The battle was already lost — or won — depending on which side you stood.
Eiríkur stood at the center of Kanou's ruined lab, glowing like a frozen sun. The vial — Fjörviðr, the blood of the First Draugr — coursed through his veins now, and he no longer blinked. The runes on his skin burned cold-blue. Hjalgrím was no longer whispering.
He was part of him now.
KJ-Mirror lay in shards. Not even ice left. Just vapor.
Kanou, bleeding, crawled backwards.
"You were… a blueprint…" he gasped. "You could've… given us a new age…"
Eiríkur stepped over him, the frost freezing Kanou's tongue before he could finish.
"I did," Eiríkur whispered. "But not for you."
And with that, Kanou's breath turned to crystal.
His body collapsed into powder — like snow kicked from an old grave.
Akira approached as the lab collapsed in rumble and frost.
Eiríkur stood still, staring at the ruined ceiling.
"You're not coming back, are you?" she asked.
His voice was low, rumbling like distant thunder.
"I don't belong with them. I never did. Not really."
Akira stepped closer, hands trembling — not from fear, but cold.
Or something deeper.
"I don't care what you've become," she said. "You were you with me."
Eiríkur turned to her.
In that moment, he looked tired. Human, just for a breath.
"I would rather be a curse in the world… than an evil ghost in your arms."
And then the frost swallowed him.
He vanished in the wind, leaving only silence behind.
Weeks Later – Anteiku
The 20th Ward was quiet again.
Rebuilding had begun — not just buildings, but hearts.
Kaneki was organizing information to prevent another Kanou. Touka reopened the café, brewing more tea than coffee. Hinami drew pictures of the frost warrior who once carried her on his shoulders.
And Akira stood in the center of them all.
Hands folded gently over her stomach.
She didn't cry. Not anymore.
But her voice cracked when she said it.
"I'm pregnant."
No one moved at first.
Then Hinami walked forward and hugged her.
Touka put down her cup and leaned her head on the counter, silent.
Kaneki placed a hand over hers and whispered, "Then we help each other. Like he would have."
– Years Later
The child, now nearly twelve, walks alone across the frostbitten lakebed — the water long since frozen solid. His mother watches from afar, not interfering.
She no longer warns him away from this place.
Something calls to him now and then. Always in winter. Always just before the thaw.
He kneels near the shoreline — his fingers trailing the runes carved in the stone. No one ever told him how to read them. He just… knew.
Today is different.
Today, the air shimmers.
The frost thickens, then stops moving altogether.
And he hears it:
A voice, soft and slow, speaking from beneath the ice.
Not with a mouth.Not with words.But with memory, shaped into sound.
"The blood was never the curse.""It was what we did with it that damned us."
The boy closes his eyes.
He sees a man's silhouette — cloaked in frost and shadow — sitting in a throne carved from the bones of time.
Not alive.Not dead.
"You are my echo. But you are not me.""You were born of love. Not vengeance."
Silence again.
And then, just once more:
"Tell her I never forgot the warmth."
The boy places a hand over his chest.
Whispers, "I will."
He walks back across the ice.
Akira doesn't ask what he heard.
But when he hugs her, tighter than usual, and his voice is thick when he says, "He remembers you,"she finally lets herself cry again.