The crisis was manufactured.
Arjun knew that the moment the eastern warning bells rang in perfect sequence—three short pulses, evenly spaced, precise enough to feel rehearsed. Real emergencies were messy. This one was clean.
Too clean.
He was already moving when the second alarm echoed, boots striking asphalt as the Conduit field shifted under his awareness. Fear wasn't spiking the way it should have. Instead, it was directed—funneled, focused, shaped toward a single point.
Toward him.
Nyxara landed beside him hard enough to fracture concrete. Her wings flared, eyes blazing with predatory clarity.
"This isn't chaos," she said. "This is theater."
Marcus's voice crackled over the radio. "Eastern sector reports structural collapse near the old flood channel. Civilians trapped. Heavy instability."
Arjun closed his eyes for half a second and reached outward—not to intervene, not to fix, but to listen.
The Conduit field answered immediately.
Too immediately.
The panic was real. The danger was real. But the timing wasn't. Someone had waited for the territory's faith to dip, then struck precisely where it would force Arjun's hand.
"They want a demonstration," Arjun said quietly.
Nyxara snarled. "They want worship."
The scene was already set when they arrived.
A collapsed section of elevated roadway had pancaked into the flood channel below, trapping dozens beneath twisted concrete and steel. Fires burned where ruptured lines had ignited. The air smelled of dust, smoke, and fear.
People were screaming.
Not calling for medics.
Calling for him.
"Arjun!"
"Please!"
"Do something!"
The Conduit field surged violently, pressure slamming into Arjun's chest as belief, desperation, and expectation aligned into something dangerously close to invocation.
The phone vibrated violently.
CRISIS EVENT:
ANCHOR INTERVENTION OPPORTUNITY — HIGH VISIBILITY
Nyxara felt it too. Her wings trembled—not with restraint, but anticipation.
"This is it," she said. "If you step in fully, they won't come back from it."
Arjun swallowed. He could already see the solution. A clean one. A perfect one.
He could lift the rubble. Stabilize the injured. Seal the fires. Make it look effortless.
He could end the crisis in seconds.
And in doing so, erase every lesson he'd bled to teach.
Marcus ran up, breathless. "We're setting charges to clear access, but it'll take time. People will die."
"How many?" Arjun asked.
Marcus hesitated. "If nothing changes? Five. Maybe more."
The number hit hard.
Five lives versus a future shaped by myth.
The crowd surged closer, held back only by patrols straining to keep order.
Nyxara's voice dropped, intimate through the bond.
Say the word.
Arjun clenched his fists.
He didn't answer.
Then the first death happened.
A support beam shifted. A scream cut off abruptly.
The Conduit field screamed with it.
The phone vibrated violently.
FAITH CONVERSION SPIKE DETECTED
That was the trigger.
Not for Arjun.
For Nyxara.
She moved without permission.
Not fast.
Absolute.
Reality bent where she stepped, pressure collapsing inward as her full presence unfolded—not masked, not restrained. Wings spread wide, casting shadows that didn't align with the sun. Her eyes burned with ancient judgment, and for the first time, the territory felt something beyond fear.
Reverence.
She slammed into the rubble, claws sinking into reinforced concrete like it was wet clay. Steel screamed as she tore it free, lifting impossible weight with controlled fury.
People fell to their knees.
Not because she commanded it.
Because their instincts did.
Arjun felt the bond flare—hot, intense, wrong.
"Nyxara—STOP!" he shouted.
She didn't.
She worked.
The rubble came apart under her hands. Fires died where her shadow passed. Trapped bodies were freed in seconds, injuries stabilized by proximity alone.
She wasn't healing.
She was overriding.
The phone went silent.
Not crashed.
Subordinate.
Arjun felt it like a knife in his spine.
She finished in under a minute.
No more screams.
No more danger.
Only silence—and dozens of people staring at her like she was the answer to every prayer they'd never learned to articulate.
Someone whispered, "An angel…"
Someone else said, "A demon…"
It didn't matter.
They meant the same thing.
Nyxara turned slowly, eyes locking onto Arjun.
The bond roared between them—intimate, exclusive, strained to the breaking point.
"I told you," she said calmly. "They would force the choice."
"You crossed a line," Arjun said hoarsely.
"Yes," she agreed. "I did."
People began chanting her name.
Not loudly.
Not yet.
But it was there.
The shape of it.
Marcus stared, pale. "Arjun… what is she?"
Arjun looked at the people. At their faces. At the relief, the awe, the transfer of responsibility happening in real time.
"She's my partner," he said.
Nyxara's gaze never left his. "And I won't apologize."
The phone vibrated weakly, struggling.
SYSTEM STATUS:
DIVINE ATTRIBUTION EVENT — UNAUTHORIZED
Arjun stepped forward.
The Conduit field followed him—not flaring, not deepening.
Aligning.
"This ends now," Arjun said loudly.
The chanting faltered.
Nyxara didn't move.
"You saved them," Arjun said, voice steady. "And you nearly destroyed everything else."
She tilted her head. "I saved lives."
"Yes," Arjun said. "And stole their agency."
Silence fell hard.
"You taught them that if things get bad enough," Arjun continued, "they don't need to act. They just need to believe hard enough."
Nyxara's wings twitched. "Belief is inevitable."
"Worship is not," Arjun replied.
He turned to the crowd.
"She is not your god," Arjun said. "And I am not your savior."
Anger flickered. Confusion. Fear.
Nyxara felt it through the bond—his refusal to let her become what she could so easily be.
"You'd rather let them suffer," she said quietly, "than let them kneel."
"I'd rather let them live as people," Arjun replied. "Than survive as dependents."
Nyxara studied him for a long moment.
Then she folded her wings.
The pressure eased.
The crowd exhaled, like waking from a shared dream.
The phone vibrated once.
FAITH REDISTRIBUTION: PARTIAL REVERSAL
Later, when night swallowed the city, they stood alone on the overpass.
"You humiliated me," Nyxara said calmly.
"I grounded you," Arjun replied.
She laughed softly. "You denied me what I am."
"No," Arjun said. "I reminded you why you chose not to be it."
The bond pulsed—painful, intimate, unbroken.
"They'll try again," Nyxara said. "Manufactured crises. Forced choices. They want a god."
"I know," Arjun replied.
"And one day," she said softly, "you won't be fast enough to stop me."
Arjun met her gaze. "Then I'll stop the world from needing you to."
The phone vibrated one final time that night.
SYSTEM NOTE:
DIVINITY VECTOR — SUPPRESSED (UNSTABLE)
Arjun looked out over the sleeping city, heart heavy.
The territory had seen what absolute power looked like.
And tomorrow, it would decide whether restraint was strength—
Or weakness.