'I never have and never will waver before the atrocities of the world. Yet, as I stand here, looking down at my brother's corpse with his dead pale face reflecting the sun above us, I feel differently. A stray tear falls from my eye. Clenching my teeth while short purple hair flows before me, I glare down the road with eyes shining with nothing but red.'
"How dare they…?"
Luna fell to her knees, closed Muhammad's eyes, and lifted his body into her arms. While she had nothing left to avenge because Anna was dead, something inside Amana raged on. Something dormant she'd been blind to for how long? Walking down the road, her brother's dead body bouncing with every step she made, Luna found herself at an impasse.
An intersection devoid of cars with blood staining the ground. Glancing at the stain, she looked up and ahead, then turned around at the familiar sound of someone grunting. She turned her back, deciding to venture down the abandoned road missing sound. The Apex sighed.
'Whoever was grunting back there is probably fighting the rest of the Three Gate Families. I thought there were missing bodies around Muhammad.'
Luna walked down the road under the vast red sky until she reached the end. Staring up at the gate leading out of the City, the Apex's saddened gaze reflected the mountains and beyond that, another metropolis. But the clouds were still red. Everything above her as far as the eye could see was engulfed by the Progenitor's evil influence in the form of that putrid red sky.
The only thing she could do was curse it from the bottom of her heart. Not because she hated the sight of it. But because, as long as it existed, the only thing she could do was bury her brother's body. Some five minutes later, Luna fell to her knees and dispelled the shovel she used to dig, staring at the stone she used for his tomb.
The Apex looked down. "I'm sorry. I can't leave just yet, brother. I have to end this." Stifling a chuckle and sniffling, she shook her head. "What am I saying? What's wrong with me? Why did I make you fight?" Luna's teary gaze shimmered at Muhammad's name messily carved into the makeshift tombstone. "What kind of a big sister am I…?"
Luna wiped the tears from her eyes and stood up, looking at the smoke leaking into the air from the distance she walked away from earlier. The sounds of battle; how could she mistake them? Stealing one last look back at her brother's grave pressed into the dirt, the Apex finished stepping away, vanishing soon after to begin converging on the Families fighting in the center.
But as she was soaring through the air with the wind rushing past her face, Luna noticed something from below. Something unusual. The ranks of the Three Gate Families she assumed to be fighting someone unknown were entirely decimated. Dismembered and mutilated bodies with dried pools of blood below them scattered around the street were what greeted the Apex as she landed on the ground, glancing down at them only briefly. Until finally raising her head at their assured executioner.
Before her hand swiftly raised to block the intense gleam radiating off Lily's Celestial body, Luna caught a glimpse of the Enforcer's humanoid-female build.
'Are my eyes… Am I dreaming right now?'
Holding an axe of light over her shoulder, Lily sat up on the box she was on. "Are you an enemy?"
"Uh, depends. I might get angry if you shine that light too bright and hurt my eyes," she said.
"Really?" Lil snickered. "Sorry 'bout that. I forgot I was in my Celestial form." She stood up.
"Celestial form'?" The Apex repeated.
"Yeah." The brightness emanating from Lily gradually darkened. Now back as a human with caramel-tanned skin and golden stars over her cheeks, she sat back on the box she stood from. "Anyway. How's your day?"
"Really?" Luna asked. "'How's my day'? Shouldn't you be warier of random people still alive in this apocalyptic situation coming up to you?"
"I guess you're right. But I'm not worried about that. As you can see, normal Fate users aren't a problem for me. It's more like a way to test the water. See if I still got it," Lil said. Smiling, she looked up at Luna. "What's your name?"
"Luna."
"No last name?"
She shook her head. "Never had one."
"Okay! Suit yourself." Lily pushed herself up from the crate and stepped forward, leaning extremely close to Luna's face. "Come with me! I'm looking for my friend and I think he's fighting a dangerous opponent. More powerful friends would help when I found him."
"Your friend, hm? Sorry. But I'll pass. Plus, wouldn't company be a hindrance to someone like you?" She pushed Lily back and pointed at the number of corpses piled up behind her. "I wouldn't wanna tag around with someone who can cut me in half with a single swing from her ax."
