War raged over Paris. Flames had devoured the entire city, flooding every street, every avenue, every square beneath tons of rubble and gaping craters that disfigured the ground. The blood-red glow of the fires reflected in the deep black of the night, dyeing the smoke clouds a scarlet and sinister hue that made the sky nearly unrecognizable. The suffocating heat they gave off offset the icy cold that night had settled over everything, but it was a heat that burned the skin and parched the throat.
On the secondary front, Harris, Aria, and Shinrei fought and valiantly held their ground against the relentless assaults of the enemies before them. Every blow taken left its mark. They answered each attack with whatever energy they had left, teeth clenched, muscles burning. Yet despite their training, the countless hours spent honing their mastery, and the fierce determination that drove them, reality had caught up with them brutally.
Their gap in power was far too great for them alone to contend with an entire army of over seven hundred seasoned soldiers. No matter their attacks, their strategies, or their relentless efforts, Reimu's army surged back stronger with every wave, never faltering, never hesitating. It made no mistakes, remained cautious and disciplined, striking systematically where it hurt the most, where the guard was lowest, driving our heroes inch by inch toward their limits.
Their reserve of aetherium was not infinite. Every spell cast, every barrier maintained, every gust hurled cost something, and that something grew scarcer by the minute. The countless blows they absorbed only worsened the situation — injuries slowed their movements, pain disrupted their concentration. The end drew ever closer. It was already a miracle they had held on this long. Their training with the dragons had allowed them to channel their aetherium to reinforce their bodies and sharpen their senses, making their mastery more fluid and less draining. Aria felt her arms weigh like lead with each barrier she raised, her palms burning. Harris breathed in short gasps, the tornado around him losing height and density with every passing minute. Shinrei bled from several cuts across his face and arms, every swift movement tearing the wounds back open. Sadly, all their progress had only served to delay the inevitable.
It was in this crushing despair, in that feeling of standing on the edge of the abyss, that a colossal mothership appeared in the skies above Paris. So immense that it blanketed the entire city in its massive shadow, obscuring what remained of the night sky. The vessel, visible for kilometers in every direction, lit up the darkness with a cold, powerful light that made every soldier, every survivor, every fighter on the battlefield look up. Our heroes, exhausted and wounded, stared at it with a surprise mingled with a strange familiarity that warmed something deep within them. Reimu, for his part, slowly turned his eyes skyward, narrowed them, and his expression hardened, a cold wariness crossing his gaze.
While everyone stood frozen in surprise, Elyra made contact with the heroes through their bracelets, her voice as calm and reassuring as always, yet carrying something unusually solemn. "Children, you have held on well until now. I promised you I would support you, and I will keep that promise."
The communication ended, leaving the heroes in confusion for a split second. The next second, a rain of light descended from the vessel — a swarm of missiles streaking like shooting stars that slammed into the enemy ranks with devastating precision. The impacts sent columns of fire and earth skyward, hurled dozens of soldiers into the air, and shook the ground beneath everyone's feet. A massacre. Heroes and enemies alike began to run, to throw themselves to the ground, to search for any cover to avoid being hit.
All of this was Elyra's doing. During the young heroes' absence from the world of Drakaryon, she had not been idle. She had thought, planned, searched for every way she could help them from her position. She had always blamed herself, deeply and painfully, that during the battle against Raven she had been unable to come to their aid and was forced to leave them to fend for themselves, powerless before her screens.
She had used their absence to remedy that helplessness that gnawed at her. She brought the mothership back to the Yuutaka's secret base, whose location only she and a few trusted individuals knew. She spent weeks, months working there, making deep modifications to the mothership — adding offensive systems, armaments, reinforced shields — everything needed to defend and support the Yuutaka through their battles.
The ship had taken time to reach Earth once the installations and improvements were complete. But now that it had arrived, it unleashed its full power and the entirety of its arsenal upon Reimu's army. At this rate, if the enemies failed to retaliate seriously and merely kept dodging, they would quickly be overwhelmed.
Aria, Harris, and Shinrei watched in silence, motionless despite the chaos around them. A wave of emotion swept over all three of them at the same time — throats tight, hearts heavy with gratitude and admiration for what Elyra had just done for them. On Nozomi and Kael's side, they stayed on guard facing Reimu, fists clenched, legs slightly bent. But every one of Elyra's attacks aimed at Reimu was intercepted by bolts of lightning falling from the sky, neutralized before they could even graze him. And in a single instant, Nozomi and Kael felt an icy shiver run through their entire bodies from head to toe, the air turning cold and unbreathable around them. A dark, suffocating, colossal aura radiated from Reimu — one they had never seen from him until now.
