Ilias woke to the sound of rain.
Not real rain. The soft patter of water resonance being used for healing—Mira's specialty. He could feel it seeping into his body, knitting together injuries that ran deeper than flesh and bone.
He tried to open his eyes. Failed. Tried again. Managed it on the third attempt.
The ceiling was white. Clean. Medical. Not the ruins of a battlefield.
"Welcome back." Mira's voice, exhausted but relieved.
Ilias turned his head—even that small movement took effort—and found her sitting beside his bed. She looked terrible. Dark circles under her eyes, face gaunt, hands trembling with exhaustion.
"How long?" His voice was a rasp.
"Six weeks." Mira's hands glowed green as she continued the healing. "You've been in a coma. Your body just... shut down. Too much power, too fast, too everything."
Six weeks. Almost two months since the battle. Since he'd destroyed the Entity.
Since he'd unlocked fifty percent and felt what it meant to touch divinity.
"Did we win?" He had to ask, even though he knew the answer.
Mira smiled. Tears streamed down her face. "Yes. We won. The Entity is dead. The city survived. Everyone's..." She paused. "Not everyone made it. But most did. Because of you."
Ilias closed his eyes. Let relief wash over him. Then opened them again.
"Kojo? Seraph? The others?"
"Alive. All of them. They've been visiting every day." Mira's healing intensified. "Kojo wanted to stay, but I made him help with the rebuilding. He needs to keep busy or he'll go insane with worry."
"Seraph?"
"Coordinating the reconstruction efforts. She's... she's been through something, Ilias. I don't know what happened, but when she came back, there was blood on her blades and emptiness in her eyes." Mira looked at him. "Talk to her. Please. She needs you."
Ilias tried to sit up. His body screamed in protest.
"Don't." Mira pushed him back down, gently but firmly. "You're not ready. Your injuries—they're not healing right. I can barely reach twenty percent of what's wrong with you. It's like something deeper was broken. Something I can't touch."
Ilias knew what she meant. He could feel it. The power inside him—Orun-Fela's blessing—had changed. Where before it had been locked but accessible, now it felt... distant. Muted. Like trying to hear music through a closed door.
He'd unlocked fifty percent to defeat the Entity. And when the locks re-engaged, something had been lost in the process.
"I need to relearn how to use my power," he said quietly.
Mira nodded. "Torrin said the same thing. He's been working with you while you were unconscious, trying to stimulate your resonance pathways. But it's slow. Whatever happened in that final battle, it changed you fundamentally."
*The cost,* Ilias thought. *This is what Orun-Fela meant.*
---
The city had changed.
When Ilias was finally strong enough to look out the window, he barely recognized the Morrows. The walls that had separated the districts were coming down. Church soldiers and gang members worked side by side, clearing rubble, rebuilding homes. Families that would have killed each other months ago now shared food and resources.
The Entity's attack had done something the centuries of oppression couldn't—it had united them.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Rhea stood in the doorway, watching him. "Seeing people choose to be better."
Ilias turned. She looked different too—harder around the edges, but with a warmth in her eyes that hadn't been there before. On her left hand, a simple ring gleamed.
"You're engaged," he said.
Rhea laughed. "Your brother finally got his courage together. Proposed three weeks ago, right in the middle of a reconstruction site. Most romantic thing I've ever seen—him covered in dust and concrete, down on one knee, stammering through a speech about how he'd almost lost me and never wanted to feel that fear again."
"I wish I'd seen it."
"Mira recorded it. You can watch when you're stronger." Rhea crossed the room, sat in the chair Mira had vacated. "How are you feeling? Really?"
"Like I went ten rounds with a god and barely survived."
"You didn't go ten rounds. You won." Rhea's expression grew serious. "We saw the recordings. Satellites caught some of it. The spectral form, the final strike, the explosion visible from space. Ilias, you fought something ancient and evil, and you WON. You're a hero."
"I don't feel like one." Ilias looked at his hands. They trembled slightly. "I feel broken."
"Then we'll help you heal. That's what family does."
---
Over the next few days, they came in shifts.
Kojo brought food and stories of the rebuilding. The Hands of War had become a symbol of hope—wherever Kojo went, people followed, inspired by the man who'd stood against impossible odds and survived.
