The heat lingered long after the fire was gone.
It clung to the stone, to the air, to my lungs every time I breathed in. Ash drifted slowly through the chamber like exhausted snow, settling over shattered pillars, scorched murals, and bodies that hadn't moved since the demon fell.
Azazel was gone.
Not sealed.
Not driven off.
Gone.
And Sir Adranous was gone with him.
There was no triumphant echo. No lingering blaze. Just silence—thick, heavy, and wrong in the way only aftermaths ever were.
I pushed myself upright on shaking legs.
Pain screamed through my body the moment I moved. My left side protested first—the gash Azazel had opened earlier still bleeding sluggishly despite Arion's flowers hardening against it. My ribs felt fractured. Every breath scraped. My vision blurred at the edges, dark spots flickering in and out like dying stars.
Still, I stood.
Because everyone else was still on the ground.
Liam was nearest.
He lay on his side, armor cracked through the thigh and hip, his longsword resting uselessly a few feet away. Blood soaked into the stone beneath him, dark and steady. His jaw was clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter, but he didn't cry out—not even when his leg twitched involuntarily.
I limped toward him.
"You alive?" I asked quietly.
His eyes flicked open. Focused. Still sharp.
"Unfortunately," he muttered. Then, after a pause, "I think… I won't be running for a while."
I nodded once. "You ran enough today."
That earned a breath of a laugh before it dissolved into a cough.
Varein was slumped against a collapsed column nearby, his spear broken clean in half beside him. His green hair was matted with blood—his own—and his chest rose and fell shallowly, unevenly. One arm hung limp, shoulder twisted at a wrong angle.
I crouched in front of him.
"Hey," I said softly.
His eyes cracked open. "…You look worse than me."
"Lie," I replied.
He tried to grin. Failed. "Did we…?"
"Yes," I answered before he could finish. "We're still here."
That seemed enough. His eyes closed again—not unconscious, just exhausted beyond protest.
Seraphyne was harder to look at.
Her bright presence—usually impossible to miss—felt dim now, like a fire burned down to embers. She sat with her back against the wall, daggers planted into the floor to keep herself upright. Her arm was wrapped in torn fabric soaked through with red, and one side of her face was smeared with soot and dried blood.
She noticed me staring.
"Well?" she said hoarsely. "If you're going to look at me like that, at least say something."
"…You fought well," I said.
She blinked. Looked away. "You don't have to lie."
"I'm not."
Her lips pressed into a thin line. For a moment I thought she'd argue. Instead, she exhaled shakily and whispered, "I really thought we were going to die."
"So did I."
She laughed quietly—once, broken. "Good. At least I wasn't alone."
Kazen was sitting with his back against a pillar further down, his right arm bound tightly where Azazel had broken it. His bow lay across his lap, cracked but intact. His expression was pale, eyes distant—not unfocused, just… thinking too much.
When he saw me, he raised his left hand slightly. "You still standing means I did my job."
"You did more than that."
He looked down at his arm. "Doesn't feel like it."
I didn't argue. Some things didn't need defending.
Kai was sprawled flat on the ground, chest rising fast and shallow. Burn marks traced along his arms and shoulders, some still smoking faintly where Azazel's Jaki had scorched him. He stared at the ceiling, eyes open, unmoving.
"You okay?" I asked.
"…Define okay," he replied without looking at me.
"Alive."
"…Then yeah."
Aelira was kneeling nearby, hands trembling as she tried to re-freeze a swelling bruise along her side—her ice flickering weakly, unstable. Liraeth leaned heavily on what remained of her shield, plasma fading in and out around her gauntlet like a failing heartbeat. Theon hadn't moved since Azazel slammed him into the stone; he was breathing, barely, chest rising in uneven spasms.
Sir Aldred stood among them, silent.
His posture was rigid—not from injury, but restraint. Blood stained his sleeve. His eyes tracked every student in turn, counting, reassessing, as if afraid someone might vanish if he stopped looking.
"We lived," he said finally.
Not relief.
Just fact.
I nodded once. "Because someone else paid the price."
Aldred didn't respond. He only closed his eyes briefly—and when he opened them again, something older and heavier sat behind his gaze.
The weight of command.
The weight of knowing exactly how close we'd been to disappearing.
I turned away before he could say anything else.
There were still doors unopened.
Beyond the mural-lined wall where Azazel had stood—where blood still stained the floor in shapes my mind refused to recognize—I felt it.
A faint, flickering presence.
Golden. Weak.
Lumiel.
I didn't tell anyone I was leaving.
I doubt they would've stopped me anyway.
Each step past the broken chamber doors felt like walking through deep water. My boots dragged. My breathing grew louder. My thoughts blurred—but the pull didn't fade. If anything, it grew stronger the closer I got.
