They played three more matches.
Irina kept her pride intact, but barely. The first game, she managed to hold parity—still leading in raw aggression, kills, tempo. But Astron never died. Not once. His assist count was ridiculous. His decision-making flawless. She tried to bait him into overextending, to draw him into chaos and see if he'd break pattern—but instead, he redirected it. Converted her wild instincts into exact, efficient skirmishes.
The second game?
He carried.
And not passively.
By then, Irina wasn't playing to see if he could keep up. She was playing to chase him. Match his tempo. Find the gap that wasn't there.
The third match—close, brutal, and hard-fought—ended with both of them collapsing back on the couch, controllers dropped onto their laps, the final scoreboard still glowing on the screen.
