Chapter Twenty-One: The Weight of Victory

One year had passed since their return from the other world. Spring had come again to their high school, cherry blossoms dancing on the wind just as they had that final day. But for Akari, Renji, and Shiro, the world felt hollow—not because of loss or love, but because they alone knew the truth of what had happened above.

They still had their powers—remnants of their time in that other realm. Akari's healing magic would spark unconsciously whenever she saw someone hurt. Renji's enhanced reflexes made him move with inhuman grace. Shiro's shadows still responded to his emotions, darkening corners when his thoughts turned to that final battle. These abilities were now burdens, constant reminders that they had witnessed the death of gods.

The other summoned heroes avoided them. Ayame, Mei, and Kaito would turn away when they passed in the hallways, shame and guilt still heavy in their eyes. They had chosen survival over witnessing history, and that choice haunted them. Sometimes, late at night, Akari would receive tearful texts from Mei asking if they could have made a difference if they'd stayed. She would only respond with three words: "He won anyway."

Akari spent most of her lunches on the roof now, in the spot where Hoshi used to eat alone. She would sit there, feeling the wind on her face, remembering the cold satisfaction in those golden eyes as he prepared to detonate his very being. The other students whispered about her, the girl who seemed to carry an invisible weight, who sometimes smiled darkly at nothing they could see.

One afternoon, as cherry blossoms swirled around her on the roof, she felt a presence—not the warm comfort of the Goddess of Life, but something colder, more fundamental. The very air seemed to crack with residual divine power.

"The void between realities still bleeds," she said to the empty air. "He really did it. He broke everything."

There was no response, but the wind carried an echo of that final explosion, a reminder that somewhere beyond mortal comprehension, reality itself was still trying to heal from what Kael had done.

The other summoned heroes might live in shame, but Akari, Renji, and Shiro carried a different burden: pride. Not their own, but the echo of Kael's—the pride that had proven strong enough to destroy gods. They were the witnesses he had chosen, the ones he had deemed worthy to carry the truth of his victory.

Later that day, in their hidden meeting spot behind the school, they gathered as they often did, sharing the weight of memory.

"I found another crack today," Shiro reported, his shadows rippling. "In the space between moments. Reality's still trying to stitch itself back together."

Renji nodded, his enhanced senses picking up distortions that normal humans couldn't perceive. "The gods' death left scars. Not just here, but everywhere. Some things can't be fixed."

"They don't need to be fixed," Akari said, her voice carrying an edge of steel. "They need to be remembered. He didn't save us because he loved us. He saved us because someone needed to know what he did. What he proved."

They fell silent, each lost in their own memories of that final battle. Of Kael's cold smile as he prepared his ultimate attack. Of the way reality itself had screamed as gods learned what it meant to die. Of the satisfaction in his eyes when he knew he had won.

The school bell rang, calling them back to their mundane lives—to classes and homework and the pretense of normalcy. But they carried something no one could take away: the knowledge that pride, in its purest form, had proven stronger than divinity itself.

Sometimes, in the deepest part of night, Akari would wake to find her room filled with a cold golden light. Not warm or loving, but powerful—an echo of the force that had shattered reality. She understood these weren't visits or signs of affection. They were reminders, markers of pride's victory over divine authority.

The world moved on, unaware that its gods were dead, that reality itself had been wounded. But these three witnesses remembered. They carried not love or loss, but the weight of a truth too vast for most to comprehend: that a being of pure pride had looked upon divinity and found it wanting.

Cherry blossoms continued to fall, and sometimes, if you knew where to look, you could see them pass through the cracks in reality—tiny reminders that something vast and terrible had happened. The gods were gone, pride had won, and three mortals carried the memory of how it had happened.

After all, what was divinity compared to Pride? Kael had answered that question not with love, but with absolute, devastating victory. And somewhere, in the wounded void between realities, that victory continued to echo, a testament to what pride could achieve when pushed to its ultimate limit.

That was his true legacy—not love, not redemption, but proof that even gods could fall to one who refused to bow. And perhaps that knowledge, cold and powerful as Kael himself had been, was victory enough.