Chapter 9 - Ashes and Aftermath
The rain didn't stop.
It came down in sheets now, cold and merciless, drenching the field and the six boys who thought they could break someone like Azril.
The fight wasn't clean.
It wasn't noble.
There were no rules, no fairness — only fists flying in the mud, curses screamed between thunderclaps, and pain flaring with every hit.
But Azril didn't fall.
Not once.
He moved like someone who had nothing left to lose, and everything left to prove.
Blood tasted like metal in his mouth. His right eye was swelling. His knuckles ached.
Still, he stood.
Still, he fought.
And slowly — one by one — they backed off.
Not because they feared what he could do.
But because they finally understood what he wouldn't let them do anymore.
Break him.
By the time Hafiz called them off, Azril was bleeding from a cut above his brow, panting hard, barely holding himself up.
But he was still on his feet.
"Enough," Hafiz spat, wiping his mouth. "He's done."
Azril raised his head, eyes burning.
"No," he said, voice raw. "You're done."
Hafiz froze.
There was no threat in Azril's words.
No bravado.
Only truth.
The kind that hit harder than any punch.
Azril turned and walked away.
He didn't look back.
Not once.
He limped home through the rain, every step a reminder of the price he had paid.
But inside him?
Something had shifted.
The storm had passed.
And in its wake, there was silence.
Not peace — not yet.
But something close.
Something earned.
At school the next day, the whispers stopped.
Not because the students suddenly grew kind — but because they had seen.
Seen what a storm looked like when it refused to break.
Hafiz and his gang kept their distance.
Even the teachers noticed.
Azril became something different in their eyes.
Not feared.
Not admired.
But respected.
And that — after everything — was enough.
For now.
Near the library steps, Iman waited, arms crossed.
She didn't speak when he approached, only stared at the bruises blooming across his face.
"I told you it was a trap," she said softly.
Azril smiled — lopsided, tired.
"And I walked in anyway."
She shook her head.
"Idiot."
He nodded.
"Yeah."
They sat together in silence as the clouds broke, and sunlight spilled across the courtyard for the first time in days.
Because sometimes, it take
s a storm to clear the sky.
And sometimes, it takes standing alone...
To show others how to stand too.
[End of Chapter 9]