Sophia planted her foot beside Pisanio, the heat from Imogen's molten fury licking at her coat, sparks hissing off the metal plates strapped to her arms.
Her rifle was empty, battered, little more than a steel staff at this point. Each incoming bullet pinged off its frame as she swung it like a shield, deflecting shot after molten shot to clear the space around Pisanio so he could keep swinging uninterrupted.
Even with the chaos ripping the air apart, Sophia's voice cut through.
"ZE ROTTING FEELING OF LOSING SOMEONE YOU PUT SO MUCH CARE INTO" she shouted, slamming her rifle sideways to knock a tracer round off course, "IT IS DAMNED. DAMNED TO ZE CORE, NO MATTER HOW DIFFERENT YOU THINK YOUR GRIEF MAKES YOU!"
Another volley erupted from Imogen, spraying wild lines of molten gunfire. Sophia stepped in front of three shots without hesitation, deflecting them away in arcs of hot sparks.
"You DO NOT KNOW–!" she kept going, leaning into a block as a molten burst hammered her rifle frame, "how things vill CHANGE for you once you push past zis moment! You do not KNOW vat part of yourself vill die vhen ze pain stops controlling you!"
She caught another bullet on the metal butt of her rifle and twisted it aside with a grunt.
"AND YOU DO NOT KNOW" her voice cracked, not with fear, but with age-old fury, "HOW MUCH OF YOU MIGHT LIVE AGAIN IF YOU STOP LETTING ZE HURTFUL BE YOUR MASTER!"
Sophia planted her rifle into the ground like a pillar, absorbing another spray of molten rounds. Pisanio's energy slashes tore past her shoulders, streaking toward Imogen.
Her eyes never left the distorted figure of the girl.
"You cannot carve your freedom out of grief, Fräulein. You vill only carve yourself into nothing!"
Sophia felt a thin, familiar crack form somewhere inside her.
Watching Imogen thrash and burn inside her own distorted form…
Watching the girl drown in longing, grief, and desperate yearning…
Sophia understood far more than she wanted to.
But she shoved that recognition down.
She could dissect that feeling later after they dragged Imogen back to being human.
Later, when no one was dying for her.
Right now, Pisanio needed the world held up around him.
Sophia felt something unpleasant.
a recognition she refused to acknowledge right now. Part of her understood the way Imogen was lashing out, the way she clung to something impossible inside her own mind. But this was not the time to unpack it. That would have to wait until Imogen was human again.
She pushed the thought away and focused on keeping Pisanio alive.
Pisanio's condition worsened with each passing second. His breaths grew thin and ragged, his muscles shaking, his organs straining far beyond their limits. He was bleeding internally, but he kept swinging. Every energy slash he released cost him pieces of himself, but he still stepped forward again and again, determined to keep weakening Imogen's monstrous form.
Imogen stumbled under the repeated blows. The molten weight of her distorted body trembled, and the dozens of Barrett-11 barrels jutting from her frame spasmed before unleashing more wild, unfocused fire.
Pisanio saw the opening he needed.
Gathering the last fragments of his strength, he poured everything into his sword and prepared one final attack. His blade flared with unstable energy as he swung it downward, aiming to end it in a single strike.
But before the slash could land, the abnormality reappeared from above.
It dropped into place with the impact of a falling statue, silver armor spotless and gleaming.
Without any visible effort, the creature raised its sword and intercepted Pisanio's final slash. The energy dispersed instantly against its blade, leaving Imogen untouched.
Pisanio staggered from the recoil, barely caught by Sophia before he could collapse.
The abnormality then stabbed its sword into the ground. A glowing symbol shaped like a shield formed above Imogen's head, marking her as the entity's protected target. The mark locked into place, radiating light.
The collective longing for a perfect, selfless savior who would appear on their behalf and fix what they could not. Imogen's fractured mind had met that condition, and so the creature designated her as its ward.
Kamina and Shmuel finished crushing the last of the faceless knights–pieces of censored armor scattered across the ground like broken props from a cheap play. The moment the final one dissolved into nothing, both guys turned toward the source of the blinding light.
They saw it.
The silver, horse-bodied abnormality standing guard over Imogen like a holy knight from a mural–and Pisanio nearly collapsing in Sophia's arms.
Kamina sprinted forward, katana already raised.
Shmuel charged beside him, metal fingers adjusting with a rapid sequence of clicks as his arm reconfigured itself for impact.
