Aira's hand was still there. Still gripping the fabric of Raid's coat. Kneeling on both knees in the gravel, Aira couldn't yet lift her face. She could feel Raid's body heat. Through the fabric of his coat, it transmitted to her fingertips. He was alive. Warm. He was really here. As if confirming this over and over, her fingertips subtly tightened their grip on the cloth. The air of the ruined city was silent. The aftereffects of battle lingered on the gravel, and somewhere a half-collapsed stone fell with a sound. The wind blew once, strongly. Aira's reddish-brown hair brushed across her profile, but she had no room to brush it away. A hoarse voice fell. "...What did I do?" It wasn't a voice of self-reproach or questioning. There was a resonance to it—as if Raid himself had been left behind in the blank space while the Demon Lord consumed him. Raid's deep amber eyes hadn't yet fully regained their focus. His face, bearing the weight of forty-two years, existed in the morning light of the ruined city. Aira didn't answer. It felt like she didn't need to answer now. More than any words, holding the fabric with this hand felt far more important. ——In the distance, there was movement. Vector was telling something to a knight who appeared to be his adjutant, speaking low and briefly. "Combat ended. All units, begin confirmation," his voice was absorbed into the stone walls of the ruined city. The adjutant started to say something. "Still the wounded——" the voice cut off midway. The adjutant's gaze drifted toward the two people on the gravel and stopped there. A pause fell. The adjutant ultimately swallowed the rest of the words he'd started to say. Words that had come to his throat, then retreated. Only that adjutant's face remained suspended in the air, somewhat foolishly. The subtle expression of someone who had tried to speak but stopped. Vector glanced at the adjutant once, then silently faced forward. That was the sound of the battlefield's tension releasing. ──── A human figure descended from the high ground of the ruined city. From the edge of a crumbling tower, silver short bob hair swayed as it descended. With each step on the stone beneath her feet, the gravel made fine sounds. Odd eyes of pale purple and light amber had been watching the two people below the entire time. It was Lilia. As she approached, she crouched down in front of Raid, who remained on his knees. For a while, she just looked at Raid's face. Then—— "Idiot." It was just one word. Not an angry voice, not a crying voice. It was a soft sound mixed with laughing and crying. The edge of her voice trembled slightly, but there was definitely a smile at the corners of her mouth. Lilia, who had been watching from the high ground with a smile since the moment in Episode 33 when Aira knelt on the gravel to catch Raid——now, for the first time, gave voice to that emotion. That's what this one word was. Lilia placed both her hands over Raid's right arm. Orange light began to seep from her fingertips. Biotic magic——the power that the demon race possessed to directly channel their own magical power into repairing another's tissues——flowed gently beneath the skin. Warm light entered into the scars on Raid's right arm, the traces that had been burned and scorched countless times through magical fusion. The sensation of that warm light entering made Raid's expression slowly appear. Aira watched this scene from the side. Lilia's small hands were on Raid's right arm. She remembered the first time she had touched this wound in Episode 29. Back then, her fingertips had traced the coordinates of the circuit——confirming where heat was gathering, where it had hardened, as a tactical assessment. In Episode 32, running across the gravel of the battlefield, she had remembered the sensation of this hand. Now Lilia's hand was touching the same place. But it wasn't the same. Aira felt something quietly descend into her chest. The recognition that this was something she couldn't do. Her hand could diagnose wounds. It could wrap bandages. Her fingertips could memorize the pathways of circuits. But flowing orange light like this——only Lilia could do that. For the first time now, it was carved into her chest in a form close to pain. ──── When the orange light reached the deep layers, change began. From the back of Lilia's hand, particles of light began to seep out. At first, it was only around the base of her fingers. But soon it spread to her wrist, and then to her arm. Lilia's body was gradually beginning to lose its outline. Aira noticed. "Lilia." Her arm moved faster than her voice could come out. She reached out to place her hand on Lilia's shoulder. The moment her fingertips reached Lilia's shoulder——what she touched wasn't the sensation of a shoulder. Not temperature, but the sensation of light dispersing returned to her fingertips. There was no solidity. What she tried to grasp wasn't there. Her fingertips passed through. "Lilia!" This time, she called out her name again. Lilia didn't turn around. But her voice was calm. "Don't stop me." That calmness in her voice told Aira. That this was a stage where emotional words wouldn't reach. That there was no room for persuasion. Aira's hand stopped in midair. Raid tried to grip Lilia's hand in return. But his hand too only stirred the particles of light, unable to grasp any form. Raid's mouth opened. He started to say something. "That's not for you to