Chapter 50: The Last Breath of The Past

The world turned to light and fire.

The blast's breath swept everything away.

Mayu felt her body being torn from the ground, thrown into the air. The noise was deafening, but her mind felt strangely calm.

She was flying.

Or rather… she was falling.

Her back violently struck a hard surface. The impact knocked the breath out of her.

Then… silence.

Absolute silence.

…

A metallic taste in her mouth. Dust. The smell of fire.

She opened her eyes.

The sky. A sky darkened by smoke.

Debris still fell in the background, but the complex… was nothing more than a field of burning ruins.

— Mayu!

A voice. Distant. Distorted by the ringing in her ears.

She struggled to sit up, her body battered.

Mayu Zero was running toward her, limping slightly. She had survived too.

Mayu should have felt joy.

But what she felt… was far more complex.

— You're alive, Zero whispered, falling to her knees beside her.

Mayu slowly nodded.

She wanted to speak… but couldn't at first.

Her eyes were fixed on the flames consuming the ruins of everything she had known.

This complex had been her prison.

Her battlefield.

Her nightmare.

And now…

It was nothing but a consumed memory.

— It's over, she murmured.

Zero looked away.

— No. It's only the beginning.

Mayu stared at her.

That face so familiar… yet different.

In that moment, she understood that her fight was about to take a new form.

No longer a war against visible enemies.

It was a war against the past, against scars, against what had been done to her.

And she would no longer be alone.

— Will you really follow me? she asked.

Zero smiled.

— Always.

Mayu took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a second.

And when she reopened them…

She stood up.

The wind blew, carrying away the ashes of the past.

And before them…

Laid an unknown world.