La Conquista roars into the valley. Dozens of steam pillars blast out from the skeletons lining the sides of the canyon, filling the space that it occupied mere moments ago.
They tear through sails like paper.
The salt ship following in hot pursuit, a monstrosity dozens of meters in length, is torn to pieces as though a toy.
The mast, dragged down by tattered sails, lies across the gorge, before the steam breaks it too in half, sending the pieces plunging into the salt.
Scraps of wood and bone fly into the air, forming a sharp, deadly rain.
Salt dust is blown away by the steam, revealing yet another salt ship, trampling the carcass of its brethren beneath its heel as it charges towards them.
The flag of the Inquisition flies high upon its mast, yet it is Anastasio, standing beneath it, whose presence commands more attention.
Just as no one can shake their own shadow, Isidro turns around to see Anastasio standing behind him.
Isidro
...
Anastasio
There you are.
Anastasio
Form up, my brothers! Attack!
Warrior Priest
Sir!
Isidro
Elysium! Protect the helm with Weedy! Don't let them take control!
Weedy
Leaf, switch to attack mode!
Elysium
How dare you kick away the waterproof boots I gave Thorns! Did you think a communications specialist couldn't fight?
Warrior Priest
Stay away from me with that stinking mop of yours!
Elysium
It's a FLAG, you scuttlehead! I wash it every week! Or at least try to!
Anastasio
You have very nearly killed me twice now, Isidro. A feat none before have accomplished.
Anastasio
Why then do you so earnestly seek my death? What is this desire you have failed to realize because of me? This desire that is so much stronger than anyone else's?
Isidro
I don't have any desires.
Anastasio
...Impossible. All mortals are driven by desire.
Isidro
What about you?
Anastasio
Myself first and foremost.
Isidro
If you're driven by desire too, then you have no right to kill people in the name of suppressing it... Even if you're with the Inquisition.
Anastasio
The Inquisition? No. Once, I wished for nothing more than that priest from the Inquisition to kill me and end my sinful life.
Anastasio
But alas, he denied his own right to judge me, to execute me... and in so doing denied my right to die.
Anastasio
You still have that right, Isidro. The right to an easy end.
Isidro
I have no interest in dying.
Anastasio
Maybe so, but you have been tainted by the strongest of all desires, no? Then you have already lost your free will.
Anastasio
You are compelled to sin. You simply cannot stop yourself.
Anastasio
Why do you hide your broken right arm with that glove?
Anastasio
Those controlled by desire always refuse to admit that their obsession will lead them to ruin.
Anastasio
You cannot turn back. No one like you can. So I will kill you to stop your sins.
Anastasio
But before that, you shall first face your desire! Acknowledge it!
Anastasio
Only by doing so can you die sober and fighting.
Anastasio's sword slices through the air with a piercing shrill, targeting Isidro's right hand. Isidro twists his body at a nearly impossible angle to evade, but the blade's tip still rips through his glove.
Corazonix seeps out of the tear in his glove, turning into delicate ribbons that drift towards every corner of the valley.
Isidro
...What's going on?
Anastasio
So that is where you have hidden the compass.
Anastasio
I have watched over that anathema for so many years, yet not once have seen it respond so eagerly to one's desires.
Anastasio
Such powerful desire, Isidro, yet you do not even know it.
Isidro
If you knew the first thing about alchemy, you'd know it doesn't respond to desire. Not mine or anyone else's.
Isidro
Under the manipulation of an alchemist, Corazonix leaves the compass and enters the natural cycle before returning to the compass. Then the alchemist deciphers the information it brings back.
Isidro
That is its basic principle. It has nothing to do with anything as subjective as desire.
Isidro has read too many alchemical tomes and listened to too many of Aulus's lessons. He could recite these principles backward and forward.
But he cannot help but ask himself: Is that really everything there is to the compass, to Corazonix?
Why did the Corazonix on his arm start drifting without any input from him?
Does he not want to know what it is responding to?
Does he not want to know what he wants?
The distraction is enough for Anastasio's sword to pierce his left shoulder.
Isidro
—Argh!
Anastasio
Where is your desire, Isidro? That most powerful desire that compels you to kill me?
