd have been happy to fight by my side. That would have fallen flat. But, the Inessa who'd crushed me was different.

    She would have told me to fake it. So what if I couldn't be Chiro, C or anyone? So what if I wasn't a hero? She would have accepted those concerns with a laugh and told me to do it anyway. Even if I couldn't earn the name of a Saint, she would have had me wear it.

    I opened my eyes and found myself outside the doors to Superbia's throne, still toying with the bracelet.

    "I see you have decided," said the plushie angel sitting comfortably on my shoulder.

    I nodded, then put the bracelet onto my wrist.

    "Just this once," I said weakly, as if I could let it be a one time thing.

    Then I raised my hand to the sky, quiet words coming to my mouth unbidden.

    "Branch of virtue, awaken!"

    And the bracelet began to glow.

    It was a gentle green light, soft and weak enough that the wrong thought might have snuffed it out completely. But it embraced me all the same.

    Envy had scoured me into its own image. Kindness had no such power. Instead, it took and shifted and accentuated, pulling here, pushing there, granting me a set of long slimming gloves.

    It caressed my face and left me wondering if the makeup it left behind actually made me beautiful, or if I only felt that way because I had no mirrors in sight. But it was already working on my chest, leaving a giant ribbon to accentuate what I could barely admit was there and a beautiful green skirt that must have looked awful on me for all it felt like it gave me actual hips.

    At last, it reached behind me, shaping itself into a pair of wings. I didn't have to look to know that next to Invidia's amazing, beautiful, and transcendentally perfect bat wings, these were merely the wings of an angel, and ones that barely deserved the name 'wings' at that.

    They lifted me up anyway. The wind drew inwards, the bracelet reforming itself into a shining circle of green light behind my head.

    I giggled, because how couldn't I giggle even when everything about this should have stung? Then I held out my hands and waited.

    My weapon took shape; the tool that would allow me to best use what virtues I could muster.

    Slowly, it descended into my hands. It was small and wooden and curved and, for all it wasn't what I'd have expected, I knew exactly what I had to do with it.

    A part of me wanted to hide in shame, to recoil at how fake I must have looked in a skirt that couldn't have fit as well as it felt like it fit and run away from everything. Another part of me wanted to bash open the doors and announce myself in all my glory.

    I did neither. I wasn't Inessa with the power to outshine the sun. My virtue was small and fragile; a gentle push, not divine judgment. That meant I had to use every advantage I had.

    I pushed the doors as gently as I could, trusting the wind to muffle any noise.

    Superbia stood there, gloating. Fortunately, he was looking away from me. He pressed Temperantia's head into the floor with a single foot, as if he was stomping on a bug. Were it not for her ineffectual struggles, I would not have known she was conscious. Nearby, Ida was crawling toward her shield, one leg trailing limply behind her. Inessa watched in quiet horror, free, but too battered to transform, much less fight.

    Of course I was late. Of course I got so stuck in my own issues again that I was late to where I needed to be.

    I shook my head. I was late, but I wasn't too late, and I would have to be able to live with that.

    None of them noticed me as I crept toward the vain little snake. The wind helped me, pockets of air softening my steps as I approached. Ida saw me first, looking on with profound confusion as I raised my tool as high as I could. Then, with a hop and my loudest scream, I brought it down against the back of Superbia's head with every bit of strength I had.

    He stumbled forward and crashed into the ground, as much surprised as he was wounded.

    Only then, as every eye turned toward me, did I announce myself.

    "Gentle as a spring breeze," I plucked at the strings of my lyre, "Angelic Saint Humanitas takes the stage!"

    "Gentle," groaned Temperance as she scrambled away from Superbia and, struggling, pushed herself to her knees. Even then, she seemed to place more emphasis on appropriate sarcasm than her own survival.

    "A kindness to myself," I said, my voice laden with divine compassion. My hands were covered in sweat, the reality of our imminent demises crashing against the joy at being there like this, at finally striking out against him. I'd been fighting all day to avoid throwing my life away. For all this was just as doomed, it felt different.

    "And, for my next act of kindness…" I strummed the lyre. I shouldn't have had a clue how to play. But my hands knew what to do, so long as I let them work. The notes that echoed through the room were soft and melodic.

    "Humanitas Invigorating Winds!" As miracles went, mine was so very small. I could not summon a storm that would blow all evils from the world. The best I could offer was a gentle push, a healing breeze to soothe pains and give the real heroes that little bit of energy they needed to rise again.

