"We're all going to die, you know?"

Except Uyuniya, no one was surprised to hear Kintar say this.

"What?" the terrestrial princess said, frowning.

"Oh, not you, your Highness." Kintar curtsied and smiled. "I'm referring to those of my ilk here – the clowns who were stars, like me."

"What brought this on, Kintar?" Kenno said, sighing. "Deadmanland?"

"Where else?" Kintar floated up and rested her chubby arms behind her head. Her mirth vanished. "We all fought hard on Aigas because we wanted to die at the right time, right?"

No one answered the question. Solemn faces met Kintar's eyes. They all agreed.

The primary purpose of the Unlimited Stars, no, the Stark Soul Order, was to help Skullius reach Deadmanland and retrieve his soul. If they were to die, they were supposed to die after they had accomplished that.

"For most of us," Kenno said and spared a moment to eye Ashema, "that's something we've resigned to do of our own volition. It's something of an honour. Though the boss probably wouldn't say it like that."

"Oh, he would," said Kintar. "He knows the truth now. We are his starry lambs to the slaughter."

"What's your point?" snapped Yuyui, a scarcely seen crease on her forehead.

Kintar chuckled at that.

"We all love master, perhaps to varying degrees, but we love him. There's little we wouldn't give for him," she said, "but we are not immune from other desires. I know I'm not." She flew around Yuyui and Grim, bobbing her eyebrows. "My point is there's no better time to do the things we've always wanted to do than now. There won't be another opportunity for a load off."

Everyone was silent for a while.

None of them had thought Kintar was going somewhere… meaningful with her argument. Perhaps with the exception of Uyuniya, who thought it was rather sad that they thought of their mission for Skullius that way.

That kind of devotion to someone was… sweet. Among her own siblings, it was thin, scarce even. Zelozeld's system might have had a hand in that, but Uyuniya had never liked delegating blame from living beings. The source of that coldness she felt was undoubtedly because she had shitty people around her.

But this, on the other hand…

"I've departed so far from what I was before," Yuyui said, cutting the silence. She drew closer into Grim's embrace. "I love what I am now, but I also love who I was before – before I was trapped in that temple, that is. The only thing I love more than master is…" She stole a glance at Grim and coughed. "…is music."

Grim chuckled. "Of course, it is."

"I'm serious!" Yuyui said, punching him again. She then turned to Kintar. "Once, just once, I want to leave my musical mark in this Reality – maybe on a world. I'll create one musical piece that will be appreciated and celebrated on a large scale."

"Booooring!" said Kintar, fake-vomiting. Grim regarded her with a venomous look, but Yuyui merely shook her head, dismissing the remark. Kintar scoffed. "But I guess it's something."

Grim took a breath, allowing himself to see Kintar as just another human – an particularly annoying one – and not a demon in disguise.

"Well, what I want to do is less personal, much less inspirational," he said. He looked around at everyone until his eyes landed on Uyuniya. "You know just how broad Reality is, but I'm only just beginning to try and grasp that. I'm confounded by it all." He looked out into the void, his eyes trying to peer into its depth and failing. "I've chosen to live as both man and beast, but I'm yet to truly understand the limits of both. I wonder what kind of humanoids there are out there, what kind of beasts. Did you know? Beasts on Aigas are so unique that they knew about the Voice of Worlds. What about beasts on other worlds? Are they special too? I need to know."

At this, Kintar nodded approvingly. "Now we're talking. Slightly more interesting."

"Slightly?" Grim was triggered. "What's your desire? To be a bigger sockethole than you already are?"

"Who knows?" Kintar grinned.

"I don't think I have nearly as much ambition as you all," said Kenno, folding his arms. Everyone turned his way. "Unlike Yuyui, I don't think I like who I was before. Yet, that old me was the ambitious one – a fool of a thief who should have died instead of being, for lack of a better world, rehabilitated."

What Skullius did to him in their fight back then, killing and healing him over and over until he relented, accepting defeat, couldn't be considered rehabilitation, but to Kenno, it might as well have been. That moment had changed him.

"For now, I'm just invested in getting a chance to fight those Liches again – master's end goal. I see nothing beyond beating them one-on-one," Kenno's resolve bled from his eyes.

"The Liches were that serious, huh?" said Kintar, intrigued. "Even moreso than the masked man?"

Kenno nodded.

"We were lucky that they didn't take us seriously from the start." Savast chimed in. "That gave us more than a few chances to get our bearings and organize enough of a resistance."

"We almost had to fight one of those things and the masked man," said Baddan, shuddering at the thought. "We have Sila to thank for stalling that Arch-Lich."

Kintar stroked her chin for a few moments, digesting the implications. A moment later, she pointed at Baddan and said:

"What about you? You've long grown out of the Cluster beast funk by now. What else do you have to look forward to other than being skewered by Liches for master's sake?"

It only took a few seconds for Baddan to gather the words.

"Family."

Kintar frowned.

"What?"

Baddan smiled.

"Remember what master said before we left Aigas? From here on out, this Order is your home. You belong nowhere else," he said. "The Order isn't a place, right? It's all of us. People. Family. It's been a while since I've felt like I belonged. We have been bonded together by purpose all along, each of us individually attached to master. But I look forward to growing close enough to you all to calling you my family." He laughed. "Maybe that's when I'll actually have something to say about my personal interests and goals."

Kintar couldn't mock this, or rather, she didn't dare.

In that moment, she felt Savast's gaze and turned to him. The instant they locked eyes, it was as though their minds became one, reading the same intent and sentiment from the other.