The jungle settled into uneasy silence after the skirmish. No more movement.
Just the quiet breathing of soldiers on edge—and the heavy weight of the girl's words echoing in my skull.
"You're not him."
She shouldn't have known. Couldn't have. And yet, when she looked at me, it wasn't with the terror most people gave Capitano.
It was pity.
The others secured her in the ruined outpost. I told them to leave me alone for the night. They obeyed without hesitation.
Now I'm sitting against a stone wall, away from the torches, my back to the jungle and the stars just barely visible above the canopy. I close my eyes for a second.
Just a second.
And the world shifts.
The jungle is gone.
So is the Citadel. The armor. Even my body feels… different. Smaller. Lighter. Human.
I'm standing in a courtyard of blackened stone, somewhere deep underground. Blood stains the ground. The air smells like iron and ash.
There are voices. Arguing. No—pleading.
I turn.
A man is kneeling before a masked figure—Capitano. But not the version I see in mirrors.
This one is unscarred. Younger. The armor less heavy. His mask cracked down the center, not yet whole.
"You don't have to do this," the kneeling man says. "We can still—there's another way."
Capitano says nothing.
His hand rises.
And I feel it—like I'm holding the sword with him. Like I am him.
A black blade, not made of metal. Something older. Hungrier.
"I gave up my name," Capitano says—my voice, but twisted, hollowed out. "My face. My soul. And you ask me to hesitate?"
He drives the blade down.
I scream.
I jolt awake, gasping.
My hand instinctively clutches at my chest. The mask is still on. The armor. I'm back.
But I can still feel it. The blood on my hands. The fire. The choice.
A name lost.
A face erased.
Something buried in this body—no, this soul—is clawing its way back to the surface.
I was never just reborn.
I was merged.
Capitano isn't gone.
He's waiting.
Watching.
And I don't know if I'm strong enough to stop him from taking it all back.