Nazz grips the body.
Our body.
Fingers dig into muscle and bone like he is claiming a tool, not borrowing one. The sky peels away as he descends, dragging gravity with him. The ruined structure rushes up fast, broken stone and torn Killiden screaming under the pressure of his arrival.
He lands without grace.
Without apology.
The impact caves the floor inward.
Malfious's body is still forming, light knitting itself back together out of instinct more than will. Nazz does not allow it the courtesy of completion. He grabs him by the throat mid-reassembly and hurls him straight down.
The ground explodes.
Stone fractures outward in a perfect circle as Malfious slams into it, unconscious now, body half-buried, power leaking like blood from a wound that refuses to close.
Nazz does not look back.
Sage.
I feel it before he does. Panic, sharp and sudden, slicing through the haze. Her presence flickers, unstable. Crushed beneath collapsed stone and Killiden shards, breath shallow, pulse uneven.
Nazz moves instantly.
One step. Then another. The debris slows, then stops entirely, suspended midair as if the world itself flinches. He reaches her and tears the rubble away with one arm, not careful, not gentle, just fast.
Too fast.
He drops to a knee beside her.
I feel something tighten in my chest.
Not his.
Mine.
He presses two fingers to her neck. A pause. A fraction of relief.
Good. She lives.
Nazz exhales through my teeth and pulls her free, cradling her head so it does not snap back. He lowers her against a slab of intact stone, shielding her body with his own as the rest of the structure finishes collapsing behind us.
Dust settles.
Silence returns, strained and waiting.
Her eyes flutter.
Once. Twice.
Then open.
They focus slowly, unfocused at first, then sharp with recognition and fear.
"V?" she whispers.
The name hits harder than Malfious ever did.
Nazz freezes.
For a moment, I feel him hesitate, like he is deciding whether to answer or let me surface. My thoughts slam against his presence, clawing forward.
It is me.
I force it.
I push.
My voice comes out rough, cracked, half-buried under something darker.
"I am here."
Her eyes widen slightly. Relief crashes over her face, followed by confusion. She reaches up weakly, fingers brushing obsidian skin like she is checking if I am real.
"You… changed," she says.
I swallow.
Inside, Nazz shifts, amused but quiet, letting me have this moment. For now.
"I know," I say. "But I did not leave."
Her hand tightens around my sleeve.
"Do not," she says softly. "Do not disappear on me."
Something inside my chest fractures. Not breaks. Fractures. A fault line I did not know was still forming.
"I will not," I say. And this time, I mean it more than any promise I have ever made.
Behind us, deep beneath the rubble, Malfious stirs.
And Nazz smiles inside my head.
Nazz does not stay quiet.
He never does.
His voice crawls out of my throat like smoke forced through glass, layered over mine, deeper, rougher, carrying that familiar edge of amusement and contempt. I feel Sage tense immediately. Her grip tightens on my sleeve. Armillo, still half-buried in fractured stone, lifts his massive head slowly, eyes burning like magma under pressure.
"Relax," Nazz says, speaking to both of them, to the room, to the universe if it is listening. "If I wanted either of you dead, you would already be decorative debris."
Sage stiffens. "You are… him," she says carefully. Not fear. Recognition. That almost hurts more.
Nazz chuckles. It vibrates through my ribs. "Sharp as ever, magnet girl."
I grit my teeth. Inside. "Do not talk to her like that."
"Oh hush," he replies internally, casual, almost fond. "I just ripped a god's heart out and ate it. Let me enjoy the aftertaste."
Armillo shifts, stone grinding against stone as he forces himself upright. Even injured, even restrained by whatever Malfious did to him, he is immense. His presence presses down on the air. Gravity thickens again.
"You are the fracture," Armillo rumbles, voice slow, ancient, deliberate. "The fault the others whispered about."
Nazz turns my head toward him. Tilts it. Studies him like a puzzle he already knows the answer to.
"Congratulations," Nazz says. "You stand very well for something strangled by an idea."
Armillo does not rise to the insult. He never does. "You speak as Chaos," he says. "Yet you wear a will not your own."
Sage looks between us, eyes wide. "Armillo," she says softly. "He is still V."
Nazz laughs again. This one sharper. "Still? That implies preservation. Cute."