    Ida laughed and rose to her feet, momentarily unsteady on a leg I couldn't fully mend. She picked up her shield and took a stance anyway. I smirked at her, doing my best to pretend that the banter was easy; that I wasn't so deeply aware that this too was another masquerade for the pile. And yet, just for now, with doom mere moments away, perhaps I could let myself enjoy the play with everything I had.

    "YOU DARE?!" Superbia shouted with might that shook the Forest itself as he recovered himself.

    He was trembling. Facing a challenge here, at the center of his power, after he had already won, after he had decided things were going just as he wanted them; what must that be doing to that pride of his? Worse, that challenge came from me, the failed protege, the one he'd written off as worthless.

    "I'm terrified," I admitted. "Even with three of us, I can't imagine beating you. But, I'm more terrified of what would happen if I didn't do this. Of what you would do if no one stopped you, of what I might become if I didn't change. So we'll just have to win anyway"

    He growled and his form shook, wings going larger, his eyes subsuming themselves into cool pools of silver light.

    "So what? You think you can overcome your own limits and stand against me? You?"

    "No," I admitted honestly. "Ever since I was little, I've admired heroes. I wanted to be like them, to be brave and strong and courageous and, well, you're right. I'm not that kind of person."

    Now, at the grandest I'd ever been, it barely hurt to admit.

    "But." I grinned at Superbia and he stared at me, confused. "Just because I'm weak doesn't mean I have to be alone. Even if I can't do anything by myself, I can still support them!"

    Ida, recovered as she was going to get, punctuated my remarks by throwing herself in front of me, just in time to deflect a blast of light that might have torn a hole through my throat.

    Temperance stretched out her hands and called a jet of pressurized water that forced the dragon to flare his wings and brace himself to avoid tumbling again.

    I giggled and plucked my lyre and asked the wind to give them that little push they needed.

    "So what?!" Superbia roared as he stepped toward Ida, an errant fist striking her shield with enough force to send the Saint of Earth reeling, only to spin and vaporize Temperance's next burst of water with a horrifying breath of light.

    "So what if there are three of you!? It won't matter!"

    I did my best to dodge another searing beam of light, biting back a grunt of pain as glanced past the back of my hand, leaving a burnt trail in its wake. And yet, in the time it had taken him to move, Ida was there, bracing herself on a raised chunk of Earth as she struck him with her shield with all the considerable force she could muster.

    He stumbled back and lashed out, kicking her away with enough raw force to send her crashing through her rocky supports. Temperance's next attack struck him in the back before he could follow up, and he stumbled once more. With a growl he turned to face her, abandoning Ida for the moment.

    He was losing control. Here and now, he'd finally taken the stage, finally committed. And he'd won. Then I'd stolen that from him. He was lashing out in shock, for all his attacks were each terrifying, they weren't focused. He was letting us lead him, responding to each of us in turn instead of actually eliminating any of us.

    "Humanitas Invigorating Winds!" I called again, pushing every little bit of power I had into giving the others whatever they needed to keep on their feet, to keep fighting.

    "You know, I think we were both wrong about something!" I said, looking past the smug little snake. There was an opportunity here, a way to turn the tables if I could just hold his attention for a second.

    "Do you honestly think that this little farce means you can truly stand against me?"

    I wasn't a hero. I wasn't the kind of person I'd wanted to be. And maybe, someday, I could fake it until I made it, pretend to be a good person until I could be just a little bit of one. But maybe I didn't need to. Maybe I could find a me that was enough, a me that could support the real heroes.

    "Actually, I just mean—"

    "CASTITAS FLARE BARRAGE!"

    "That there are four of us," I finished belatedly as dozens of fiery arrows embedded themselves in Superbia's wings.

    He'd discounted her, treated her as drained and defeated, her powers expended. But when has a real hero ever needed more than a second wind to get back in the fight?

    "Humanitas~!" Angelic Saint Castitas let her bow fall to her side to wave at me instead of following up on her attack.

    "I, umm…" Suddenly I was incredibly self-conscious. "Hi."

    "Look at you!"

    Of course Inessa would be silly enough to focus on that instead of the ancient monster she'd just shot in the back.

    "You're Ignoring me!?" Superbia's shrill voice grew even raspier and I reconsidered my evaluation. Maybe Inessa's instincts were dead on after all. Superbia was a creature of pride. He had to matter, to eclipse everything in his sight. Even now his presence eclipsed the four of us together. But, as large and radiant as it was, with each slight, with every act of defiance, it was shaking.

    "Diligentia Crushing Earth!"

    Ida slammed her shield into the ground, sending shockwaves toward Superbia that sent him stumbling just as he tried to rise and attack once more. The Saints had fought together again and again. Any opening Inessa created would never go unused. All we had to do was stop Superbia from recovering his footing.

