Allen found herself facing Tyki Mikk and Sheril Kamelot.

"Well, who do we have here," Tyki said. "If it isn't Neah's little project. I swear you are honestly so hard to destroy. Why? Why, really? And I'm not asking a rhetorical question. I really do want to know why."

Allen pressed her palm against the rosary tucked under the neck of her robes and armour. She felt safer with it—not invincible by any means—but protected, warm, and filled with a righteous courage. "Good always prevails over evil."

Tyki cocked his head, staring at Allen through burning golden eyes. "No, honestly—"

Sheril raised a hand. "Enough."

Tyki frowned. "But—"

"Allen Walker." Sheril cracked his knuckles. "You'll pay for what you did to my poor Rhode! The poor darling, she's been absolutely destroyed by you. I'll see you strung to a gibbet for the pain you've inflicted on her, runt."

Allen leaned forward, allowing the pressure to gather at the balls of her feet. She felt alive. She felt power coursing through her veins. "And you'll pay for what you've done to the world!"

"Rip her heart out, Tyki," Sheril said. There was nothing but a dark anger simmering in his eyes.

Tyki laughed, an exhilarated sound. He moved like the wind itself, hand outstretched, reaching forward towards Allen's chest.

Allen assembled a spell in her head. There was no time to move, no way to avoid the fingers stretching out towards her, death and decay gathering under the shelter of those sharp-tipped fingernails. But she could decapitate Sheril maybe, there was just enough time—

Then there was a flash of silver. A dark river flowing at the periphery of her vision.

Kanda charged at Tyki, Tiedoll right behind him. Tyki withdrew, cursing loudly. Kanda made to follow, but Tiedoll pushed ahead.

"Stay with her," Tiedoll called, and was gone in pursuit of Tyki.

Kanda looked at Sheril. Mugen flashed silver in his hands.

"I'm not playing with the likes of you," Sheril said in a tone that bordered on boredom.

"What?" Kanda said, genuinely offended.

"Play with Wisely." With a flick of his fingers, Sheril summoned said Wisely over.

"Him?" Wisely said. "I don't really want to fight. I mean, you know I'm not much of a fighter—"

"Stop repeating that same line, Wisely." Sheril lifted his eyes to the heavens and shrugged. "I'm tired of hearing it."

"But I can't—"

His brain," Sheril said, jabbing Wisely in the ribs.

Wisely shrugged and tugged at the turban he wore on his head. His third eye came to life.

Kanda placed Mugen against Wisely's neck. Wisely stared at Kanda. Kanda gasped and stiffened; he fell onto his knees and stared straight into Wisely's additional eye.

"What have you done to him?" Allen said.

Sheril said, "Wisely's just having some fun with that pretty boy. Back to more interesting matters. Which bone of yours shall I break first?"

"None." Allen began to assemble the anatomy of a spell in her head. She would have to cage him, somehow, and perhaps break his fingers so that he would not be able to move them.

It was then that a door appeared.

"I—what?" Sheril looked over his shoulders.

Rhode walked out of her door, swinging a candy stick from her fingers. "You shall not harm anyone else today."

Sheril's expression morphed from mild interest in an impending fight to shock and disbelief. His gaze swivelled between Allen and Rhode. "Rhode? Is it really you?"

Rhode smiled, and it was a sad one.

Sheril patted his pockets. He pressed his monocle deeper into his skin. Then he turned to Allen. "What sorcery is this? How dare you, how dare you manipulate my daughter with your deceitful arts—"

Rhode sighed. "It is indeed I, Rhode Kamelot. There is no manipulation here."

"No," Sheril said. He looked as exhausted as he sounded. "This can't be—I must be dreaming or—Rhode's resting because the filthy—"

Rhode flicked her finger. Her door grew larger behind her, a subdued dash of red in the gloomy morning. "I've recovered."

Sheril dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. White silk, monogrammed with his initials in red. Like petals of blood flicked against his brow. "I—no—not my darling—they have brainwashed you—come back to Daddy—"

"The day the Fourteenth died," said Rhode, "was the day my heart shattered. Surely you must know this.'