"They want me to lead," Kojo said one evening. "Unite the gangs officially, work with the Church to establish real governance. Can you believe that? Me, working WITH the Church."
"Will you?"
"I think so. Rhea thinks I should." Kojo's gauntlets—still fused to his arms—gleamed in the lamplight. "The city needs someone who understands both sides. Someone people trust."
Kai visited with technical updates—the city's infrastructure was being rebuilt with resonance technology that would make life easier for everyone. Clean water, reliable power, communication systems that didn't favor the wealthy.
"It's a new world," Kai said with a grin. "And we're the ones building it."
Torrin came with harsh truths about Ilias's condition.
"Your connection to your power is damaged," the blind man said bluntly. "Not broken, but... fractured. Like a muscle that's been torn. It will heal, but you'll need to rebuild it slowly. Learn your limits again."
"How long?"
"Years, maybe. Could be permanent." Torrin's scarred face was serious. "The question is: can you accept being weaker? Can you accept that you touched divinity and had to let it go?"
Ilias thought about that for a long time after Torrin left.
---
Seraph came last.
She slipped into his room late one night, when the hospital was quiet and the city outside had settled into uneasy sleep. She looked exhausted—emotionally more than physically—and there was something in her eyes that made Ilias's heart ache.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Hi." Ilias struggled to sit up. She helped him, careful of his injuries. "I heard you've been busy."
"Someone has to organize this mess." Seraph sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch. "Things are changing. Really changing."
"Tell me."
Seraph took a breath. "The Main Church arrived four days ago. Not the corrupt branch that Vaen ran—the actual leadership. They came with representatives from the Harmonic Accord."
"The what?"
"The universal government. The people who oversee entire star systems." Seraph's expression was complex. "They arrested Vaen. Took him in chains. He's going to face trial for crimes against humanity. Against the planet."
Ilias felt something tight in his chest loosen. "Good."
"That's not all. They dissolved the corrupt Families. House Valencrest, House Thraxx, all the ones who collaborated with the Church's oppression—gone. Assets seized, titles revoked, members scattered." She paused. "The Families who defected during the battle—Celio, Sporosa, Luminar, Aetheria—they were given amnesty. Second chances. The Accord said that even in darkness, the choice to turn toward light matters."
"And the Church?"
"They apologized." Seraph's voice was hollow. "Publicly. In front of the entire city. Said they'd failed Planet Elyria. Failed its people. Promised resources, infrastructure, reparations. Promised to never let this happen again."
Ilias could hear the bitterness underneath her words. "You don't believe them."
"I don't know what to believe anymore." She looked at him. "But one of their agents came to see me. Wanted to apologize personally. To you, to the gangs, to everyone who fought. Said the Church owed us a debt they could never repay."
"Did you accept?"
"I told them apologies don't bring back the dead." Seraph's hand found his. "But maybe they're a start. Maybe that's all we can ask for."
They sat in silence for a moment. Then Seraph spoke again, softer.
"I killed them. The Valencrests. All of them except one."
Ilias squeezed her hand. "I know."
"My father and I spread her ashes two days ago. Up in the hills where she used to take me as a child." Seraph's eyes were distant. "It was just the two of us, saying goodbye. He told me she would have been proud. That even though I did terrible things, I did them for the right reasons."
"Do you believe him?"
"I want to." She leaned against Ilias. "I want to believe I'm not just a monster wearing a hero's face."
"You're not a monster. You're someone who loved too much and lost too much and did what she thought she had to do." Ilias pulled her closer. "And you're trying to be better. That's what matters."
Seraph kissed him then—desperate and grateful and full of everything they'd survived together.
When she pulled back, tears streamed down her face. "Don't leave me. Whatever comes next, don't leave."
"I won't." Ilias held her. "I promise."
---
Three weeks later, Ilias was finally cleared to leave the hospital.
The first place they went was a small ramen shop on the edge of the Morrows. Ilias had passed it a hundred times before everything fell apart—a modest place with faded paint and a hand-written menu board. He'd eaten there occasionally, another face in the crowd, never staying long enough for the owner to know his name.
But things had changed.
When Ilias pushed through the door, the owner—an older man with kind eyes and calloused hands—looked up from behind the counter. His expression shifted from polite welcome to recognition to something deeper. Shock. Gratitude. Relief.