Anastasio
Will you die as the puppet of that desire, without even knowing what it is?!
Bone swords rattle. Saltfin hide armor clashes. A roaring sailor walks up to Juana.
The other sailors pull their armor off and form a circle of flesh and blood. Inside the circle is Juana, and the sailor who issued the challenge.
Juana is taken aback for an instant, then laughs as she understands.
Juana
So you remember the tradition.
Fearless Sailor
How could we forget? You taught us how to challenge the leader when we were kids!
Fearless Sailor
But now your life is worth big money, enough to set me up for life!
Juana
—Come at me then!
Juana swings the helm wheel with a whoosh and slams it into the man's bare chest with a sickeningly dull thud.
His chest collapses, and he falls onto the deck without so much as a gurgle and wheeze.
But the others step over his blood, crying in fury as they rush towards Juana with weapons in hand.
Howling Sailor
Die!
Juana
Hah!
Roaring Sailor
Raaaah!
Yet another sailor charges forward, but hesitates for an instant when his eyes meet Juana's.
His axe slows for a split second, just enough time for Juana's helm wheel to connect first. The last thing he sees is the pale salts filling his eyes, even as the lower half of his body clings to the deck.
Juana
This is no place to be getting cold feet!
Juana
A moment of hesitation is the difference between life and death!
Juana
Who's next?
Another sailor steps up through the pool of blood, cutlass in hand. She seems a little thinner and frailer than the others.
Juana
Oh... if it isn't little Lomi?
Frail Sailor
Aye, boss. It's me.
Juana
What do you plan to do with the reward money?
Frail Sailor
I got a daughter. It's all hers!
Juana
Good! Then come and claim what is hers!
The frail sailor gulps and swings her cutlass at Juana, who lands a blow first with a backhand swing.
One of her arms hits the ground, unleashing a spray of blood.
Her other arm, however, continues clenching her cutlass.
Juana
Come! Raise your weapon! We're not done yet!
Frail Sailor
Haah... Ahhh...
Frail Sailor
Arrrggghhh!!!
Once again, she musters the courage to charge at Juana, but the heavy helm wheel finds her forehead faster.
Suddenly, the frail sailor is pushed aside.
Javier
Stop.
Frail Sailor
...?
Javier
I'll do it.
Frail Sailor
...Thought you didn't want us to kill her?
Javier
No. I'm your leader. At this point, what you want is what I want.
Javier
And as your leader, I'm supposed to protect you, not watch you walk to your deaths one by one.
You can put me down here. I'm feeling better. I can fight.
Pascuala
*pant* *pant* These chupamedias... they're like saltfins who smell blood... can't shake them...
Warrior Priest
You've finally stopped. How many times have you taken what doesn't belong to you, you dirty little thief? You've got nerve to still be talking here.
Warrior Priest
Catch the thief and the bandit! Bring them back to the Inquisition!
Teach
*cough*...
Pascuala
...'Thief'?
Pascuala
'What doesn't belong to me'?
Pascuala picks up a fallen cutlass and charges at the warrior priests before her, red with fury.
Pascuala
Bloodsucking finshit! I could've lived a decent life until you people came after me and threw me out! How dare you assume I've become immoral just because my family has fallen on hard times?!
Warrior Priest
What's she going on about... She's gone mad! Kill her!
Pascuala
All I wanted that day was to go back home and get what was mine as a kid! I wasn't stealing! My abuela made that bracelet for me!
Pascuala
What's wrong with taking what is mine? Who do you think you are, branding me a thief, no matter what I did, no matter what I said! I even begged you—
Pascuala
Begged you to let me find a job in town and live a decent life! But you people called me a thief and kicked me out!
Pascuala
Well, now I'm a thief! Are you happy now? Are you happy?!
Pascuala
Inquisition finshit! You don't get to tell me what belongs to me or not!
Objectively speaking, the ship did, in fact, go airborne for a few seconds. I may have overtuned the LN cannon a tad... But don't worry, I also have a smaller water cannon to help slow it down...
Elysium
We're going too fast! I can't avoid that bone up ahead! Do something with that cannon of yours!
Weedy
I don't know if I can knock away a bone as big as that! Brace for impact!
