By morning, the city is different.
The skylines intact, the towers still flash gold and silver, but below the grid, things are different. Plazas no longer auto-loop government procedures on screens. Drone flight paths wander, muddled in scrambled code. And rank data—every single column—is vacant.
We did that.
Not me.
Us all.
But the storm is not over yet.
It's still amassing.
And it's headed here.
We assemble in the Commons—a training facility no more, now a war room.
Nessa maps out perimeter defenses.
Miko refreshes glyph stabilization nodes.
Jin's scanning emergency code stacks, her fingers dashing like wind across the screen.
Lio's already in armor.
He tosses me a node-swaddled chestplate. "You're not invincible," he says.
"No," I say. "But I'm finally myself."
Across the campus, people are hurrying with urgency, but no madness. There is calm now. The sort that comes after sufficient fear has passed through you that nothing surprises you anymore.
The sort of quiet that borders on resolve.
At 11:00, the word comes.
"This institution is hereby declared a Class C Outlaw Zone. Final cleansing will begin at dusk. Any surviving staff will be exterminated."
There is no voice this time.
Just text.
Without feeling.
Without warmth.
And absolute.
I stroll alone across the west quad.
Torn flags flutter in shattered air. My boots clang on shattered tile. Each step is more leaden than the one before.
Then I see her.
Voss.
Waiting in the old observatory.
Alone.
No drones.
No guards.
Waiting.
I ascend the steps.
No words until glass slams behind me.
She turns.
Smooth. Unruffled. As always.
"You ruined my school," she says.
"You ruined the people in it."
"They weren't ready to govern themselves."
"They are now."
She arches an eyebrow. "Are you?"
I hesitate.
Then, "Yes."
She circles around me, hands at her back.
"You confused collapse with change," she says. "But revolutions devour their own. They don't build—only destroy."
"You built a prison."
"I built order. Without it, power devours."
"Power already did."
She stops dead.
"Then show."
I step forward.
My glyphs burst, not in rage—clarity.
Not as a weapon.
As proof.
"You know what I am."
"Conduit," she responds flatly.
"Sovereign-class."
Her jaw clenches. "Extinct."
"No," I correct her. "Evolved."
She strikes fast.
No warning.
A field of suppression shoots outward from her hand, crimson and burning.
My lungs ignite. The glyphs disperse.
But I don't fall over.
Instead, I counter—not in rage.
In resonance.
I tap into the field itself, reflect it back at her, and invert it.
My glyphs burn blue-white.
The ring of suppression collapses.
Voss staggers.
Not far.
But far enough.
"I know your secret," I say to her.
"You are the system."
She looks at me harshly.
"You didn't just control the ranks. You tapped into them for power."
A silence.
You needed us sorted because it made you powerful. You weren't tracking power. You were enjoying it."
She doesn't speak.
But she doesn't argue.
Behind her, the screens flash.
Again.
Every face Voss buried. Every profile erased. Every student purged.
They top off the glass now.
Their names burn brightly.
She watches them in silence.
"You eradicated them," I say softly.
"They were unstable," she says.
"They were afraid," I say. "But you taught them that fear was failure."
Her hand lifts to her hip.
The fight is over.
No cry of victory.
Only the slow, lingering fall of a woman who thought the world couldn't go on without her rule.
"You'll die in losing them," she says. "Eventually."
"Maybe," I say. "But not today."
The students retake the central tower an hour later.
There's no combat.
The last of Strata has fled or surrendered.
The ranking walls fall first—splintered with hammers, plasma bolts, and fists.
The scanner gates second.
Then the data cores.
Nessa holds me as the last file is erased.
"You did it."
I shake my head.
"We did."
She smiles.
And for the first time, it's real.
Jin hugs me harder than she ever has before.
She exhales, "You finally came back."
"I never left," I say.
But I understand now.
The girl she hid.
The ghost they dubbed Zero.
Was never gone.
Just dormant.
Waiting.
At midnight, the academy remains quiet.
Not quiet.
Just settled.
Students flow freely between zones.
Names are shared.
No more badges.
No more rank.
Only choice.
Only voice.
I return to the observatory.
Where Voss once stood.
Now the glass is broken.
But the stars remain light.
The city pulses beneath me.
A beat we built.
Not perfect.
But alive.