The portal opened onto a clear night sky, golden light spilling across the grand courtyard of the Kingdom of Rings in stark contrast to the mist they’d all just left behind.
Soldiers and healers were already waiting, stretchers lined up, recovery magic humming green and warm in outstretched hands the moment the first exhausted student stumbled through.
“Quick — treat the injured first!” a soldier called, already moving.
“Recovery magic, activate!” A healer’s hands lit up, light spreading gently over the nearest wounded student.
Kirito stepped through last, still bleeding from half a dozen places, but standing on his own power despite it.
A healer reached for him immediately; he waved her off with a tired, half-hearted gesture.
“I’m fine. Worry about the kids first. I’ve had worse than this.”
“You’re missing a hand,” the healer pointed out, not unkindly.
“Yeah, well.” Kirito managed something close to a grin.
“Priorities.”
At the top of the palace steps, the King had been waiting since the first hint of the portal’s light appeared, eyes scanning every face that emerged with barely restrained panic.
The moment he found Nicolle among them, something in his composure simply broke.
“Nicolle!” His voice cracked on her name, and he was down the steps before he’d finished saying it, moving faster than a king probably should in front of his own soldiers.
“My daughter — are you all right? Are you hurt? Tell me the truth, not what you think I want to hear.”
She managed a tired smile despite everything.
“I’m okay, Father. Really. We made it back.”
He pulled her into a hug tight enough to lift her slightly off her feet, and for a moment neither of them said anything else, the King’s shoulders shaking just slightly with something he was clearly trying very hard to keep composed.
“Thank the gods.” His voice was muffled against her hair.
“Thank every single one of them. I was so afraid, Nicolle. You have no idea what the last few hours have been like for me — pacing this courtyard, imagining every possible—” He stopped himself, pulling back just enough to look at her properly.
“I’m sorry. You’re exhausted. This isn’t the moment.”
“It’s okay, Father.” She hugged him back again, patient with it, even now, even bone-tired.
“I’m glad you were worried. It means we’re still us, even with everything else that happened tonight.”
He didn’t quite understand what she meant by that, and didn’t ask — just held onto her a moment longer before finally letting a healer step in to check her over properly.
A short distance away, Gota was still keeping Nagi upright, though the healers had already descended on both of them, soft green light wrapping around Nagi’s frame where blood still tracked from his nose and the corner of his mouth.
“Hang in there,” Gota said, easing him down onto a low bench a soldier had dragged over.
“We’re back. You can actually rest now — like, real rest, not ‘still technically in danger’ rest.”
“I’m good.” Nagi’s voice came out steady even through the blood, calm as ever despite everything his body had clearly been through.
“Thanks.”
“You keep saying that like it’s convincing anyone.” Gota crouched down in front of him, checking his face with genuine concern under the teasing.
“You went full nosebleed twice tonight. That’s not ‘good,’ man, that’s ‘held together by spite.'”
“Little bit of both, maybe.”
“Yeah, figured.” Gota huffed something almost like a laugh, relief plain under the exhaustion.
“Just — let the healers actually do their thing this time. No arguing with the nice glowing hands.”
“I wasn’t going to argue.”
“You were absolutely going to argue. I’ve known you three days and I already know that about you.” Gota shook his head, but there wasn’t any real complaint in it.
“Seriously though. You scared me back there. Both times you went down. Don’t do that again if you can help it.”
Nagi was quiet for a moment, watching the healer’s light knit something back together beneath his skin.
“I’ll try,” he said finally, and meant it, even if he wasn’t entirely sure yet what “trying” would actually look like the next time his limit came for him.
Nearby, the rest of the group was getting similar treatment — Yuji limping toward a healer with visible reluctance, grumbling something about not needing to be fussed over even as he let himself be examined; Mikey and Kei standing patiently while minor wounds closed under gentle light; Sani laughing weakly at something one of the healers said, wincing halfway through the laugh like it cost him more than it should have.
“We actually made it,” Sani said, mostly to himself, shaking his head slowly.
“Feels weird saying that out loud.”
“Feels weirder believing it,” Kei replied, quiet, watching the courtyard settle into something resembling calm for the first time in hours.
“You’re both being dramatic,” Yuji muttered from a few feet away, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced of it himself.
“It’s over. We won.”
“Did we, though?” Sani tilted his head.
“Nagumu got away. Feels less like winning and more like surviving.”
A healer finished wrapping Yuji’s leg and stood, giving him a look that suggested she’d heard plenty of first-years insist they were fine tonight and believed none of them.
“Keep weight off it for at least a day,” she said.
“I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Yuji waved her off, though he did, notably, shift his weight onto his other leg the second she turned away.
Far from the warmth and golden light of the kingdom, the night sky over a dark, barren wasteland carried a different kind of movement — a lone figure gliding on wide black wings, laughter trailing behind him thin and satisfied.
“Kirito’s strong,” Nagumu mused aloud, to no one, grin never quite leaving his face despite the exhaustion clearly written into his flight pattern.
“Stronger than I expected, honestly. I should be more careful next time.” A soft, delighted laugh.
“How interesting. It’s been a long while since anyone’s actually made me work for it.”
He landed on the cracked, lifeless ground below with practiced ease, his severed stump — still glowing faintly with black, restless energy — held up in front of him like he was inspecting a piece of unfinished art.
Wind moved across the wasteland in long, dry gusts, the only sound for miles besides his own voice.
“Now, then.” His voice dropped, thoughtful, some of the earlier delight cooling into something older and harder underneath.
“Let’s see what my dear father has to say about all this, once word reaches him.” Another laugh, colder this time, an old bitterness threading through the amusement.
“I’m coming back for you. Whether you’re ready for it or not. Whether the whole kingdom is ready for it or not.”
He looked up at the empty sky for a moment, silent, something private and unreadable passing behind his eyes before the grin returned, sharp as ever.
“But first,” he said, mostly to the wind, “I need to actually be able to hold a sword properly again.”
The black energy around his wrist thickened, crackling audibly as flesh and bone began knitting themselves back together at a pace that had nothing natural about it — tendon, muscle, skin, all of it regenerating in reverse, claws forming last at the fingertips with a series of small, wet clicks.
He flexed the new hand once it was whole, testing the grip, watching the claws catch what little light the wasteland offered.
“Until then,” he said, satisfaction plain in his voice, “I’ll just have to get stronger. Shouldn’t take long.”
His laughter rose again, echoing out over the barren ground with nothing left to answer it but wind and silence — a sound that belonged, somehow, more to the wasteland than to anything human at all.
*End of Chapter 26*