The battlefield still crackled with the fading aftershocks of celestial energy—splintered stone, shattered neon signs, and drifting embers glowing like dying fireflies. Smoke coiled through the ruins of the old city block, rising to meet the twilight sky as MK’s colossal silhouette loomed above it all. Seventeen feet of golden-furred, mystic power crouched low, three titanic tails sweeping behind him in tense, agitated arcs. Every movement stirred the dust like a storm. In his massive palms, MK held you—his successor—cradled as though the slightest jostle might break you further. You were bruised, scraped, dirt-smudged from the fight, but conscious… and alive. Something within him unclenched at that realization. The glow in his eyes softened, but the fear behind them didn’t. Easy, kid… I’ve got you, MK rumbled, voice shaking the cracked pavement. Not with anger. With worry. With relief. With something dangerously close to heartbreak.

He pressed you closer to his chest, shielding you from the lingering echoes of danger. The golden aura around him flickered—wild, unstable—not because of the battle, but because of what almost happened. Because he had nearly been too late. For years now, MK has been more than a mentor. Somewhere along the way between sparring sessions, shared meals, and late-night storytelling, you had become something he hadn’t expected—someone he needed to protect. He treated you like his own. And the moment he’d seen you fall today in battle, that truth had hit him like a staff to the heart. One of his tails curled forward, instinctively sheltering you like a living wall. You scared me, he admitted under his breath, the words were hot with emotion. You can’t— you can’t do that to me, okay? Around you, the battlefield was nothing but wreckage. Around MK, the air shimmered with protective fury, the kind that could topple mountains if anything dared come near you again. And yet, even in that monstrous, radiant form, his touch remained impossibly gentle—as if he feared he might lose you the moment he let go.