CHAPTER 52: The Fifty-Second Fracture

I shielded my eyes as the turquoise light flared—pure, divine, and impossibly heavy.

It wasn’t destructive. It didn’t burn or sear like the powers I’d felt from the others. It was warm. Restorative. As if—for once—a god’s power wasn’t meant to dominate, but to share.

Oizys’s palm rested lightly over Saaya’s. Their hands fit like mirror images—light and shadow intertwined. I watched in awe as Saaya’s body absorbed the energy—not violently, not forcibly—but like it had been waiting for it all along. Her hair shimmered with strands of light. Her eyes fluttered shut, and for the first time, I saw the violet of her glyph begin to glow with something deeper.

A piece of godhood.

“You have a fragment of my divine magic now,” Oizys said softly. “I still have power—but it’ll take time to recover what I gave. Time I don’t control.”

Saaya looked at her, worry flashing behind her eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do this? How long until you get it back? You won’t… die, will you?” Saaya asked

“No. I won’t die,” Oizys said with a slow shake of her head. “But I don’t know when it’ll return. Could be an hour… or three years. And in this world, it won’t be fast.”

She looked deeper into Saaya’s eyes, but they were gentler now.

“Maybe I was never meant to destroy. Maybe my purpose was to pass my power on… to help fight the ones who do deserve to fall.”

Saaya gasped, her knees buckling. I rushed forward and caught her.

She was glowing faintly, skin humming with raw energy, but it wasn’t overwhelming her. It was folding into her like it belonged.

She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “I can feel it,” she whispered. “All of it. The timelines. The cause. The break. I can undo it…”

“But I don’t know if I should.”

I held her tighter. “Why not?”

“Because… if I change the cause that shattered Earth… we might never meet. You might not be pulled here. You might still be with them.”

My heart cracked wide open.

“Saaya…”

“I don’t want to be the reason you lose them again,” she whispered.

I reached up and brushed a glowing strand of hair from her face.

“You are my reason,” I said. “No matter the world. No matter the cause. If I lose everything but gain you… it still matters. I’d search every timeline until I found you again. You still have my ring, don’t you?”

She nodded slowly. The glyph on her palm pulsed, violet edged with turquoise.

Oizys watched with soft, tired eyes.

“Then I’ll do it,” Saaya whispered. “Because I believe in us. In every world. In every loop.”

I leaned in and kissed her. Then, forehead to hers, I said it.

“Saaya, I love you.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She kissed me again—longer this time—and whispered against my lips:

“I love you too, Sukara.”

Then she stepped forward.

The light from her hand stretched toward the ruins—twisting into strands of violet and turquoise, carving symbols into the air, rewriting fate itself.

Reality began to bend.

I could feel time scream—resisting, then surrendering. Not just to undo the damage… but the cause that allowed the gods to ever touch this world.

The buildings rewound. The dead drew breath. The sky turned blue again.

And in the center of it all stood Saaya.

Undoing the impossible.

Giving the world a second chance.

As the light faded, I turned to Oizys.

She looked… smaller. Mortal. Almost fragile.

I knelt beside her. “You did more than help us,” I said. “You chose to hope. That matters.”

She smiled faintly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I was never meant to be a god.”

“You still are,” I said. “But now you’re something more.”

She tilted her head. “What’s that?”

“Free.”

For a moment, the air stirred. The leaves rustled. The world exhaled.

And for the first time in what felt like forever…

…I felt peace.

Not because the war was over.

But because I wasn’t facing it alone.

That’s when a purple turquoise fused light flashed before all of us and then everything went black