    "Temperantia Cascade!"

    Temperance followed with a crushing jet of water, slamming him back into the ground.

    "We trusted you," Temperance said, stepping forward as she finally summoned her halberd. "You saved us in the forest and we believed in you. Avaritia trusted you." Her voice cracked. Even now, months after leaving, her grief was shockingly raw for the overwhelmingly collected girl.

    None of us spoke. Whatever Superbia had done to me, whatever grievances I felt on Avaritia's part, Temperance had borne worse for longer.

    "And you couldn't let us in." But she had never been one to speak at length. She stabbed out with her weapon, throwing herself at the dragon with everything she had.

    With a desperate scream he shoved the blade aside, letting it tear through the scales on his palm. He grabbed the blade anyway, forcing Temperance to contest him for the weapon as he punched her with everything he had. She careened through the air, crashing heavily into a wall.

    With nothing in the way, Inessa was able to assault him with another wave of arrows. He rolled forward blindly, only to be sent sprawling backwards via a shield to the face. I swallowed and continued to play my lyre, focusing on patching up Temperance as best I could.

    The dragon roared and sent a blast of light radiating around him in all directions, forceful enough make Ida fall back. I couldn't help but smile even as my winds helped steady her. He was bleeding; he'd stopped gloating. Slowly, surely, the palpable aura of pride was starting to fray.

    "Ey still loves you like family," I said to him as I followed his explosion by dashing in myself. I wouldn't fancy my odds against any of the other Saints. Closing with a disoriented Superbia to keep the pressure on was a risk. Still, the winds accelerated me, lifting me up enough to bring my heel down on his head in a perfect axe-kick. He blocked with both hands, sliding back a few inches anyway, then he reared up to swipe at me.

    I dashed away again, floating out of his reach before he could. Behind me, I could hear Temperance panting as she picked up her weapon.

    "Ey loves you like family and you hurt em and used em and threw us all away to avoid admitting that maybe you were part of the reason you'd failed and now you have no one left to save you." He'd hurt me, twisted me and pushed out the worst of my worst impulses. What he'd done to my partner was far worse.

    I should have said more, could have tried harder to reach someone unreachable. Instead, I fell back to silence and watched as Superbia struggled to rise, to hold onto the shreds of his battered pride. Inessa struck again, then Temperance. Whenever he gathered himself enough to strike, Ida would be there, blocking just enough with her shield to keep him from scoring any decisive hits.

    Even then, he would have crushed us by inches were it not for my songs and the winds they channeled to give us all the strength to keep moving.

    At last, he could stand no more. Superbia collapsed against his throne, his wings crumbling to dust as he stared at us, unable to move, unwilling to admit out loud what the failure of his power told us he already knew. Pride's Beast was broken.

    "It's not too late," Inessa said as she raised her bow. "You can change! Temperance talked about the war; about what you're running from! It doesn't have to be like this!"

    "Never," he said the word like a curse. "Whatever you take from me, I will never bow to virtue's light."

    Chastity's Saint looked to the rest of us, but no one had an easy answer.

    "Do it," Superbia said for us from his throne, the last proclamation of a broken monarch, the last vestiges of the pride he valued more than his own life.

    It was as cruel as any of his demands. Superbia wasn't a resinner. He wouldn't go back to normal and become a better person from this. None of us were killers.

    Inessa, as always the strongest of us, raised her bow, fire sparking around her as it grew and grew. Maybe she had a magic in her that would destroy only his seed. I'd seen her work greater miracles for me. Or maybe she'd simply found the resolve to act now and prevent whatever Superbia might do in the future. Either way, I didn't like it. I didn't have any better ideas either.

    "Castitas!" she shouted in a voice that called out for any other solution. "Empyreal!" Just before she could finish her attack, something crashed into her from above, a purple blur of fangs and claws.

    Inessa fell to the ground under Avaritia's weight. None of us had seen em arrive; none of us had the strength to follow as ey dashed toward Superbia and then moved for the door, cradling him in eir arms.

    "Avaritia!"

    Determination alone was holding me on my feet. I wouldn't have had the strength to chase em if ey ran.

    Luckily, ey stopped instead, facing me with a smile so forced anyone would have tried to help em.

    "Looking good, partner." Ey looked me over, then nodded to emself. "A bit more femme. It suits you."

    I blushed and stammered, and ey took the opportunity to retreat another step.

    "Join us."

    To my surprise, it wasn't I who had spoken the thought aloud. Temperantia advanced toward her oldest friend, stretching out a weary arm.

