The merged entity towered above them, a grotesque fusion of Capitano’s noble silhouette and writhing shadow.

  Yet even distorted, she could still see him inside—fighting, straining, refusing to be fully consumed.

  “Capitano!” Mavuika’s voice cracked like thunder across the void. “Look at me!”

  The colossal head turned slowly. Distorted eyes—his eyes—found hers.

  “You should not have come,” the merged voice rumbled, pain threading every syllable. “This is… containment. Necessary.”

  “Necessary?” She laughed brokenly, stepping closer despite the lashing tendrils. “You once told me my willingness to sacrifice myself was blindness. Look at you now—doing the exact same thing!”

  “I am protecting—”

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  “You’re hiding!” she shouted. Flames erupted around her in a blazing corona. “You’re hiding from me! From this!”

  She slammed the butt of her greatsword into the ground. A shockwave of fire rolled outward, forcing the entity back a step.

  “I love you,” she said—clear, fierce, unafraid. “I love the man who challenged an Archon because he couldn’t stand to watch her burn alone. I love the awkward, righteous fool who blushed beneath his mask when I teased him. I love the way your ice feels against my fire—like we were made to collide.”

  Silence. Then, quietly—so quietly she almost missed it—the entity spoke in Capitano’s true voice, stripped of distortion.

  “…I never blushed.”

  Mavuika’s lips curved despite everything. “Liar.”

  She raised the Eternal Flame higher. “Let me in. Let me pull you out. Or I swear by every ancestor of Natlan—I will burn this entire realm down until there’s nothing left but you and me.”

  The entity shuddered.

  Inside the prison of shadow, she saw his hand—his real hand—reach toward her.

  She ran.

  When her fingers closed around his, the contact was searing: ice meeting fire in perfect, agonizing harmony.

  “I’m here,” she gasped against his gauntlet. “I’ve got you.”

  The merge fractured in a blinding cascade of light and darkness.