I feel myself push forward again. Harder this time. The obsidian shell tightens, not resisting, not yielding, but listening.
"He is right about one thing," I say, my voice overlapping his. "I am still here."
Nazz clicks his tongue. "See? Teamwork."
Sage exhales, shaky but relieved. "Then listen," she says, looking directly at my eyes. At us. "Both of you. Malfious is not finished."
Behind us, the ground pulses once. A sickening thrum. Power rebuilding. Rage knitting itself back together.
Armillo straightens fully now, Bastion Core glowing through the cracks in his chest like a buried sun. He steps forward, placing himself between Sage and the crater without even thinking about it.
"He will rise," Armillo says. "And when he does, he will aim for what anchors you."
Nazz grins. I feel it like a blade pressing against my mind. "Let him."
I swallow. Hard.
"This is not a game," I say.
Nazz's voice drops, quieter now, closer. Not mocking. Not playful.
"I know," he says. "That is why I am here."
Sage meets my gaze again. Searches it. She sees both of us. Somehow, she does not flinch.
"Then we finish this together," she says.
Inside my head, Nazz hums approvingly.
Outside, Malfious breathes again.
And the world braces.
The air tears.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically. It splits, like reality finally admits it has been stretched too thin.
Nazz steps out of me.
Not possession. Not projection. Manifestation.
The obsidian peels away from my frame in jagged ribbons, tearing free with a sound like stone screaming underwater. My knees buckle as the weight leaves. I catch myself on one hand, breath ragged, suddenly aware of how fragile my body still is without him layered over my bones.
Nazz stands where I stood.
Same height. Same silhouette. Different gravity.
His body is not flesh pretending to be stone. It is obsidian pretending to be alive. Cracks glow faintly with red-violet light, energy pulsing like a heartbeat that does not belong to any organism meant to exist. His eyes are empty and burning at the same time, like windows cut into a furnace.
Sage stares.
For once, she has no words ready.
Then, quietly. Almost wounded.
"Where did you go?" she asks, looking at me. Not at him. "You were… you were both there and then you weren't."
I force air into my lungs. My voice comes out hoarse. Smaller.
"He stepped out," I say. "I stayed."
Nazz rolls his shoulders like he is trying on the world's atmosphere. He exhales. The sound cracks the ground beneath his feet.
"Oh this is better," he says. "So much quieter out here. Less screaming."
Armillo watches him without moving. The Bastion Core brightens, molten light flowing like lava beneath stone skin. He does not attack. He never does first.
"You are Chaos given contour," Armillo says. "A wound that learned to walk."
Nazz tilts his head. Studies him. Slowly circles, boots crunching through rubble, leaving fractures with every step.
"Close," Nazz replies. "But wounds imply healing. I am what happens when healing gets bored and leaves."
He stops in front of Armillo. Looks up. Not intimidated. Curious.
"So," Nazz continues. "You are one of the pieces. Heavy one. Durable. Slow. Tell me. Do you all feel it, or are you pretending not to?"
Armillo's eyes narrow. "Feel what."
Nazz taps his own chest. The sound rings like a bell struck too hard.
"The pull," he says. "The wrongness. The sense that something larger than you has been disassembled and handed out like favors. Bones here. Will there. Memory somewhere inconvenient."
Sage steps closer to me, voice low. "Pieces of Serkauis."
Nazz snaps his fingers, delighted. "There it is. See, the human keeps up."
He turns back to Armillo. "How many of you took part," he asks. "How many decided you deserved a fragment of something you did not finish killing."
Armillo does not look away. "We did not take," he says. "We were entrusted."
Nazz laughs. Not loud. Not cruel. Just tired.
"Everyone says that," he replies. "Kings. Gods. Executioners. No one ever steals. They inherit."
I push myself fully upright now. My legs shake, but they hold.
"Nazz," I say. Firm. "Enough."
He does not turn around. But I feel him listening.
"This is not interrogation," I continue. "This is survival. If Malfious rises again and he will, we need Armillo standing, not dissected by your curiosity."
Nazz glances over his shoulder at me. One eye flickers, just for a second, with something familiar.
Approval.
"Fine," he says. "Later then."
He faces Armillo again, voice quieter. Sharper.
"Stand," Nazz says. "Not for them. Not for your philosophy. Stand because if you fall, the rest of the pieces will panic. And panic makes things boring."