    Ey looked to her, then back to me, then to the shaking mass cradled in eir arms.

    "Someone has to stand for sin," ey whispered. As if choosing eir principles, however twisted, over companionship could ever satisfy eir greed.

    Temperance's hand dropped to her side.

    "I get it," I found myself saying, somehow putting one foot in front of the other. "I didn't know anything about what I wanted or what I needed. I just stood around killing myself by inches until you put the seed in me."

    There were words to be had over that, the refusal to explain first, that unrelenting insistence that ey knew best, the pains my envy had inflicted. I was more grateful to Avaritia than I could ever say, but ey bore some blame there too.

    "And it consumed me, pushed me down deeper and deeper and…" That wasn't what ey needed to hear, not quite. "Even now, if I try to imagine what I want to become, it's envy that tells me who I want to be like, what I need."

    Ey didn't respond. The skirt I wore and the feathered wings on my back were enough to give lie to the idea that I'd chosen to affirm my sin. Still, Lupin didn't retreat either. I continued to advance.

    "But sinking into it forever wouldn't help either!"

    Ey started, and even Superbia broke himself out of his fugue, his face twisting into disgust. A few more steps. A few more steps and I could reach em.

    "I can't tell you to abandon your greed, not when it saved me."

    I stopped, just out of arms reach.

    "But why not let us see your charity too?"

    Ey froze, little more than a deer caught in the headlights of my kindness.

    And that was too much for Superbia to accept. Defeated, denied his dignified end, then rescued by a servant he'd dismissed as useless; any of these was beyond his capacity to accept. To be ignored by his rescuer, to have em talked around to the other side, was an order of magnitude worse. The snake screamed and kicked his way out of Avaritia's arms, shoving the wolf aside as he glared at em with more intense loathing than he'd shown any of the rest of us.

    Avaritia reached out, struggling to take hold of his hand, only to find eirs slapped aside.

    Temperance lunged, finding energy I didn't think she had to move for a decisive thrust.

    Instead of meeting her, Superbia ran, vanishing into the twisting hallways of the Forest. Temperantia didn't give chase.

    Avaritia's eyes followed him, making a quiet keening noise in the back of eir throat. But the wolf did not follow.

    "Lupin…" I couldn't find the words, suddenly knowing how powerless everyone had felt to talk to me about my own dad.

    Ey smiled at me, winked, and—just before I could find the words to make em stay—ey made eir own way into the Forest's twisting halls.

    Just like that, it was over.

    I looked at the Saints—the other Saints—then sank to the ground as my transformation unraveled.

    Inessa followed suit without even bothering to sit up.

    Ida and Temperance at least managed to remain standing as their own costumes fell to light. The others looked even more exhausted than I felt. None of us would want to move for days.

    And yet, we'd won. Inessa was safe. I'd proven, in some little way, that I could change. There was more to do of course. We would have to find Superbia again. I still had so much to say to Avaritia. I would also need to figure out how I was going to survive without going back to dad, and what I was going to do about having missed so much school. But, for once, none of the looming challenges of the future felt insurmountable.

    The silence lasted a few moments, long enough for Michael to make her way to the throne room and begin fussing over us.

    "Hey, Humanitas," Inessa said, and I wondered how long it had taken her to decide what she could call me, as if this name was somehow better fitting than any other.

    "Yes?" I asked, pushing myself to a sitting posture. It wasn't like Humanitas was worse than anything else either.

    "You saved me!" Inessa's voice was effervescent for all she still hadn't managed to pull her head off the floor or actually look at me.

    "It was all my fault to start with." I owed it to them to admit it. I struggled to separate self-flagellation from contrition, but I owed them the latter.

    "I… I became Humanitas because it was desperate," I admitted. "But, you don't owe me forgiveness just for fixing something I messed up. It wouldn't be fair to ask you to trust me, not after everything, so I can just give the bracelet back to Michael and you can find someone better and…."

    Even I knew that voice inside my head saying they'd never want to see me again was probably wrong. They were heroes; they would accept me and I would have to learn to live with that at this point. But I couldn't start forcing myself to act like a better person than I was by running away from what I'd done, what I had to make up. It needed to be their choice to forgive.

    Temperance marched toward Inessa in a herculean display of effort, then fell to her knees and began to whisper animatedly to the other girl. Inessa looked confused at first, then slowly began to smile before contorting her face into a blank mask.

    "Of course we don't—" Whatever Ida had been about to say was cut off by a loud shush from Temperance, who continued to conference with Inessa.

    Helplessly, Ida shrugged and resigned herself to watching the show.

    Finally, Temperance nodded and helped pull Inessa to a sitting position.

