For an hour, no one moved.

They simply existed. Each trapped in the private, horrifying memory of their own survival.

Jin sat propped against a dragon's skull. His left arm hanging uselessly. Face a pale mask that couldn't hide the shaking in his hands.

Talia lay nearby. Breathing shallow. Venom from the Shadow Drake's claws leaving a network of angry black lines under her skin.

Kael was still unconscious. A testament to the brutal cost of his transformation.

The others were in various states of ruin. Their new artifacts gleaming dully in the blood and grime.

Dante was the first to stir.

His body, though healed by the flood of absorbed power, ached with deep phantom pain.

The stump of his shoulder was a constant burning reminder.

He rose to his feet. Movements stiff.

Every eye turned to him. Gazes a mixture of fear, awe, and soul-crushing tiredness.

He ignored them.

He held out his remaining hand. The air beside him grew cold.

FWOOSH.

A shadow, pure and dark, came together into a perfect silhouette.

Rina.

A collective, sharp gasp came from the team.

Masha flinched as if struck. Her face growing even paler.

"No," Erica whispered.

It was one thing to see the ghost of Edgar, the quiet analyst.

Another thing entirely to see their gentle, kind-hearted healer.

The girl who had mended their wounds and calmed their fears. Now standing as a mindless, violet-eyed puppet.

"Her healing was a gift of her soul," Dante said. Voice flat. Empty of the emotion they needed to hear.

"That gift is not lost. It's merely... repurposed."

He commanded the shadow of Rina to move.

It glided across the battlefield. Movements silent. Unnervingly graceful.

It knelt first beside Talia. Spectral hands glowing with soft green light.

A cold, perfect copy of the warmth she once had.

The healing it provided was brutally efficient.

No gentle touch. No soothing words.

Pure, logical use of life energy.

The black veins of poison on Talia's skin faded. The gashes on her back knitting together with faint green smoke.

HISS. SIZZLE.

She was being repaired. Not cared for.

While the spectral healer worked, something else was happening.

Jin, face a mask of pain, tried to push himself up. But his broken arm failed him.

He collapsed back against the bone with a sharp cry.

"Agh!"

In an instant, Talia was at his side.

Still weak. Her own wounds barely closed. But she moved with desperate urgency.

She knelt before him. Hands hovering over his shattered arm.

"Don't move," she whispered. Voice raw. Gentle. A tone he'd never heard from her before.

She carefully began to tear strips from her own tattered cloak.

Her movements skilled. Practiced. As she began to make a crude but effective sling.

Jin watched her. His usual stoic discipline completely gone. Eyes full of raw vulnerability.

"Talia... you're hurt. You should be resting."

"So should you," she said softly. Not looking at him. Her entire focus on his injury.

"But you were too busy being a reckless, noble idiot."

He reached out with his good hand. Gently touched her cheek. His thumb brushing away a streak of dragon blood.

"I couldn't... I couldn't watch him kill you."

"And I couldn't watch you die," she whispered back. Voice cracking.

Their eyes met. Held.

In that moment, surrounded by death and ruin, something shifted between them.

Something that had been there for a long time. Unspoken. Hidden.

"Talia, I—"

"I know," she said. A small, sad smile on her lips. "I know."

Dante watched them. A silent, detached observer.

The closeness of the moment was a foreign language. An emotional puzzle he had no interest in solving.

'But it's a variable I hadn't planned for.'

"They were always like that, you know."

Masha's voice, quiet and weary, came from beside him.

She had moved to his side without him noticing. Her gaze also fixed on the two wounded warriors.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like that," she said. A small, sad smile touching her lips.

"Jin and Talia. Back at college. They had feelings for each other. But neither said anything."

"I think that's what drew them together and now in this hell they had found... They found a quiet place in each other."

"Everyone knew. Well," she corrected herself. Her gaze flicking to him. "Almost everyone."

Her words were not an accusation. Just a simple statement of fact.

Highlighting the vast, empty gap of his own emotional detachment.

He had seen them as assets. A swordsman and an assassin.

He had never once considered them as people. As a man and a woman who held a fierce love for each other.

The spectral Rina finished with Kael, who was now stirring. And glided over to Jin.

Its cold green light covered his broken arm.

CRACK. SNAP.

A series of sickening, wet cracks as the bones were forcibly reset.

Jin gritted his teeth. Body going stiff with pain. But he did not cry out.

Talia held his hand through the entire process. Her knuckles white. Gaze never leaving his face.

"I'm here," she whispered. "I'm right here."

When it was over, the arm was healed. But the trauma remained.

They sat there for a long moment. Two broken soldiers finding a fragile safe place in each other's presence.

Later, when the spectral Rina had mended the last wounds and dissolved back into his soul, Masha approached him again.

The rest of the team was asleep. Exhausted bodies finding temporary peace.

They were alone by the low, crackling fire.

CRACKLE. POP.

"You were amazing today," she said. Voice barely a whisper.

She did not look at him. Gaze fixed on the dancing flames.

He remained silent. Watching her.

"When the Magma Drake attacked... I thought I was dead," she continued. Voice unsteady.

"But you stood in front of me. You took the fire."

She turned to look at him. "Why?"

"You're a valuable asset," he stated. Voice flat. "Your ice magic was essential to the strategy."

"Losing you would have been an unacceptable tactical loss."

He expected her to be angry. To resent the cold, calculated logic of his answer.

But instead, she just shook her head. A small, humorless laugh escaping her lips.

"Always the strategist," she murmured.

She finally met his eyes. In the firelight, he saw that the fear and anger in her eyes had been replaced by something far more complex.

Something that looked almost like... understanding.

"Maybe," she said softly. "Or maybe, for a single, illogical second, the tyrant remembered how to be a hero no.. a person that Erica believes."

She didn't wait for his reply.

She simply held out her hand.

In her palm was a small, intricately carved piece of bone. Taken from one of the Void Drakes.

"Your arm," she said. Voice regaining a fraction of its old authority.

"The healing closed the wound, but the limb is still gone. You're a swordsman with one hand."

"That's a liability."

She pushed the piece of bone into his hand.

"I will be researching a new magic from my grimoire, to forge you a new one. I have a vague idea after looking at these dragon's bones and my ice magic. "

"An arm of ice and bone. It won't be the same, but it will be a weapon."

Dante looked down at the piece of bone. Then back at her.

It was a gift. A promise.

An act of deep, utterly unexpected loyalty.

She was not just his soldier anymore. She was his ally.

The lines of their relationship were blurring. Shifting from simple hierarchy into something far more dangerous.

And far more useful.

"Thank you, Masha," he said.

And for the first time, the words were not a lie.

She simply nodded. Then retreated to her own bedroll. Leaving him alone with his thoughts.

---

He looked at the sleeping forms of his team.

The quiet love between Jin and Talia.

The fierce, obsessive devotion of Erica and Lana.

The new, complex allegiance of Masha.

They were not just his tools anymore.

They were a kingdom. A fractured, broken, utterly loyal kingdom of their own making.

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