The plains were a sea of liquid fire.
Two figures stood in the inferno, the air between them shimmering with heat. Su Han did not move. He was listening. He could feel the chaotic energy of the Abyss creatures in the city winking out, one by one. His people were winning.
He had time. La Signora did not.
She was a living sacrifice, burning her own life force to fuel the form of the Crimson Witch of Flame. She was in a race against her own death. If she won, she could use her Cryo Delusion to re-seal the fire.
If she lost, she would be nothing but ash in this hell of her own making.
"Embrace the infernal darkness, Su Han," her voice, a layered chorus of rage, echoed from the flames. "Today, one of us dies! The plan has failed again. If I kill you, I can still return to Snezhnaya. If I fail… heh, then I have no reason to return at all."
Three massive fireballs, each the size of a carriage, tore from the sky like meteors.
Signora was no fool. She had studied him. She knew his Observation Haki made him untouchable in close quarters. She knew his weakness.
*You can't dodge an attack that vaporizes a thousand meters around you.*
The fireballs formed a perfect triangle, locking him in. "This is for Rostam!" she shrieked, her eyes burning with the triumphant joy of her impending vengeance. "Burn in the hell you helped create!"
BOOM.
The world vanished in a blinding white flash. The ground melted. A tidal wave of liquid flame consumed the spot where Su Han had been.
Signora laughed, a terrible, broken sound. "Is that all you had? I've studied you! The power you're so proud of will be your funeral pyre!"
The world was now a sea of fire. But as her laughter died, a voice cut through the roar of the flames, calm and utterly unworried.
"Oh? Is *this* your power? It's not nearly enough."
Her laughter choked in her throat.
A figure walked out of the inferno, untouched. The flames lapped at him, but they could not burn. A faint, invisible barrier—his Conqueror's Haki—shimmered two centimeters from his skin, repelling the inferno.
He looked at her, his expression not of anger, but of pity.
"Have you ever considered," he said, his voice quiet but cutting through the roar, "how many people in Mondstadt will become just like you because of what you've done today? How many will watch their homes and families burn?"
"You—"
"The dragon-slayer who becomes the dragon," Su Han finished.
"YOU KNOW NOTHING!" she screamed, the sound ripping from her very soul.
He had struck the one nerve she had left. He had spoken of *him*. Of Rostam. Of the clean, noble knight who died in a land of filth while she, the pure maiden, was away. Of the world that had mocked her grief, of the Archons who had done *nothing*.
Her faith had burned away with her body, leaving only this. Revenge.
"You know nothing of my pain!" she roared, her sanity shattering. "You will not just die! YOU WILL BE UNMADE!"
She had been holding back. Now, she let it all go.
The crimson fire around her turned a toxic, abyssal black. The ground didn't just burn; it *died*. Eight massive, swirling tornadoes of black fire erupted, each twenty meters tall. Hounds of fire and liquid-ember beasts clawed their way from the ground, a grotesque army born of her five hundred years of agony.
"KILL HIM!" she shrieked, "KILL THE MAN WHO DARES TO SPEAK HIS NAME!"
Su Han watched the apocalypse descend on him. He knew, then, that she was lost.
He sighed. "She's pitiful. A woman who lost her love, only to be fed lies by the Abyss and used as a tool by the Tsaritsa. But pity doesn't change what's in front of me."
He had to end this.
He unleashed his Conqueror's Haki. The world *screamed*. The eight fire-tornadoes froze in place, their power held in stasis by his sheer will.
"Now," he whispered, "it's time to see if this is even possible."
He drew the Tessusaiga, but it wasn't the Qilin-form or the Dragon-form. He needed something new.
He forced his powers to merge.
He felt the scorching, holy heat of the **Pure Yang True Fire**...
And the absolute-zero chill of the **Ice Release Kekkei Genkai**.
They were opposites. They tore at each other within his soul, threatening to rip him apart. But then, he channeled the **Natural Energy** from Senjutsu—the ultimate binder.
The two warring forces didn't just coexist; they *fused*.
The holy fire did not extinguish the ice. The ice did not dull the flame. They spun, faster and faster, forming a perfect, churning vortex of impossible energy in his core.
His **Azure Dragon Bloodline** roared, stabilizing the volatile mix. His **Purification Power** ignited it.
The silver blade of the Tessusaiga began to glow, not with one color, but with a pure, blinding, silver-white light that was both holy and terrifying. It was a light of absolute, perfect balance.
The flaming hellscape around them was vaporized, not by fire or ice, but by a holy light that simply *erased* the darkness.
La Signora, her senses overwhelmed, froze in terror.
"What is this power?" she stammered, her rage for the first time eclipsed by fear. "Why does it… why does it feel so *sacred*?"
In that moment of hesitation, he appeared before her.
He looked at the woman burning alive, her face a mask of ruined flesh and ancient grief, and he made his choice.
"Rosalyne," he said, his voice full of a terrible mercy. "You have been in pain for far too long."
The silver-white blade did not slash. He simply touched her with its flat.
"Be at peace."
The sacred, balanced power surged into her. It did not destroy her. It *purified* her.
It did not just neutralize the Crimson Witch's flame; it *erased* the Abyssal corruption, it *doused* the burning hatred, and it *shattered* the Cryo Delusion that held her together.
Her armor, her mask, her very form as the Crimson Witch—all of it dissolved into dust.
In the air, her body, now free of its fiery prison, went limp. Her scorched, monstrous features faded, revealing the face of the young woman she had been, her eyes closed, her expression one of utter exhaustion. She fell.
And fell.
And fell.
---
...How much time had passed?
When Rosalyne opened her eyes, the first thing she felt was... nothing. The constant, agonizing *burning* that had been her only companion for five hundred years was gone. Her skin was not on fire. Her heart was not a coal of hatred.
She was just… tired.
"Sister, you're awake!"
Rosalyne's vision focused. A tiny girl in a red dress with a massive backpack was looking at her, her eyes wide with curiosity.
"Klee brought you some congee! Are you hungry?"
Klee?
Rosalyne looked around. She was in a simple, clean room. Not a palace, not a battlefield. Her own scorched, monstrous hands were gone, replaced by... pale, human hands, wrapped in bandages.
She had been healed.
"Where is he?" she whispered, her voice a raw croak.
"Oh! Big Brother Su Han is outside helping the Knights fix the city!" Klee chirped. "He said you were attacked by the bad-guy Fatui and your clothes all got burned up. But don't worry! Big Brother already healed you! He said Klee has to take care of you and you can rest here. We won't charge you any money!"
In the past, Rosalyne would have scoffed at such "charity."
But now, she was just... empty. She was weak.
And she was, for the first time in centuries, no longer in pain.
With Klee's help, she took a sip of the congee. It was surprisingly good, and she could feel a strange energy within it, slowly restoring her strength. By the time the bowl was empty, she could already sit up.
Outside the window, she could see knights repairing the city walls. Down below, singers were helping pass supplies.
This familiar, peaceful scene... it was Mondstadt.
It was the home she had failed to save, the home she had tried to destroy. And now, it was the home that had, for some reason, saved her.