    "So, Humanitas," Inessa said, deathly serious.

    "You hurt us a lot, you know. Keeping everything inside, pushing us all away, fighting us and everything," Temperance chimed in to list my crimes, as smoothly as if they had rehearsed their delivery of the verdict.

    At least she didn't say the worst of it, that even after all that I'd still gotten Inessa caught.

    "And, really," Inessa spoke again, her voice taking on a mournful quality. "C was like the brother I never really had, you know." She was starting to tear up a little. "He was family and you took that away from us."

    Something caught in my throat. She wasn't wrong.

    "That's fair," I said at last. "I understand if you never want to see me again or anything." I wasn't sure where I could go, or what I would do, but I owed her that much.

    Inessa flailed and nearly fell over again. "No! I mean, no, never, of course I want to see you again, you're…" Temperance pinched her. Inessa managed to school her expression.

    "What I mean is, you owe me, right? And you'd do anything to make up for that, if you really want to change, that is."

    "Anything," I said, wondering when the trap's jaws would close around me.

    Temperance snickered. Inessa grinned. Ida looked profoundly confused. Michael watched on serenely from on high.

    "Well then," Inessa spoke slowly, her lips curling into a fox-like smirk, "since I lost a brother, I guess you'll just have to be my sister instead."

    I blinked.

    Inessa panicked.

    "Or umm, Temperance said to say 'sister' but if you want sibling or brother or whatever really! I mean, umm, not, you can be whatever you want!"

    Something warm slid down my cheeks and I tried to fight back the sniffles enough to respond.

    "I'll probably mess up," I warned her. Changing demanded I face myself. A lifetime of self-hatred wouldn't be overcome in a day. And, the day I thought change was easy would be the day my seed took me again. "I want to try, but I'm not a good person and I can't just pretend like I heard some good speeches and did the right thing once and I'm better now. Besides, won't your parents want me gone?"

    Inessa shook her head. "If you turn back into Invidia, we can talk it out together, or I can just beat you up again. And yeah, Mom and Dad are upset with you, but they're mostly worried because they love you too, you know? And we'll find a way to explain everything to them one way or another."

    "I…" What was I supposed to say to that? "I guess I don't really have a choice."

    Temperance and Inessa shared a high five.

    "And your name can be Kindness Sweetwind." Temperance offered her own inestimably unhelpful contribution.

    "No." I glared at her. "I-if I have to have a name that I pick and I am, well, umm…" Was I going to go back to being a boy? It felt weird to do that if I was going to be allowed to stay as a magical girl after everything.

    "M-maybe. I, umm, I don't want to be a guy." I admitted. "Maybe I don't like that at all, if I'm going to be a magical girl. And, umm, okay, so my body has definitely changed at least a little and we'll need to explain that, so, what I mean is that, if I'm going to try and become somebody new, maybe I could just…"

    Words were hard, but no amount of filler would get me out of the fact that I'd started saying it.

    "Maybe I don't really like boys or being one. Maybe I want to be more of a, you know." Why was Temperance grinning like that?! At least Inessa and Ida both had the decency to look appropriately confused.

    "And, like, if I'm faking being someone I want to be anyway, then, maybe, even if I'm not actually a trans girl or anything…" My tongue caught on that once more. Life would have been so much simpler if only that were true.

    Some invisible force tore the smile from Temperance's face. Her mouth dropped open in shock.

    "Maybe I can just, you know, umm, fake being a girl instead? To, like, help explain everything to everyone." Was that allowed? It didn't feel right. And yet, when I imagined the person I wanted to be looking back in the mirror, she had to be a girl.

    The world paused. Everyone stared at me, without so much as a blink.

    "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that—" It was best to say it before they told me how ridiculous I was being. Finishing it made it just a little realer. "Even if it was fake and it doesn't really feel like my name, bats are actually really cute and I like the name Chiro, so I'm staying with Chiroptera!"

    I couldn't imagine what the future would hold. It was hard to imagine that I'd ever really be able to think of myself as Chiro or Saint Humanitas or Inessa's sister, much less all three at once.

    I had given myself to envy, and that wouldn't go away. The seed was still there, a dark bitter spot in my heart. It felt like I would always hate myself, no matter how kind I learned to be. It was impossible to imagine looking at my friends without feeling that sense of bitter impossibility about everything they were that I could never have.

    But I was going to try anyway. And there, sitting exhausted in the throne room, that was enough to make me smile and laugh and hope for tomorrow.

    NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!