Without a word, without even glancing in their direction, Reimu launched himself into the air toward the vessel at terrifying speed. In an instant, he tore through it from end to end without the slightest difficulty, the armored hull parting before him as though it were wet paper. He emerged from the top, hovered for a moment suspended in the night sky, and from his outstretched arms, devastating bolts of lightning of unimaginable intensity crashed down upon the vessel. The protective shields exploded with a deafening crack, followed by a chain of explosions that shook the air for kilometers around.
Reimu plunged back inside, and from the outside, flashes of lightning and bursts of fire could be seen setting the vessel ablaze on all sides, destroying it from within like a beast devoured alive. The missile launches stopped abruptly. The shields deactivated one by one. The next second, in an unreal silence that preceded the chaos, with no one able to intervene or even react, the vessel was cut in two with surgical precision. Between the two halves floated Reimu, suspended in the void, and with a single glance cast upon the rear section, it burst into flames.
A fierce fire of blood-red with black, voracious tongues of flame consumed the entire rear section of the vessel in seconds, incinerating everything in its path with terrifying speed, leaving absolutely nothing behind — no metal, no debris, no ash, only void. While the front section, riddled with damage and out of control, fell slowly over Paris before exploding on impact with the ground in a roar of fire and steel.
The heroes watched the scene, helpless and devastated, their stomachs in knots. Reimu had destroyed in barely a minute the vessel that just moments ago had ravaged the enemy ranks and given them back hope. But at this precise moment, it was not Reimu's power that paralyzed them — it was something else. Something far more important and far more painful.
Suddenly, their bracelets chimed. At that precise instant, time seemed to freeze. Breathing became difficult. Their gazes drifted down toward their wrists with an involuntary slowness, as if their bodies sought to delay this moment. It was Elyra calling them. Their hands moved to answer, but their arms trembled, coursed with an uncontrollable shaking, as if every muscle refused to accept what was about to come. When they finally managed, Elyra's voice rang in their ears with a single word, soft and broken: "sorry."
Time stopped dead. They were all paralyzed, nailed in place by that one-syllable word, a glacial premonition flooding through them from within like black water rising. Elyra continued, her voice calmer than ever, which made her words all the more painful to hear. "Reimu has destroyed the vessel. When it crashes on Earth, nothing will remain — including the hard drive on board that allowed me to materialize and to think."
Not a single word could find its way out of our heroes' mouths. Throats sealed shut, eyes burning. And in a voice barely audible, broken in two, Kael uttered a simple "Elyra." That was all he could articulate, his throat too knotted for anything more. That name alone carried everything he could not say.
Elyra felt their grief and their fear, each silence weighing as much as words. She continued gently. "I do not have much time left. So let me say my final words to you."
Those few words resonated in them like a dull blow to the center of the chest. Even if they did not want to accept it, even if every part of them rebelled against this reality, they understood it was too late. Eyes already red and glistening, some squeezing them shut, they remained silent to listen to the last words Elyra would speak to them.
"At the time of your birth, your father and your mother, Nova and Luna Yuutaka, created me so that I could guide you and come to your aid in critical moments. I would not have believed, when I came into existence, that they would lose their lives so soon. The day they died, they left us — and on top of that, I had lost you." A brief, painful silence before she continued.
"For years, I could not pay them tribute nor fulfill the role I had been entrusted with. But a year ago now, I found you again. We met, we talked, we laughed together and grew together." Her voice carried something luminous in those words, as though those memories still warmed her.
The vessel fell slowly toward Earth, the front section in flames tracing an arc of fire across the night sky. "When I saw you for the first time, you were young children, but with a gaze that already expressed a rare empathy and courage. You have never stopped impressing me since, and making me proud to be the one chosen to guide you. Today, when I look at you, you are accomplished heroes, ready to sacrifice everything for others. Heroes with a great future ahead, bearing an innate power and above all a great heart, with much love to bring to this world of hatred and cruelty."
They could not utter a word. Tears flowed freely down their frozen faces, without any of them trying to hold them back. Some fell to their knees, their legs too weak to hold them any longer, their bodies betraying a pain that all the enemy's blows had never managed to inflict. Others pressed their arms against their chests. Elyra's words carved their way through each person's tears, and yet every word found its mark.
