"Lady Layla… this is all my fault. If I hadn't lost the crystal ball I used to contact you…"
Grammi knelt beside Layla's bed, her short green hair trembling as she sobbed uncontrollably and apologized again and again to the woman whose life was slowly fading away.
Layla looked almost identical to Lucy, though there was something gentler and more refined about her bearing.
Her face was pale and her breathing weak, yet she still managed to smile as she reached out and stroked Grammi's hair.
"It's alright. I should have prepared for something like this too. None of this is your fault."
Grammi shook her head fiercely, wiped away her tears, and pulled out the golden Aquarius Key.
"I don't deserve to keep this anymore. Please, Lady Layla—take it back."
Layla looked at the key with unmistakable nostalgia, but after a moment she gave a faint, helpless smile.
"I can't use Celestial Spirit Magic anymore."
"Then leave it to Lucy!"
Grammi immediately leaned forward.
"She's your daughter. I'm sure she'll grow into a wonderful Celestial Spirit Mage someday!"
At the mention of Lucy, warmth returned to Layla's exhausted face.
Despite the pain she was suppressing, she smiled with genuine happiness.
"I'm just glad the Heartfilia family's duty could finally end with my generation. As for Lucy, I want her to choose her own path."
A hint of playful humor entered her weak voice.
"What if she grows up and decides she doesn't even like Celestial Spirits?"
Even while dying, Layla still had enough spirit left to joke.
Grammi, however, couldn't laugh. Her eyes remained red as she answered through a trembling voice,
"She will."
"That child… she's exactly like you."
Layla slowly exhaled, her breath unsteady, and after a moment she tried to steer the conversation toward something less painful.
"How is Brandish doing?"
"She's well. Though without Aquarius around, I think she gets lonely sometimes."
Even though Layla had changed the subject, Grammi clearly had no intention of giving up on returning the key. The way she spoke already treated the matter as settled.
Layla could only look at her helplessly.
"She and Lucy are about the same age, aren't they?"
Her expression softened.
"I hope someday they can become friends, just like we did."
"No! I could never presume to—"
"Why not?"
Layla smiled.
"Grammi, you are my friend."
By the time the visit ended, Layla had finally yielded to Grammi's insistence and accepted Aquarius's key once more.
Grammi left the estate with tears still in her eyes.
Before departing, she stopped and looked back one last time toward the room where Layla lay bedridden, then turned away and continued down the road with heavy steps.
That was when a cold flash of steel appeared behind her.
Blood sprayed through the air.
Grammi's eyes widened as the blade plunged into her back, shock briefly overwhelming her expression.
Blood spilled from her lips, yet that surprise soon faded into something far stranger.
Relief.
"This is all because of you!"
Zoldeo stood behind her with a dagger buried deep in her body.
His face was twisted by grief and hatred, his mind already descending toward the darkness that would eventually consume him.
"Lady Layla had to sacrifice herself because of you!"
Lucy had been right about one thing.
While Layla was alive, no one who truly knew her had spoken badly of her.
Not even Zoldeo, the servant who would later fall so far that he became one of Grimoire Heart's Seven Kin of Purgatory.
Grammi listened to his furious accusations with tears in her eyes, but she didn't defend herself.
Instead, she whispered, "You're right…"
"I'm the reason Lady Layla is dying."
"This is what I deserve."
"Because of you, she had to sacrifice her own life!"
Zoldeo's fury only grew when he saw no fear in her face. He pushed the dagger deeper.
More blood ran from Grammi's mouth.
She still didn't resist.
Instead, she slowly turned her head and pleaded with him.
"I'll pay for my mistake with my life."
"But please… there's one thing I'm begging you for."
Her voice weakened.
"My daughter has nothing to do with this."
"Please leave her alone."
"My daughter…"
"Brandish…"
"NO!"
Brandish's scream tore through the Memory of the Stars.
Watching her mother die at Zoldeo's hands finally shattered whatever restraint she had left.
She dropped to her knees and broke down completely, sobbing so hard that she could barely breathe.
Her mother hadn't been murdered by Layla.
She had been killed by Zoldeo, a servant who at the time still believed he was avenging Layla.
But now that Brandish knew the truth, who was she supposed to hate?
Who was left for her to punish?
Zoldeo had already paid for everything he had done and eventually vanished from the world entirely.
Layla had sacrificed her own life because Grammi couldn't be reached in time, and although the man who murdered Grammi had once served the Heartfilia family, none of that guilt could reasonably be placed on Layla—especially when Grammi herself had died believing she deserved punishment for what happened.
The sight of her mother's death and the realization that there was nowhere left to direct all those years of hatred crashed into Brandish at once.
She felt as though she were going to lose her mind.
Then, through the grief, Brandish suddenly realized she was being held.
Lucy had wrapped both arms tightly around her.
Tears were streaming down Lucy's face as well, but she refused to let go. Her voice trembled as she whispered beside Brandish's ear,
"Then from now on…"
"Let me be your new family."
She held Brandish even more tightly.
"Just like our mothers were."
Brandish's remaining composure collapsed.
She wailed into Lucy's arms.
...
The stellar light faded.
Brandish's sobbing suddenly filled the underground hall, startling Ankh, who had been waiting outside the Memory of the Stars.
He stared at Lucy and Brandish embracing one another and scratched his head.
'So… they made up?'
Apparently, someone else really had killed Brandish's mother after all.
Aquarius stood nearby with an equally sorrowful expression, watching the two girls cry together. Seeing the mood, Ankh wisely decided not to interrupt.
It wasn't difficult to understand why both of them were devastated.
Brandish had spent most of her life convinced that Layla Heartfilia was the woman who murdered her mother.
She had carried that hatred for years, only to discover that Layla had never harmed Grammi at all—and worse, she had just been forced to witness her mother's final moments, including the guilt and resignation with which Grammi had accepted her own death.
Lucy, meanwhile, had finally learned the true reason her mother died more than a decade after losing her.
On what should have been an ordinary day, Layla had allowed a trusted friend to return home to visit her family.
That small act of kindness had prevented Grammi from being present when the four-hundred-year mission of the Heartfilia family finally reached its appointed moment, and Layla had ultimately paid for that coincidence with her life.
The truth had finally been revealed.
But what were either of them supposed to do with it?
Were they supposed to hate someone?
Who?
And if they refused to hate anyone at all, did that somehow diminish the pain of losing their mothers?
From an outsider's perspective, each family's tragedy had undeniably been connected to the other.
Yet in the middle of their grief, the two girls—both gentle in ways their mothers would have recognized—made the same choice Layla and Grammi once had.
They chose one another.
Lucy and Brandish clung tightly together, as though they could pour all the grief and resentment that had accumulated over the years out through their tears and leave only the warmth they could still offer each other behind.
Ankh still didn't entirely understand how the situation had changed this dramatically in such a short time.
But at the very least, it looked like Lucy and Brandish were no longer going to fight.
Then his senses caught something.
A power he found profoundly unpleasant.
And immediately afterward came a voice he found even more irritating.
"Well, well."
"How touching."
Mard Geer slowly descended the staircase into the underground hall, dressed in his black-and-white clerical robes.
He looked toward Brandish, who was still embracing Lucy, with a dark smile that made him seem almost deranged.
"One of the Spriggan 12…"
His tone dripped with mockery.
"And you're crying in the arms of the enemy?"
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