Chapter 30: The Cost of Tomorrow

"Victory buys time. It never buys peace."

The city was quiet.

From the top of the restored District 7 administration tower, the damage to the city was both visible and intimate—Monolith shadows casting long scars over broken districts, smoke still curling from areas where conflict had burned through streets and hope alike. Reconstruction had begun. But no one spoke of peace.

Because no one believed in it.

Not yet.

Seitenshi stood before the reinforced glass window, dressed in ceremonial white. The air was heavy with the scent of ash and steel.

"You've bought us time, Rentarō," she said, not turning. "But Chrysalis wasn't the end."

Rentarō stood behind her, his coat still stained from the Arcadia raid. Enju and Tina waited near the doorway, silent.

"I know," he said. "But it was a step. One they didn't think we could take."

Seitenshi faced him then. Her eyes were tired but clear.

"They will come again. In some other shape. Chrysalis was only one face of a deeper ideology. That the human soul can be replaced. That innocence is a weakness. That the only future worth having is one controlled by design."

Rentarō nodded slowly. "And we'll fight that too."

Later, on the tower roof, Kisara joined him.

She was wearing a black scarf Rentarō hadn't seen since their Civil Security days. It fluttered in the wind like a memory.

"You made the right calls," she said, standing beside him.

"I broke protocol."

"You broke a lot of things."

They both laughed. Quietly. Bitterly.

"You're still going after the ones who funded Chrysalis?" he asked.

She nodded. "The ones who stayed in the shadows even after the Council collapsed. The true architects."

"You'll need help."

She looked at him. "You offering?"

Rentarō didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

At the resistance outpost, Hotaru was helping patch up younger recruits. One had a fractured arm; another, just bruises and fear. She moved between them gently, calmly—her combat mask gone. For the first time, she looked like a normal girl.

Or as normal as anyone who had killed to survive could be.

Enju sat beside Renge, who was watching the sunrise with silent awe.

"Why is it different now?" Renge asked, voice soft.

"It's not," Enju said. "But we are."

Renge tilted her head. "Will they let me stay?"

"They'd be stupid not to."

Tina found Rentarō near the armory.

"I ran diagnostics on Renge," she said. "No active signals. No latent triggers. Whatever they did to her, it's gone now."

"She's free?"

"As free as we are."

Rentarō met her gaze. "Do you think we won?"

Tina shrugged. "We survived. That's different."

Karasuma gathered the field captains that evening.

"The Monoliths are holding. For now. But the mutations we saw near Arcadia… something's still stirring."

Shōma, seated near the back, said nothing. His sword rested against the table, still stained with the black ichor of synthetic blood.

"I'll stay on the borderlines," he said. "If anything comes from beyond, I'll see it first."

Karasuma nodded.

"So this is it," he said. "We rebuild. We remember. And we don't flinch."

Night fell.

The crawler was packed for departure. Rentarō stood at its hatch, staring up at the stars—faint behind layers of city dust, but still visible.

"You could leave," Kisara said behind him. "Disappear. You've earned that."

Rentarō shook his head.

"They'll keep coming. The people who want to decide the future for everyone else."

"And you?"

"I want to protect the ones still allowed to dream about it."

She smiled. "Still the same boy from the dojo."

He smirked. "Still trying to keep up with my seniors."

As the crawler rumbled down the cracked street, past burned-out monorail lines and shattered statues, Enju sat beside Rentarō, legs swinging over the edge of the cargo bay.

"What now?"

"We wait," he said. "We train. We help."

"And when the next war comes?"

He looked at her.

"We'll be ready."