Armillo straightens fully, stone grinding into alignment. He places one massive hand against the fractured wall, steadying the structure without effort.
"I have stood since before panic had a name," he says. "I will stand now."
Behind us, the crater pulses again.
Stronger.
Deeper.
Malfious is almost whole.
Sage grips my arm, eyes locked on the rising light. "V," she whispers. "If he comes back at full strength-"
"I know," I say.
Nazz steps forward, placing himself between us and the crater without being asked.
Cracks along his body blaze brighter.
"Let him come back," he says calmly. "I have questions for the rest of the pieces."
The ground answers him.
Not with an explosion. Not with spectacle.
With pressure.
The crater exhales, and the air grows heavy, like the world is bracing. Light bleeds upward in slow, malignant threads, stitching a shape back together piece by piece. I feel it in my teeth. In my spine. In the place where Nazz used to sit inside me like a loaded gun.
Sage tightens her grip on my arm. I do not pull away.
Armillo shifts his stance, feet grinding deeper into the stone. The Bastion Core flares brighter, heat and solidity colliding in his chest. He plants himself between the crater and the rest of the chamber, not to attack, but to deny space.
Nazz does not move.
He watches.
"You feel bigger," Nazz says, almost conversational. "Still wrong. But closer to finished."
The light condenses. Bones knit. Veins of void lace through half-formed muscle. Malfious rises again, not fully repaired, but arrogant enough to pretend otherwise. His eyes lock onto Nazz first.
Then me.
Then Sage.
A smile ghosts across his face.
"You let him out," Malfious says, voice layered, echoing against itself. "How generous of you."
I feel my jaw tighten. "He stepped out."
Malfious laughs softly. "Semantics."
He lifts one hand. The air distorts. The chamber groans.
Armillo moves.
Not fast. Never fast.
But when his fist connects with Malfious's side, the sound is like a mountain deciding it is done being patient. The impact folds space inward, driving Malfious sideways through three collapsed pillars and into the far wall.
The structure screams.
Sage reacts instantly. Killiden surges from her hands, magnetized shards snapping together into a lattice that holds the ceiling long enough to stop it from burying us.
Nazz finally steps forward.
"That," he says, rolling his neck, "was acceptable."
Malfious pulls himself free from the wall, laughing now, genuinely amused. "You see," he says, wiping dark energy from his mouth, "this is why I keep fragments. Everyone brings something charming to the table."
He lunges.
This time Nazz meets him.
The collision detonates outward, white energy screaming into existence as their forces grind against each other. I feel it scorch my skin just standing nearby. My knees buckle. Sage drops to one knee, teeth clenched.
Nazz does not flinch.
He drives his forehead into Malfious's face. Once. Twice. A third time.
"We aren't two beings," Nazz snarls, striking again. "We're one."
Malfious snarls back, slamming a knee into Nazz's ribs hard enough to shatter stone behind him. Nazz barely reacts. He answers with a punch that caves Malfious's chest inward, energy rippling like broken glass.
I feel it in my head. In my chest. In the shared echo where he used to live.
This is not possession.
This is collaboration without consent.
Armillo steps in again, slamming both fists down, Unbreak expanding outward in a crushing wave. The force pins Malfious in place for half a second.
It is enough.
Nazz's arm spears forward.
Straight through Malfious's chest.
He grips something inside. Twists.
Rips.
The heart comes free, writhing, screaming without sound.
Nazz does not hesitate.
He eats it.
The energy backlash throws me off my feet. Sage screams my name. The chamber goes silent all at once, like the universe sucked in a breath and forgot how to release it.
Malfious's body collapses, empty, twitching.
Nazz lands back in the ruins, boots cracking stone, and immediately turns, catching Sage as the remaining debris gives way. He lowers her carefully. Almost gently.
She blinks awake.
"…V?" she asks.
I push myself up, heart hammering. "I'm here."
Nazz straightens, looking between us, then at Armillo.
"So," he says. "One piece secured. Several still missing."
Armillo studies him, ancient and unblinking. "You speak of us as objects."
Nazz smiles, sharp and humorless. "Everything is an object when it breaks eventually."
He turns his gaze skyward, as if he can already feel the others.
"Let's keep moving," he says. "The rest won't wait. And neither will he."