—
The light from the godkiller's eye hadn't faded—it *burned*, bright and endless, like a second sun forcing the world to remember itself.
Ash fell like snow.
Hoshiro dropped to one knee, smoke rising from his body. The tether between him and Ayame glowed faintly, her voice whispering in his mind: *"Stay anchored… stay *you*."*
The First Blade pulsed on the ground nearby. Cracked. But not broken.
From the ruin, something *moved*.
Not the godkiller. Not anymore.
What rose was *worse*—a shadow peeled from existence itself, wearing the shape of gods, memory, fear. A voice echoed across time:
*"You killed the flesh. But not the idea."*
Hoshiro stood, barely.
"I didn't come to kill an idea," he said, lifting the blade again. "I came to bury it."
Suddenly, the battlefield *shifted*. A wall of red flame tore through the ground—Aiko's spirit igniting again. Kaizen's twin sabers spun through the air. Ryuji's calm surged like a storm behind his eyes.
They weren't ghosts anymore.
They were *memories made real*, anchored by Ayame's sacrifice.
—
The final war wasn't between light and dark.
It was between *truth and forgetting*.
And Hoshiro was ready to choose *truth*.
—