To Sin Is Divine

"We thought freedom would feel like flight. Instead, it felt like falling — and realizing no one was holding the strings anymore."

—Ren, The First Day After

The sky was silent.

For the first time in what felt like centuries, there were no sermons echoing from the Cathedral's spires. No golden chants. No burning glyphs hanging above the city like silent laws. The Codex was silent now. Its whispers, its judgments, its all-seeing gaze — gone.

Kael stood at the edge of the broken sanctuary, his cloak fluttering in the wind. Behind him, the others wandered through the rubble like phantoms — not searching, not speaking, just existing. The final battle had ended days ago, but the weight of it still pressed down on them like a second gravity.

Serah approached him from behind. Her boots crunched on shattered marble.

"It's strange," she said softly, eyes scanning the horizon. "We won. But it doesn't feel like victory."

Kael didn't answer immediately. He was watching the clouds drift across a blue sky that no longer shimmered with divine interference. It looked normal now — fragile, untamed, beautiful.

"We didn't win," he finally said. "We just took back the choice."

She nodded, as if that made sense. Maybe it did. Or maybe they were all too tired to care.

Below the ruins, far past the collapsed temple walls, smoke rose from villages. Fires had sparked in the world — some from rebellion, others from fear. There were reports coming in every day: temples looted, paladins disbanded, fanatics clinging to lost divinity while others celebrated its fall.

The people had lived under divine law for generations. Without it, they didn't know whether to rejoice or riot.

And who could blame them?

They were like children waking from a dream where every move was watched and judged. Now, wide awake, they didn't know what to do with the silence.

Back in the cathedral, Ten sat alone, sharpening his blade though it had no need for it. Ren scribbled madly in a worn journal, sketching out whatever images still haunted his head. Elyan stared out a broken window, his expression unreadable, while Zayne stood with arms crossed, eyes hard and distant, as though he could already see the wars waiting on the horizon.

None of them spoke of what came next. Not yet.

That night, they gathered around a fire built in the middle of the shattered sanctuary floor. Smoke curled up into the open sky. The stained-glass ceiling had long since fallen in.

No one wanted to admit it, but this felt like the last time.

Ren passed around dry food and made a joke no one laughed at. Zayne grunted something unintelligible. Ten said nothing, but kept his blade across his knees, always ready. Elyan muttered to himself in that strange, hushed voice he always used when reciting things he wasn't sure were true. Serah just watched the flames, silent, reflective.

Eventually, Kael stood.

He didn't make a speech. He didn't command.

He just spoke.

"We broke the chain," he said. "But chains leave marks. People are going to reach for them again. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon."

He looked at each of them.

"I'm not asking any of you to keep fighting. I'm not even asking you to stay. You've earned your peace, if you want it."

The silence after his words was thick.

It stretched long into the night before Serah finally responded.

"We were brought together by power we didn't choose. And now we're free to choose."

She looked down at her hands. The marks that once glowed with divine glyphs were faded now, almost gone.

"I think that means we don't need to carry this anymore."

One by one, they gave their thoughts.

No decisions were made that night.

But in the morning, they didn't all leave together.

Zayne walked off alone, heading north through the ashes of what used to be his homeland's holy guard.

Ren wandered off toward the east, carrying only his journal and a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Elyan lingered for a moment, then disappeared before the sun rose, no one seeing him go.

Ten said he wasn't going anywhere unless Kael told him to. Kael didn't.

Serah stayed behind. For a while.

Kael remained at the cathedral's edge, watching the horizon for a sign. Not of gods, or prophecies — just people. Real, fragile people, stepping into a world that no longer judged them from above.

A small voice broke his thoughts.

"Are you the one who killed the Codex?"

He turned.

A girl. Young. Dirt on her face, eyes wide like the world was too big for her all of a sudden.

He knelt slowly, not smiling.

"No," he said. "I just stopped pretending it was always right."

The girl looked past him, to the ruins.

"What happens now?"

Kael didn't answer right away.

He glanced back at the broken temple, the ashes of godhood, the silence that once screamed.

Then, finally, he looked at her — not as a warrior, or a bearer, or a symbol — just a man.

"Now… you choose."

He stood and walked away.

No sword. No halo. No throne.

Just Kael.

Free.