The weight of their victory was a heavy, complicated thing. It wasn't the clean, satisfying burn of a good workout, but a dull, throbbing ache of a wound that had been cauterized but not healed. He had won the battle, but the war, the real war against the cosmic entity that used his soul as a cage, had just begun. He needed to escape, to find a sliver of the normalcy he had so desperately craved and so thoroughly lost. So, he went to the one place that still felt like home: the gym.
The massive training hall was almost empty, the usual cacophony of grunts and clanging weights replaced by a reverent silence. A few adventurers, seeing him enter, stopped their workouts, their eyes wide with a mixture of awe and respect. They nodded, a silent, grateful acknowledgment, and then, as if sensing his need for solitude, they quietly gathered their things and left. Kenjiro was alone.