    With Superbia and Avaritia nowhere in sight, the Saints finally have a moment to rest! Inessa struggles to help Chiro make amends for her wrongdoings as the pair finally begin to heal. But! Between a mysterious new stranger lurking around the school and shocking news about an old friend of Michael's, it seems like this peace may be short-lived.

    Tune in for Episode 30: Stormy Horizons, Inessa's Got a New Sister!

    Holy shit, it's done!

    An epilogue will follow of course, but, holy shit it's done.

    I started this story the november before last as a quick short novel for Nanowrimo to get out of my system before working on more ambitious projects. And, uh, well, it's now about 3 times as long as that first draft and I'm incredibly happy with what it's become. I'm still growing as a writer, but this has been a rough year for me and being able to put creative energy into this project, and to see the amazing reception it's gotten have really kept me going. So thank you, really.

    This chapter took a tremendous amount of work and I ran it by a lot of people to get it from a very rough first draft to one I feel pretty proud of. In particular, @Chehrazad and Rooibos Chai each contributed multiple waves of feedback that helped me pin down each of these scenes to hit the emotion they needed to. Alien Changeling, @NemoMarx and Chiri Vulpes also gave me some very valuable help in prodding this in the right directions.

    @Clown Bean, in addition to providing her own feedback, did some really good proofing that made this read a lot better, as have Rainbow and Sierraffinity (whose own works I sadly lack a link for). Many others have contributed as well, and, however disapointing the final product, believe me it would have been a lot worse without any of them.

    Holy shit it's done.
     
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    • Shadell said:
    "Maybe I don't really like boys or being one. Maybe I want to be more of a, you know." Why was Temperance grinning like that?!
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    YEAHHHHH!
    Shadell said:
    "Maybe I can just, you know, umm, fake being a girl instead? To, like, help explain everything to everyone."
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    DAMN IT.
    Shadell said:
    bats are actually really ute
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    Cute

    Shadell said:
    But I was going to try anyway. And there, sitting exhausted in the throne room, that was enough to make me smile and laugh and hope for tomorrow.
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    Good stuff, amazing story. Great journey. I don't have any better words for it. Speechless.
     
    Chiro. How. How are you this fucking dense. Fuck.

    Amazing chapter though; I'm eagerly awaiting the epilogue.
     
    Wonder what Chiro will look like once she's decided what she wants to be. Also, will Temperence's hands be full someday? Will Inessa catch a romantic W for once? Learn that and more in the next episode of Shining Virtue Angelic Heart!
     
    Shadell said:
    I let a few moments pass, then pushed the doors open and stepped inside. Suburbia stood there, facing away from me and blocking my sight of Inessa as I approached. I should have paid some attention to his words, but my heart was hammering too loudly in my head as I slowly circled around to get a clear view of the girl who'd tried to save me.
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    Ah yes, Suburbia, the worst villain of them all.


    Chiro remains as dense and useless as ever I see, but at least she isn't actively sinking into her worst insecurities anymore.

    This chapter turned out very well.
     
    Great, as expected.

    Though that epilogue better be some Grade A fluff, I need to see this Cast Iron Egg happy damnit.

    Shadell said:
    "And, like, if I'm faking being someone I want to be anyway, then, maybe, even if I'm not actually a trans girl or anything…" My tongue caught on that once more. Life would have been so much simpler if only that were true.

    Some invisible force tore the smile from Temperance's face. Her mouth dropped open in shock.
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    Don't worry, Temperance. I'm silently screaming in inarticulate frustration too.
     
    Shadell said:
    I wasn't quite sure how I'd managed to beg Superbia to release Avaritia, or how I'd managed to make myself leave instead of doing something pointless and self-destructive once he'd agreed to let em go. But ey would be free. I'd done it. Only, I'd ended up trading one friend's suffering for another's.
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    Yeah, this is far from over.
    Shadell said:
    I shivered and wrapped my too large hands around my too large and too flat chest.
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    Chiro is starting to notice.
    Shadell said:
    Eventually they answered. "You may call me Uriel, if you must refer to me. It is rare to see a Beast reject their power."
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    Oh, now this is an interesting revelation.
    Shadell said:
    And besides, I shouldn't have cared about my appearance while Inessa was suffering. Obviously, pretending to be Chiro was a fundamental expression of my power. If I couldn't do that, I couldn't do any of it. But that didn't mean it was okay to focus on something so immaterial while real problems lurked just down the hall and around the corner.
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    Time to start taking your life into your own hands, Chiro.
    Shadell said:
    "Just," ey said more flatly than I'd ever heard em. "Promise me that, even if you don't come back to me, you'll make it out of this okay."
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    Ey might have very questionable, at best, ways of showing it, but ey do care.
    Shadell said:
    "It doesn't," I said at last. "It gives me what I want, but it's all fake, still too perfect and it'll never let me forget how fake it all is, not by itself. It's not really me if it's not something I choose to do,"
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    Well said, Chiro.
    Shadell said:
    "Well," ey was grinning now, pulling me close. "Let's start with this. Do you want to be a boy or a girl? Neither?"