Weedy
It's not fair... I just fixed the ship!
Warrior Priest
There's someone here!
Elysium
Didn't we just get rid of you?!
Elysium
Alright, I'll deal with them. Weedy, you fix up the ship. Again.
Isidro's left arm is shaking with pain. His sword has already left his hand.
Under Anastasio's incessant interrogation, he finds himself overcome by an even sharper pain.
The dispersed Corazonix once again converges upon him, having drifted amidst the salt and steam.
Isidro
You asked what I want.
Isidro
I want Juana to sail upon the seas that she's longed for all these years.
Isidro
I want Pascuala to go to bed with a full stomach, not wake up in the middle of the night from hunger.
Isidro
I want Weedy to go back safely to her research, and for Elysium to make it on time to that concert he's been looking forward to.
Anastasio
Yet all I see is how you people tear each other apart as you hasten to your own demise.
Anastasio
Who, precisely, did this tragedy begin with?
Anastasio
Juana. She, who has forgotten the pain of the Profound Silence. She, who is determined to ride to her doom seeking thrills that live on only in her memory.
Anastasio
It was her desire that dragged Pascuala into the abyss. The girl who wanted nothing more than food on the table was made to steal the Inquisition's forbidden relic, blinded by greed and promises of riches.
Anastasio
And then the rest of your fellows. When you say you wish their lives to return to normalcy, have you given any thought as to why they fell to abnormality?
Anastasio
It was because of you, Isidro.
Anastasio
Juana's desire infected you, and you in turn have infected more innocents.
Isidro
...I know.
Isidro
People are affected by one another. There's nothing wrong with that.
Isidro
Everyone I met at Aarón kept their head down and their windows shut. No one spoke a word to each other, unless it was absolutely necessary.
Isidro
Maybe it's the teachings of the Inquisition, or maybe the trauma of the great calamity that's never faded from their hearts. I couldn't say.
Isidro
What I can say, though, is that no one should have to live like that.
Anastasio pulls his sword out of Isidro's shoulder.
Carrying the red glow of the steam, the Corazonix returns to its place inside Isidro's glove and once again flows upon his arm.
For an instant, he can feel the gushing heat of the entire Skeletal Reef converged upon his right arm.
Anastasio
Go on, Isidro. If you have finally decided to expose your true nature, then I shall hear your confession.
Isidro
Because of my mentor, for a very long time, I thought the ultimate end of human interaction was consumption and assimilation, just like the Seaborn.
Isidro
I thought I would be consumed by others just as I consumed them. That there would always be people compelled by someone else's desires, held hostage by someone else's decisions, ultimately losing sight of their own selves.
Isidro
In the years before I joined Rhodes Island, I did my utmost to avoid something like that happening... like what happened to the people of Aarón.
Isidro
But now, I understand that the 'self' I had tried so hard to protect was empty. There was nothing there.
Isidro
Even after I earned some money, I lived exactly as I had as a vagabond. I wore the same clothes, ate the same food, stayed in the same places, did the same things.
Isidro
I didn't know what I wanted. Maybe I didn't want anything.
Anastasio
Is it not happiness to live as an empty canvas?
Anastasio
Is that not true freedom?
Anastasio
Unlike your current self, the one forced to drag but more innocent souls into the abyss, as you have done.
Isidro
Juana gave me a chance to leave. I chose to stay. Neither of us regrets our decisions.
Isidro
So, if I indeed dragged Elysium and Weedy into this, then I should give them a chance to leave or stay.
Isidro
If you want to kill them, then I'll just have to kill you first.
Isidro senses the once chaotic movement of the Corazonix becoming rhythmic. With each pulse on his arm, steam bursts from the nearby bones.
It dawns on him that the Corazonix, salvaged from the transmutation table, is now fulfilling its intended function while attached to him.
He wants to lead his friends out of this deadly Skeletal Reef, so it is guiding him by indicating the direction of the searing steam flowing through the bones.
Isidro tears his glove off.
Flowing Corazonix has filled every gash and hole that the Arts energy had left upon his flesh.
It is now as one with him.
He picks up his sword with his right arm, and points it at Anastasio's face.
