Erza stepped toward Yuuta.
Her footsteps were soft on the melting ice, careful, deliberate. The port around her was a graveyard—bodies frozen in twisted shapes, blood staining the ice in patterns too horrible to name, containers scattered like children's toys. But she did not look at any of it. Her eyes were fixed on the man who was sleeping against a stack of containers, his head tilted back, his face peaceful, his chest rising and falling with the gentle rhythm of someone who had finally been allowed to rest.
She knelt beside him.
Her hands, which had killed demons and shattered armies, were gentle as she slipped one arm beneath his shoulders and the other beneath his knees. She lifted him, cradling him against her chest, holding him the way a princess holds her prince in the old stories—the ones she had never believed in, the ones she had mocked, the ones that now felt more real than anything she had ever experienced.
He was lighter than she expected. Or maybe she was stronger now. Or maybe love made everything feel different.
She held him like something precious. Like something she had almost lost. Like something she would never let go of again.
She turned away from the port, from the bodies, from the blood, from the woman who was still kneeling on the ice behind her. She took a step, then another, then another. The ice melted beneath her feet, water pooling in her footprints, carrying away the evidence of what had happened here.
"Do you think it is over?"
Fiona's voice was weak, barely carrying across the port, swallowed by the wind that was still dying. But Erza heard it. Her ears were sharp, sharper than any human's, and she heard every word. She did not stop. She did not look back. She had heard these words before, from enemies who had been defeated, from rivals who had been crushed, from people who could not accept that they had lost.
Fiona laughed. It was a broken sound, hollow and bitter, the laugh of someone who had nothing left to lose. Her body was still pressed against the ice, her blood still pooling around her, her sword still lying useless beside her. But her voice carried.
"Do you think you will live a peaceful life from now on?" she shouted. "Do you even know how many monsters you are going to attract just from this mess?"
Erza stopped.
She did not turn. She did not look back. But she stopped.
"What do you mean by that, human?" she asked. Her voice was flat, cold, the voice of someone who was asking a question she already knew the answer to.
Fiona's breath came in ragged gasps. Every word cost her something, every syllable a battle against the pain that was tearing through her body. But she forced them out.
"The Demon King," she said. "He will come for you. For him. For the power you both carry. You think this is over? You think destroying a few syndicates will end it? The Demon King has been watching. He has been waiting. And now—" she coughed, blood spattering on the ice, "—now he knows you exist."
Erza was silent for a moment. Demon King. She had heard the title before, in the reports from her kingdom, in the whispers of lesser beings who did not understand what true power looked like. In her world, the title of King meant nothing. It was a puppet's title, a figurehead, a piece on a chessboard that could be moved and sacrificed at will. The Queen was the power. The Queen was the authority. The Queen was the one who decided who lived and who died.
She closed her eyes. Her senses reached out, searching, probing, stretching across the city, across the country, across the world. She felt the presence of demons, scattered and weak, hiding in the shadows where they thought no one could find them. She felt the presence of humans, frightened and confused, trying to understand what had happened. She felt the presence of the Legion, fading back into her shadow, waiting for her call.
And she felt the Demon King.
He was not far. He was hiding beneath the city, in a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that had been built centuries ago, when the world was younger and the boundaries between realms were thinner. His power was not insignificant—it was enough to frighten humans, enough to make them kneel, enough to make them believe he was something greater than he was.
But to Erza, he was nothing. A candle in the sun. A shadow before the dawn. A creature that would crumble if she so much as looked at it wrong.
She opened her eyes.
"Pathetic," she said. "There is no being on this world who can even make me bleed."
She took a step forward.
Fiona's voice rose, desperate now, clawing at the last shreds of her strength. "You do not understand! The Demon King is not like the others. He has been gathering power for centuries. He has an army. He has—"
Erza stopped again. She did not turn, but her voice carried, cold and absolute.
"He is not a even Demon King," she said. "He is an arch demon. A middle-level demon. The kind that my soldiers kill for practice." She paused. "And I am surprised that humans have been fighting something so lowly for so long."
She walked away.
Fiona's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. No words came out. Arch demon. Middle-level. The kind that my soldiers kill for practice. The words echoed in her mind, refusing to settle, refusing to make sense. She had spent her whole life fighting demons. She had watched her father die fighting them. She had joined the Agency, trained for years, risen through the ranks, dedicated her existence to eradicating their kind.
And now she was being told that the greatest threat she had ever faced was nothing. A middle-level demon. A practice target. Something that would not even make the Erza bleed.
She did not know what to say. She did not know what to think. She did not know anything anymore.
Erza paused. She hovered in the air, her wings spreading wide, her body silhouetted against the setting sun. The light caught her silver hair, turned it to gold, made her look like something that did not belong in this world. She looked down at the woman who was still kneeling on the ice, still bleeding, still holding onto a hatred that would not let her go.
She sighed.
The sound was soft, almost gentle, carried away by the wind before it could reach Fiona's ears. Then she spread her wings wider, leaned forward, and disappeared into the sky. The air rushed to fill the space where she had been, swirling snow and ice and the last traces of her power.
She was gone.
