Part 1
Time seemed to slow as Kael leaped from his flying platform. The wind roared in his ears, and below him, a scene from hell unfolded. Ignis's flames danced among the concrete skeletons, while Lyra's starlight and Chroma's gray illusions struggled to contain her. He landed with a hard thud a few meters from Rina, pain shooting up his ankle, but he ignored it.
"Kael! What are you doing!? Get back!" Rina shouted, trying to get up while clutching her injured leg.
"I can't leave you alone!" Kael shot back.
Ignis, who had been arrogantly walking towards Rina, now stopped. She turned her head, and a cruel, triumphant smile spread across her face. "Finally, the little mouse comes out of its hole. Did you come to die with your friends, Resonator?"
She raised her sword, Laevateinn, no longer aiming at Rina, but straight at Kael.
"Don't touch him!"
From above, Lyra roared. She ignored the firestorm Ignis had created and dove down, her giant scythe ready to cleave Ignis in two.
"Naive!" Ignis sneered. She didn't parry. Instead, she stomped her foot.
"Eruption Pillar!"
Right in Lyra's descent path, pillars of fire and magma erupted from the ground. Lyra was forced to change her course in mid-air, losing her attack momentum and landing imperfectly several dozen meters away.
"Lyra!"
"I'm fine!" Lyra replied, but Kael could see her breath was slightly ragged. "Her fire... it's heavy."
Ignis's wild and uncontrollable power seemed to suppress Lyra's more orderly and harmonious energy.
Chroma tried to help. From her position on the building, she waved her large brush. The world around Ignis began to wash out again, trying to trap her in an illusion.
"Monochrome Canvas."
"The same trick won't work twice, little painter!" Ignis roared.
"Heart of the Inferno!"
She beat her chest. Her volcanic armor glowed a fiery red. The flames all over her body flared up even more intensely. With one furious shout, she unleashed a wave of heat so powerful that Chroma's illusion shattered before it could fully form. Up above, Chroma staggered back, her sketchbook almost slipping from her hands. The mental backlash seemed to have hurt her.
Kael saw it clearly. They were overwhelmed. Lyra, the main fighter, was having trouble penetrating Ignis's brutal fire defense. Chroma, the field controller, was ineffective against a blind rage that didn't care for illusions. And Rina was injured.
They would lose if this continued.
I have to do something, Kael thought. Not just shout. I have to prove my own strength.
Ignis smirked, seeing the desperation on Kael's face. "Look, Resonator. Look at your helpless 'family'. This is the truth. Your bonds are meaningless before the fire of annihilation!"
She raised her sword, preparing for one final strike on Rina, who was still trying to get up.
"I won't let you!"
Kael ran forward, placing himself between Ignis and Rina.
"Kael, you fool! Move!" Rina shouted.
"A touching sacrifice," Ignis sneered. "In that case, die first!"
She swung her sword. A slash of fire shot towards Kael.
This time, Kael didn't just stand there. He closed his eyes, reaching for the bonds he felt with his friends. He felt Lyra's strong desire to protect him, a desire so pure and bright like a star.
Lyra, lend me your strength!
"Celestial Aegis!"
A hexagonal, transparent shield, shimmering with starlight, materialized on Kael's arm, just in time to block the fiery slash.
BLAAM!
Kael was pushed back several steps, his arm feeling numb, and the shield cracked before vanishing. But he had held it. He was still standing.
Silence fell upon the battlefield. Ignis stared at him with wide eyes, in disbelief. Rina, Lyra, and Chroma were just as shocked.
"W-what... was that?" Ignis stammered. "The power of the 'Cosmic Hymn'... from a human?"
Kael caught his breath, feeling the remnants of Lyra's energy flowing through him. It felt warm and powerful. "I told you, Ignis. They are my strength."
The anger on Ignis's face was mixed with confusion. This was beyond her understanding. She roared and attacked again, this time with a barrage of fireballs.
"Blazing Barrage!"
Kael knew he couldn't block that many attacks. His shield was for a single, big hit. He needed another way.
His mind shifted to Chroma. He remembered Chroma's calm, her ability to "not be where she was supposed to be." He reached for that bond.
Chroma, show me the way!
"Fading Step!"
As the fireballs were about to hit him, Kael took a step to the side. His movement felt strange, as if slightly out of sync with reality. Several fireballs passed right through him, as if he were just a shadow. He managed to dodge most of the attack, with only one grazing his shoulder, leaving a small burn.
"He... he dodged?" Ignis grew more furious and confused. "How!? His movements are slow!"
She didn't understand. Kael hadn't gotten faster. He had just become harder to "hit," as if he were a sketch being constantly erased and redrawn.
Part 2: An Echo in the Flames
Kael stood tall before Ignis. A trace of starlight still lingered on his arm, and a faint gray aura surrounded his feet. He was hurt, panting, but he no longer looked like a helpless human.