The corridor beyond was narrower, older. The walls were carved with symbols layered atop one another—holy script defaced by jagged Jaki markings burned into the stone. The air here felt… wrong. Not hostile.
Smothered.
I found her beneath the last archway.
Lumiel lay on the cold floor, golden hair spread around her like spilled light dulled by ash. Jaki symbols surrounded her in a broken circle, their glow faded—interrupted mid-ritual. Chains of light, half-formed, lay shattered across the ground like glass.
She wasn't moving.
Panic flared instinctively—but I forced it down and knelt beside her, pressing two fingers to her neck.
A pulse.
Weak. Uneven.
But there.
I exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging despite myself.
"…You're alive," I murmured.
She looked small like this. Not a saintess. Not an anchor. Just a girl buried under expectations she never chose.
I brushed ash from her sleeve, careful not to disturb the symbols etched into her skin—faded now, but unmistakably cruel.
The ritual hadn't finished.
Sir Adranous had arrived before it could.
The thought settled heavily in my chest.
If he'd been a minute later…
I clenched my fist until pain sharpened my thoughts again.
"You don't get to be a sacrifice," I said quietly to the empty corridor. "Not here."
Not today.
I waited.
Lumiel hadn't woken yet. Her breathing was shallow but steady, chest rising and falling beneath the faint glow of broken seals that no longer held power. The jaki symbols around her had gone inert—burnt out, carved hollow by a fire that wasn't mine.
That was when it finally hit me.
Not during the fight.
Not when Azazel laughed.
Not even when Sir Adranous burned the chamber into silence.
Now.
When there was nothing left to do but stand and breathe.
I leaned back against the stone wall, sliding down until I was sitting, my sword resting across my knees. My arms felt heavier than they ever had. Not injured-heavy. Just… tired. The kind of tired that settles into your bones when adrenaline leaves and everything you ignored comes knocking all at once.
I thought back.
Every time I chose to go forward instead of pull back.
Every time I said we'll manage instead of this is too much.
Every time I believed that wanting to protect everyone would somehow make it possible.
I didn't regret fighting Azazel.
I didn't regret opening that door.
But I did regret something else.
I lowered my head, breath slow.
I didn't lead them into battle.
The words formed clearly, without drama.
I led them into war.
And war didn't care about intentions.
Footsteps echoed behind me—slow, uneven.
Aldred's voice cut softly through the chamber. "Everyone. Over here."
No commanding tone.
No instructor's bark.
Just… tired.
The class gathered, one by one. No formation. No sharp lines. Just bodies drifting closer like survivors around a dying fire. Aldred didn't speak at first. He simply looked at us.
Counted.
Liam.
Kazen.
Theon.
Aelira.
Liraeth.
Arion.
Seraphyne.
Varein.
All here.
Varein leaned his forehead against the stone wall and stayed there for a long moment. His shoulders slumped—not in relief exactly, but in release. Like he'd been holding something tight and finally let go.
Seraphyne broke the silence.
Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't shake the chamber.
"…Is it," she asked quietly, "really over?"
No one answered right away.
The question hung there—not because we didn't know, but because none of us trusted the idea of an answer yet.
Eventually, Arion spoke. "…Where's Sir Adranous?"
The question was simple. Necessary.
Aldred didn't turn around when he answered.
"Gone," he said. Then, after a pause, "Captains don't stay after verdicts are delivered."
That sentence landed heavier than any blow Azazel had thrown.
Verdict.
Not protection.
Not rescue.
Judgment.
I understood then. Sir Adranous hadn't arrived because we mattered more than a city. He came because something had crossed a line that couldn't be allowed to stand.
Judgment wasn't something you thanked.
And it wasn't something that stayed.
I watched my classmates after that. Not as a unit. Not as Class 1-S.
As people.
Varein stood closer to me than he needed to, not even aware of it.
Kazen cracked a joke under his breath—too quick, too forced—just to keep the edge off his own fear.
Seraphyne kept her hands clenched, avoiding the dried blood across her palms.
Liam checked everyone else before he even looked at his own injuries.
This wasn't just reliance.
This was responsibility.
They hadn't leaned on me to win.
They'd trusted me not to abandon them.
The difference mattered more than anything.
I looked around the ruined chamber—the melted stone, the shattered murals, the empty space where a demon had stood.
Summer break ended here.
Not because of orders.
Not because of time.
Because none of us would ever be ignorant again.
We could laugh later.
We could rest.
But we wouldn't be the same people who arrived at the beach.
Ashes didn't mean the fire was gone.
They meant something had burned hot enough to change shape.
My gaze returned to Lumiel.
To the faint lines of exhaustion in her face now that the saintess mask wasn't there. Just a girl who'd been cornered by a world that liked its peace purchased quietly.
I didn't feel heroic.
I didn't feel broken.
Just more clear.
And when we left..
All that remained were Ashes that had Fallen.