The fire had long faded, but the scent still clung to the air; ash, earth, and something sharp like burnt magic. Mei sat cross-legged just outside the shrine's remnants, watching the stillness with wary eyes. The storm was over, the curse broken, and yet… she couldn't quite breathe.
Aiko was curled beside Ryou, their hands clasped tightly even in sleep. They'd barely spoken after his revival. There had been only tears, exhaustion, and the strange silence that followed a miracle.
Mei hadn't interrupted.
She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders as a cold breeze swept down from the hills. Aiko's fire no longer warmed the world around her, and for the first time since she'd joined this mess, Mei felt the full weight of everything they'd faced.
They had survived. But Mei knew survival came with a price.
She looked at Ryou's face, which was so pale and still. Even now, Mei couldn't believe he had come back. She'd felt his pulse fade, seen the bond dissolve like mist. And Aiko…The sound Aiko made when she thought he was gone… Mei would never forget it.
Mei tilted her head back and stared up at the stars. "You really pulled it off," she murmured to the sky. "You broke the damn cycle."
Her voice cracked in the quiet.
She was so proud and relieved, but somehow she felt hollow.
Somewhere deep down, Mei had always believed the curse wouldn't be broken. That Aiko would die like the versions before her, and Ryou would lose her again.
That had been the outcome in every story.
She had known curses. She had seen how tightly fate could cling to people, how it could crush even the brightest light. She thought she knew this story.
But she was proven wrong, because she hadn't known this one.
She hadn't known that Aiko and Ryou's bond was tied to something ancient. She hadn't known their souls had been trying, and failing to find each other for lifetimes.
Mei had trained Aiko and fought beside her, argued with her, and laughed with her. But she had never understood the depth of what Aiko carried until the final battle.
She hadn't been there in their past lives, watching Ryou fall again and again, or seeing Aiko shatter over and over again.
Now that she had seen it and felt the echo of that love and pain…she knew.
And that scared her.
A memory surfaced, dim and half-forgotten. A pair of hands, warm and calloused, brushing her hair back. A voice, low and careful. "Not all of us are meant to rewrite fate, Mei. Some of us just hold the pieces together until someone else can."
She hadn't remembered his name in years. Maybe she never truly knew it, but she remembered his eyes. The way they'd closed as he took his final breath, and how she'd walked away from his grave with dry eyes and no one left to mourn him.
Mei rubbed her palms together and blew into them. "Guess I finally met someone who could finish what was started."
The wind answered with silence.
She stood, stretching her arms overhead until her back popped. She wasn't the chosen one, the heir of legends, or the heart of prophecy. She was just Mei; loud, sharp-tongued, reckless at times, but she had stood her ground when it mattered. She had trained Aiko, walked beside her through fear and fire, and believed in her when no one else did.
And that mattered.
She turned toward Aiko and Ryou, their sleeping forms bathed in the soft glow of a world reborn. Aiko's hand still clung to Ryou's like an anchor, and Mei couldn't help but feel a quiet ache stir in her chest.
They had something rare that she didn't know existed.
They'd wake soon, and the world would move forward. Plans would be made, and the future would be rewritten.
And Mei?
She'd be there with them, cracking jokes and making sure they didn't forget to eat. She will be watching their backs and having a good time in this unwritten future.
When they looked back at this moment, at what they'd survived, what they'd won, they'd remember that it wasn't just fate they overcame.
It was fear and doubt.
And somehow, together, they turned heartbreak into hope.
Mei smiled, quiet and full of something she hadn't felt in a long time.
"About time someone proved me wrong."