**Chapter 36 – The True Climax of the Show**
The orphanage garden was unrecognizable.
Fifteen trafficker bodies lay scattered: some sliced apart, others crushed, Vorak reduced to a red puddle, Duke Valthor turned into unrecognizable pulp inside the cabin.
Silence fell for a few seconds, broken only by the relieved sobs of the younger children and the sound of chains hitting the ground.
Lysithea, still in her transformed form (violet hair dancing in flames, pink shadow wings, eyes glowing with gentle madness), hugged all the girls at once. Mirella and Graciela, injured but conscious, were pulled into the tangle of embraces.
Joker and Harley stood in the center of the garden, hand in hand, looking at the corpses with identical smiles.
Joker wiped a drop of blood from his face with his little finger and turned to the family.
— Hey, everyone…
(he raised his voice, theatrical, as if announcing the final act of a packed circus)
— The show isn't over!
Harley leaped up, spun her pink hammer in the air, and shouted along:
— Now comes the climax!
Joker snapped his fingers.
Suddenly, all fifteen bodies began to float.
Slowly, like puppets without strings, they rose three, five, ten meters above the ground.
The younger children's eyes widened.
Lysithea smiled, already understanding what was coming.
Joker raised both hands like a mad conductor.
— Ladies and gentlemen… the grand pyrotechnic finale of Le Cirque de l'Ombre Rose!
Harley slammed the hammer into the ground.
A wave of shock-pink illusion enveloped the floating bodies.
And then it began.
The first body (the big guy who tried to scare Joker): exploded into a thousand golden and red sparkles, forming a giant heart in the sky.
The second body: turned into fireworks shaped like a laughing clown that winked before bursting into brilliant blood confetti.
The third, fourth, fifth… each explosion was different: flowers, dragons, crowns, pink hammers, playing cards, everything spinning and bursting in impossible colors.
Vorak was the penultimate: he rose higher, turned into a giant orc of light, waved his torn-off arms, and exploded in a shower of green sparks that formed the word "END" before dissolving.
The last was Duke Valthor.
His mutilated body floated to the top, transformed into a false golden angel.
Joker looked straight at him (even though he was already dead) and whispered:
— This one's for touching our mommy.
Harley clapped her hands.
The "angel" exploded in the biggest blast of the night: a pink-golden sun that lit up the entire forest, followed by a slow rain of cold fire petals that fell over the orphanage like colored snow.
When the last spark faded, the sky was clean again, and the garden smelled of gunpowder and burnt cotton candy.
The younger children started clapping, amazed.
Astrid shouted: "Again! Again!"
Marina released steam in the shape of fireworks.
Rina wagged her tail happily.
Even Mirella and Graciela, wounded and exhausted, laughed with tears in their eyes.
Lysithea, still with pink shadow wings, opened her arms and looked at Joker and Harley with insane pride.
Joker gave an exaggerated bow.
— Thank you, thank you! Applause for the best family in the world!
Harley threw confetti (made from actual pieces of the traffickers' clothes, but no one noticed) into the air.
Everyone ran and piled on top of the two.
Nine bodies (eight children + Lysithea) turned into a giant human pile, laughing, crying, shouting with joy in the middle of the garden that now looked like a circus stage after the grand finale.
Joker, buried under hugs, shouted muffled from below:
— That's right, family… that was just the first act!
The real circus is yet to come…
And the whole world is going to have to buy a ticket!
Harley finished, sweet and deadly voice:
— And anyone who doesn't want to laugh…
will turn into fireworks too.
And under the blood moon that slowly returned to white, the embraced family laughed until their stomachs hurt, while cold fire petals continued to fall like a mad blessing.
The show had truly only just begun.
(to be continued…)