"I heard something of the sort. I did not believe it. Rhode, my child—"

"You should have," Rhode said heavily. "I do not want to fight you. If I do not have to."

"Come back to us, my child—"

"Never again," Rhode said. "This time, there must be peace."

Sheril glared at Allen. "This witch has brainwashed you. I must be done with her!"

Rhode held out a slim hand. "I have had enough time for regrets. It's been so long. Too long. Master Millennium has ransacked this world long enough. And I—" she said, drawing a long sigh, "have aided and abetted him all this while."

Sheril swallowed. His throat trembled, his veins were knotted and stark against the pale skin of his hands. His eyes blazed with an unholy anger. He crooked his fingers and brought them downwards, grinning like a devil laughing amidst the flames of hell as he swung towards Allen. "Take that if you can, fool! I will not fall for your sorcery and your wicked arts!"

Allen felt her wrists twisting. The crunch of bones. Something slicing through skin, through flesh, through her mind. There was pain, heat, and an agony of tears.

"No!"

And then—Allen fell to the ground, not injured, but inexplicably tired and shivering all over, as if she had the ague. Sheril too had been thrown backwards and was only just sitting up, one hand pressed against the side of his head.

Rhode stood pale and terrible, eyes like molten lava in the still, statue-like cast of her face. No longer child-like, but a full faerie queen with power cackling at her fingertips.

"Rhode," Sheril said. "You—the Earl will not—"

"Master Millennium," said Rhode in a voice so very calm and so very resolute, "knows this is the end. I have been at his side for so long. Far longer than you have."

Sheril made a sound of protest, the faint noise whirring in his throat. "Please, my child, our family is—"

"Neah," said Rhode. "Neah Walker. I loved him. And Master Millennium knew it."

"Rhode," said Sheril. "Please—"

Rhode placed one foot before the other. Again. And again. She grew taller; her shadow lengthened. "There is no other way. I have made up my mind this time."

Sheril scrambled to his feet, dusting off his trousers and waistcoat. There was confusion in his eyes, and supplication in the twist of his mouth, but a deep hardness had bloomed in the curve of his brow. He would fight Rhode if it came to that.

And Rhode—she was already prepared to fight. To destroy her own.

There was a brief moment of timelessness. The way Sheril and Rhode looked at each other. The movement of limbs, of fingers, deliberate and exact. A shimmer in the fabric of space. Allen thought she might almost hear the door open, might hear the cracking of bones, the stretching of tendons, if she had enough time to sit and listen, to parse their actions.

Time to think.

Time to understand.

But there was no time at all. One moment Sheril and Rhode were merely moving towards each other, readying for the fight, and the next they froze.

Sheril's fingers were outspread, pointing towards Rhode. His eyes were glazed, his mouth agape. Rhode knelt on the ground, eyes closed, tears trailing their way down her cheeks. Her left arm hung at a strange angle.

"God above," said Allen, pressing her fingers to her lips. She fumbled her hold on the sword, trying to empty her mind, as if by doing so she could sweep out the evil of the past and purify hearts and minds.

The very next moment, the ground rumbled. Lightning flashed. There was a rancid stench of dried blood and something bitter. Something like death.

And indeed, Death had come in the guise of the Earl.

"How dare you!" The very ground trembled at his approach.

Allen stumbled backwards. Her heart was a flighty bird in her chest, its wings pushing against the cage of her ribs.

"How dare you!" the Earl roared. He charged at her, his sword aloft. Lightning flashed behind him, and the vermin that lived among the grass scurried away.

Their swords clashed. The Earl's face was nearer than it had ever been before. Allen could see the paint peeling off at the intersection of jaw and ear, the grey smudges under the eyeholes, dust thick against the base of the top hat. His crazy eyes whirled, large and luminescent like those of a dragonfly, but Allen thought she could just make out the hint of brown pupils under the glazed glass.

—the human behind the monster—

—the world behind the fog—

Allen's breath caught in her throat. A warm feeling sloshed over her, a heady mixture of home and family. Neah, Allen thought, blinking rapidly, trying to find her way out of the eddies. Those were Neah's thoughts rising to the surface.

