The silence was unnatural, thick with a weight heavier than the stench of blood that clung to the air. Where once there had been the roar of war, the clashing of steel, and the desperate cries of dying men, there was now only an eerie, suffocating stillness.

  Zankoku’s advance had been utterly stopped. Not through strategy, not through overwhelming force, but through something beyond comprehension. Their warriors, once a flood of relentless brutality, had been erased from existence, or left frozen in time, caught mid-motion with swords raised and lips parted in silent war cries that would never be completed.

  At the center of it all, Hana lay unconscious in Hime’s arms, her body unnaturally still, her breathing weak and uneven. Her once radiant energy, the overwhelming force that had bent reality to her will, was gone. What remained was something frail, something disturbingly human in contrast to the divine power she had wielded mere moments ago.

  Hime clutched her tighter, her fingers trembling against the coldness of her sister’s skin. Hana had always been fragile, had always fought against the limits of her own body, but this—this was different. It wasn’t just exhaustion, it wasn't just the usual fatigue she suffered after pushing herself too hard. This felt wrong.

  Haruka, struggling to sit up despite the sharp ache in her side, stared at Hana with wide, disbelieving eyes. The battlefield around them was a graveyard of warriors, some fallen, some still gasping for breath, but the only thing she could see was Hana—her sister, the girl who had always been smaller than her, weaker than her, yet somehow had become something terrifyingly beyond mortal.

  Her hands clenched against the dirt, nails digging into the blood-soaked earth.

  “This is my fault,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

  Hime’s sharp eyes flickered toward her, but she said nothing.

  Haruka swallowed hard, her throat dry, her chest tight with a guilt that threatened to crush her more than any wound ever could. She had fought recklessly, driven by anger, by frustration, by a desperate need to prove herself, to be the one who protected her sisters. But in doing so, she had nearly died—had forced Hana to step into a battlefield she never should have had to enter, had forced her to break herself just to save them.

  “She wouldn’t have needed to do any of this if I had just—” Her voice broke, her breath shaky. “If I had just—”

  “Stop.” Hime’s tone was cold, but her voice trembled ever so slightly. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Haruka lifted her head, staring at her. Hime wasn’t looking at her, wasn’t meeting her gaze. She was still holding Hana, still gripping her like she feared that if she let go, her sister would simply fade away.

  “Hana’s not dead,” Hime continued, quieter this time, as if trying to convince herself as much as Haruka. “She’s not.”

  But there was a flicker of doubt in her voice.

  Haruka could hear it.

  ---

  The Soldiers’ Fear – The Reverence of the Unknown

  All around them, Aikyo’s remaining warriors stood in silence, their expressions unreadable. Some still sat where they had collapsed, clutching at newly healed wounds, their hands shaking as if they were afraid to touch their own skin, afraid that whatever had mended them might just as easily undo them. Others remained standing, stiff, uncertain, their eyes flickering between the frozen remnants of Zankoku’s forces and the unconscious girl cradled in Hime’s arms.

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  Not a single one spoke.

  Not a single one moved toward Hana.

  Haruka saw it.

  She saw the way they looked at her—the way they hesitated, the way fear had begun to mix with awe.

  It was no longer just admiration, no longer just respect for a commander or a warrior who had turned the tide of battle. It was something else.

  Something dangerously close to worship.

  Or worse—fear.

  Haruka gritted her teeth, She stood up with her fingers curling into fists before she pointed her finger to the feared soldiers. “She saved all of you,” she said, her voice rough, cutting through the silence. “And you’re just going to stand there and—what? Stare at her like she’s a monster?”

  One of the soldiers flinched. Others shifted uncomfortably, glancing at one another as if searching for the right response.

  “She… she is not a monster,” one of them murmured, hesitant. “But…”

  But what? Haruka wanted to snap, but she already knew.

  Her sister is not normal. She did something no human should be capable of. and Haruka knows that deep in the soldiers thought they feared that If she can rewrite reality itself… who’s to say she can’t erase them, too?

  The words weren’t spoken, but Haruka could hear them in the silence, could see them in the way their gazes flickered between reverence and unease.

  It made her stomach churn.

  And for the first time, she understood.

  They would never look at Hana the same way again.

  —

  Beyond the ruined battlefield, hidden among the shattered remains of an abandoned outpost, Mitsurugi watched.

  His heartbeat was uneven, erratic. His hands, usually steady, were clenched so tightly that his nails had begun to dig into his palms. He had prepared himself for Aikyo’s fall, and had convinced himself that siding with Zankoku was the only logical course of action, the only way to ensure their survival.

  But what he had seen—what Hana had done—

  His breath came shallow, uneven.

  Even if Zankoku had won, even if they had cut down every last soldier in Aikyo’s army, they would have never won the war.

  Not as long as she existed.

  He had always known Hana was different. He had seen it in the way she fought, in the way she carried herself, in the way she bore the weight of responsibility on her small shoulders. But this—this was beyond anything he had ever imagined.

  She had not just fought back.

  She had stopped time.

  She had erased their army from existence.

  And worst of all—

  She had brought the dead back from the brink.

  His stomach twisted violently. What… was she?

  Had he not turned his back on Aikyo, would he have been spared? Or would she have erased him, too?

  The thought sent an unfamiliar chill through him.

  For the first time, Mitsurugi wasn’t certain if he had betrayed Aikyo to save himself—or if he had simply been too afraid of the girl who had just rewritten the laws of reality before his very eyes.

  ---

  The Fragility of Power

  Hana stirred in Hime’s arms, her lips barely parting, her voice a whisper so soft it was almost lost in the wind.

  “Did I… save you?”

  Haruka choked on a breath, her chest tightening. “You idiot,” she whispered. “Of course you did.”

  Hime’s grip tightened, her fingers trembling. Hana’s eyes fluttered closed. Her body gave in to exhaustion.

  Hime swallowed hard. “We need to move her. Now.”

  No one argued.

  The battle was over.

  But something far greater had begun. Because the world had just witnessed something impossible. And the world was never kind to the impossible.