    I shook my head, "I can't do this right now. I need—"

    "You need to convince me if you want my help. You're stuck here, as long as you look like that, Chiro." The name felt like a slap. "Don't get me wrong, you look cute, but it's not the kind of body that screams 'embodiment of all you envy.' That means you're not leaving the Forest, you're not getting the Saints and you're not fighting anyone on your own. So, convince me this is better for my partner."
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    This time I agree with her, this is something you need to start making decisions, Chiro.
    Shadell said:
    "I want to try again," I admitted. "With Inessa, that is. I want to apologize to everyone and I want to become the kind of person that can be open with others, that can really genuinely talk with them and then change and grow until I can look in a mirror and see someone I like."

    It was such a tiny dream. And yet, merely putting it into words felt harder than climbing a mountain. But it was a good kind of draining, a step in the right direction. Sadly, for all my newfound resolve had completely short-circuited my otherwise convenient superpowers, it still didn't give me anything resembling the faith that I wouldn't simply revert to Invidia at the first setback.
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    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE9kDmXe56A
    Shadell said:
    Ey stuck eir tongue out mischievously. "Welllll, you know, Avaritia is obviously the greatest thief among the Beasts. And I might have been a little tiny bit upset, so I might have maybe-sorta stolen one or two of the new seeds after Superbia let me go."

    I swallowed.

    "What? How?" Hadn't Uriel had those? It seemed improbable that Avaritia would have known to grab one or more.
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    Damn, what a thief. Though it is likely that Uriel let them be stolen.
    Shadell said:
    He was a hollow shell of a man, beaten and chained and so desperate to prove he was neither that he'd kept his heart in his prison long after his escape instead of doing anything to change the world. Even if I had been the kind of Beast he wanted, I would have never been more to him than a bit of reassurance. For all his power, the Beast of Pride was as pathetic as any of us.
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    Pride, the most powerful and consuming, but also fragile, of all the sins.
    Shadell said:
    And it was like that, lost between my own thoughts and temptation Avaritia had given me,, that I ran into the Saints.
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    Unnecessary extra comma there.
    Shadell said:
    That 'we' was nearly as indulgent as the almost-offered apology. I had already done enough. And yet, it felt sweet to act like I could be part of this, even if the disaster was of my own making.

    I shook my head. That was the kind of thought I'd promised to leave behind. I would help. I was helping.
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    You can do it, Chiro.
    Shadell said:
    Where Csatitas was a bright-burning font of passion, DIligentia was sturdier and stabler,
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    Castitas and Diligentia.
    Shadell said:
    "But," Temperance added with characteristic apathy, "if you betray us, this will be the last time."
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    I don't doubt her.
    Shadell said:
    "Okay," I said. "I—" My voice cracked. "It scares me. No, it's not fear, I just hate being powerless." I forced the words out, every admission making the next more bearable. "But that's the best I can do to help right now, and we need to save Inessa, so, just, please stay safe."
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    Good that you can now say your feelings out loud.
    Shadell said:
    Then Saint Temperantia led DIligentia toward
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    Diligentia.
    Shadell said:
    But there, in that hallway, it was impossible to name the person I actually sawt.
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    Saw.
    Shadell said:
    "To save them all, to show them what you can do; would that not be a perfect excuse to hurt yourself once more?"

    My hand was shaking. How dare she. How dare she legitimize every temptation I was fighting against.

    "It would be a perfect excuse," I admitted, feeling my seed push even more, vines extending through my chest.

    "I see," she stated solemnly. "But you don't. You have resisted this temptation, denied everything that drove you to sin. What gives you the strength?"

    Why was she pressing me like this? I bit my tongue and clamped one hand over the other before I did something that could interfere with our escape, clenching inwardly to stop the growing network of roots inside my chest from spreading any more than it already had.
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    Shadell said:
    Michael stopped and considered for a moment before speaking. "Perhaps I have been unclear. The talent to use the tree's gifts was always yours and you have always been kind. You see the virtue in others, admire and care for them. And then, again and again, you twist that same insight into a cudgel to hurt yourself. Self-hatred overtook whatever capacity for compassion you might have had, blinding you to anything you saw save in ways that you could use to better flay your soul."
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    Damn, Michael hammering those nails on point.
    Shadell said:
    "After all of this you don't get to terment me with something
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    Torment.
    Shadell said:
    "You have not overcome it," she admitted. "But, it is easy to be kind to those you love. Forgiving those you loathe more than anyone else, that is the conduct of a Saint."
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    It is not easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.
    Shadell said:
    "Just this once," I said weakly, as if I could let it be a one time thing.
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    I don't think you'll want it to be one time thing.
    Shadell said:
    "Branch of virtue, awaken!"