It seemed that the Earl was affected as well. One of his large hands pressed against his chest, pushing, pulling. A button rolled off his coat and into the dead grass. Tears leaked from the sides of his mask, soot-grey.

"No, Neah," the Earl moaned. "No."

Neah came to life in Allen's head. It is not yet time, Allen. Walk away from him. The others must die first.

And so Allen forced her feet backwards. One step, and then another.

The Earl was still lost in a nightmare of his own making. "Neah!" he cried out, and dragged a handkerchief across his face. And then—"Wisely!"

When the Earl moved his hand away, the handkerchief fluttering to the ground as a scrap of white amidst the gloom of the day, his mask was splitting open at the sides. At the front, around the sides of the nose. Allen thought she had never seen something quite so grotesque. Human misery, wretched discontent, malignant hatred—these were all contained within the distorted mask. And behind it.

Behind the mask—behind the displays of power—behind their otherworldliness—the Noahs, and the Earl, were only human too. An outpouring of pity filled Allen's heart and stayed her hand.

"You have my kin fighting kin," the Earl said sorrowfully. "What have you done, Allen Walker? What have you DONE?"

"You've done this to yourself. I'm only speeding it along."

The Earl laughed, and the sound was the howl of wolves, the cry of hyenas along a lonely plain. "You? You think too much of yourself, my child! Neah himself could not do it!"

Allen did not see the blow coming.

But Kanda did, and Kanda came running. Kanda, with his bloodied face and mussed-up hair, and a deep wound in his right leg.

The sword smote Kanda.

Allen screamed.

The Earl laughed.

Kanda fell, and the ground bloomed maroon under him.

Allen felt the blood freezing in her veins—it could not be, not brave, stoic Kanda, not him, he could not be—

With a sob, she raised the sword of Innocence towards the Earl. For once, she did not need preparation or mindfulness; a streak of power burst through her, and the sword sent a bolt of lightning crashing down on the Earl.

In the aftermath, there was the stink of charred trees. But no charred body; the Earl had escaped. Allen forced herself to turn around, forced her eyes to avoid Kanda's body lying broken against the ground, his hair spread like a pillow under his head, chest heaving with each painful breath.

Each step was harder than the last.

Then she saw the Earl standing a distance away. She pushed herself forward, ignoring the searing sensation in her toes, the underside of her feet.

"You need to do better than that," the Earl said. "Surprise me."

Allen ran towards the Earl, anger and grief fuelling her power. Power surged through her veins, gathering momentum with every step she took.

A clash of swords.

The wind howling in the background.

Allen did not know how long their duel lasted—she noticed nothing but the swing of her sword and the chant of ancient spells.

Until the Earl started crying and did not stop. "All dead," he sobbed. "All but Rhode. All dead! Monsters! Cruel folk that you are! Oh, my poor sweet apostles, poor Rhode, it is just us again."

The Earl turned his tear-stained face to Allen. The air around him started to glow. "Now you will see the full extent of my wrath!"

A pinpoint of light. Thunder in the distance. Deep keening, and a longing for the earth.

A wave of darkness flooding the sky. The faint glimmer of a distant, unconcerned sun.

The world flickering under Allen's feet.

The flare of fire.

Cities grew and fell in the span of a breath. Pestilence swept through the land, a red and wrathful cloud, and the anguish of the people rose as a great sob towards the heavens, begging for God's mercy, and it did not come. Flights of locusts. The stink of death. Pits dug through the bitter earth, the last resting place for the dead and the dying, and yet the pits could not be dug quickly enough, for the plague raced through the cities, cutting down men and women where they stood.

Too many bodies, and not enough graves.

There were houses, empty and desolate, the mewling of animals, the cries of unweaned infants, and the belches of fires ravaging the land.

There was war.

Famine.

Men and women, babes and the old, engulfed by a treacherous wave, stretching their hands towards the circle of sky overhead. But the waters did not part this time, no path opened itself for their weary feet.

