I exhaled slowly as the battle within Rin's mindscape finally reached its conclusion, the storm of corrupted mana that had defined her existence for seventeen years gradually subsiding into something approaching peace. Her mental form rested limply in my embrace, the fierce energy that had driven her toward destruction now reduced to exhausted silence.
'Stubborn girl,' I thought with a mixture of affection and exasperation. Even when I had entered her mind with the express purpose of healing her, Rin's first instinct had been to redirect my efforts toward killing her. Not out of selfishness or cowardice, but from grim resolve to protect the world from the devastation she feared she would inevitably cause.
