The storm disappeared.
It did not fade slowly, the way storms usually did, with lingering winds and scattered showers and clouds that took hours to clear.
It vanished.
One moment, the sky was dark and churning, thick with snow and grief and the echoes of Erza's roar. The next moment, the clouds parted, the wind died, and the evening sun broke through, golden and warm, casting long shadows across the melting ice.
Erza's aura faded with the storm.
The violet light that had been blazing from her eyes dimmed, flickered, and went out. The pressure that had been pressing against the world, that had been freezing oceans and shattering buildings and making the very air tremble, it lifted. The port was quiet. The ice began to melt, water trickling across the ground, carrying away the blood and the snow and the remnants of the destruction.
Erza was still holding Yuuta.
