The fire-engine was parked in the desert outside, just as Carlos had promised. As Phi ran for the driver's compartment, bearing the keys like a dagger, Junpei, Akane and Diana helped Sigma, Carlos and Gab into the back. Once Diana had joined them – it had to be her; she was the only one who could tend to them – there was no room for Akane and Junpei, so they stood on the platform on the right-hand side, clinging to the railing.

"Listen up, everyone!" Phi announced, her voice projected from the fire-truck's speaker system, "We're going to have to outrun this thing. Hold on tight, because here we go!"

Before the sound of Phi's voice had faded away, the vehicle lurched forwards with sirens blaring. They rapidly picked up speed and for a few brief moments, Junpei's hope bloomed. He almost convinced himself that they would escape the blast unscathed.

They were five hundred metres away when the first beam of light lanced out of the bunker and straight into the sky.

That tower of unleashed energy was quickly joined by three or four others, then by so many that it was impossible to count. The fire-truck began to swerve as the sand shifted beneath it; even from his limited vantage point Junpei could feel Phi fighting to keep the vehicle under control. And then an ominous boom sounded deep beneath the ground, the sound carried to Junpei's ears by a suddenly-rushing wind.

"Junpei…" Akane whispered beside him. Her voice was weak and hesitant.

Junpei frantically pre-empted what she was going to say. "It's not your fault!" he yelled, "You didn't do this. Even if you had, I'd forgive you."

"Of course you would. You've already forgiven much worse things I've done." For a moment, Junpei thought he saw a faint smile on Akane's face. But then it faded. "I'm not sure I can forgive myself any longer. The detonation of a reactor of that size won't just kill us. It will destroy everything for miles around. This is a universe that God abandoned, a universe of the sort I thought I'd dedicated my life to preventing, and the other me created it just to give herself the slightest advantage. 'Those bastards are just us, Junpei. No more, no less.' I have to accept that this is what I'm capable of. And if so… I'm not sure I… deserve…"

Akane turned her face away. Her right hand shifted along the hand rail as though reaching out to Junpei. But then her grip loosened and her hand began to fall.

"No!" Junpei lashed out, snatching Akane's right hand with his left and forcing it against the rail. He squeezed without restraint, just to make sure he could hold on. "I'm not letting you go! Goddamnit, I'm not letting you go!"

At that moment the sound intensified. A shockwave raced over the fire-truck: a terrible wall of wind carrying a storm of sand that cut through every piece of exposed skin. Junpei closed his eyes, sure that everything was over.

And it was.

Only a second after the shockwave had hit, the winds died and the cloud of sand dispersed. Looking back along the route they had come, Junpei saw the beams of light which had broken out of the bunker fade harmlessly back into the natural night sky. Once everything had calmed, Phi gradually slowed the fire-engine to a halt.

Only then did Junpei release Akane's hand.

She looked at her hand, turning it over and over as if she wasn't sure it was real. "You were right, Junpei," she murmured, "You were right." Her strength failed her and she fell off the fire-truck's platform, cushioned safely by the dune. "This really is the universe that God has blessed."

o-0-o

It took all the survivors several minutes to recover – Sigma was so brutally injured that even after being patched up by Diana he could hardly be said to have 'recovered' – but they eventually steadied themselves to the point where they could talk about what had happened. Carlos had healed particularly well, showing no sign that he had been completely delirious only a while back.

"What was that stuff you were talking about back there, Carlos?" Junpei asked.

"What stuff?"

Junpei sighed. "You know. 'To think all that would happen and then I'd end up right back here,' and stuff like that."

Carlos laughed awkwardly. "Did I really say that? I must've been right out of it, because I don't remember that at all."

Junpei's questioning was interrupted when Diana spoke up. "So… Is this really the end?"

"I believe it is," Akane replied. She gazed pensively across the horizon back towards the bunker, her eyes betraying fear that the explosion would restart at any moment, but eventually satisfied herself. "The reactor's meltdown has stopped, at least. But… that shouldn't be possible. There's no way it could have…"

"There's always a way," Sigma stated, "Just because we don't know what it was doesn't mean it wasn't possible."

Diana tilted her head to one side. "Um… That's kind of why I asked it was really the end. It doesn't feel like a proper ending. There's still so much stuff we don't know."

"We can make educated guesses about a lot of what we don't know," Phi said, "Like, for example, Radical-6. Akane?"

"Definitely eradicated," Akane answered, "If Free the Soul had any stocks of it elsewhere, this entire mission would have been pointless. Of course, there's no way the Radical-6 stored in the bunker survived that."

"Zero?" Phi asked.

"To call yourself 'Zero' is to put your own life on the line," Akane explained.

Phi glanced at Sigma, who nodded.

"Whoever he was, this Zero understood that. He didn't escape with us, so…" Akane finished by merely nodding.

"And Q-team didn't survive," Junpei said, "We know that." He grunted bitterly, before glancing at Diana. "I see what you mean, Diana, about this not being a proper ending. I thought everybody was supposed to get out at the end of these things. 'Happily ever after.'"

"It's not perfect," Akane admitted, "But it's still good." A playful grin spread across Akane's lips, which Junpei hadn't seen for a decade. "Just like that ring you've got."

Junpei gasped. "You saw?" He clumsily fished it out of his pocket. "But it's chipped. Right there."

Akane's grin just broadened. "I saw how it got that chip, too. Only three people were ever supposed to leave the Decision Game alive. That was Zero's plan. Thanks in part to that ring and what you did with it, six of us escaped. Six! That ring's not 'perfect', not any more. But it's still good."

"I-Is that… a 'Yes'?" Junpei stammered. He stood there for a few seconds before remembering to drop to one knee.

"Yes. Yes. Of course, yes."

o-0-o

By Christmas day of 2029, the former site of the Decision Game bunker was declared safe for entry. Junpei and Akane returned, hoping to find any clues to the miracle that had stopped the reactor's explosion. Only one awaited them, hidden among the ash. It was the visor of a fireman's helmet: scorched and cracked, warped and melted, and stalwart to the end.