"You," the owner breathed. "You're... you're one of them. One of the ones who saved us."
Ilias felt suddenly self-conscious. "I just—"
"No." The owner came around the counter, wiping his hands on his apron. "I saw what you did. Everyone did. That light in the sky. The way the Pities just... stopped." His voice cracked. "My daughter was trapped in the eastern district. The creatures had her cornered. Then they just... fell apart. And she lived. Because of you."
"I'm glad she's safe," Ilias said quietly.
Behind him, Kemi stepped forward. She'd been quiet since they'd arrived, hanging back with Rhea and the others. But now she moved beside Ilias, and the owner's eyes widened further.
"And you—" The owner looked at Kemi with the same recognition, the same gratitude. "You were there too. In the eastern evacuation zone."
A small girl—no more than seven or eight—pushed past her father and ran toward Kemi. Her left leg was wrapped in bandages, recently healed but still healing.
"You saved me!" the girl said, eyes shining. "When the bad things came, you fought them! You carried me to the safe place even though your arm was bleeding!"
Kemi knelt down to the girl's level, her usually stoic expression softening. "I remember you. You were very brave."
"My leg was broken," the girl said proudly, as if the injury was a badge of honor. "But you didn't leave me behind. Daddy says you're a hero."
The father approached, placing a hand on his daughter's shoulder. Tears glistened in his eyes. "We saw the battle. Saw the light when... when whatever that thing was got destroyed. We felt the Pities just stop, like someone cut their strings." He looked at Kemi, then at Ilias. "You saved her. Both of you. You saved all of us."
The little girl reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled dollar bill. She held it out to Kemi with both hands, solemn and serious. "This is all I have. Daddy said heroes deserve rewards."
Kemi stared at the dollar, and for a moment, something cracked in her usual composure. She took the money gently, then pulled the girl into a brief hug.
"Thank you," Kemi whispered. "But you keep being brave. That's reward enough."
The owner gestured to a large table in the back. "Sit. Please. Your whole group—sit. It's on the house."
"You don't have to—" Ilias started.
"I insist." The owner's smile was watery. "You saved my family. My city. My home. The least I can do is feed you."
Ilias looked back at his friends. Kojo shrugged, already heading for the table. Seraph's expression softened. Mira looked like she might cry. Rhea put an arm around Kemi, who was still clutching the dollar bill like it was made of gold.
They sat, and the owner brought out bowl after bowl of steaming ramen. The best he had, he said. Made with the last of his premium ingredients, saved for a special occasion.
This was special enough.
The food was perfect. Rich broth, perfectly cooked noodles, toppings that melted on the tongue. They ate and talked and laughed, the conversation flowing easily.
Kojo told an embarrassing story about Rhea's reaction to his proposal that made her throw a napkin at him. Kai demonstrated a new piece of tech he'd been working on. Mira showed off a healing technique she'd developed. Torrin offered dry commentary that had everyone laughing.
Kemi sat beside Rhea, quieter than the others, occasionally looking at the dollar bill the little girl had given her. Rhea squeezed her hand once, and Kemi managed a small smile.
For the first time in months, Ilias felt normal. Not a Blessed. Not a warrior. Just a young man sharing a meal with his family.
When they finished, the owner brought the bill—an enormous number that made even Kojo's eyes widen.
Then he took a pen and drew a single line through it.
"Free," he said. "For the people who saved the city and helped rebuild my shop. For the heroes who gave us our future back."
"Sir—" Ilias started.
"I won't hear arguments." The owner's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Thank you. From everyone here. Thank you."
Ilias nodded, unable to speak past the lump in his throat.
They were standing to leave when the door opened again.
A stranger walked in. Tall, androgynous, with features that seemed to shift subtly depending on how the light hit them. They wore simple clothes—nothing remarkable—but there was something about their presence that made Ilias's instincts prickle.
The stranger approached the counter, ordered a bowl of ramen with the ease of a regular customer, then turned and walked directly toward their table.
Ilias felt Seraph tense beside him. Kojo's hand moved subtly toward his gauntlets.
The stranger stopped at their table and smiled. "Mind if I sit?"
"Actually—" Kojo started.
But the stranger was already sliding into the booth, squeezing in beside Torrin with casual confidence. They picked up their chopsticks and took a bite of ramen, humming in appreciation.