Lil nodded. "Yeah. I guess that makes sense." She turned around and started walking away, waving bye at Luna without looking back. "Alright then. It was nice meeting you. Byeee!"
"Wait!"
Stopping in her tracks, Lily looked back at the Apex over her shoulder. "Yes?"
"Uh…" Luna scratched her neck. "Sorry if it's kinda weird to ask. But… what do you do when someone you love dies?"
Lily's carefree expression led by the smooth grin her lips formed eventually fell into confusion as the Celestial slowly started and finished widening her eyes.
"What?"
"Y'know, like when someone close to you stops living. My brother just died and I… I don't know how to feel." She looked down. "I've never had anyone I loved die before. He was my little brother. I was supposed to protect him. And yet, I don't know how I feel. An odd sense of sadness wells up inside it, but defining it only as that feels abnormally unfitting. Perhaps a sense of freedom lingers even further beneath that base depression I feel at his demise. I honestly don't know. On one hand, I want to break down and cry. On the other hand, I'm free. Nobody ties me down to anything as fickle as human relationships. I can do whatever I want."
Smiling widely, tears formed in the corners of her eyes. "What kind of a person am I? I can't even break down and feel properly for my dead brother. I just want to know… if this is how I'm supposed to be feeling. That's why I'm telling you."
Lily's surprised face wasn't indicative of her shock at why she asked such a personal question. It was true she hadn't expected it at first, so perhaps her shock was partly due to that, but the main reason for the utter blankness behind the Celestial's wide-doe eyes was deeper than that. She thought about Luna's question after everything she said and finally, averted her gaze.
"I don't know."
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Luna tilted her head. "H-huh?"
"I said I don't know. You saw what I was when you approached me, remember?" Lily looked back ahead at the end of the street idle before her. "A being of pure light in a humanoid woman shape. I'm not human. I have never had someone I love perish before my eyes. So, I'm probably the worst person you could ask that actually," she said.
"Oh." Luna nodded. "I see. I… I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Lily shook her head. "You're lucky. Humans are given so many chances to find love, whether romantic or platonic. I hear those types of relationships are somewhat complex. I must say…" she looked back over her shoulder at Luna. "I am quite envious of you people."
She vanished. Alone and surrounded by mutilated corpses, Luna shrugged her shoulders, venting a long sigh.
"Welp…"
She scratched the back of her head. Pocketing both hands in her jacket pockets, the Apex's short purple strands flowed before her pupils, while she stared up longingly at the bright red sky.
"What the hell do I do now…?"
The Apex Predator took one last long stare at the sun peeking over the horizon, filling the sky with a mix of fiery and scarlet colors. Then, she turned back. Letting the end of her long coat sway with the winds hidden by the Earth, as Luna continued walking down the street, she eventually disappeared.
Eightfold assumed they never encountered Luna Amana and think her to be dead. But while the remnants of Apex Predator stood dormant in the City of the Gate governed by the Progenitor, she decided to flee.
Standing over her brother's grave, Muhammad's last words reached out from beyond that time in the past to remind her. Remind her why she was still alive.
'We're monsters! We don't deserve to keep living. Or at least… that's what I think.'
As she who once went by the surname Amana stepped beyond the premises of the metal gate serving as a border between the City and the outside world, she didn't look back while speaking to Muhammad from the depths of her mind.
'You're right. You always were. But even so, I keep living. If anyone deserved to die, it was me. After all, look at what I'm doing. Because I can't face the deaths of any more of my siblings, I'm leaving them. Leaving them to rot. But for some reason, even when I think about them, I don't feel bad. Atlas was our retribution. We are murderers. If we were never forced to band alongside him and do the terrible things he made us do, how long would we have gone? Being ignorant, killing others—for the sake of blind justice? Apex Predator was a joke. It was from the moment my father founded it.'
Luna smiled. 'It was because we stood together that I managed to realize that after you died. It may have been too late for you, brother, but I'm still alive. I promise to make this right. I promise to live the life we always wanted to. I hope, despite everything, you still manage to watch over this despicable excuse of an older sister.
Goodbye, Muhammad. I hope you can forgive me… wherever you are.'