"Exodus," the Earl said, and laughed. "This is your gift to humanity, Allen Walker. You think you are saving the world, but there are greater powers out there. Other threads of fate waiting in the wings for their turn."

Allen watched limbs flailing against the waves, a young couple whose desperate grasp could not overcome the force of the waters. "No. You lie."

The Earl pointed towards the waters. "Tell me this is not true. Tell me mankind has never and will never bring disaster upon itself. Time and again have I heard them cry to the heavens, saying, we have sinned, and now we know, and never again will we sin, so God help us. But that too is a lie, for each generation forgets the iniquities of its fathers, and forges its own path towards the darkness."

"No, no." Allen shut her eyes against the sight of the bloated bodies floating face down in the great flood. "The world just needs guidance."

"The inchoate darkness calls," the Earl said.

The vision disappeared, fading away like the remnants of a dream in the period between wakefulness and sleep.

It was then that Allen noticed the terrain had changed for the worse. There were no trees. Not even a dying branch or a single blade of grass. The sun had dimmed, and the mountains spewed treacherous lava, belching sulphur into the tainted, ochre sky. Skeletons lay crumbled against boulders, the metal parts of their armour rusted and tarnished.

Kanda, Allen thought. Kanda? Lenalee? Lavi? Where's everyone?

The Earl appeared beside Allen. "This is how it will be, if you continue to provoke me. You have slaughtered my family! I will destroy your world and you will suffer through the decades in the arid wastes, mourning all the people you have lost!"

Allen felt a chill in her blood. "You won't."

"I will," the Earl said as he sobbed into a handkerchief. "But join me, and I will give your friends a chance to live on in their blighted world."

Allen forced herself to remain calm. She counted her heartbeats. Staunched her grief. Imagined herself alone in the void of night. Pushed thoughts of Kanda away into the deepest recesses of her heart.

And when she finally trusted herself to speak, she asked, "And what is the price to be paid for your mercy?"

"Mercy?" The Earl laughed. It sounded like the call of a predator. "What is mercy? Did your God show mercy when I asked for it? Did he spare me?"

"That's not the story I've heard."

"You've heard! What are you, child, but a babe in the history of the world? A speck of dust!" Tears and blood leaked from the Earl's eyes.

And more softly, the Earl said, "He could have loved us too. As a father. But he did not, and he condemned us, and what choice had I but to revolt?"

"You've killed so many people," Allen said. "Is it worth it?"

"You're no saint either." Behind the Earl, inky darkness swirled into being across the sky. "Allen Walker. Fourteenth. Both of you."

"We do what we have to do."

"That's what they all say." Tiny glimmering stars strung themselves across the night sky, like pearls threaded through dark hair. The Earl looked skywards, and Allen saw that he was still crying. "I have shown you what it would be like if you win this war. Even if you win. Despite winning."

Allen said, "It will not be like that."

The Earl cackled. "You're wrong, child. Humans will always destroy themselves. As I have shown you."

Allen shook her head. "Humans may destroy themselves. But there will always be someone willing to make the sacrifice for mankind. To light the way."

"Is that your decision? To sacrifice yourself for mankind? Remember what I have just shown you, child. I can give you the world. And yet you will put that aside and lose what you know and love, knowing how the world will end?"

There was a crescent moon high up in the sky, flickering at its edges. Allen fixed her eyes on it. "Yes."

"Look," the Earl said, spreading his hands outwards towards the sky.

The mist cleared, and Allen could now see her friends and colleagues strung along a path, all soft-jointed like paper dolls fluttering in the wind.

"That is how they are now." The Earl leaned against a large boulder. "I can have Rhode revive them."

"That's another lie."

"She can do that, in her dream world."

Allen shot the Earl a look of disdain. "What are you trying to imply?"

"Join me. Or give up this war. I will return you your friends and your city, unsullied."

"That's impossible."

Above their heads, the full moon burst into flames. Bits and pieces of it crumbled away like pieces of an ancient statue worn down by the elements.

"Nothing is impossible in Rhode's world. Look."

