It began with silence.
No drums. No laughter. No smoke dancing from the village fires.
Just a hush that settled over Natlan like a shroud—unnatural, suffocating.
I felt it before I saw it. Like something ancient had stirred beneath the crust of the earth, dragging with it the weight of forgotten gods and broken oaths. Even the volcanoes had gone still.
Mavuika met my eyes across the training yard.
"They're here."
I didn't need to ask who.
The Abyss had come to Natlan.
They did not arrive with banners or demands. They bled from the cracks in the land—seeping through shadows, twisting trees into withered limbs, turning beasts into husks.
Their leader was tall, draped in layers of rotting silk and Voidsteel, a face hidden beneath a veil of emptiness. A Herald. One I'd fought before—as Capitano.
But now, I was only Kael.
And yet, fire stirred in my chest. Not the Gnosis—I'd left that behind. This was something else. Something born in Natlan. Forged by choice, not conquest.
The village defenders stood ready. Spears etched with obsidian, fire charms looped around wrists, warriors chanting not for fear—but to remember who they were.
Mavuika stood at the front, her arms glowing with pyro sigils that pulsed like a heartbeat. Her voice was steady. "We hold the line. We burn the dark. We do not run."
And beside her, I stepped forward.
She glanced sideways. "You sure you're ready for this? Kael?"
I looked past her, at the shadows stretching across the valley. At the Herald raising a hand, calling forth serpents of void, dragging light into their wake.
"No," I said. "But he is."
And I let it come back.
Not the full weight. Not the cold discipline of the Harbinger—but the strength. The will.
The man I was. The one I am. The one I could still become.
The first clash was chaos.
The Abyss surged, silent and cold. Pyro blades lit the sky in streaks of gold. I moved through them like smoke through a battlefield—striking, shielding, commanding—not with fear, but with purpose.
Abyss mages fell. The ground split open with molten fury. Mavuika fought like flame itself—wild, beautiful, untamed.
But the Herald was different.
He met me at the center of the battle, dark magic swirling around his hands like coiled vipers. He studied me—not Kael, not the maskless man—but Capitano.
"You are not as hidden as you think," he rasped.
"Neither are you," I replied—and slammed my fist into the earth, releasing a burst of flame that wasn't Pyro Vision, wasn't Fatui tech—just will made fire.
The Herald screamed. Light returned.
When the sun rose, Natlan still stood. Ash rained from the sky, but the village was alive. We had held.
And the people looked at me differently now.
Not with fear. Not reverence.
Recognition.
Not as Capitano. Not entirely. But not only Kael either.
Something in between.
Later, Mavuika sat beside me, bruised but grinning.
"You held back," she said.
"I didn't want to," I admitted.
She leaned back. "Good. That means you're not him anymore."
I watched the flames flicker in the village square—children dancing again, warriors laughing through wounds.
"No," I said. "But he's still in me."
She glanced over. "Then make him yours."
As she walked away " How about you stay at Natlan for a while to try and know yourself better?" Well I went to Natlan for a break soooo....