The abnormality reacted instantly. Its sword came down in a clean, vertical line aimed at the two rushing figures.
Kamina shifted his grip, angled his sheath, and deflected the descending blade just enough to redirect its path. Shmuel jumped in at the same moment, catching the redirected force with his reinforced arm before it could split the ground open.
The combined push sent the abnormality sliding back several meters, hooves gouging deep trenches in the earth.
But the abnormality lunged again.
Kamina met it head-on. Shmuel covered his flank, mechanical hand grabbing the creature's sword arm for a split-second before being forced to release it but that moment was enough for Kamina to bring his blade down across the creature's left shoulder.
The silver plate dented. Light flickered from the crack.
Across the battlefield, the protective symbol above Imogen pulsed, responding to the damage taken by her guardian. The abnormality braced itself, sword lifting into another stance, ready to continue the fight.
Kamina rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.
Shmuel reset his stance, both arms raised.
Sophia steadied Pisanio and lifted her empty rifle again, ready to deflect more bullets if needed.
Kamina dashed forward, dragging a streak of torn earth behind him as he swung his katana upward. The abnormality caught the blade on its own sword, sparks scattering like fireflies.
Shmuel crashed in from the right, metal fist pulled back.
"Keep its guard open!" he shouted.
"I am keeping it open!" Kamina forcing the clash upward. "You're just too slow to use it!"
Shmuel's mechanical hand pistoned forward.
The abnormality twisted its equine body with inhuman precision, letting the fist scrape past its helm–only for Kamina to shift instantly and slam his sheath into its flank to stagger it.
The creature retaliated, bringing its blade dow.
Shmuel grabbed Kamina by the back of his cloak and yanked.
The sword carved a deep trench where they had stood.
Kamina met the abnormality again–katana clashing, redirecting, guiding each blow off its intended path. Every time the silver blade tried to cut through him, Kamina turned the strike aside by a hair's breadth.
Shmuel capitalized on each opening. His mechanical fingers latched onto the abnormality's pauldron, crushing the polished plate until cracks radiated through it. The creature moved violently, light spilling from the damaged armor.
The abnormality kicked out with its horse-body legs, the force enough to send dust exploding in all directions. Shmuel leaped back.
Kamina didn't.
He vaulted over the kick, dragging his blade across the abnormality's shoulder joint.
The crack widened.
The guardian reared back, a beam of golden light bursting from its helm as it prepared a downward smite.
"Kamina, MOVE!" Shmuel shouted.
"Move? Nah."
Kamina grinned, sparks flickering along his katana. "I'm cutting through it."
Shmuel rushed in to cover him.
Pisanio was staggered, one knee hitting the churned earth. His vision blurred, and when he wiped his mouth, his fingers came away slicked with red. Still, his eyes never left the molten mass that was Imogen.
He forced himself upright and rasped to Sophia:
"Bring me… to Imogen's place. Kamina and Shmuel can… keep the abnormality busy…"
Another cough tore through him spattering the ground with more blood. His ribs shuddered under the strain, each breath a knife.
Sophia caught his arm before he fell fully forward.
Her grip was rough, but steady.
"Zen we are going," she muttered, voice low and tense. "We haf to put some sense into ze princess… before she kills herself and everyone else."
They began moving.
Sophia half-supporting, half-dragging him toward the molten figure.
Imogen lay collapsed in her distortion's ruin, a mountain of slag cooling into grotesque shapes. Her rifles had stopped firing; several hung limp and half-melted from her sides. The crown of flame above her head sputtered like a dying star.
She couldn't move.
Not a twitch.
Not a breath.
Only a faint, tremoring glow pulsed within the cracks of her molten flesh similar to that of a heartbeat of someone too exhausted to rise again.
Sophia glanced at her, cigarette still between her teeth, unlit.
"She's a mess," she said.
Pisanio's hand slipped from Sophia's shoulder and pressed against his chest, as if trying to hold his breaking organs together.
he whispered hoarsely. "Then there is… still something in her to reach."
Behind them, Kamina and Shmuel's battle thundered on.
Everything he had left
–his breath,
his strength,
his life–
was pointed at promise.
At his lady.
At the girl he had sworn to guide, no matter how much it broke him.
Sophia tightened her grip and hauled him forward another step.
Imogen lay waiting–fragile inside her monstrous shell, blind to the ruin around her.
