Chapter 17: The End

Misaki regains consciousness in agony to find Setsuko hovering over her amid the carnage. Setsuko realizes Misaki killed the invaders in the house and, instead of recoiling, clings to gratitude. Sensing a surviving fonyaka, Misaki warns Setsuko—moments before a wind blast explodes through the wall.

The scarred fonyaka drags and hurls Misaki, battering her across the study table. When Setsuko rushes him with a kitchen knife, he backhands her through the back door. Straddling Misaki, he begins to strangle her. Misaki readies a Blood Needle to his eye—

—but Hiroshi arrives, driving Siradenyaa into the attacker’s neck, then finishing him with a decisive slash. As the soldier dies, Misaki, horrified that her five-year-old has killed, wrenches the sword away and holds Hiroshi, trying to love away what war has made of him.

On the mountainside, Mamoru, maimed and bleeding, touches a transcendent state, becoming one with snow and blood. He forges a Whispering Blade of ice and his own blood, cleaves the dragon killer in a single red flash, and the blade dissolves. Collapsing as planes announce reinforcements, Mamoru stares at the dead man’s familiar face and contemplates their shared humanity at the edge of the world.