The silence that followed my collapse was more terrifying than any battle cry. For my team, it was the sound of their world breaking. Their leader, the cold, calculating monster who had orchestrated their victory, the god who had raised the dead, was now just a man, bleeding and broken on the forest floor. Panic was a venom, and it shot through their veins.
But Erica's obsession gave her an unnatural strength. Her scream of my name had been a release of fear; her actions now were a display of pure, undiluted purpose. As the others stood frozen, she took command, her voice cutting through their shock.
"Move!" she ordered, her gaze sweeping over them. "Do you want to die here? Eric, Jin, you're on watch. Drag the bodies away from the camp. All of them. Make a pile. We can't have predators drawn to us. Talia, get up in that tree," she pointed to a massive, ancient oak with a clear view of the surrounding area. "You are our eyes. Nothing gets close without us knowing. Masha, help Rina. Now!"
The authority in her voice was absolute, and the team, desperate for direction, clung to it. Eric and Jin, their faces grim, began the gruesome task of clearing the battlefield. They moved the corpses of Derek's team first, handling them with a detached, grim efficiency. But when they reached Neil and Juno, they paused. The anger and adrenaline had faded, leaving only a hollow, aching grief. They carried their fallen friends with a gentleness that defied the brutality of their surroundings, laying them to rest separately, a small, final act of respect in a world that had none.
High above, Talia became a silent shadow in the branches, her Kinetic Eye, once a tool for dueling, now a sentinel's spyglass, scanning the oppressive darkness for any sign of movement.
At the center of it all, I lay oblivious, lost in a storm of my own making.
"It's not working," Rina said, her voice tight with frustration. She pulled her glowing hands away from my chest. "Every time I try to pour my life energy into him, his own mana fights back. It's chaotic, violent. It's like his power is trying to protect him, but it's tearing him apart in the process. The strain of creating that last puppet… it broke something inside him."
Erica, who had never left my side, gently wiped my brow with a damp cloth. My head was resting in her lap, a position of startling intimacy that no one dared to question. "There has to be something you can do," she insisted, her voice low and fierce.
Masha knelt beside them, her practical mind searching for a solution. "If you can't heal him directly, can you support him? What does a body need when it's fighting itself?"
Rina's eyes lit up with a flicker of an idea. "His body is burning through energy. He has a fever. He needs hydration, nutrients… but we can't just give him normal water." She looked at her hands, then at the canteen Masha was holding. "Maybe… maybe I don't have to heal him."
She took the canteen, uncapped it, and placed both her hands around the metal flask. A soft, emerald light enveloped it. She closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in concentration. She wasn't pushing her power out as a wave of healing, but carefully infusing the water within, molecule by molecule, with pure life essence. It was a delicate, draining process, like trying to thread a thousand needles at once.
"Erica," Rina said, her voice strained. "Help me get some water into him. Slowly."
Together, they managed to tilt my head, and Erica gently poured the life-infused water past my lips. It was a slow, arduous process, but it was something. It was hope.
The night was long and filled with ghosts, both spectral and remembered. My five shadow puppets stood in a perfect circle around our small camp. They were motionless, their violet eyes the only source of light in the immediate darkness. They were a terrifying sight, but tonight, they were our guardians. Their silent, unblinking vigil was a promise that nothing would harm their fallen master.
The living took turns on watch, but Erica refused to rest. She sat with me through the long, cold hours, her back against a tree, my head still cradled in her lap. The fire Masha had built cast flickering shadows across her face, illuminating the complex emotions in her eyes.
She looked down at me, her fingers gently tracing the line of my jaw. This was a Dante she had never known, a Dante no one had ever been allowed to see. The cold, untouchable strategist was gone, replaced by a fragile, vulnerable boy. The memory of him in the rain, so awkward and kind, merged with the image of the ruthless commander who had just slaughtered a dozen men. To her, they were not two different people. They were two sides of the same soul, and she loved them both with a fierce, possessive intensity.
"You're so stupid," she whispered to my unconscious form, her voice thick with unshed tears. "Pushing yourself like that. Did you think we couldn't protect you?"
She held my hand, her thumb stroking my knuckles. "Neil is gone, Dante. And Juno… he did what he did to save us. To save you. You can't die. You can't. You're the only one who can get us through this. I need you to get me through this."
Her confession was a secret shared only with me and the silent, watching night. It was a love born from awe, obsession, and the desperate need for a protector in a world designed to kill them. She saw my cruelty not as a flaw, but as a necessary shield. She saw my power not as monstrous, but as beautiful. And she saw my current weakness as a precious gift, a moment of vulnerability that belonged only to her.
As the first, pale light of dawn began to filter through the canopy, Rina's tireless efforts began to show. The violent fluctuations in my mana started to calm, and the fever that had been raging through my body finally began to recede.
Erica, who had not slept a wink, felt the change instantly. The heat radiating from my skin lessened, and my breathing, once shallow and ragged, deepened into a more stable rhythm. A wave of relief so profound it almost buckled her washed through her body.
She leaned down, her face just inches from mine, her hair falling around me like a curtain. "Dante?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Can you hear me?"
My eyelids fluttered. The darkness in my mind began to recede, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache. I was aware of a soft warmth beneath my head, the scent of rain and woodsmoke, and a gentle pressure on my hand.
Slowly, painfully, I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was her. Erica. Her face, etched with worry and exhaustion, was the first thing to greet me in my return to the world. Her eyes, wide and luminous in the dawn light, were filled with an emotion so raw and powerful it stole the breath from my newly healed lungs. It was not the look of a soldier for her commander. It was the look of a worshipper for her god. And in that moment, vulnerable and completely at her mercy, I understood that the chains of loyalty I had forged were far more complex, and far more dangerous, than I had ever imagined.