Pisanio exhaled, the sound thin and rattling.
"My lady… I'm coming."
Sophia eased Pisanio down beside Imogen's molten form, lowering him carefully until his knees touched the scorched ground. His legs trembled, unable to hold his weight. His breath rattled in his chest like cracked bellows. Still, he lifted his chin and faced her—this burning, broken effigy of a girl he had raised, protected, and quietly loved in his own steadfast way.
The heat coming off Imogen's body was enough to blister skin, yet Pisanio leaned closer.
He raised a shaking hand, gesturing Sophia to step back.
Then, with all the dignity left in him, he knelt.
His voice came out hoarse—softened by pain, strengthened by conviction.
"Imogen…"
He swallowed, forcing breath into ruined lungs.
"Do you remember… when you asked me why your father did not come to your mother's deathbed? You asked whether he truly loved her… if his absence meant he had turned away."
His eyes unfocused for a moment, recalling a little girl clutching his sleeve, eyes red from crying, too young to understand abandonment but old enough to feel it.
"I cannot recall the exact words I gave you then," he went on, "but I can tell you now what I know to be true."
He bowed his head briefly in respect to the girl inside her monstrous form.
"Your mother loved your father with all she was.
And your father… in his own flawed way… loved her too."
The molten body flickered.
"But love in our world is rarely kind. Even rarer is it allowed to survive. Their marriage was not blessed with joy—not because they lacked devotion, but because the City leaves no room for happy endings for folk like us."
His breath hitched. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, sizzling as it struck the scorched ground.
Yet he lifted his gaze, steady, resolute.
"Still… I believe."
His voice grew firmer, carried by the last reserves of his will.
"I believe you will reach that ending they could not.
The ending you deserve.
The ending they wished for but never held."
A tremor ran through Imogen's monstrous form.
Sophia stepped in, worried, but Pisanio lifted a trembling hand to stop her.
His eyes, dimming around the edges, shone with a fierce, unyielding light.
"I have done all this," he whispered, "because someone must prove that happiness can be real. That the dream the king and queen spoke of is not a lie… but a path meant to be carved by your steps."
He leaned forward, nearly collapsing but catching himself on one trembling arm.
"Through you, Imogen…
I swear it can become reality."
The molten crown flickered, its flames bending as it listened.
Pisanio drew in a ragged breath–one so thin and strained it sounded like it might be his last.
Then he lifted a finger, trembling violently, and forced out a single word.
"But…"
It cracked through the molten air with unexpected strength.
Even Imogen's burning form paused–if not in understanding, then in instinct.
Pisanio straightened just enough to look up at her, eyes fierce despite the blood running down his chin.
"But… hear me now, Imogen."
His voice steadied.
"To live freely… does not mean to live without anchor."
Sophia's eyes flicked toward him, recognizing the pivot—the heart of everything he had been dragging himself alive to say.
Pisanio continued, each word carved out of pain and conviction:
"You must live freely…
with principle."
The flames around Imogen surged, molten ridges rising, muscles of fire twitching.
Her rifles groaned within her body like metal grieving, barrels shifting as if listening.
Pisanio pressed on, voice hoarse but unwavering:
"Freedom without principle is destruction.
Freedom with principle… is self-directed.
It is what your mother wanted for you.
It is what I have lived to see you choose."
He clenched a fist, pressing it to his chest.
"Let your heart break. Let it shatter.
But let the pieces fall in a direction you choose
not the one that pain drives."
Sophia stepped forward at that, holstering her empty rifle.
"Imogen…" she said, "I vould be a damned liar if I said I could stop you. Vengeance… grief… these things, they run hotter than your flames."
She took a breath, steadying herself.
"But your mother made me promise–made me–that if you ever reached a day vhere you could no longer stand on your own… I vould be there."
Sophia tapped her chest lightly.
"So here I am.
Not to chain you.
Not to judge you.
But to help you… vhen you truly need it."
The molten giant shuddered—its form rippling like a dying star struggling to hold shape.
Pisanio raised his voice one last time, louder, pushing through failing lungs:
"Live freely, Imogen–
but live as yourself, not as a wound. Don't walk to the same crash that I had made.
And if you vant to walk through hell… at least do it vith your own feet, not as a prisoner of a broken heart."
Imogen's mind was a pressure, a tightening, a swell of questions crammed into every untouched corner of her being.
Why him?
Why now?
Why does it hurt?