Allen looked. In the distance, her friends regained their forms. No longer did they appear two-dimensional; they moved like humans, and spoke with each other. And then Kanda broke away from the group and came towards her.

"Beansprout," Kanda said, taking her hands into his. They were so warm, so alive, and his voice so gentle.

Allen wanted to weep at seeing Kanda alive and whole, his face so close to hers, his breath so warm against her neck.

"We won the war." There was a breeze, and Kanda's long hair drifted like seaweed in the ocean. "We will be happy now."

Kanda brought his arms around Allen's shoulder, and she shuddered against his chest—shuddered with relief, with love, with some other indefinable feeling. Something like dread. Or disgust. But Allen could not imagine why she would be feeling either dread or disgust, so she pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and let Kanda hold her close, her face against his shoulder.

She could stay like that forever, leave the City Guard and Komui to clean up the City, leave her friends to take care of the dead. It was so warm and comfortable here, with Kanda holding her, looking forward together towards a lifetime of happiness—except something felt wrong.

Allen extracted herself from Kanda's embrace and looked towards the sky. The setting sun burned crimson against the horizon, the burning moon was still crumbling away, and around her there was the stench of death again.

"Don't you think there's something odd about this?" she said.

But Kanda merely shook his head, and reached out to thread his fingers through her dirt-caked hair.

Allen tensed. She took a step back, looking warily at Kanda. "Wait."

Kanda opened his mouth, but no words came out, for at that moment—

"Rhode!"

Kanda fell, slack-jawed and empty-eyed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Allen watched in shock. She bent over Kanda, shaking his limp shoulders, but he did not respond.

"Rhode!"

Allen looked towards the sound. There the Earl was, still crying tears and blood, one hand clutched over his chest. He was kneeling on the ground now.

A dreadful feeling washed over Allen. She's dead. Rhode's dead.

Inside her mind, Neah screamed with pain. Allen could feel his anguish, the deep eddies of his grief, and she felt tears flowing down her face. She too sank to her knees and felt the loss thrash against her ribcage.

But Neah was made of stronger stuff. Through his sobs, he said, "Allen, now. You have to do it now."

The grief pounding against the insides of her skull made it hard to think. "Do what? But she's dead!"

"You have to get to the Earl. Now."

"Why?"

"The seal—don't let—her sacrifice. Be in vain."

And so Allen fought against the torrent of grief. Pushed herself to stand. Scraped the dust off her elbows and her forehead. She marched towards the Earl.

The Earl saw her coming through a haze of tears and blood. He stood faster than a man in such a situation ought to be able to stand. Spitting bitter bile, he drew his own sword and swung it towards her.

The Earl was quick, but Allen was quicker. She swung out of the way.

It was in that moment that Neah saw the seal. "It's hanging from his neck. Allen, you have to take it and break it."

Allen pivoted. She reached out, and her trembling fingers closed around the seal. She pulled away at once, and the chain broke. The seal came away, cool against her palms.

"No!" The Earl stumbled after her.

"Crush it," Neah urged. "Now!"

Allen dropped the seal, and pressed the heel of her right boot onto it. She expected her attempt to fail, but—it cracked easily. Then it crumbled into smithereens, specks of silver amongst the reddish-brown dust and soil.

"No!" The Earl shoved Allen aside. He fell onto his knees and elbows, grabbing fistfuls of soil, trying to piece back the seal. But it was too late.

For in that moment, Allen felt the world shift, as if two ships had collided and somehow opened a chasm in the fabric of the ocean itself. The world was different; a veil, hitherto undiscovered, had been drawn aside. The dark clouds parted, and the shadows crept away from where she stood. There was a new warmth in the wind.

And a warmth in her heart.

"No!" This time, the Earl raised his head to the sky and howled like a hurt wolf. "No! Go back to sleep!"

"This is the time to destroy him," Neah whispered.

And so, despite her aching limbs and parched lips, Allen pressed her sword into the Earl's defenceless back. His flesh parted easily, the millennia-old flesh breaking apart and crumbling. His blood dripped onto the ground, sizzling and dark.