decide——" the words came to his throat and stopped. Aira had once said the same words to Lilia——on that night when Lilia tried to step into danger alone, Aira had cut her off with "That's not for you to decide." That scene now echoed inside Raid. The same words wouldn't reach. Just as Lilia hadn't listened back then, these words wouldn't stop her now. His body knew that they wouldn't reach. So he stopped. ──── Lilia's body dissolved into light from her waist upward. Orange particles of light scattered into the morning air of the ruined city. On Raid's right arm, kneeling on the gravel, the silhouette of two hands made of light lingered for just a moment——then dissolved into the air. Only her voice remained. It didn't come from any particular direction. It had dissolved into the atmospheric magical essence——the magical power drifting in the air——absorbed into the stone walls, seeping through the gaps in the gravel, arriving from all directions like a voice. "If Raid and Aira are there, that's enough." That was all. There must have been things left unsaid. But Lilia left it at just that. Her voice lingered in the air of the ruined city and slowly faded. Aira couldn't move. Her outstretched hand remained suspended in the air. There was nothing there. Only the space where Lilia had been on the gravel seemed slightly warmer than elsewhere. It might have just felt that way. But to Aira, it certainly felt that way. ──── Some distance away, Vector walked among the surviving knights. Kneeling soldiers confirmed their respective comrades with exhausted faces. Vector placed his hat against his chest and closed his eyes for just one second. That was all. Nothing more, nothing less. "...Even though she was a demon race." The adjutant murmured, not directed at anyone in particular. Vector stopped him with a glance. Not with words, but with just his eyes. The adjutant closed his mouth. After a brief pause, the adjutant took out the casualty roster. He held his brush and tried to write a name——and stopped. He didn't know which column to write it in. Not in the imperial knight column. Not in the demon race column either. There was no such column in the roster. The adjutant looked at Vector with a confused expression. "...Which column should I write that person's name in?" Vector paused for a moment. "Create a column for those with merit." "...Yes." The adjutant answered only that and began creating a new column in the blank space at the edge of the roster. He couldn't laugh. But there was a humor that couldn't be laughed at in that brief exchange. ──── Silence returned to the ruined city. Raid and Aira were sitting side by side on the rubble. Neither had confirmed who sat down first. By the time they noticed, it was already that way. On a pile of half-collapsed stone, slightly elevated from the gravel, the two of them sat together. Only that simple fact remained. Raid was looking at his own right arm. The repaired magical circuit——the pathway within the body for drawing in and releasing atmospheric magical essence——held stable heat. The result of the orange magical power that Lilia had poured in until the moment she dissolved into light was still there. The deterioration of the burned-out circuit had been sealed from within. There was no pain. That scarred part, which now held heat, didn't hurt. That was what Lilia had left behind. Aira was looking at his profile. She couldn't say anything. She couldn't find words to say. She wasn't even trying to find them. She knew now that it wasn't about words. The morning light of the ruined city illuminated the white stones of the rubble. The wind blew, and sand that had lingered somewhere swirled. Aira's reddish-brown hair swayed. Aira's right hand moved. It wasn't a healing motion. It wasn't the motion of confirming circuit coordinates. There was no tactical judgment, no mission necessity, nothing. Simply to be beside him——her hand was quietly placed on Raid's left arm. It was the moment when everything accumulated from Episode 29 finally took on a single form. The body heat she had felt when gripping Raid's arm in the ruined city corridor, the unevenness of the wound she had confirmed each time she rewrapped the bandage, the memory that had revived as the sensation of her hand while running across the gravel——now here, it appeared as pure intention. Raid didn't pull his arm away. With her face still facing forward, Aira put strength only into her fingertips. On Raid's left arm, her five fingertips slightly increased the force with which they touched the fabric. Neither of them said anything. The depths of Aira's chest grew warm. This time, Aira knew what it was. Knowing that, she didn't avert her eyes. She could no longer find a reason to avert them. Vector's voice came from a distance. His practical voice instructing the knights on preparations for departure. The procedures for retreat, the transport of the wounded, confirmation of supplies. That voice should have reached them through the stone walls of the ruined city——but it didn't reach Aira's ears. Whether the voice was reaching her at all, Aira couldn't judge at that moment. The air of the ruined city dissolved into the morning light. The remnants of Lilia's hand's warmth were still felt by the scars on Raid's right arm. The repaired circuit continued to hold stable heat. No one knew how long it would take for that to fade. Aira's fingertips were on Raid's arm.