The port was silent. The ice was melting. The bodies lay where they had fallen, their blood seeping into the ground, their weapons scattered across the frozen earth. The Agency would arrive soon. They would clean up the mess, erase the memories, bury the evidence. They would tell the world that a gas leak had caused the explosion, a freak storm had caused the cold, a tragic accident had caused the deaths.
They would lie. They always lied.
Fiona knelt on the ice, her body broken, her spirit shattered. She did not move. She did not speak. She simply knelt there, her hands pressed flat against the ground, her head bowed, her tears falling onto the melting ice.
Her hand tightened around her sword. The hilt was cold in her grip, familiar, the only thing she had left. She raised it, her arm trembling, her muscles screaming, and slashed it through the air.
The blade flew from her hand. It spun end over end, glittering in the fading light, and struck a container. The metal tore. The blade embedded itself in the steel, deep enough to hold, deep enough to stay. The container groaned, cracked, began to tip.
Fiona did not watch. She lowered her head and wept.
Loid stood at the edge of the port, his lion mask in his hands, his face uncovered. His fist was clenched at his side, his knuckles white, his nails pressing into his palm. He was watching Fiona. He had been watching her for years—watching her train, watching her fight, watching her fall in love with a man who did not love her back.
A tear rolled down his cheek. He did not wipe it away.
His fist slammed against the container beside him. The metal dented, groaned, but did not break.
"Why are you so obsessed with him?" he whispered. His voice cracked. "Why can you not let him go?"
The tears fell faster. He did not wipe them away.
Yuki stood beside him, her fox spirit mask pushed up to reveal her face. She was young, younger than him, with kind eyes and a gentle smile that had never once wavered, even in the darkest moments of the battle. She had healed his wounds, mended his bones, brought him back from the edge of death more times than he could count.
She looked at his face, at the tears on his cheeks, at the way his fists were shaking.
"Loid," she said softly, "are you hurt?"
He did not answer. He kept his eyes fixed on Fiona, on the woman who would never look at him the way she looked at Yuuta, on the woman who would never love him the way he loved her.
The fox mask healer followed his gaze. She saw Fiona kneeling on the ice, broken and bleeding, her sword embedded in a container, her tears falling onto the ground. She saw the way Loid's hands were shaking, the way his jaw was clenched, the way his eyes were wet.
She did not say anything. She simply stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder, and waited.
Loid did not move. He stood at the edge of the port, watching the woman he loved grieve for a man who would never love her back, and he said nothing.
The sun set. The stars came out. The Agency arrived.
The port was silent for an Hour, Until Agency Arrived.
The helicopter hovered over Luna City, its rotors cutting through the evening air like blades through silk. It was not alone. Dozens of them spread across the city and the surrounding areas, a fleet of black machines that moved in perfect synchronization, their purpose clear, their mission absolute. They were here to erase. To cover. To make sure that nothing that had happened today would ever be remembered.
The Agency worked quickly. Swat teams descended on the port, their boots crunching on the melting ice, their hands gloved against the cold. They moved with practiced efficiency, collecting bodies, bagging evidence, scrubbing the ground clean of blood and memory. The bodies of the gang members, the syndicate bosses, the soldiers who had been caught in Erza's wrath—all of them were loaded into black vans and driven away, to be buried in places where no one would ever find them.
The cleaning teams followed, their machines humming, their chemicals spraying. The ice that had covered the port melted away, revealing the concrete beneath—cracked, stained, but otherwise ordinary. Within hours, there would be nothing left to see. No evidence. No trace. No proof that anything had happened at all.
Chief stood in her control room, her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on the screens that lined the walls. Below her, dozens of officers worked at their stations, their voices low, their faces tense. The screens showed footage from across the city—helicopter feeds, satellite images, news reports that were being intercepted and rewritten before they could air.
"Chief," an officer called out, "almost 1,200 people witnessed the strange event. It is making it harder to erase the memory of every civilian. Some have already posted videos online."
Chief's jaw tightened. 1,200 people. That was too many for individual erasure, too many for targeted strikes, too many for anything except extreme measures.
"Hire influencers," she said. "Use them to spread AI-generated videos. Create fake news. Make the whole thing look like a hoax."
The officer nodded and turned back to his station. It was a tactic the Libeus Agency had used many times before. Whenever footage leaked, whenever witnesses came forward, whenever the truth threatened to surface, they flooded the internet with so many lies that the truth became indistinguishable from fiction. Monster sightings, demon attacks, strange weather patterns—all of it was buried beneath an avalanche of fake videos and conspiracy theories and memes that made the real events seem ridiculous.
But 1,200 witnesses were still out there. Their memories were still intact. Their stories were still waiting to be told.
Chief raised her hand. "Monday," she said.
The AI's voice responded immediately, smooth and feminine, emerging from speakers hidden in the walls.
"Yes, Chief."
"Use the Ballistic Memory Eraser on Luna City. Make sure it hits the entire city. Erase all memories of the past few hours."
There was a pause. Monday was calculating, verifying, confirming.
"Ballistic Memory Eraser deployed," Monday said. "Impact in ten seconds."
