The sky was bleeding light.
Veins of crimson fire tore through the clouds, tracing the Spire's collapse like divine judgment. The air screamed as stone and glyph-woven metal buckled and snapped, raining debris across the once-sacred mountains of Frestco. The world tilted—not physically, but emotionally, spiritually. It felt like the axis of everything was breaking.
Justin staggered forward through the ash-choked corridors, one arm wrapped around Sera's waist, the other clutching his side where his robes were stained black and red. The wound burned deeper than flesh—glyph rot from the Queen's crystal. His life was seeping away with every breath.
Still, he smiled.
"Sera," he rasped, barely above a whisper. "Looks like I won't see how this story ends."
Sera bit her lip, one hand pressed against his arm to keep him upright. "Shut up. You're going to make it."
"I've always been good at lying to myself," he chuckled. "Maybe… you get that from me."
She blinked at that—momentarily thrown. But the floor shuddered beneath them, and the Spire cracked wider above.
They had no time.
Every step was agony. But he pushed on.
"I need to ask you something," Justin said.
Sera tried to focus, not on the blood pooling at their feet, not on the growing rift in the sky—but on him. Just him.
"Ask," she said.
His voice was barely audible now. "Was I ever… family to you?"
She froze mid-step.
He kept walking, dragging her forward.
Sera's throat tightened. She remembered so many things in that one second—glimpses of childhood, of Justin standing beside her mother with eyes full of hunger and longing. He was always distant, always acting out, always the storm in their midst. And yet… he was always there.
Always trying to earn something he never believed he deserved.
Tears burned at the edges of her vision.
"You still are," she said, voice breaking. "Idiot. You always were."
He stopped.
The world roared behind them.
"Thank you," he murmured.
And for the first time, he leaned on her—not just for strength, but for forgiveness.
---
Across the throne chamber's remains, Akira sprinted through a rain of collapsing stone, Kurumi limp in his arms. Her skin was hot to the touch, glowing faintly with glyph-light that hadn't faded. The power of the Queen still slumbered within her—and with it, a danger no one could yet predict.
But to Akira, she was still Kurumi.
"Stay with me," he muttered as a jagged beam missed them by inches. "You said you wouldn't leave. I'm holding you to that."
He jumped over a ruptured glyph seal that cracked like ice under pressure. Behind him, columns fell like dominoes, one after another, groaning under the weight of centuries.
Ayaka was beside him, bleeding from a shoulder wound but keeping pace. Her blade was gone, but her resolve had never burned brighter.
"Portal chamber's up ahead!" she shouted over the noise.
Akira nodded, his breath ragged. "We don't have much time!"
They reached the hallway leading to the last functioning gate—a swirling rift of unstable magic. The glyph circle sputtered, half-broken, its glow pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
Ayaka reached it first, slamming her hand down on the final sigil to stabilize the field.
"GO!" she barked.
---
Back in the collapsing hallway, Sera and Justin stumbled into view.
Akira's eyes widened. "Justin—?!"
Sera looked up, her face streaked with sweat, tears, and soot. "Help me—!"
Akira passed Kurumi gently to Ayaka's arms and ran toward them.
Justin collapsed as soon as he saw Akira coming. His legs gave out, blood soaking through the glyph-marked floor.
"No," Sera whispered. "Not now. Not here."
Akira knelt beside him.
Justin's lips curled in a dry grin. "Still hate me?"
Akira looked at him, that infuriating grin on a face that had hurt so many people, and wanted to scream.
But all he said was: "No. Just… wish you'd figured things out sooner."
Justin exhaled, slow. Peaceful. "Too many pieces on the board. Couldn't move them all."
He took Sera's hand one last time.
"You lead them now. Better than I ever could."
She sobbed quietly, fingers clenched around his.
His eyes locked with Akira's.
"She's… yours to protect."
And then, without a sound, the light in his eyes faded.
Justin—the fallen brother, the would-be heir, the boy who was never chosen—was gone.
---
The Spire groaned one last time, louder than before.
Ayaka shouted, "The gate's destabilizing!"
Sera wiped her tears and stood.
Akira scooped up Kurumi again, pressing her body close, feeling her heartbeat slow but steady.
The three of them—Sera, Akira, Ayaka—stood at the brink of the portal, looking back one last time at the collapsing monument.
The Spire that once held a Queen.
That once held hope.
That now held nothing but ruin.
Ayaka whispered, "Burn the sky if you have to—but don't burn the world."
And they jumped.
---
The world blinked.
Then they were falling—
—but the fall ended in green.
They landed roughly in the edge of a forest clearing, the sky above cracked but not broken. They'd emerged somewhere safe. Maybe not for long. But it was life.
Ayaka rolled and groaned. "We're through…"
Akira cradled Kurumi carefully as he lay back, every nerve in his body screaming.
Sera stood in the center, the blood on her hands still warm, her brother's final words ringing in her ears.
"Was I ever family to you?"
"You still are."
---
For a long moment, none of them spoke.
Only the sound of wind in the trees.
Then Kurumi stirred faintly.
Akira's heart leapt. "Kurumi?"
She opened her eyes, the glow dim now, her voice thin. "Did we make it…?"
"You did," he said, brushing hair from her face. "You saved us."
"No," she whispered. "We saved each other."
She looked up at the sky, and something in her expression shifted. Not relief. Not joy.
Resolve.
"The Queen's power is sealed now," she said. "But sealing it in me… wasn't just the end of her."
"What do you mean?" Ayaka asked, stepping closer.
Kurumi's silver-blue eyes glinted. "It might be the beginning… of something worse."
They all went silent.
And far beyond the tree line, smoke rose in the distance.
Not from the Spire.
But from the direction of the capital.
Something else had begun to move.
---