The last scraps of Ishtar's covenant burned away between her feet.
Across the Pleasure Quarter, the black seals carved above the branch houses shattered.
Workers tore tags from their wrists, paper-carriers opened cabinets that had remained locked for decades, and Amazons who had guarded the streets turned their weapons toward anyone trying to stop the evacuation.
Ishtar heard it all.
Her house was still standing, but the Familia she had ruled was already breaking apart above her.
"You believe cutting paper can erase everything I created?"
Her voice shook with fury.
"I gave these women a place in Orario when respectable gods treated them like filth! I gave them Falna, strength, wealth, and protection, and now they stand beside an outsider who will abandon them the moment his conscience finds another cause!"
Rayleigh did not answer immediately.
He looked toward Aisha.
"This is your Familia. Say what needs to be said."
Aisha stared at her goddess for several seconds.
Belka could see the grief beneath her anger now. Ishtar had been her home, her source of strength, and the center of every future she had once imagined.
Walking away did not erase any of that.
"Lady Ishtar, many of us loved you. Some still do, and that is exactly why this hurts so much!"
Aisha's damaged sword trembled in her hand.
"You saved women nobody else wanted, but you never allowed them to become strong enough to stop needing you. Every gift came with fear attached, and every act of kindness became another reason we were forbidden to refuse."
Ishtar's expression tightened.
"I made you a captain."
"You made me powerful enough to protect this Familia, then punished me whenever I tried to protect it from Phryne!"
Aisha pointed toward the Level Five lying helpless beneath Nejibana's water and Omokagechō's bindings.
"You chose her cruelty every time it was useful! You chose the ledgers, the threats, and the locked doors because obedience mattered more to you than whether we stayed willingly!"
The Amazons near the stairs listened in silence.
Aisha's next words came more quietly, though they carried through the entire archive.
"I will always remember the goddess who saved me. I will also remember the goddess who made that rescue another kind of cage."
Ishtar looked beyond her toward the women she had called her children.
"Are you all so eager to become ordinary again? When I return my blessing, your strength disappears, your enemies stop fearing you, and this city remembers exactly what it thought of you before my name forced it to bow!"
Sabra stepped beside Aisha.
"Then we will discover who remains when fear no longer introduces us."
Another captain joined them.
Then another.
Some were crying.
Others still wore Ishtar's jewelry, unable to remove the last sign of a home they had not expected to lose that night.
No one crossed back to the goddess.
Ishtar's anger cracked into disbelief.
"You would choose him over me?"
Belka leaned on Omokagechō to remain standing.
"This was never a choice between you and Rayleigh! That is the part you still refuse to understand!"
The paper strips surrounding her Zanpakutō carried hundreds of names through the archive.
"Some women are leaving. Some are staying in the Quarter. Some still love you, and some hate all of us. They are choosing different lives because freedom does not require everyone to agree!"
Ishtar's eyes fixed on Rayleigh.
Warmth entered her divine pressure, spreading through the archive with the heavy sweetness of perfume.
Belka's thoughts blurred.
The anger inside her softened, replaced by the sudden urge to kneel, apologize, and believe that everything could still be repaired if Ishtar smiled.
Aisha swayed beside her.
Several Amazons dropped their weapons.
Rayleigh remained still.
The five Zanpakutō around his soul answered the Charm together.
Senbonzakura's presence closed like a wall of blades.
Hyōrinmaru froze the warmth before it reached his heart.
Sakanade twisted the false desire back on itself, while Ruri'iro Kujaku and Benihime anchored what remained.
Ishtar's Charm broke against him.
Rayleigh's eyes hardened.
"You tried this after every woman in the room finally answered you."
Ishtar's face went pale.
Belka's thoughts cleared as Rayleigh's spiritual pressure drove the lingering Charm from the archive.
Aisha staggered, then looked at her goddess with horror.
"You were going to force us to love you?!"
"I was reminding you of what already existed!"
"No!"
Aisha's scream filled the room.
"You were taking the last choice we had left!"
The remaining hesitation among the Amazons vanished.
Weapons rose around the archive, all pointed toward Ishtar and Phryne.
Ishtar looked at her children and found no one willing to defend her.
Phryne thrashed against the restraints.
"Release me, Lady Ishtar! Restore my body, and I will kill them all! You do not need these traitors when you still have me!"
Ishtar turned toward her.
Disgust crossed the goddess's face.
"You had one purpose tonight. You failed to protect the ledgers, lost the house, and allowed a paper-carrier to bind you with your own orders."
Phryne stared at her.
"I did everything for you!"
"You did everything for yourself."
The words destroyed what remained of Phryne's certainty.
Rayleigh approached Ishtar.
Benihime remained lowered beside him.
"I gave you a way out before this began. Release the women, pay the ones who chose to stay, and let everyone else walk away. You refused because a Familia built on choice would not have belonged to you completely."
Ishtar lifted her chin.
"You expect me to beg now?"
"No."
"Then what do you want from me?"
Rayleigh stopped within reach.
"I want to know whether you will leave Orario willingly."
Ishtar laughed.
The sound was bitter and exhausted.
"You destroyed my covenant, poisoned my captains against me, and turned my own house into a stage for my humiliation. Even if I walked away tonight, I would rebuild everything you destroyed and make every woman who betrayed me crawl back through these doors!"
Aisha closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the grief remained, but the loyalty was gone.
"Then there is nothing left to save."
Ishtar's attention snapped toward her.
"Aisha!"
Aisha did not look away.
"End it, Rayleigh."
Ishtar struck him.
Her hand carried no mortal strength worth fearing, but divine hatred twisted her face as her nails raked across his cheek.
"You think sending me back to Heaven will make you righteous? Another god will take these streets, another creditor will write new contracts, and another Phryne will rise the moment you stop watching!"
Rayleigh caught her wrist.
"Then we deal with them when they arrive."
Benihime entered beneath Ishtar's ribs.
The goddess gasped.
There was no dramatic wound, only one precise thrust through the body she had worn in the lower world.
Golden light erupted from the blade.
The archive shook as Ishtar's divine essence broke free of its mortal vessel, flooding the room with heat and perfume strong enough to steal every breath.
Her fingers tightened around Rayleigh's coat.
"You will regret taking me from them."
Rayleigh held her gaze.
"That decision belongs to them too."
Light consumed Ishtar.
A pillar of gold tore through the main house and climbed into the night sky above Orario as the goddess returned to Heaven.
The mark of Ishtar vanished from every banner in the archive.
Across the women's backs, her Falna went dark.
The divine pressure disappeared.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Phryne tried to rise.
Without Ishtar's active blessing reinforcing her body, the strength behind the movement collapsed.
She managed to lift one shoulder before Omokagechō's paper strips dragged her back down.
Panic entered her face.
"What happened to my strength?! Lady Ishtar! Bring her back!"
Aisha walked toward her.
Phryne pulled desperately against the restraints, but the woman who had terrified the entire Pleasure Quarter could no longer lift herself from the floor.
Aisha planted one boot across her wrist.
"No goddess. No Familia. No one left to hide what you did!"
She raised her broken sword and pointed it toward the women gathering on the stairs.
"Take Phryne alive. Every woman whose name appeared in those ledgers gets to testify."