The satellite above the city shifted, its panels adjusting, its targeting systems locking onto the coordinates Monday had provided. A missile detached from its underbelly, small and sleek, its surface gleaming in the dim light of space. It fell toward the city, silent and fast.
It exploded above the rooftops—not with fire, not with destruction, but with a bubble. A wave of translucent light spread outward from the point of impact, washing over the city like water over stone. It passed through buildings, through walls, through the bodies of the people who were sleeping, working, living their lives.
They felt nothing. They saw nothing. They simply stopped remembering.
The man who had been standing at his window, watching the strange lights in the sky, blinked and turned away. He could not remember why he had been standing there. The woman who had been filming the storm on her phone looked at the blank screen and frowned. She could not remember what she had been filming. The children who had been crying, afraid of the thunder that sounded like a roar, fell silent and went back to their games.
The memory of Erza's grief, of the storm, of the destruction—all of it was gone. Wiped away. Erased as if it had never happened.
The port was quiet now. The bodies were gone. The ice was gone. The blood was gone. Construction crews had already arrived, their trucks rumbling, their workers shouting, their machines beeping. They were here to rebuild, to repair, to make the port look like it had always looked. No one would ever know what had happened here. No one would ever remember.
But the people who had fought here—they remembered. The memory eraser had not touched them. They had been too close to the source, too close to Erza's power, too close to the storm. Their minds were their own. Their memories were intact. And they would carry what they had seen for the rest of their lives.
Fiona lay in a hospital bed, her body wrapped in bandages, her arm in a sling, her face pale against the white pillow. The room was quiet, the only sound the soft beep of the machines that monitored her heartbeat. Her unit was scattered around her—some in beds, some in chairs, some standing by the window, staring out at the city that had forgotten them.
She was exhausted. Her body was broken. Her spirit was shattered. But she was alive. They were all alive.
Loid sat in a chair beside her bed, his lion mask on the table beside him, his face bare. The evening light from the window caught the tears on his cheeks, made them gleam like tiny stars. He had been crying. He was still crying. He did not bother to hide it.
Yuki stood behind him, her fox mask pushed up, her hand resting on his shoulder. She had healed his wounds, mended his bones, brought him back from the edge of death. But she could not heal the ache in his chest. She could not mend the heart that had been broken by watching the woman he loved weep for another man.
"She will be okay," Yuki said softly. "She is strong."
Loid did not answer. He kept watching Fiona's face, watching the way her brow furrowed in her sleep, the way her lips moved silently, the way she reached out with her bandaged hand as if searching for something she could not find.
He knew what she was dreaming about. He had always known.
Far above the city, Erza flew through the night sky.
Her wings were spread wide, black and vast, catching the wind that swept down from the mountains. The stars were bright above her, scattered across the darkness like diamonds on velvet. The moon was full, casting silver light across the clouds that drifted below her.
She was not flying toward anything. She was not flying away from anything. She was simply flying—feeling the wind on her face, the cold in her lungs, the freedom of being alive.
The city spread out beneath her, a patchwork of lights and shadows, of homes and streets and lives that she would never know. She had almost destroyed it today. She had almost frozen it solid, had almost killed everyone in it, had almost ended the world because she could not bear the thought of living without him.
She looked down at her hands. They were clean now. The blood had washed away, scrubbed off by the rain and the wind and the tears she had cried. But she could still feel it. She could still feel his blood on her fingers, still feel his heart stopping beneath her palms, still feel the world ending around her.
She shook her head and flew faster.
The apartment building appeared below her, small and ordinary, lost among the thousands of other buildings that filled the city. But it was hers. It was theirs. It was the place where she had learned to cook, to dance, to love.
She landed on the balcony.
Her wings folded back into her body, disappearing into her skin as if they had never been there. She stood for a moment, looking out at the city, at the lights, at the world that had almost ended and did not know it.
She took a deep breath.
She stepped inside.
The apartment was dark, quiet, the way it always was at this hour. The kitchen was clean, the dishes from breakfast still drying on the rack. The living room was empty, the sofa where she usually sat waiting for her. The bedroom door was open, and through it, she could see the bed where Yuuta was sleeping.
She walked toward him. Her footsteps were soft, careful, the footsteps of someone who did not want to wake the person she loved. She stood beside the bed, looking down at his face—peaceful, relaxed, alive. His chest rose and fell with the gentle rhythm of sleep. His lips were slightly parted, his hair was messy, his hands were resting on the blanket.
He looked like he had when she first saw him, all those weeks ago, in this same apartment, in this same bed. But everything was different now. She was different now.
She reached out and tucked the blanket around him, the way he always tucked Elena in at night. She smoothed the fabric over his shoulders, adjusted the pillow beneath his head, brushed a strand of hair from his forehead.
Then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to wake.
She did not know how long she sat there. Minutes. Hours. Time had lost its meaning. She watched his face, listened to his breathing, felt the warmth of his body through the blanket. The apartment was quiet. The city was quiet. The world was quiet.
For the first time in centuries, Erza felt at peace.
She was home.
To be continued...
A/N: Perfect chapter. Nothing missing.
R/N: You forgot the child.
A/N: …Oh, Damn