It wasn't over.
Not even close.
But they'd survived this round.
And together, they'd dragged a nightmare down to its knees.
---
The dust hadn't even settled.
Kade dropped to one knee, hard, the sword of light flickering out of existence the second Bizon's roar died out. His whole body shook—not from fear, not anymore—but from something worse. From everything his muscles had left inside them finally giving out. Every nerve in him screamed bloody murder. His heart hammered against his ribs like it didn't trust they were still breathing. Like it was still waiting for the next blow to fall.
But they were alive.
Somehow.
He lifted his head, slow and stiff, vision swimming like he was underwater. Blood blurred the edges of his sight, thick and hot, but he blinked it away stubbornly. Around him, the others started to stir.
Ren was the first to move, dragging himself upright with a grunt that sounded more animal than human. Blood streaked his face like some fucked-up war paint, and his arm hung limp, bent at an angle that made Kade's stomach roll. But he was breathing. Still here.
Nico stumbled to his feet next, hunched over and cradling his ribs, every bit of his usual cocky attitude wiped clean off his face. He looked... older somehow. Smaller. Human in a way Kade hadn't seen before.
Lila... Lila barely moved. She was on her hands and knees, tiny sparks coughing weakly out of her fingers like the electricity inside her was running on empty. Ava was already at her side, moving in that frantic way people did when they were fighting against time, like she could feel Lila slipping through her hands if she didn't move fast enough.
Nobody said anything.
They just... breathed.
Broken. Bruised. But still here.
Still breathing.
Kade tried to stand. His body didn't agree. He almost hit the dirt again, only catching himself at the last second. A searing pain tore through his side, and when he looked down, he saw blood soaking through his jacket, running in sluggish rivers down his ribs.
Didn't even remember getting hit there. Didn't matter. Everything hurt the same now. He pressed his hand against it, gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might shatter.
"Everyone alive?" Ren rasped. His voice sounded like it had been dragged across broken glass.
A few miserable grunts answered him. Kade nodded even though he wasn't sure anyone could see it.
Ava moved over to him next, her hands already glowing faintly. She hesitated—just a second—like she wasn't sure if she could help anymore. Like she wasn't sure if she had anything left to give.
Then she pressed her palms against his ribs.
Warmth flooded him, soft at first, then growing until it dulled the sharpest edges of the pain. Didn't fix it, though. Just... muted it. Like taping a cracked bone. Her hands shook the whole time.
When she pulled away, she almost slumped. Kade caught her without thinking, steadying her with arms that barely had the strength left to hold himself up.
"You're burning yourself out," he muttered, voice shredded and broken, barely recognizing the wreck that came out of his mouth.
Ava gave a dry, wrecked laugh. "Better me than you."
She tried to pull away, but he didn't let her. Not yet. They just stayed there for a moment—two broken kids holding each other up because there was nothing else left.
The battlefield stretched out around them like a graveyard. Cratered earth. Smoldering rubble. Deep scars clawed into the ground where Bizon's rage had torn through the world. It didn't even look like a place anymore. It looked like something dead.
Bizon was gone.
But the stink he left behind wasn't. The weight of it hung in the air. Heavy. Rotten.
The reality of it all started crashing down on Kade like an avalanche he couldn't dodge. They should've died. Hell, they almost had. If it hadn't been for the artifact—or whatever it was that woke up inside him in that blind, stupid moment of rage—this place would've been their grave.
"Is he... really dead?" Nico croaked out, slumping down against a jagged hunk of stone, one eye swelling shut.
Ren shook his head slowly. Jaw clenched so tight the muscles twitched. "Not dead. Not for good."
Kade's gut twisted. "How do you know?"
Ren wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, still staring out at the shattered skyline like he expected to see Bizon's shadow clawing its way back. "Because monsters like him don't die easy. They rot. They fester. Then they come back... worse."
"And pissed off," Lila rasped, voice hollow, like she wasn't even really here.
The silence after that was thick enough to choke on. It pressed down on all of them, heavy and merciless.
Kade looked at his hands. They were still trembling. He flexed his fingers, and fresh pain sparked up his arm, reminding him that even when you survived, you didn't walk away clean.
He wasn't built for this.
Or maybe he was.
Maybe that's what scared him most.
"I didn't even know what I was doing," he said, almost under his breath. "I just... moved. I wasn't thinking. It just... happened."
Ren's eyes caught his—dark and knowing. Pride and sadness all knotted up into one miserable look. "That's how it starts."
"How what starts?" Kade asked. Even though some part of him already knew he didn't want the answer.
Ren hesitated. Then he looked around—at Lila slumped against Ava, at Nico hunched over, battered but alive. Then back to Kade.
"The real battle," he said quietly. "Surviving the Hollowborn is one thing. Surviving yourself... that's another."
The words hit Kade harder than any wound Bizon had managed to land.
Ava leaned into him a little more, her breathing soft but steady. He let her. He needed it too. Needed that small, fragile proof that they were still here. Still real.
He looked at the others—Ren, Lila, Nico—all of them wrecked and bleeding and still standing.
And something inside him twisted into a knot so tight he didn't think it would ever come undone.
It wasn't anger anymore.
Wasn't even fear.
It was something heavier.
Something that felt an awful lot like belonging. Like a promise he hadn't meant to make but was already tied to, anyway.
He wasn't just fighting for himself anymore.
If he stayed, he'd bleed for them. Hurt for them.
Maybe even die for them.
And somewhere along the way, without ever saying the words out loud, he'd already made his choice.
He was in this.
Deep.
Kade closed his eyes, breathing through the bone-deep ache, the fear clawing at his chest, the grief he didn't have words for yet. The fight was over—for now—but the war was just getting started.
Ava's whisper broke the silence, so soft it barely made it past her lips.
"Thank you."
Kade didn't answer. Didn't trust himself to. He just leaned back, staring up at the shattered sky above them, feeling the weight of the broken world pressing down on him—and letting it.
He wasn't a hero.
Wasn't even sure he was human anymore.
But he was theirs.
And for now...
For now, that would have to be enough.
To be continued...