The silence after the storm felt unnatural.
Shards of fractured sky drifted like dying embers, falling into the void where the ash-colossus had been. The ground itself groaned, cracked veins of mirror-light still pulsing with the echo of the battle. Yet amid the ruin, Ren's chest heaved with a different weight—the girl in his arms.
Her silver hair spilled across him like moonlit threads. She trembled faintly, as though the world itself were too heavy for her fragile form. Her breaths came shallow, warm against his collarbone, and her fingers clutched at him as if afraid he would vanish.
Ren swallowed, unable to form words. For so long, she had been a whisper in his mind, a haunting voice tied to his vow. Now… she was here. Solid. Real. And looking up at him.
Her eyes opened slowly—silver, fractured with a faint glimmer like starlight seen through water. They searched his face, recognition softening their haze.
"…Ren."
