Yūgen had become unrecognizable.
The skies were fracturing into colors that didn't exist. Spiral energy surged like a dying sunstorm. Across the land, echoes of the Ministers collapsed one after another, their Spiral shards shattering into dust and dissolving into memory-light.
Ren stood still, chest heaving. His Spiral pen—once a symbol of control and creation—now looked burnt out, inkless. A final stroke drawn.
Behind him, his team regrouped.
Rei wiped blood from her lip, Fracture Blade humming with the remnants of the 18th Minister she had cut through.
Kael dropped to one knee, clutching his shoulder—his Chrono Blink had burned through too much of his timeline.
Yumi's sketchbook was glowing violently, its final sealed page open, releasing her last construct—a giant phoenix of Spiral ink that had taken out two Ministers in one coordinated strike.
And Aki, standing tall, eyes glowing—but not with Arakiel's divine energy anymore.
Arakiel was gone.
Purged.
Aki had accepted him… then rejected him. Not as a host. But as a human.
He'd chosen humanity over divinity.
And now they were here, the last Minister gone.
Except one.
---
The Last Gate
The 21st stood ahead.
Cheng.
The one who had built the Spiral Realm.
The one who had erased his own memories to experience helplessness, just like the mortals he despised.
The one who had turned pain into world design.
His body was unstable—pieces of every Spiral core flickered across his skin like living memories. His voice came from beneath sound.
> "I gave you everything. Power, stories, choice. And you repay me with ruin."
Ren stepped forward. "You made us like you. That was your mistake."
> Cheng laughed—dry, cracked. "I didn't make you like me. You already were. I just gave you a system to realize it."
Aki narrowed his eyes. "We were trapped. You turned trauma into architecture."
> "So what will you do now?" Cheng asked. "Kill me? Break the Spiral? Destroy the system that gave your existence meaning?"
Yumi raised her hand.
"No," she whispered. "We're going to end it."
---
The Final Strike
The team attacked as one.
Kael froze Cheng's timelines for a heartbeat—enough for Rei to split his code across seven echo lines. Yumi drew a counter-narrative directly into the Spiral's laws, forcing Cheng to lose control of his own abilities.
Ren rewrote Cheng's core form—drawing a version of him with regrets, with limits.
And Aki…
Aki walked forward, Spiral thread alive inside him, and spoke the final command:
> "Arakiel. Return to where you belong."
The ancient being stirred once more inside his soul—but only to nod. Then it vanished—returning to the void beyond dimensions.
The Spiral collapsed around Cheng.
He didn't scream.
He simply faded, whispering, "Maybe next time… I'll just be someone else."
And then he was gone.
---
Portal to Home
Silence.
Real silence. Not Spiral silence. Just… quiet.
A calm wind passed through the ruins. The sky folded in on itself—closing the chapters written in blood and ink.
A final gate opened. One the team hadn't drawn, hadn't summoned.
It simply… appeared.
A silver oval. Pulsing with the rhythm of real-world time.
Ren stepped forward, stunned. "This is it… It's our way out."
Yumi placed a hand on the edge of the gate. "It's connected to our homes. Our memories. The lives we had before Yūgen."
Kael let out a dry laugh. "Finally, I can eat food that doesn't glow blue."
Rei smirked. "Don't forget your sister's birthday this time."
And Aki… looked at his hands.
They were fading. Not in death. In transition.
His memories of this world weren't leaving.
They were being filed. Preserved.
He looked to Ren. "We'll remember?"
Ren nodded. "All of it."
---
Goodbyes
They stood in front of the portal one last time.
Each of them held something from the Spiral Realm:
Ren kept the spiral pen—burnt, but still real.
Aki wore a ring made of Arakiel's last thread.
Yumi closed her sketchbook, now filled with memories that belonged only to her.
Rei's blade had fused with her timeline—a mark she'd carry forever.
Kael's eye glowed faintly, a gift from Chrono Instinct, even without active power.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
One by one, they stepped into the portal.
---
Final Moments
As they vanished into light, their rooms returned.
Their real homes.
Their real names.
Their families.
Old worlds, now merged with the Spiral truths inside them.