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But the flames... The whole Sonata Spire is enveloped by these black flames!

I'll open up a path.

With your candle's flame?

Pay attention to the shadow it casts on the wall.

The shadow's... tearing the black flames apart?

Ja... This is the true form of my Arts.

You must be disappointed. They're not nearly as beautiful as you thought, right?

No, meine Dame... This is stunning.

You don't often see Arts that can rival Herkunftshorn's undying black flames.

I can't defeat them.

But as long as something truly exists, it casts a shadow. The most I can manage is make use of this principle to ever-so-briefly create a chance to survive.

Is something the matter?

I was just thinking that... I was your enemy until a moment ago, yet you aren't blaming me.

Why should I?

You said you're not an Empresses' Voice. And I have yet to formally enter the Kaiserin's Spire myself.

Here, you can just be you, and I can just be Viviana. We aren't carrying out the Kaiserin's orders. We're simply helping out the poor souls struggling in this music.

So please take the students and make your way out as fast as you can, while they've recovered their mobility. I can still hold on a little longer.

I can see golden light outside. The Gesatzswächter's curtain has already enveloped this place. He could destroy the spire at any moment.

I trust that Herr Reiner will make the appropriate decision.

What about you, then?

My candleflame will extinguish sooner or later. Hopefully, it chooses the most meaningful moment to.

Frau Hochberg... Viviana!

Go, Michael.

Please take care of yourself and these young students. Each of you has a future that... someone like me could never dream of.

This is the place.

Surround the spire.

Casters from the Kaiserinnen's Spires?

That's right, Brandt.

Haven't I already said that—

These are the Kaiserin's orders.

We are to assist you in resolving the problem here.

Good. Use your Arts. Join me as an accompaniment.

I will tighten the curtain.

No, Herr Reiner!

Step aside, envoy of Grimmacht.

Will you continue to stand in our way? Your earlier behavior alone is reason enough to suspect you of colluding with the Witch King's remnants.

There are still innocents inside.

I see the students have all been evacuated, and Herr Fremont wouldn't die so easily.

But the Sankta, and Viviana...

Viviana is still inside?

She's trapped by the black flames, and stayed behind to save me and the students.

Brandt!

This is our best chance to eliminate the threat.

Once the ensemble is complete, your strength will completely annihilate the spire! Viviana will perish too!

It was her decision to enter the battlefield.

Werner gave his life for Leithanien. We can't let his one and only daughter follow in his footsteps!

You promised Werner that you'd save her. We both did. Have you forgotten your oath?

Have you forgotten your oath, Reiner?

The blade and Arts of a Gesatzswächter belong only to the Güldenesgesatz and to Leithanien.

It doesn't matter how Herkunftshorn treats his subjects. He is Leithanien's rightful ruler, as recognized by the Güldenesgesatz.

If you choose to fight alongside House Hochberg, you will be abandoning your duties as a Gesatzswächter.

One more step, and you will be making an enemy out of all of us.

Brandt... Why didn't you come save us?

We grew up together. We were like brothers.

I know you loathe the Witch King too. You despise his tyranny over Sturmland's citizens, and you hate how he turned our homeland into a battlefield and a testing ground!

The Battle of the Four Emperors was years ago, and the skies above Sturmland are still filled with Catastrophe clouds formed by Originium shards. Many of our children are doomed to be born with those accursed stones.

Why can't we resist? Why can't we make him pay the price?

Is it because the Güldenesgesatz dictates that he's the ruler, and that we are his attendants?

Nein! It isn't right for us to be born that way.

If your power is merely dependent on some inviolable will, does that make your will—the Gesatzswächter's will—fundamentally a lie?

It's that lie that's forcing you run away from your decision.

As well as from your remorse toward the dead Hochbergs.

Brandt Reiner—

Make your decision now.

...Viviana.

His body wobbles once, almost unnoticeably.

Then, small cracks start appearing in the golden curtain.

Resonance.

At last... I got you.

The seventh.

All the sculptures have been destroyed. You no longer have a means to resist.

Just a moment longer, my dear Federico.

Do you hear that?

Brandt Reiner. His soul is finally opening up to my melody.

His strong will has finally broken free of his restraints, and the surge of emotions will lead him to make the decision he will regret the least.

This is what I've been waiting for... The truest climax of this piece.

A melody, so impassioned that it approaches piercing, rings out from the strings of Arturia's cello.

As though motivated by the music, black Originium flames rise from the deepest depths of the earth and tear asunder the surface mere inches away.

The Witch King's musicians standing guard at the foot of the spire all walk single file into the black flames, chanting even as they are incinerated into ash.

The very Spire that holds up the skies, the inevitable, indispensable, and eternal pillar—

Now rise!

Something bores out of the earth's flesh.

It is a high spire.

It bears a red tint to its blackness, a spiral shape, and a strange sharpness.

The long lost Witch King's Spire stands atop the land once more.