Silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
Not the courtroom kind.
The kind that existed after structures fell and lungs stopped working.
The kind that clung to blood-steam and smoke.
Max stood in the center of the crater—ankle deep in molten asphalt—breathing cold air through swollen lungs. His body shook once, then again, as if trying to decide whether it was still alive.
He turned his head.
Left.
Buildings lay split down the middle, floors pancaked, cars stacked like crushed insects. Fires crawled through snapped support beams, spitting sparks into the open sky. Bodies—burnt into silhouettes or partially embedded in concrete—decorated the ruins in smears and shadows.
His breath caught.
His head turned right.
More of the same.
Glass fused to pavement.
Meltdown plastic.
Human silhouettes scorched onto brick.
The smell—chemical, electrical, cooked—bit into his throat.
When he looked behind, he saw the bus stop he had landed near earlier.
A melted sign.
Charred bones.
No faces left to identify.
Finally, his gaze drifted down.
To Dominion.
Or what was left of him.
White muscle turned to slurry, skull cratered inward, fluids steaming off into the cold morning. The crater was still glowing faint orange—like the earth itself had been branded.
Max stared at his own hands.
Black-green flame residue flickered along his knuckles. Skin was missing in places. Bone was visible. His hands were weapons, not hands. They had been tools for killing.
When the fire finally died, it left him bare—there were no clothes left on him; the flames had eaten them clean leaving only blistered skin and drifting ash behind.
His breath finally escaped, shaky, thin, broken.
And the thoughts followed—uninvited, merciless:
He was playing high school when it was a mission.
He was buying lunch. Laughing in class. Pretending to be normal… while Dominion was planning a massacre.
While people died.
All because he clung to a life that wasn't his anymore.
He looked around again—at the destruction—at streets that used to hold morning commuters and convenience stores and couples walking dogs. Now all of it was gone.
All because he was too late to choose.
Max's throat closed, breath hitching. His vision blurred.
He wiped his eyes once, uselessly, because more followed.
Hot tears fell and hissed against the molten ground.
His voice cracked out, torn and tiny:
"...I did this."
The words didn't echo. They just vanished into ash.
"I did this…"
Shoulders shook. Teeth clenched. Tears dripped down his wrists and burned out on contact with lingering heat.
He couldn't stop them.
Not any of it.
Not the massacre.
Not Dominion.
Not the fire.
Not the screams.
And for the first time since Sera's death, Max cried like a human—loud, ugly, shaking, with no flames and no violence to hide behind. Just grief, guilt, and cold.
Cold.
So cold.
The crater felt like a tomb. No voices. No sirens. No orders.
Just the realization that everyone around him had died and he hadn't even looked at their faces.
His tears slowed eventually—biting cold creeping into his skin, numbing his fingers.
They slowed, but the cold didn't.
It dug in under his skin, crawling up his spine, settling in his lungs.
His breath shook each time he drew it in — like his body wasn't meant to be breathing anymore.
Then—
a presence.
Not killing intent.
Not Virtue pressure.
Just… watching.
He froze mid-breath.
Someone was at the top edge of the crater — sitting on the broken concrete like it was a balcony seat at a show that finally ended.
A Afterboy in a half–unzipped hoodie, uniform shirt wrinkled, one leg hanging lazily over the edge. Black sneakers. Dark eyes. The same boy who'd been in his homeroom since the start of the arc.
The one who was always in the back.
Always quiet.
Always watching.
Max blinked once through blurry eyes.
"...you," he rasped.
The boy raised a hand and waved with zero urgency.
"Yo."
Max stared. No threat response. No aura. No fear. Just a monotone greeting like they were at lunch again.
The boy tilted his head slightly, expression unreadable.
"You took too long," he said. "I thought you came after me. Not Dominion."
Max's breath hitched, confused, angry, empty all at once.
"What… are you talking about…?"
The boy shrugged and scratched the back of his neck like he'd forgotten.
"Oh—right. You probably forgot who I am."
He pointed at himself with his thumb.
"I'm Sloth."
He said it like it was just his club position.
No transformation. No flex. No theatrics.
Just truth.
"I've been sitting through school waiting for you," Sloth continued, swinging his foot in slow rhythm. "You and Dominion usually manage to find each other in almost every century. So I thought—if I find Dominion, I find you."
Max swallowed, throat raw from crying.
"...Me?" he repeated, as if naming it made it real.
Sloth nodded.
"Yup. We're supposed to be on the same side but you're really late. So I guess Phase One is done."
He pointed lazily toward the horizon — the city broken and silent.
"The plan was to come find you, then we leave. Nice and simple."
Max didn't answer. He wasn't sure he could.
Sloth hopped off the ledge with no rush and slid down the crater slope, dust spilling under his shoes. When he reached the bottom, he stopped beside Dominion's corpse and nudged it with the toe of his sneaker like he was checking if a vending machine still worked.
"Man," he muttered, "he even reached a pure form. What a waste."
Max stiffened, chest tightening.
"...I killed him."
Sloth looked up at him, eyebrows raised slightly.
"Of course you did. You're Envy."
Max's jaw clenched, teeth grinding hollowly.
