The final corridor ended at a door unlike any of the previous ones.

Not the black fortress material — white.

Serah and Lira stopped in front of it.

They looked at each other.

Lira pushed the door.

---

The center of the labyrinth was a round chamber the size of the Valdris guild.

No labyrinth walls.

No corridors.

No black fortress material on any surface — everything white, the same white as the door, with the floor and the ceiling and the walls as if someone had built a space specifically so that nothing in it would be from Aethon.

In the center of the chamber stood a figure.

Tall — two meters, its body in human proportions but ending in details that weren’t. Goat horns emerging from its head to the sides and then curving upward, the matte gray tone of something that isn’t bone. Pointed ears protruding above the hairline — white, perfectly styled, falling over the shoulders of a three-piece black suit with a gray waistcoat and a red pocket square folded with the precision of someone who has done it thousands of times.

And in the place where a face should be —

A smile.

Not the expression of a smile. A literal smile — the facial features reduced to a curved line pointing upward at the center of a smooth surface, the kind that projects not joy but something different that borrowed the shape of joy.

:D

The pressure arrived before the figure moved the capital D that served as its mouth.

Not like the pressure of an SSS or Lira or the labyrinth creatures. This was different — colder, stiller.

Serah’s knees threatened to buckle.

The silver markings at thirty-five percent responded — not enough to fully resist, only enough for the buckling to be a threat and not a fact.

Lira, at zero percent blood magic, clenched her teeth.

The figure tilted its head — the movement of someone examining something with genuine interest.

"Congratulations."

The voice was kind.

Completely kind... And with that face it was weird.

"You’re the first to reach the final level of this labyrinth." A pause.

"And it turns out there are two of you. How interesting." Another pause. "Though what’s most interesting is that you’re the first female Streamers to complete an event of this difficulty."

Serah stared at it.

"We’re not Streamers."

The figure looked at her — the smile didn’t change, because the smile couldn’t change, it was the only thing it had in place of a face.

"Pardon?"

"We’re not Streamers," Serah repeated. "We don’t have a transmission system."

The figure processed this.

And the pressure increased.

---

All at once, like someone shutting off a valve.

Serah’s knees bent half a centimeter before her markings responded.

Lira went to the ground on one knee.

"There was no way for you to be here," the figure said, with the same kind tone. "This space is only accessible through the Streamer system. If you’re not Streamers, you can’t have entered."

"We came with him," Lira said, from her knee on the ground.

"With whom?"

"With the Streamer you designed this labyrinth to stop." Lira raised her head toward the figure. "He’ll arrive any second through that door."

The figure looked at the white door.

They waited.

---

One minute.

The door didn’t open.

Serah looked at the door.

Lira looked at the door.

The figure looked at the door with the smile that couldn’t change.

Lira let out a short laugh.

Short. Awkward.

"Don’t worry," she said, with the voice of someone committed to an assertion that each passing second makes harder to sustain. "He... tends to be late to duels. It’s a personality trait." A pause.

"He’s about to arrive."

The figure didn’t respond.

Lira moved closer to Serah — as much as the pressure still weighing on the environment allowed — and lowered her voice.

"Hey."

Serah looked at her.

"What’s up with the piece of trash?" Lira kept her voice a whisper. "Is he always going to do this thing of showing up late? Like when you met me?"

Serah processed the question.

"The first time we were late was because the two of us were hav—"

She stopped.

The silver markings pulsed.

’The dungeon.’

’The fair.’

’When we entered the dungeon he faced an android woman or whatever but equally a woman.’

’If Kai is showing up late...’

’If there’s something delaying him in the empty levels...’

’If that something has a female form...’

The primordial aura flared up — not to maximum, but enough that the chamber’s temperature dropped two degrees in a second.

Serah looked at Lira.

Then at the figure.

Then at the white door.

"Give me a moment," she told the figure, with the completely flat voice of someone making an administrative decision. "I’m going to look for the Streamer. In the meantime you can start."

---

She grabbed Lira by the shoulders.

Turned her.

Placed her between herself and the figure with the specific precision of someone who has assessed the angle and determined this is the correct one.

And started walking toward the door.

---

"Hey!"

Lira’s voice didn’t have the aristocratic tone.

It had the tone of someone who’s just been turned into a human shield in front of an entity that made an SSS’s knees buckle.

"What are you doing?!"

"Looking for Kai."

"And what about me?! Don’t you see the energy that thing gives off?!" Lira looked at the figure, still in the center of the chamber with the unchanging smile. "I have zero percent magic! Zero! Without magic I’m basically a person with fangs!"

"You’re SS."

"SS without magic!"

"You have legs."

"That’s what you said when I proposed running to the doors! Legs don’t help to—!"

Serah was already crossing the corridor.

The white door opened and closed.

---

[DraconicLegacy: SERAH USED LIRA AS A SHIELD AND LEFT]

[RagingMutant: ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ "I have legs" TWICE IN THE SAME Chapter ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛]

[Drakeking: Serah processed that Kai might be late for a specific reason and decided to go verify]

[Jack_Moore: @Drakeking and put Lira as a shield in front of an entity that makes SSS knees buckle. without hesitation.]

[Dr_Snow: "basically a person with fangs" — Lira describing her current state]

[Brandon_Haddan: (╥_╥) (╥_╥) LIRA ALONE (╥_╥) (╥_╥)]

---

The silence in the central chamber lasted five seconds.

Lira looked at the closed door.

Looked at the figure in the center of the chamber.

The figure was looking at her — or at least the smile was pointing in her direction, which was the closest thing to looking that face could do.

The pressure kept weighing down.

Lira assessed the situation with the same process she’d used to assess the magic level of the labyrinth creatures, the traps, the figure in level 4, everything she’d found in the last... not knowing exactly how long they’d been in there.

Zero percent magic.

A figure of undefined pressure in front of her.

Serah looking for Kai in the corridor for reasons Lira preferred not to analyze too much.

Lira looked at her own hands.

The rank markings on the back — no active magic, no tracking threads, nothing. Just the markings etched into her skin as a certificate of eight hundred years of existence.

She sighed.

The kind of sigh someone has when they’ve calculated all the options and found that only one remains.

"I suppose there’s no other choice."

She set herself in a dueling stance — feet apart, weight distributed, arms slightly outward. Not Kai’s stance that the boss had copied. Her own — the one with eight hundred years of refinement behind it, the one that didn’t need magic to be what it was.

She looked at the figure.

"Do you know how to fight physically?" she said.

The figure tilted its head.

"Interesting question."

Lira nodded.

"I’ll take that as a yes."

---

[Jesse_Williams: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ LIRA ALONE AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATOR ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[DraconicLegacy: ┗(°0°)┛ WITHOUT MAGIC ┗(°0°)┛ JUST THE STANCE ┗(°0°)┛]

[RagingMutant: "do you know how to fight physically?" asked with all the seriousness in the world]

[Drakeking: @RagingMutant Lira with zero magic facing an administrator because Serah went to look for Kai]

[Jack_Moore: "I suppose there’s no other choice" — Lira’s character arc in one sentence]

[Dr_Snow: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ LIRA ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ HOLD ON ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

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