Silence had fallen over Future Pride. Not the silence of peace — but the silence that follows ruin.
The once-glittering city was now a wounded monument, its skyline stitched with scaffolds and ghostly smoke. Screens that once flashed with heroic faces now flickered with government warnings. The people spoke less of heroes — and more of survival.
Somewhere beyond the neon ruins, in the deserted industrial outskirts, Ronak — no longer Ignis, not yet human again — wandered like a shadow. His body healed faster than any normal man's, but his heart remained scorched. Every night, when he closed his eyes, he saw Urja's final light — that unbearable flash that swallowed the world.
The news still called it The Day of Ashes.
The day Ignis fell.
He lived in a forgotten sector now — a place where the city's light never reached. The air was thick with rust and the scent of burned ozone. There, amid crumbling metal and quiet dust, Ronak rebuilt himself piece by piece.
He trained in the silence.
He mastered the stillness between flame and thought.
He tried to burn away his guilt — but the fire within him refused to obey.
Each element he touched reflected his turmoil:
Water hissed against his palms, unwilling to calm.
Earth cracked beneath his steps, rejecting his grounding.
Lightning struck when he lost control, scorching the walls of his shelter.
Night after night, he relived the fight. Vexar's laugh. Urja's last words. Saurabh's fall.
Every scream echoed in his mind like sparks that refused to die.
And then, one night — when the world seemed entirely still — he dreamed.
He saw Urja, standing in a field of light, not as a ghost, but as a memory given voice.
Not angry. Not disappointed. Just... waiting.
"Why did you save me?" Ronak whispered into the dream. "You should've stopped me. You should've let me burn."
Urja's smile was faint, touched with sorrow. "Because even ashes have meaning. The world will need you again — when it forgets how to hope."
Ronak jolted awake, sweat beading on his brow, flames flickering at his fingertips. He stared into the dying embers of his campfire, heart pounding. And then, from the depths of his memory, another voice surfaced — not Urja's this time, but Aaryan's, his childhood friend who believed in dreams when no one else did.
"Fire dies when it burns for revenge... but shines when it burns for hope."
The words struck him harder than any battle.
For months, his fire had burned only to erase his pain — to destroy what he blamed. But now... he realized fire could heal. It could light the way for those still trapped in darkness.
He extended his hand over the coals. A single spark danced in the air — gold, gentle, alive.
It hovered there, refusing to die.
For the first time since that night, Ronak smiled. A small, broken smile — but real.
The silence around him no longer felt empty.
It felt waiting.
And deep within the ruins of Future Pride, a faint shimmer of phoenix light rippled across the sky — unnoticed by the world, but heralding something inevitable:
Ignis would rise again.
Not as a symbol of destruction...
But as the spark that could reignite hope.