Why can't I let go?
What am I without him?
What am I allowed to want?
What am I allowed to be?
They circled like vultures over a carcass–her heart the stripped-bare thing beneath.
Then the warm voice, velvet and coaxing, dripped into the silence:
"Don't you want to reach the happiness you were longing for…?"
Imogen's first answer came fast, unfiltered, clawing out from the pit of her chest.
"Yes.
I want him back.
I want our promise.
I want the life stolen from me."
Selfish.
Ferocious.
But then another answer rose.
"I want him to be at peace.
I want others not to hurt like this.
I want a world where love isn't punished."
Selfless.
Gentle.
Both answers clashed, battled, intertwined.
Selfish longing.
Selfless yearning.
Two halves of the same burning heart.
Imogen breathed and then she chose.
A third answer rose, steady and whole.
"I want… to be myself.
Not only who I was with him.
Not only who I am without him.
I want to carry him… and still walk forward."
The molten body outside responded instantly.
The magma cracked.
The rifles bent inward.
The crown of flame dimmed.
Her form built upon itself.
From fire and metal and grief, a silhouette emerged:
A small girl, slim and fragile, hair white with red-tipped ends drifting like smoke.
Her eyes brimmed with liquid fire, soft and luminous.
Robes unfurled around her, flowing and ceremonial, burning at their hem.
Crimson deepening to black.
Gold veining across the fabric like cooling volcano glass.
A dress reminiscent of a wedding gown, but forged from ash and flame.
Embers lifted from her sleeves like drifting fireflies.
Upon her head settled a crown of blackened wood, branching delicately.
Each limb burned with eternal, flickering light.
She looked heartbreakingly human.
And impossibly other.
Her face serene.
Her eyes solemn.
Her presence was overwhelming.
Imogen had manifested herself.
[Effloresced E.G.O :: Wedlocked]
An outward form shaped from the truth she chose to embrace.
It is not freedom without bonds.
Nor love without pain.
But the expression of her whole self.
A self finally, fiercely manifested into being.
Pisanio watched Imogen stand renewed. Relief washed over him. The tension in his shoulders loosened, the breath in his chest fluttered… and then he slumped forward, all remaining strength leaking out of him. He hit the ground softly, a faint smile still resting on his lips.
He had seen everything he ever hoped for in his final moment.
Imogen didn't even notice at first.
Her eyes locked onto the writhing abnormality, Kamina and Shmuel still clashing with it, sparks and metal shrieks echoing across the ruined hall. She lifted the Barrett-11. Sophia moved beside her, calm and steady, speaking low and clear.
"No Wind. Two degrees right. Let it breathe with you."
Imogen exhaled. Her finger tightened.
The shot cracked.
BANG
The bullet ignited in midair, blossoming into a spear of combustible light that drilled through the abnormality's chest. Fire bloomed inside it devouring its core until its torso ruptured outward in a blazing shockwave. Kamina stumbled back with a smirk, Shmuel shielding his face from the burst.
But the creature didn't die.
Charred, half-melted, it still crawled toward Imogen. The sigil, her protective shield, flickered on her forehead, dimming with each step the creature took. Finally, the symbol dissolved into nothingness.
The abnormality reached her.
And then its body spasmed, the world around it trembling as reality itself forced it down. Its limbs crumpled inward, pulling into its own center, shrinking, compacting–until only a smooth, obsidian egg remained where the monster once stood.
Imogen stood there, breathing shallowly, flames curling from the hem of her ceremonial robes.
Only then did she look back.
Pisanio lay still.
Imogen stepped toward him on shaking legs. Each step shed soft embers behind her. When she reached him, her knees gave out, and she dropped beside his body.
His smile was peaceful. Proud. Like a father watching his child finally take a step he always believed she could.
"S… Sir Pisanio…" Her small hands trembled as they reached for him. "Wake up… you can– you can wake up now…"
He didn't.
The flames around her dimmed, curling inward like wilting petals.
Her breath hitched.
Then, finally.
Imogen began to cry.
Her tears fell onto his still hands, sizzling softly as they touched the embers drifting from her robes.
A girl reborn in fire, living freely with principle.
And the weight of the love someone had believed she deserved.
Kamina stopped beside her, looking down at Pisanio's body, then at the small, burning girl curled over it.
A slow breath.
"…You did good," he said softly.
Imogen didn't answer.
He crouched, resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Imogen. Join my office."