The tears didn't last.
Inyocha wiped them away quickly, his face hardening, the shadows returning to his hands. But something had changed. Something had cracked.
"You're a fool," Inyocha said, but his voice was softer now. "A beautiful, stupid fool."
"I've been told," Lee said.
"The Eclipse Engine... it's not just a weapon." Inyocha turned to look at the machine the screaming faces, the pulsing darkness, the raw suffering that powered it. "It's a door. A door to the place where the things beyond the stars are waiting. I built it because I thought... I thought if I could control the door, I could control what came through."
"And can you?"
Inyocha shook his head. "No. I lost control weeks ago. The engine is feeding on its own now consuming souls faster than I can provide them. It's going to open the door whether I want it to or not. And when it does..."
"The things beyond the stars will come through," Lee finished.
"Not all of them. Just one. The first one. The hungriest one." Inyocha's voice dropped to a whisper. "They call it the Hollow King. It's not a demon. It's not a god. It's something older. Something that's been watching this world since before the suns were born. And when it arrives, it won't just kill us. It will erase us. Every memory. Every trace. Every possibility that we ever existed."
"Then we destroy the engine," Kira said from the doorway. "We blow it up. We burn it to the ground."
"It's not that simple," Ren said. He had followed Kira into the tower, his shadow form still clinging to his skin. "The engine is tied to the souls inside it. If we destroy it, we destroy them too. Thousands of innocent people, gone forever."
"Then what do we do?" Taro asked, his voice shaking.
Lee looked at Inyocha.
Inyocha looked at Lee.
"There might be another way," Inyocha said slowly. "A way to close the door without destroying the souls. But it would require... a sacrifice."
"What kind of sacrifice?"
Inyocha touched the reversed spiral on his chest. "The engine is connected to me. To my soul. I'm the key that keeps the door open. If I were to... sever that connection..."
"You would die," Lee said.
"Not die. Unbecome. I would cease to exist. Not just my body my soul. Everything I am, everything I was, everything I could have been. Gone."
Silence filled the tower.
Then Lee stepped forward.
"No," he said.
"Lee "
"I said no. We'll find another way. We always find another way."
Inyocha laughed a sad, broken sound. "There is no other way, brother. This is the end. This is what I was born for. To be the key. To be the sacrifice. To be the one who closes the door."
"You were born to be my brother," Lee said. "Not a sacrifice. Not a key. A person. And I'm not going to let you throw that away."
"Lee, listen to me "
"No, you listen." Lee grabbed Inyocha by the shoulders, his golden eyes blazing. "I didn't cross a thousand miles and fight through an army of demons to watch you kill yourself. I came here to save you. And I'm going to do it. Whether you like it or not."
Inyocha stared at him.
The shadows around his hands flickered and faded.
And somewhere in the depths of the Eclipse Engine, the Hollow King stirred.