The sky was fire.
Every color that ever belonged to dawn and dusk bled together until day and night became one endless blaze. The shock of each strike between Kaito and Astraea tore holes in the clouds; lightning answered their fury with applause.
Beneath that sky, the armies struggled to survive the gods they followed.
Dragons circled the peaks, weaving barriers of flame to contain the storm. The Hosts of the Pure Flame broke ranks, their golden masks cracking under heat they could no longer endure. Even the snow melted into rivers of glass.
---
Kaito moved faster than thought.
The Second Flame coursed through him—one heartbeat mercy, the next destruction. Every blow he traded with Astraea lit the world in alternating hues of gold and white.
"You can't win," she hissed, wings slicing through smoke. "You are still half mortal. Half broken."
"Maybe that's why I can still feel!"
He met her sword of light with his own, sparks whirling into miniature suns. The air between them rippled; mountains split open like fruit.
Each strike burned away another memory—his childhood, Adrian's laughter, Takeshi's last breath—but he clung to what remained: not vengeance, but promise.
Far below, Eira and Thorn fought their own war among the ruins.
The Frost-Blooded mage crouched beside a collapsed pillar, hands pressed to the glowing symbols carved into its base. "It's real," she breathed. "An anchor from the First Age. It can contain both flames—but only once."
Thorn wiped blood from his jaw, glancing up at the duel overhead. "Contain them? Or destroy them?"
"That depends on who triggers it."
She looked at him, frost misting her lips. "I can freeze the mechanism long enough for someone to choose—but it has to be someone bound to the fire."
"Kaito."
She nodded. "Or Astraea."
Thorn's gaze hardened. "Then we get it to him."
Above, Astraea pressed her advantage. She had no body of flesh to tire, no heart to falter. She was will made radiant. Each time Kaito struck, her form dissolved and re-formed behind him, cutting from angles that defied sense.
"You wield her mercy," she said. "Do you even know what mercy cost me? I begged the dragons to save humanity—and they chose judgment. I took their fire because I had to."
Kaito blocked, breath ragged. "Then why turn it into chains?"
"Because they would have bound us in pity! I gave mankind the gift of order—freedom from weakness!"
Her blade plunged through his side. Pain burst like stars. He staggered but did not fall.
"You gave them obedience," he rasped. "That isn't freedom."
He let the pain anchor him, twisted, and drove his sword upward. The edge caught her shoulder, carving through light. The wound bled silence; even the storm seemed to pause.
For the first time, Astraea screamed—not in rage, but disbelief. "Impossible—no mortal—"
"I told you," Kaito whispered, "I'm not just mortal."
Eira and Thorn reached the summit where molten snow poured like rivers of glass. Together they hauled the anchor—a slab of crystal and metal older than language—into the open. Frost streamed from Eira's hands, cooling the runes.
"Now!" she shouted.
Thorn planted his spear into the core. The sigil on his neck blazed, answering the ancient power.
A column of blue-white light erupted skyward, wrapping around Astraea and Kaito both. The flames recoiled, screaming.
Kaito felt the pull immediately—two forces dragging him apart: the Second Flame within him and the device below, hungry to consume it.
Eira's voice carried on the wind. "You must decide! If the anchor seals, both flames die. The world begins again—but you will vanish."
Astraea laughed, even through the pain. "Do it! Let everything end! They don't deserve our light!"
Kaito looked at her—saw not a goddess, but a woman haunted by the same grief that once ruled him. He thought of Adrian again, writing by lantern light, whispering 'the fire that remembers.'
He lowered his sword.
Astraea blinked. "What are you—"
"I'm choosing mercy," he said. "The one thing you feared."
He reached forward, touched her forehead, and poured the Second Flame into her chest.
The light enveloped them both.
For an instant the world held its breath.
When the brilliance faded, Astraea was kneeling. Her wings were gone; her eyes no longer blazed, only glimmered with human tears.
Kaito stood over her, exhausted but alive, the golden fire around him now calm, woven with veins of frost.
Eira staggered closer, disbelief softening her features. "You balanced it…"
Thorn pulled his spear free from the anchor. "No," he murmured, watching the light fade back into the mountain. "He shared it."
Astraea looked up at Kaito, voice trembling. "What happens now?"
"We remember," he said. "And we rebuild. Together—or not at all."
She nodded once, silent, and the wind carried away the last trace of her divine glow.
The dragons landed one by one, their shadows long in the blood-red dawn. Yù Lóng lowered her massive head to Kaito. "You have done what even gods could not: ended the cycle."
"Ended?" Kaito whispered, staring toward the rising sun. "Or begun something new?"
From far below, the ruined world shimmered under fresh snow. Life stirred beneath the ash—green sprouts, tiny and stubborn.
Eira wrapped her cloak tighter. "A new age, then. The Age of Balance."
Thorn looked at the horizon. "If it holds."
Kaito turned toward them, the last embers of flame and frost dancing in his eyes. "Then we make sure it does."