The Earl hissed like a wounded serpent and arched his back. "You dare—"

"This is really the end," Allen said as she stood over the Earl's writhing form. "Go in peace, if you can."

"You will regret this." Now even the broken mask had fallen off the Earl's face, and the flesh had peeled back to reveal iron-grey bones. "He is a faithless and fickle god, and you have awakened him."

"At least he will not try to destroy the world."

The Earl laughed, and it was a cruel one. "So this is how it ends."

"Yes."

"For me. It has not ended for you, you fool. You will suffer for a long time before you die. You will become a sacrificial lamb for your people. And it will be in vain, in the end."

In her mind, Neah said, "The great darkness waits for him. He will not have peace. He is frightened."

Aloud, Allen said, "If you repent now, Earl, there may be hope for you yet in the world that is to come."

The Earl spat at Allen's feet. "Repent! Me? Never!"

Then his face seized with pain, and a deep horror was reflected in his eyes, as if he could already see the eternal fires and brimstone of hell waiting for him.

The Earl's final breath was putrid in her face. But Allen did not flinch. She stood close and watched as he decayed and crumbled into a handful of dust. A broken mask lying in a pool of blood, the sun rising overhead.

Neah said, very softly, "You've done well, Allen."

And then he was silent and spoke no more.

It was only then that Allen allowed herself to sink to her knees, to lean her arms against the ground, and sob.

"Allen!"

"Let her be, she must be tired."

"Allen!"

The rocks were hard against her back, and her limbs ached. Allen forced her eyes open, holding up a hand crusted with blood against the bright sun. Lenalee came into view, hair dishevelled, bruises blooming mauve on her cheeks and around her eyes.

"Allen!" Lenalee said again. "Lavi, she's awake?"

"Where are we?" Allen pushed her elbows against the ground. There was a sharp pain in her ribs, and she grimaced.

Lavi propped her up. "You did it!"

Lenalee said, "Look!"

Allen looked. All around there was death and destruction, withered grass and dust and mud and debris and bodies in the ground. Civilians and soldiers alike carried stretchers, bringing the injured away for healing.

There was Cross, sitting on a boulder, nursing a hot drink and smoking his pipe. He did not appear to be injured, but he sat alone, with Maria standing guard at his back, and stared into the blue sky.

There was General Nyne, striding along, handing out bandages.

There was Reever, and Komui, and Johnny with a clipboard, taking charge of the clean-up and the evacuation of the casualties.

There was Tiedoll, huddled with Marie and sobbing into a handkerchief.

"Chaoji's dead," Lavi said matter-of-factly. "One of the Noahs got him."

Allen shook her head and said a short prayer for Chaoji's soul. Then she asked, "What about—Kanda? I don't see him."

"Link brought him to the infirmary," Lenalee said. "He—he is rather badly injured."

Allen rubbed her eyes. She saw again the image of Kanda, so broken, bleeding into the hungry soil.

"He'll be fine, Allen. He'll recover. He won't die so easily." Lavi smiled, but the worried look in his eyes did not go away.

"And now we need to get you to the infirmary too," Lenalee said. "Come on."

Allen willed her voice to be steady. "You two look like you need it too."

"No," Lavi said. "You need it. Look at yourself. We're fine for now."

Allen was not able to heal anyone for the first week after the last battle. But Kanda healed fast nonetheless, and was discharged by the Matron a day before Allen.

"You've lost weight," he said when he stepped into her room at the infirmary.

"It was a tough fight," Allen said. "How are your injuries?"

Kanda shrugged. "I'm fine now."

Allen pulled at a string on her sleeve. "You saved me."

"I've done it a few times. You're lousy at keeping yourself alive."

"That's why I need a bodyguard," Allen said.

Kanda sat on the edge of the bed. "You need to learn how to protect yourself."

"We've had this conversation before," Allen said as she laid her head against Kanda's shoulder.

Kanda slipped an arm around Allen's waist. "Yes."

"So thank you for saving me."

"I've told you, you don't need to thank me. It's my job."

"Are you sure it's just a job, BaKanda?" Allen laughed and pressed a kiss to Kanda's neck.