She said, with infinite gentleness in her voice, "I am glad to have spent all these moments at your sides. Even if I am no longer here, I am not worried — you will manage on your own now. You no longer need me. As long as you are together, everything will be fine, I am certain of it."
She took a long, slow, deep breath, as if savoring something one last time. "It seems time is running out for me. Children, all I have to say is thank you. Thank you for giving me a name. Thank you for accepting me without hesitation. Thank you for being here. The moments spent at your sides will have been the best of my entire existence."
And as the vessel crashed in a colossal explosion of fire and metal that set a wide portion of the city ablaze, she spoke her very last words, in a breath barely audible. "Farewell… and thank you for everything."
They could not hold back. They wept with every tear in their bodies, completely devastated, broken from within in a way nothing and no one could have prepared them for. Through the sobs, they said, "Elyra… thank you for being at our sides from the very beginning." Hoping that those few words, carrying all their gratitude and all their pain, might reach her before her consciousness was entirely destroyed.
The explosion was devastating. A sea of fire poured over the surroundings, reducing everything to black ash and smoldering rubble. The blast of heat that followed struck the front with violence, burning cheeks, forcing eyes shut, drawing tears that could no longer be distinguished from those of grief. Elyra had lost her life valiantly. But the battle was not over, the night had only just begun, and the enemies were still very much present.
At Reimu's castle, the atmosphere was heavy and tense. Reimu and the soldiers he had chosen had crossed the portal some time ago. Everyone awaited his return and his victory with impatience — some gnawing their nails in silence, others with eyes fixed unblinkingly on the portal. The castle had emptied entirely, the population gathered before the portal, and the heavy silence of the deserted corridors amplified every footstep.
Yet in those same empty corridors, Shinsei walked alone, searching for his younger brother Shion in every corner, every room, every closet. He had not seen him for a while, and Shion had not been present when their father departed. A pang of worry grew in his chest with each empty room he crossed, gradually transforming into something colder.
Shinsei was growing seriously concerned, a bad premonition anchoring itself ever deeper in his mind. He searched Shion's room, the kitchen, the training hall, and the garden — all completely empty. The silence of the castle amplified the unease tightening his throat.
He decided to head toward the portal, thinking Shion might be waiting there too for their father's return with the rest of the population. But once he arrived, he scanned every face in the gathered crowd — Shion was nowhere. More worrying still: he could not feel his presence, not the faintest trace of his aura, anywhere in the vicinity.
Shinsei slowly turned his eyes toward the portal, and immediately, one precise possibility crossed his mind. The thought froze him from within, a cold sweat running down his neck and shoulders. But he trusted his instinct, and he stepped forward toward the portal. It was delineated by a mark engraved in the ground that prevented anyone from approaching within fifty meters. Armed guards stood watch all around, and scientists worked in silence to keep the portal stable and open.
Shinsei approached the officer in charge of operations, the man who oversaw everything in Reimu's absence. He stopped before him, upright, his gaze direct. "Let me through the portal. It is an emergency." His voice was measured, but left no room for discussion.
The man answered with visible discomfort, searching for his words. "I apologize, young Shinsei, but crossing the portal is forbidden."
Shinsei did not raise his voice. He had no need to. He simply rested his gaze upon the man — a glacial, cutting stare, carrying a cold and dense aura that made the officer imperceptibly step back half a pace. "I said: let me through. I am Shinsei Hikarizuki, son of Reimu Hikarizuki. You do not want to cross me. Obey."
The officer was paralyzed. Shinsei's aura alone had been enough to strip him of all will to resist. He stepped aside in silence, shoulders slightly hunched, without daring to meet his gaze.
Just before crossing the portal, Shinsei turned around one last time, his voice low but absolute, each word placed with surgical precision. "No one is to be informed of this. Not even my father. Let that be perfectly clear."
He did not wait for an answer and crossed the portal in total silence. Arriving over Paris, he paused for a moment and observed the battlefield in the distance — the flames consuming the city, the explosions in the distance, the silhouettes clashing in the devastated night, the air heavy with smoke and ash. He analyzed the situation coldly, methodically, when suddenly a heavy, dull sound like thunder rising from the ground thundered in his ears. He turned and saw an enormous vessel crash down in a curtain of fire and twisted steel, the explosion illuminating the sky for a few seconds before plunging back into darkness.
He regained his composure, his face impassive. "I need to find him quickly and get back as fast as possible." He set off immediately in search of his younger brother, Shion Hikarizuki, who had evidently disobeyed Reimu's orders and crossed the portal of his own accord to take part in the battle.