"I don't want to fight you, Ignis," Kael said, his voice calm. "I want to talk to you."
"Talk!?" Ignis laughed mockingly, but there was a note of doubt in her laughter. "After all this, you think we can just talk? The world doesn't work that way!"
"The world is cruel," Kael admitted, surprising Ignis slightly. "I know that. And I feel what happened to you. Your pain... your anger... I feel it."
Kael began to walk slowly towards Ignis. "You're right. You were betrayed. You were abandoned. No one helped you. Your anger... it's real. And you have the right to feel it."
Every word Kael spoke seemed to create a small crack in Ignis's armor of rage. For the first time, someone was acknowledging her suffering, not just condemning the destruction she caused.
"W-what do you know!?" Ignis snapped, but her voice trembled slightly. She took a step back.
"I may not know everything," Kael said, now only a few meters away from her. "But I know this: the fire you're using to burn the world... it's also burning you from the inside. I can feel it."
Kael held out his uninjured hand. "You don't have to bear it alone anymore, Aelia."
Hearing her human name spoken, Ignis's world seemed to stop. That name—an echo of a life that had been stolen from her—became the key that opened the floodgates of emotion she had suppressed with fire for so long.
"Don't... say that name!" she screamed.
As she screamed, an incredibly powerful emotional resonance exploded from her, and Kael was suddenly thrown into the sea of Ignis's memories.
(Flashback begins)
Kael was no longer on a concrete battlefield. He was in a bustling but poor district, filled with the laughter of children and the smell of home-cooked meals. He saw a teenage girl with flaming red hair—Aelia—handing out bread to street kids, her eyes shining with a sense of justice. He saw Aelia leading a peaceful protest in front of a factory that was dumping toxic waste into their river. She was a little hero to her community.
Then, the scene changed to a night full of fire. The factory exploded. Screams replaced laughter. Aelia ran through the flames, trying to save a trapped child, but a falling steel beam blocked her path. She could only watch in horror as the building collapsed. Kael could feel Aelia's helpless despair and rage.
The scene changed again. Aelia, her face covered in soot and her eyes swollen from crying, handed a stack of documents to a police officer. Proof that the explosion was deliberate. The officer nodded, promising to follow up. A few days later, Aelia saw the same officer having dinner and laughing with the factory director he was supposed to be investigating. The betrayal felt like a dagger of ice to her heart.
The final scene was the darkest. Aelia, all alone, snuck into the villains' headquarters. She was caught. Kael didn't see what they did to her, but he felt it all through the resonance. Sharp pain, the cold of a concrete floor, mocking laughter, and how her burning spirit was slowly crushed into an ember of despair.
He saw Aelia lying in a dark corner, her body broken, but her eyes still glowing with one final flame.
"If being a light only gets you extinguished... then I will become the fire that burns everything." Kael heard the final oath from Aelia's soul.
(Flashback ends)
Kael snapped back to reality, panting as if he had just experienced it all himself. Tears streamed down his cheeks without him realizing it. He truly understood now.
Before him, Ignis had fallen to her knees, her sword slipping from her grasp and clattering to the ground. She was sobbing, no longer a cry of rage, but the deep, sorrowful cry of a girl named Aelia.
"Now you know," she sobbed, not daring to look at Kael. "Now you know how filthy this world is. How useless goodness is."
Lyra and Chroma, who had also felt the echo of the flashback through Kael, looked at Ignis with a new expression. No longer the gaze for an enemy, but one full of sympathy and sadness. Even Rina, watching from a distance, seemed shaken.
Kael walked closer and knelt in front of Ignis. He didn't say "everything will be okay" or any other sweet lies.
"Yes, I know," he said, his voice hoarse. "And it's not fair. What happened to you… it can never be forgiven."
He held out his hand. "But you're wrong about one thing. Goodness is never useless. Look around you."
Ignis slowly lifted her tear-streaked face. She saw Lyra and Chroma standing behind Kael, ready to protect him. She saw Rina directing a medical team to approach cautiously. All of them, in their own way, were showing kindness in the middle of a battlefield.
"The fire doesn't have to be extinguished, Aelia," Kael said again, more gently. "But you can choose what it burns. You can be a fire that warms, not just one that destroys. You can be a beacon for the oppressed, just like you always wanted to be."
He held out his hand once more. "You're not alone anymore. Join us. Become part of our family."
Ignis looked at Kael's outstretched hand. She looked at Kael's sincere face, Lyra's sympathetic face, Chroma's calm face, and Rina's understanding face.
After years of being burned by hatred, for the first time, she felt a different kind of warmth. The warmth of hope.
With a trembling hand, she reached for Kael's.
And in that moment, the blackish-red flames all over her body slowly subsided, turning into a calm, warm, golden-orange flame. The battle was over. The healing had just begun.