"Not bad. Been a while since I've had Earth food." They looked directly at Ilias. "You're the one who lit up the sky, aren't you?"
The table went silent.
"Who are you?" Kojo's voice was low, dangerous. The golden light in his gauntlets began to pulse.
"Just someone passing through." The stranger took another bite. "Felt something interesting a few weeks back. Power signature that reached halfway across the cosmos. Thought I'd check it out."
"You need to leave," Seraph said coldly. Her hand moved to her blade.
The stranger ignored her, still focused on Ilias. "Fifty percent unlocked in a single burst. Impressive. Reckless, but impressive. How's the recovery going?"
"Get out." Kojo stood, and even without Ogun's full power flowing through him, he was intimidating. "Now."
The stranger looked up at him, completely unfazed. "Or what?"
"Or I make you."
"Kojo—" Ilias started.
Too late. Kojo's hand shot out, grabbed the stranger by the collar, and with a surge of strength that cracked the floorboards, threw them through the front window.
Glass exploded. The stranger's body sailed through the air, tumbling across the street outside.
The owner cried out in dismay. The other customers gasped.
But the stranger wasn't on the ground.
They were floating. Suspended in mid-air, completely unharmed, brushing glass shards off their clothes with mild annoyance.
"Rude," the stranger said.
They gestured, and Kojo flew backward through the shattered window, pulled by invisible force, and slammed back into his seat so hard the booth creaked.
Then the stranger waved their hand, and time... reversed.
The glass shards flew backward, reassembling into a perfect window. The splintered doorframe knitted itself whole. The cracked floorboards smoothed over. Even the ramen in the stranger's bowl refilled to exactly how it had been before.
Within seconds, the shop looked like nothing had happened.
The stranger walked calmly back to the table and sat down, picking up their chopsticks as if the interruption had never occurred.
Everyone stared in stunned silence.
"As I was saying," the stranger continued, taking another bite, "impressive power display. The kind that gets noticed."
"What are you?" Ilias managed to ask.
"Blessed. Like you. Though I've had a few more centuries to figure out how to use it." They finally looked around at the others. "Relax. I'm not here to fight. If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead."
Kojo looked like he wanted to argue but wisely stayed silent.
The stranger turned back to Ilias. "There's a place. The Academy Beyond Stars. Where people like us learn to actually control what we are. To understand the scope of our power without burning ourselves out." They paused. "You should consider it."
"I'm not interested in—"
"I'm not recruiting. Just... offering information." The stranger finished their ramen and stood. "You touched divinity and survived. That's rare. But you also hurt yourself doing it. Fractured your connection to your power. That kind of damage? It'll take years to heal on your own. Maybe decades."
They placed a small card on the table. It shimmered with subtle resonance energy.
"If you want to actually understand what you are—what you can become—that's how you reach me. No pressure. No timeline. Just... think about it."
The stranger nodded to the group. "Nice meeting you all. Especially you." They looked at Kojo. "Good arm. Try to control that temper, though. Divine blessings don't give you permission to throw everyone who annoys you through windows."
Then they walked toward the door, paused, and looked back one more time.
"One more thing. That Church agent who came to apologize? They mentioned someone would be coming for you. Didn't say who or when, but they seemed certain." The stranger's expression was unreadable. "I'd assume they meant me. But if they didn't... well. Be careful who you trust."
Before anyone could respond, the stranger was gone. Just... vanished, leaving nothing but the faint scent of ozone.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Kai let out a shaky laugh. "Did that just happen?"
"That was a Blessed," Torrin said quietly. "A real one. Someone who's mastered their power completely."
Ilias picked up the card. It was warm to the touch, inscribed with symbols he didn't recognize. An invitation. A possibility. A door to something he didn't yet understand.
"What are you going to do?" Seraph asked softly.
"I don't know." Ilias pocketed the card. "But not tonight. Tonight, I'm just going to sit here with my family and be grateful we're all still alive."
Kojo snorted. "Damn right."
The owner brought them tea—on the house, he insisted—and they settled back into conversation. But Ilias could feel the weight of the card in his pocket. The stranger's words echoing in his mind.
A place where Blessed learned to master their power.
A future he hadn't considered.
But not tonight. Tonight was for this—for warmth and laughter and the people he'd nearly died to protect.
The rest could wait.