Kanda's answer was not in words but in the alchemy of bodies.

The clean-up took an entire fortnight. Komui and his staff worked tirelessly, and the freemen and women of the City helped when and where they could.

On the day of the funeral, Allen dressed in her ceremonial robes. She anointed herself with the holy oil. She stood by the coffins of her friends before the ceremony, stopping to pay respect to each and every person she knew, and sometimes even to those she did not know.

There were so many rosewood coffins, with the rose-cross emblem carved atop. Each was filled with handfuls of white lilies.

Allen had ensured that Rhode would have the honour of being buried with the other heroes of war, instead of being cremated outside in the carrion pyre. Rhode looked so young amidst the white lilies and the white carnations. Death had erased the cunning and the sadism from her face, softened the lines of her jaw.

"She could be sleeping," Allen said.

"She could," Lenalee agreed.

Allen pressed her fingers to Rhode's closed eyes and cold dead skin and said a prayer for the Noah who had turned her back on her family.

"May she rest in peace," Lenalee said.

Lavi echoed the sentiment, and even Kanda nodded his head.

The funeral service started in due course. Hymns were sung, then the liturgy. Komui spoke of the dead, thanking them for their service. Then he thanked the living.

When it was Allen's turn, she spoke about the courage of those who went into battle with her. About those who sacrificed themselves for the future of those who remained, for the sons and daughters of the city, about those who had spent their lives fighting the good fight without knowing if the war would ever end. About how they had to work together to heal the hurts of the world.

And then it was all over, and the coffins were pushed towards the crematorium.

As the fires swallowed the coffins, as people turned to their friends and hugged them, Allen leaned into the crook of Kanda's arm.

"Tired?"

"No," she said, and slipped her hand into his.

Kanda squeezed her palm. "It's over."

"No, it's just the beginning," Allen said. "We have a long way to go."

"A very long way," Kanda said.

"But you'll be here with me."

"Of course."

Allen smiled and turned back to watch the woodsmoke curl up into the great blue sky.

"Look," Lavi shouted suddenly, "look!"

It had not rained—but there it was, a rainbow curving across the sky.

Komui smiled at the sight. He took his beret off, held it to his chest, and bowed in the direction of the crematorium. Without needing any prompting, the others in the chapel and in the garden followed his lead to stand and bow, to pay their respects to the bravely departed.

Once they had all been soldiers of a sort, fighting a bitter war, ready to lay their lives down to defeat the Earl. And now they were just humans, just people trying to find their place in the new world—in that broken but beautiful new world they had helped to build.

There was much to do yet—they had to root out the remnants of evil, to coax the world out of the ashes of its past. To remember the dead. On the morrow they would put on their uniforms again, the robes of the Priestess, the sword of the City Guard, the seal of the Chief Administrator, the scrolls of the lore-masters, the gold rose-crosses of the Generals, the wrist-blades of the CROW, and return to their duties.

But in that moment, as they watched the coffins burn and the smoke spiral into the waiting sky, they were just people grieving—

They were just a man who loved his sister more than his life—

Just a man who had lost his sons but continued to fight—

Just a man who stepped beyond the boundaries of his craft in the name of the greater good—

Just a man who had turned his back on his childhood to stand up against tyranny—

Just a woman who had spent too many centuries watching her world darken and who could do nothing while those she loved suffered and died—

Just a man who gave up his legs in battle and had to learn to walk again—

Just a woman who had finally been dealt the hand of freedom after years of feeling like a caged bird—

Just a man who could now focus on his scholarly pursuits without needing to taking time out to make war—

And just a man and a woman finally ready to make a life together through the good and the bad.

They were just people.

But most of all, they were still alive. They had hope, they had each other, and that was enough.

finis

AN: This was a difficult chapter to write. I abandoned so many scenes, re-wrote so many parts of it.

But it's done. After 5 years. Finally.

Thank you for reading, truly. For those who started reading from the beginning, thank you for sticking with this fic despite the slow updates and erratic quality. For those who started reading more recently, thank you for giving this fic a chance.

So yes, thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (: