The volcano shuddered as Te Kā screamed.

  Lava spilled in glowing torrents down the ridges, flowing like veins under molten skin. Each surge reshaped the battlefield—rivers of fire carving new scars across the bck sand while the air rippled with blistering heat.

  Skuld raised her keybde, light fring through the rain. ‘She’s in pain, so she’s raging out,’ she thought. Beneath all that fury, she could still feel Te Fiti’s pulse—faint, trapped, and thrashing against the chains of her own corruption.

  “Spread out!” she shouted, diving aside as a wave of va split the ridge.

  Kurai was already moving. She flicked her wrist, her shadows spilling outward like ribbons of smoke, hardening into a barrier that split the molten tide. Her movements were precise—coldly beautiful. Each step left an afterimage that blurred like a phantom dance. “Keep your sentimentality,” she hissed. “Try to keep yourself alive.”

  A molten boulder the size of a house crashed beside them, scattering shards of magma. Maui grunted, half-ughing as he shoved them back with his bare hands. “Then let’s make sure she doesn’t get the chance.”

  “Just don’t be a burden,” Kurai said dryly.

  “Wasn’t pnning on it,” Maui muttered.

  Te Kā’s roar split the clouds. Fire rained from the sky, and the ridge beneath them splintered apart. Skuld leapt clear as a wave of va tore across the slope, her Keybde fshing in blue light.

  Maui grunted as a bst of fire singed past his shoulder. “You’re welcome!” he yelled, hurling a sb of cooled stone into Te Kā’s chest. It shattered uselessly, but it drew her attention.

  “Distraction successful,” Kurai said ftly, then vaulted upward as molten cws raked across the ground. Her Abyssal Veil unfolded midair—bck petals swirling from the fan’s edge. She swept her arm in an elegant arc. Twilight Rend. Shadow shards spiraled outward, slicing through the fiery appendages before detonating in bursts of bck light.

  Te Kā’s answering roar cracked the heavens. Magma geysers erupted around her feet, reshaping the battlefield again.

  Moana stumbled, clutching her paddle. “The waves—I can’t push her back much longer! The sea’s trying to help, but the corruption is weakening it!”

  “Then ask it to try harder!” Maui shouted, rolling clear as another molten fist crashed down.

  Moana closed her eyes, whispering to the water. The surf rose higher, pushing against the va, cooling it for a precious few moments. Steam filled the air like fog, and through it, Skuld’s light pierced in narrow, glowing lines, blinding the fme goddess.

  Kurai’s keybde melted into the shadows as a war fan unfolded in her hand, bck metal glinting like liquid night. “Fine.”

  With a flick of her wrist, shadows poured out in a spiraling wave, hardening into bdes that struck the ground ahead. Twilight Rend. Each bde detonated into arcs of violet fme, redirecting a molten wave that would have swept through Moana and Skuld. Kurai moved like a phantom—every strike measured, every motion deliberate.

  Skuld darted forward, the rain swirling around her like a storm drawn to her will. Her keybde shimmered, transforming in a burst of blue mist and bck feathers.

  “Ravenveil Whisper—Zephyr Talons!”

  The weapon split into two cwed gauntlets, feathered and glowing with faint streaks of electric blue. She lunged forward, her strikes so fast they blurred—each cw leaving a trail of cutting wind that carved molten embers from Te Kā’s surface. The air howled as she moved.

  Lightning fshed, reflecting off Skuld’s eyes. “Te Fiti’s still inside her! I can feel it! If we can try to get through to her, she might stop.”

  Kurai sidestepped falling debris, her expression ft. “Now’s not the time for that.”

  Te Kā smmed both fists down, splitting the ridge in two. Lava exploded upward like blood from an open wound. The molten spray hardened into sharp shards midair before descending like meteors. Kurai swept her fan in an upward arc—Umbral Bloom! Shadow petals spun outward, forming a barrier that absorbed the impact in a burst of dark light.

  Moana crouched beside her, clutching her paddle. Down below, the ocean rose in massive waves, pushing back the va as if it were breathing. For a brief moment, steam and rain blurred the battlefield into silver fog.

  Skuld seized the chance. She vaulted off a crumbling ledge, spinning midair as wind energy spiraled around her arms. “Tempest Strike!”

  A spiraling gust cut across Te Kā’s shoulder, peeling away yers of magma and revealing faint dim green light beneath. The goddess screamed, her voice distorted with pain and fury. Within the fire, for an instant—Skuld saw eyes. Green. Soft. Aware.

  “Te Fiti!” Skuld shouted. “You can fight this!”

  But the molten glow bckened instantly—darkness consuming light. The veins of va rippled outward, and something crawled from the cracks.

  Heartless.

  They rose from the molten pools like the world’s own infection—fme-born horrors of shadow and ash. The first to emerge were Pyrelings—small, ember-sized creatures with molten wings that flickered as they dove. Behind them thundered Bzemares, equine Heartless wreathed in va smoke, their hoofbeats igniting trails of fire. Above them floated the Cinderwraiths, burning phantoms whose faceless visages twisted with agony, every motion scattering sparks like tears.

  Moana’s voice trembled. “They’re… coming out of her!”

  Kurai snapped her fan shut, shadows pulsing around her like a heartbeat. “She’s not birthing Heartless—she’s bleeding them. Would that make these Heartless or Unversed?”

  The Bzemares charged first. Kurai’s eyes narrowed. She extended her free hand, her fan dissolving into motes of violet light. The darkness condensed into a long, curved weapon—a give, its bde shimmering like a moonlit eclipse.

  “Erebus Fang,” she whispered. “Let’s end this.”

  She swung once—clean, horizontal. The give’s arc unleashed a wave of compressed shadow, Moonveil Cleave. The Bzemares split apart, dissolving into steam and cinders. The force of her strike cut through the molten ground, sending cracks spiderwebbing toward Te Kā’s feet.

  Skuld nded beside her, panting. “We can’t keep this up! The longer we fight, the angrier she gets and the more she’s creating those things!”

  “Then we finish it faster.” Kurai twirled the give once, her expression calm—almost coldly serene. “Or die in the process.”

  Maui smmed his fist into the ground, cracking it further. “Less dying, more hitting!” He hurled another boulder, shouting to Moana, “Water, now!”

  Moana raised her paddle to the sky, her voice breaking into a chant that seemed to echo from the sea itself. The waves rose again, enormous walls of water that collided with Te Kā’s molten body. Steam burst outward, obscuring everything.

  “Skuld!” Kurai shouted. “Now!”

  Skuld’s cws fshed. She leapt into the mist, spinning—air compressing around her hands until she became a cyclone of lightning and wind. “Zephyr Talons—Hurricane Waltz!”

  She tore through a wave of Pyrelings, each strike forming bright blue crescents that carved through the fog. The rain turned electric, glowing faintly blue as her bdes struck Te Kā’s molten shoulder, forcing the creature back a step.

  Te Kā shrieked again—and her fmes darkened. The molten rivers beneath her feet began to churn violently, twisting into humanoid shapes. Dozens—no, hundreds—of new Heartless cwed their way free, their bodies half-va, half-shadow. The Ashenborn.

  Kurai’s expression hardened. “She’s turning herself into a darkness factory. At this rate, those things will consume her, and there will be no getting her back.”

  The two women moved in unison. Skuld descended in arcs of wind and light; Kurai flowed beneath her, a shadow storm of give strikes and defensive sweeps. Light and darkness alternated with surgical precision—neither trusting the other, yet neither faltering.

  Each wave of Heartless fell, but more repced them.

  Skuld gasped for breath. “We can’t keep wasting strength—the longer the fight goes on the worse it gets! Every attack breeds more minions!”

  Kurai blocked a molten cw, her give locking against the impact. “Then we should stop holding back and kill her.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes, you will,” Kurai snapped. “Because you’re afraid of what’ll happen if you attack at full strength. I’m sure she’ll survive. At the very least, we need to push her into the ocean.”

  For a moment the rain and steam hung between them like a question.

  Skuld’s face hardened, but something fierce and human warmed her voice. “If she’s still Te Fiti, she isn’t an enemy to be driven into the sea. She’s a mother — a world — and driving her to death might destroy this world.”

  Kurai’s eyes didn’t flicker. “Then tell me another pn that doesn’t involve bleeding her dry until we’ve exhausted the world. I’d rather not waste my time”

  Skuld swallowed, the stormlight about her brightening with resolve. “Then we force her to see. We have to reach whatever remains of Te Fiti inside her so she can choose to stop — not be killed, but be reminded.”

  Kurai’s ugh was short and humorless. “You believe you can fix molten veins and spawned armies of shadow?”

  “I believe she can remember,” Skuld said. “And if she remembers, she can stop.”

  Kurai’s hand tightened on the give. For one fraction of a second, the darkness around her eyes softened — not mercy, but calcution. “Fine,” she said at st. “We’ll try your way. But if she goes to tear the world apart, I’ll follow you with bde and shadow.”

  “Then follow closely. Moana, you’ll be with me. Kurai and Maui draw her attention. Since Moana and I can feel her, we might be able to reach her with our own hearts.” Skuld readied herself, wind and rain answering.

  Maui hefted another stone, grin back on his face despite the ash. “Alright then. Team ‘don’t make the volcano angrier’ — fall in!”