The capital smoldered for days. The fires did not vanish all at once, but lingered like wounds that refused to close. Smoke bled into the skies, thick black columns twisting upward until even the sun was veiled, casting the world in dim twilight. The river that wound through the city carried more than water — ash and blood swirled in its currents, drifting downstream toward villages that would whisper of the fall for generations.
Kaito walked the streets like a ghost, his boots sinking into soot and shattered stone. The banners of the empire, once symbols of pride, lay trampled in the mud, their colors scorched into grey tatters. Statues of emperors that had stood for centuries lay toppled, their faces shattered into rubble.
But what weighed heavier than the ruins was the silence of the survivors.
They did not cheer him as a liberator, nor curse him as an enemy. They only watched — hollow-eyed, gaunt from terror and smoke — as one watches a storm retreating. He was no man to them. No savior, no tyrant. He was a force of nature, untouchable, merciless, something to endure and pray never returned.
Takeshi limped at his side, his arm bound tightly in bloody cloth, his steps uneven. His breath was shallow, his voice hoarse from smoke. He had fought with Kaito through the fire, though his eyes had burned with grief. Now he rasped, "You wanted justice." He gestured weakly at the ruins around them. "Tell me, brother… is this what justice looks like?"
Kaito stopped at the center of a ruined square, where the statue of the emperor had fallen. Its stone head lay split in two upon the ground, half-buried in soot like a corpse. He stared at it for a long while, his reflection caught in the cracks of the stone. He thought of Adrian's grave upon the mountain, of the vow he had made as wind howled through the tomb.
"This was vengeance," he said at last. His voice carried no fire now, only the emptiness of ash. "And vengeance leaves nothing but ash."
That night, he did not seek shelter. He lay among the ruins, the flames crackling low around him. Sleep came heavy, and in it, Adrian came again.
But this time, he was not a ghost of smoke. He appeared as he had once been — alive, his smile soft, his hands stained with ink from endless writing. He sat beside Kaito by the embers of a fire that was not there, as though he had never been torn away.
"You burn too brightly, Kaito," Adrian whispered, his words weaving into the silence. "But if you burn everything, there will be nothing left to carry me forward."
Kaito reached for him, desperate to hold onto that warmth, but his brother's form dissolved into the night wind. He awoke with tears running freely down his face, and Yù Lóng's golden eyes watching him from the shadows.
"Even in death," the dragon rumbled, her voice low and ancient, "your brother asks more of you than fire."