The sun rose without blood for the first time in years.
In the valley where gods had fallen and a man had found the strength to rise, the winds no longer howled. The trees, once twisted and scorched by dark rituals, stood silent and still. It was not peace. Not yet. But it was rest.
Guts stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the battlefield. His hand rested on the hilt of his greatsword, now sheathed in coarse cloth and tied across his back. Beside him, Casca sat quietly. She had not spoken since the final strike. But she no longer trembled when he reached for her hand.
Her eyes followed the sky. Not the ground. That was enough.
Far behind them, the scattered survivors of the old Band of the Hawk buried the fallen. Their names were not sung. They were carved into stone, whispered in prayer, and burned into memory. For many, there were no bodies — only places where the ground still held warmth.
Aeon watched from a distance.
He did not linger close to the living. Not yet. There was reverence in distance — a respect earned by pain.
But he remained long enough to see Guts smile.
It was small. Brief. Faint. But it was real.
And Aeon knew: this chapter of pain was closed. Not healed. But closed.
Later, he wandered the ruins of the temple where the battle had begun. Stones scorched by divine wrath. Statues with shattered eyes. Symbols of a faith long devoured by ambition.
He reached a crumbling altar at its heart.
There, untouched, lay the doll — the one left behind during the eclipse. A simple thing. Buttons for eyes. Cloth body. A crude smile stitched across its face.
He knelt before it.
"Nivi," he said gently, though the wind carried the name away.
A flicker of golden light passed through the clouds.
And for a heartbeat — just one — the doll smiled.
Night came.
Aeon stood at the summit of the mountain that divided the ruined lands from the forest beyond. Behind him was death. Before him, a silence so deep it sounded like waiting.
He looked up.
The stars shifted. Constellations warped. A circle of white flame opened in the sky — not like before, not divine and cold — but gentle. Warm. Resonating with a deeper truth.
The Gate.
It shimmered with countless worlds beyond.
Aeon took one step forward. Then paused.
He turned back once — toward Guts, toward Casca, toward the fading remnants of a world that had once reflected his rage. A world he now left… not in anger, but in understanding.
"I am sorry," he whispered.
The wind answered him not with voices, but with silence.
Forgiveness, perhaps, lived in that silence.
Aeon stepped through the Gate.
And vanished.