    And the bracelet began to glow.
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    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zk7th83CsI
    Shadell said:
    Then, with a hop and my loudest scream, I brought it down against the back of Superbia's head with every bit of strength I had.

    He stumbled forward and crashed into the ground, as much surprised as he was wounded.

    Only then, as every eye turned toward me, did I announce myself.

    "Gentle as a spring breeze," I plucked at the strings of my lyre, "Angelic Saint Humanitas takes the stage!"
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    You go, Chiro!
    Shadell said:
    "Humanitas Invigorating Winds!" As miracles went, mine was so very small. I could not summon a storm that would blow all evils from the world. The best I could offer was a gentle push, a healing breeze to soothe pains and give the real heroes that little bit of energy they needed to rise again.
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    You're the fucking white mage, you're now the MVP.
    Shadell said:
    "But." I grinned at Superbia and he stared at me, confused. "Just because I'm weak doesn't mean I have to be alone. Even if I can't do anything by myself, I can still support them!"

    Ida, recovered as she was going to get, punctuated my remarks by throwing herself in front of me, just in time to deflect a blast of light that might have torn a hole through my throat.

    Temperance stretched out her hands and called a jet of pressurized water that forced the dragon to flare his wings and brace himself to avoid tumbling again.

    I giggled and plucked my lute and asked the wind to give them that little push they needed.
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    Magical girls are meant to be working together.
    Shadell said:
    "You're Ignoring me!?" Superbia's shrill voice grew even raspier and I reconsidered my evaluation.
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    No, they're just giving you the attention you deserve.
    Shadell said:
    Inessa fell to the ground under Avaritia's weight. Superbia. None of us had seen em arrive; none of us had the strength to follow as ey dashed toward Superbia and then moved for the door, cradling him in eir arms.
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    Despite everything, ey still care for him.
    Shadell said:
    There were words to be had over that, the refusal to explain first, that unrelenting insistence that ey knew best, the pains my envy had inflicted. I was more grateful to Avaritia than I could ever say, but ey bore some blame there too.
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    Most certainly.
    Shadell said:
    And yet, we'd won. Inessa was safe. I'd proven, in some little way, that I could change. There was more to do of course. We would have to find Superbia again. I still had so much to say to Avaritia. I would also need to figure out how I was going to survive without going back to dad, and what I was going to do about having missed so much school. But, for once, none of the looming challenges of the future felt insurmountable.
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    Chiro. Good job.
    Shadell said:
    "I… I became Humanitas because it was desperate," I admitted. "But, you don't owe me forgiveness just for fixing something I messed up. It wouldn't be fair to ask you to trust me, not after everything, so I can just give the bracelet back to Michael and you can find someone better and…."
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    No, no, none of that now.
    Shadell said:
    "Well then," Inessa spoke slowly, her lips curling into a fox-like smirk, "since I lost a brother, I guess you'll just have to be my sister instead."
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    Shadell said:
    I couldn't imagine what the future would hold. It was hard to imagine that I'd ever really be able to think of myself as Chiro or Saint Humanitas or Inessa's sister, much less all three at once.

    I had given myself to envy, and that wouldn't go away. The seed was still there, a dark bitter spot in my heart. It felt like I would always hate myself, no matter how kind I learned to be. It was impossible to imagine looking at my friends without feeling that sense of bitter impossibility about everything they were that I could never have.

    But I was going to try anyway. And there, sitting exhausted in the throne room, that was enough to make me smile and laugh and hope for tomorrow.
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    She might be still dense as granite, but it has started to be chiseled away.

    Future is looking brighter.
     
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    I'm not normally one for visual imagination; I simply don't see things like some people do. But holy shit! This chapter was so on point for the genre that it was cell-shaded in my head. "Oh," I thought to myself, as I read words in a fanfic, "they really blew the animation budget on this one."

    If this story was about nothing but inspiring hope in the hopeless, you've done an amazing job. If this protagonist can make progress, anyone can. Chiro! Girl! The reason it hurts so much and so often is that eggshell makes for terrible armor.

    Well done. I can hardly wait for the epilogue, and I'm looking forward to buying the published work!
     
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