"People died," he whispered. "All of them. Because I was—"
He couldn't finish it.
Sloth finished for him.
"—playing high school?"
Max's breath caught.
Sloth nodded like it was just an answer on a worksheet.
"Vices hide. Virtues chase. Humans watch. If a Vices attempts to get freedom, it'll always ends like this."
He looked at Max again, eyes flat, voice soft.
"That's why you're supposed to come with us."
Max blinked, tears drying into cold tracks on his cheeks.
"...Us?"
Sloth stretched one arm above his head, cracking his shoulder.
"Yeah. The others. Pride. Wrath. Greed. Gluttony. Lust. Sloth. Envy."
His eyes half-lidded as he listed them.
"The Original Vices. Not these half-assed human vices like Dominion acting like there on our level."
He flicked his hand sideways without looking.
Reality ripped open behind him — a portal.
Dark. Cold. Infinite. Silent.
It didn't glow. It didn't breathe. It didn't hum.
It was.
Sloth stepped half a foot toward it, then glanced back.
"So," he said, voice mild, "are we going or not?"
Max didn't move.
He just stared at the portal — at the exit — at the future — at nothing.
Sloth watched him without impatience, without pressure. Just stillness. The kind that made decisions feel louder.
Max lowered his head, eyes burning again.
Dominion's broken voice echoed in the back of his skull:
"Death is a choice."
He remembered that line now.
Death wasn't a command.
Not even Dominion could force it.
Last words, last lesson.
Then another voice.
Dominion's again, mocking, but honest:
"Start fighting like you want to live."
Max's fingers curled.
Did he want to die?
He could.
Right here.
Let the crater swallow him.
Let the Virtues find him.
Let the world put the story on his headstone.
But—
This was the ending if he chose death:
Dominion killed Virtues.
Max killed Dominion.
Several civilians were killed in the crossfire.
And it ended there.
Blood on the streets.
Names turned to numbers.
No explanation.
No truth.
No justice.
Just ashes.
Sera would still be dead.
Reina would still never know why.
Unit Twelve would never understand what happened to him.
And the world would never know what a Vice actually was — only the damage they left behind.
Max stared at his hands — raw bone and burnt skin trembling over a crater.
Redemption wasn't promised.
But dying would make it impossible.
If he died now, then every death involved had been pointless.
If there was even a chance — one chance — to make this mean something…
He had to stay alive to take it.
Max swallowed hard and looked up at Sloth.
"...I don't want to die."
Sloth's eyes softened — not kind, just acknowledging.
"Good," he said. "Then we're done here."
He turned fully toward the portal, expecting Max to follow.
Max took one step—
A voice ripped through the crater:
"MAX!"
He froze.
Sloth let out the smallest sigh and turned his head.
At the crater's edge stood Loyalty.
White coat torn. Hair matted. Eyes wide — not in fear of him, but in horror at everything.
And beside her, Justice.
Short. Rigid. Stoic. Aura sharp enough to fracture stone.
Loyalty's voice cracked as she stared down at Max.
"Don't do this."
No threats.
No orders.
No righteousness.
Just a single plea buried in a sentence.
Max didn't turn around. He couldn't. He kept his eyes on the portal.
Sloth muttered, barely above a whisper:
"We need to go. If they get close, you're done."
Loyalty's voice hit again — louder, more raw:
"MAX. LOOK AT ME."
Slowly, painfully, he lifted his chin.
Their eyes met across the ruin.
Loyalty didn't look angry.
Didn't look disappointed.
She looked like someone who's going to put down an embarrassment.
Grief.
Regret.
Mercy with no power.
Her voice finally broke:
"You'll regret this."
Justice said nothing, but his stance shifted — ready to move.
Max stared for one more heartbeat.
Then he whispered:
"I know."
And stepped into the portal.
Sloth stepped after him.
Then reality folded shut
No flare.
No shockwave.
No scream.
Just silence for exactly two seconds.
Then—
"That coward LEFT!" she shouted. "After all of this, he LEFT!"
Loyalty's scream knifed across the crater, raw enough to break glass.
Her hands shook—not from fear, not from shock—but from the sheer humiliation of it.
She whipped toward Justice, voice scraping out:
"I am going to KILL HIM."
She said it not as a Virtue.
But as someone who just got slapped in the face by the one kid she tried saving.
Justice didn't argue.
He simply said, voice low and metallic:
"We will."
Sirens finally began screaming in the distance as white coats and Virtue reinforcements swarmed the perimeter—too late, too weak, too pointless.
They poured down the street with barriers, sealers, recovery teams, shouting orders that meant nothing against the scale of the crater.
Loyalty didn't look at them.
She stared at the cracked asphalt where Max had stood, chest rising with sharp, animal breaths.
"Run for now," she hissed under her breath, like a promise. "But I swear—Envy dies by my hand."
Wind pushed through the crater, scattering ash, carrying the faint smell of burnt steel and cooked flesh.
Above them, the ruined skyline loomed.
Dominion was dead.
Max was gone.
The Virtues were too late.
And a new hunt had already begun.
[End of Arc III: Institutionalised]