—SFX: Huuu—mmm. Dawn trembling like a held breath. —
The Faith Sanctum had no walls.
Only light.
Si-Hyun stood at the center of an endless sunrise, barefoot on warm marble that reflected a sky untouched by night.
Golden motes drifted around him like slow, weightless fireflies.
Every breath tasted like a forgiveness he had never believed was meant for him.
Leah circled him in silence.
Six radiant wings folded tight behind her.
Armor gone.
A simple white dress.
Hair unbound.
Blind eyes glowing like they remembered the real sun.
"Show me," she said.
Si-Hyun exhaled once.
He understood.
He let go.
— SFX: CRACK—SHRRK—KRRRSH! —
The scarf shrieked, trying to hold him together, but it was too late.
Eight shattered wings of eclipse tore from his back, ripping new wounds open.
Black feathers the size of doors erupted, sizzling on contact with the Sanctum's light.
The temperature plunged.
The drifting motes froze in midair, suspended like crystal dust.
Si-Hyun collapsed to his knees, coughing black blood that burned holes through the marble.
Leah stepped forward—unflinching—into the radius of his darkness.
The eclipse wings lunged instinctively (hunger, fear, survival).
They stopped just a breath from her skin.
Because something had appeared.
Golden chains.
Thousands.
Not metal.
Not light.
Something older.
They flowed from the hand-shaped Stigma over her heart, each thread inscribed with a word in a language that carved pain into sight:
"Remember."
"Forgive."
"Stay."
The chains wrapped the eight wings—not to bind, but to hold, gently, like a mother fixing broken feathers.
Si-Hyun's entire body shook.
And then he felt it—the true nature of Leah's Stigma.
Not healing.
Memory.
Every chain was a prayer from someone who died believing the sun would return.
Every link was a name.
Every knot was a promise given beyond the grave.
There were billions.
The weight crushed into him like the sea collapsing.
Flashes surged:
— A mother in Sector-9 shielding her child from poison rain.
— An old priest burning his eyes to give the children one more night of light.
— Yoon Hae-Won—his mother—smiling at Aria while bleeding out in an alley.
All of them whispering the same final words:
"Let the last child live long enough to see morning."
Si-Hyun screamed—not in agony, but in recognition.
The eclipse wings thrashed, struggling against a love heavier than any darkness he had ever carried.
Leah kept walking until her forehead rested against his.
Her whisper drowned the darkness:
"I carry them all.
Every soul who refused to let the sun die.
I have carried them alone for seventeen years.
You will never be alone again."
— SFX: WHUMMM—! Golden fire flaring —
Light poured from her Stigma into his chest.
The black star in his heart cracked—just a hairline fracture.
But gold leaked through.
The eclipse wings folded inward and shrank.
When the glow faded, only two wings remained—smaller, edged faintly with gold where her chains had touched.
Si-Hyun sobbed so hard he couldn't breathe.
The scarf lay motionless between them, silent for the first time since it woke.
Leah cupped his face gently.
"Look."
She turned him toward the endless dawn.
For the first time, the amber in his left eye caught the light—reflecting it back as gold.
He let out a single, broken sound.
And then—
— SFX: KRSHHHHH—! —
The sky cracked.
A second tear opened above the Sanctum: perfect, clean, surgical.
A man stepped through.
Second Stellar Lord — "Chronos," Kang Tae-Yul.
Master of Time.
Keeper of the Second Ring.
He looked thirty.
He was older than the Eclipse itself.
Silver-gray suit.
No expression.
Eyes like frozen clocks.
Behind him, time dilated—motes suspended, Leah's hair halted mid-breeze.
Only Si-Hyun and Leah remained moving inside her sphere of chains.
Kang Tae-Yul's voice carried seven centuries of boredom:
"First Lord.
You have violated the Accord.
Bringing the Devourer's fragment above the Third Stratum without Council approval is treason."
Leah didn't turn.
Her six wings unfurled, shielding Si-Hyun completely.
"He is under my protection.
Any hand raised against him is raised against the Last Sun itself."
The Stellar Lord's eyes ticked like pendulums.
"Then the Council will raise its hand."
He lifted a single finger.
— SFX: Tnnnnnn—k. Time collapsing —
The golden chains began to decay—fraying, rusting, snapping.
Leah's face went dead white.
She dropped to one knee, golden blood streaming from her blind eyes.
Si-Hyun caught her.
The two remaining wings flared open—forty meters of darkness edged with dawn.
Kang Tae-Yul finally looked at him.
"Move, child.
You are a future calamity.
I have erased calamities before they were born."
Si-Hyun's voice was shredded raw, but steady.
"Touch her, and I'll show you what a calamity feels like when it has something to protect."
The frozen dawn shuddered.
The Second Lord paused—for one eternal second, weighing whether to erase the boy from history.
Then—
He lowered his finger.
"Not yet.
The Accord stays my hand until the Council votes.
Three days, First Lord.
After that, no protection will save him."
He stepped backward into the crack.
— SFX: TCHAK—!
Time resumed.
Golden motes drifted again.
Leah trembled in Si-Hyun's arms, golden blood staining her dress.
He held her like the world was ending—because it might.
"I'm not ready," he whispered.
"I just learned how to want to live."
Leah pressed her forehead to his, breath shaking.
"Then we'll learn the rest together.
Three days is enough for a miracle.
I would know…
I've been praying for one my whole life."
Above them, the endless dawn flared brighter—
as if the Last Sun refused to set
while two broken children held each other
in its light.