Ophelia didn't move for a while. She was basking in the sun's rays until those rays became beams of moonlight.

Under the moonlight, the Lilac Liora'fen began to hiss and churn, a slight violet glow emanating from their petals, but Ophelia didn't care for the sublime beauty. She was more interested in the harrowing fact that she'd inadvertently killed her brother.

While she didn't know the whole truth, it was just the affirmation of something she already believed to be true that broke her soul.

Throughout the night, Diligence kept talking, and Ophelia listened but never replied.

But each word carried by the wind from Diligence's lips breathed purpose back into Ophelia. Or more so, the seeds of revenge that had been planted long ago were starting to bloom.

***

Ophelia didn't know when she'd fallen asleep, but the next time she opened her eyes, her body was stiff and sore all over. But otherwise, she was alive.

Her most ghastly injuries had healed, and no beast had claimed her life while she slept.

A little delirious, Ophelia sat up and looked around at the flowers and the raging waters. As she took in the landscape, it didn't take long to confirm that her memory wasn't playing a trick. All that had happened had happened.

This wasn't some dream.

It was the twisted, lamentable reality.

As reality set in, tears attempted to remake their journey from her tear ducts down her cheek, but were quickly stifled as she remembered the words Diligence had whispered in her ear. Words that were horribly enticing for one who'd lost everything.

Ophelia began to question if the voice she'd heard was a person at all or a fleeting dream.

"I was not a figment of your imagination… I am quite real."

Ophelia picked her hair out of her face and looked toward the waterfall.

"Nor can I read your mind. And I spoke no lies before."

Ophelia weakly blinked as she looked down at her own hands, which were covered in soot and blood. Then she weakly muttered:

"Then, I…"

Diligence responded in a happy tone:

"Yes, you are the Hero of Virtue, Kindness. And with my help, you may have your revenge on the one who killed your brother…"

***

Ophelia still blamed herself for her brother's death, but a certain oracle had spent the entire night shifting blame and tugging at the strings in her mind just enough to start the transition of that hate from herself to another — that another being, Lust.

A tried-and-true tactic used by many manipulators…

And Ophelia, who was at her lowest, didn't even try to combat the whispers.

Why would she resist something that would ease the pain?

Unbeknownst to the girl, she'd already fallen deep into Diligence's web. That deplorable proposition that was slowly laid out to her wasn't sounding so horrible if it meant all ended well.

With that end being Lust's death and vengeance for her brother. Then the subsequent saving of the world by riddance of the Vice.

However, the actions taken to reach such a conclusion as Diligence described… didn't sound like kindness at all. How would Ophelia, the supposed Kindness, commit such horrible acts and remain a "hero"?

Not that Ophelia cared for a titular title like that, but she was more worried about losing her supposed powers… powers she hadn't even unlocked yet.

But that's when Diligence had whispered an insidious line that had crept and nestled into Ophelia's psyche.

"Hero, Diligence, Kindness — it is all subjective… What's kind to one is evil to another. What is heroic to one is villainous to another. In the end, it's not about how the world sees you, but how you see yourself. If you know yourself to be in the right, then it will be so… If you know your actions to be out of kindness, then Kindness will respond."

When Diligence had spoken those sentences the night before, Ophelia's mind had warped to deal with the trauma from the loss of her brother.

In the end, Ophelia had decided to take the oracle's proposition… however, damnable the actions and consequences may be.

But there was also one other tantalizing proposition that got snuck in alongside the seeds of revenge and shifting of blame.

"Once you complete your core and finish the transition into becoming a true Virtue… your mortal toils will be at an end. What I mean is… your body will ascend, and you'll never have to experience menstruation again because your body will be continually repairing itself as long as it is provided Aether…"

That one had sealed the deal…

***

"Yes, you are the Hero of Virtue, Kindness. And with my help, you may have your revenge on the one who killed your brother."

Ophelia hadn't formally said it yet, but it was clear where her intentions lay. In her head, she'd long accepted Diligence's proposition to spend the next month training and unlocking ability, then helping set in motion the sequence of events that would lead to a perfect victory and Lust's death, starting from the coming-of-age ceremony…

But first, before her training started, there was the conversation they'd yet to finish.

Ophelia's scars had yet to heal, who knew if they ever would, but they'd at least become set and solid.

After a short pause, Diligence asked:

"Is there anything you'd like to know?"

Ophelia took a bit to finish gathering herself, then dragged her body into a lotus-like position and sat facing the crashing waterfall.

"Diligence… While I don't doubt your powers. There are only Six Heroes of Virtue, yet you claim to be a seventh by a name I've never heard."

The Fist Shrine Maiden paused for a moment, then said evenly:

"It seems like someone's been doing well to scrub my name from the annals of history…"

Ophelia blinked as she clutched the dirt.

"What do you—?"

"It wouldn't make sense for there to be Seven Vices and Six Virtues, now would it? Sloth, one of the Vices… I am her antithesis. Three hundred years ago, she managed to trap me, and it seems she's been working hard to erase my existence ever since."

Ophelia stared at the crashing waterfall with a blank mind.

While this information wasn't as gut-wrenching as what she'd heard before, nor did it hurt her, it did confuse her a bit because it refuted the stories she'd been told her entire life.

Then again, those telling the story were brainwashed cultists… Now being free of that indoctrination, or more like her perspective and proselytizer changing, she could see the bogus tradition for what it was more clearly.

Ophelia rattled off her next question:

"You said three hundred years… but the Vices and Virtues appeared two hundred years ago. What did you mean?"

Leila snickered then said coyly:

"It seems she's done more than to erase me… that girl has gone and rewritten all of history. Impressive…"

Ophelia didn't particularly understand or care about the manipulation of history, but hearing that all she knew might be a fabrication by the fabled Sloth was a little concerning.

"Umm…"

But the next thing Diligence added really caught her attention.

"Speaking of Sloth… she is an oracle as well. Though she sees the branches farther away with greater clarity, the closer ones are more ambiguous to her. Oh, she's also the one who started that tradition in your village. All with the intention to force-feed me Aether to keep me alive…"

'H-huh?'

Ophelia brushed her hair aside and stared at the waterfall with a deadpan expression, then asked.

"What do you mean…?"

Diligence waited a moment, then responded evenly:

"As a kid, you should have learned what a Virtue was in the face of a Vice. Now knowing that I am Sloth's nemesis should make it clear as to why she imprisoned me here. The how is too long a story to tell, but the bottom line is, she couldn't kill me, so she trapped me."

Diligence paused a moment, then continued:

"Then, to make sure the power of Diligence didn't transfer to anyone else, she brainwashed your village and created that ritual of sending people over the waterfall to their death and made it so my body would absorb the Aether of all that died, sustaining my life. As for how she's kept up the brainwashing for centuries…"

Diligence made a thin column of water shoot up and form a flower…

"The Lilac Liora'fen growing all around contains a trace of her Aether and is nourished by your dead kin… just being around it is enough to lull most to follow her commands. However, consuming it like the people of your village do just makes her control that much more absolute."

'Consuming it?'

"Of course… I've been trying to stop your village from obtaining any more, but in my current state, I can barely control my Aether… So they've been taking a sizable amount each year. They don't even hear me when I try to talk to them. But what I could do was take advantage of my ability to see the branches of fate. And that's when I found you, who was born with the destiny to become the next Kindness…"

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