As Cyrus walked back to his hotel to update his parents he noticed something.
The whole of the city become eerily very suddenly.
Cyrus noticed it from the Axis Atrium stairwell, halfway up, one hand on the rail. This wasn't the careful quiet from earlier, this was different. Too even. Too controlled. Like something had stopped pressing altogether.
He checked his wrist display.
Dreamwave activity across the city had dropped.
Not stabilized.Withdrawn.
"That's not good," he murmured.
Gengar hovered beside him, ears twitching. Its shadow stretched longer than it should have, even under steady lighting.
"Gen."
"I know."
Cyrus moved to the balcony again. The divide still glowed, but the dark half no longer pulsed. The pressure that had blanketed the city, constant, oppressive, was gone.
Instead, something else replaced it.
Focus.
Cyrus felt it settle on him like a hand between his shoulder blades.
He didn't need data to confirm it. His breath caught slightly, chest tightening, a familiar tug at the edge of sleep trying to pull him sideways. Not an attack. Not a dream.
Attention.
"Alright," he said quietly. "That answers that."
The sky over the dark half didn't shift this time.
It stilled.
Mega Darkrai didn't loom. Didn't posture. Its presence compressed, folding inward until the city itself was no longer the target. Street by street, block by block, the nightmare pressure retreated, converging instead on the neutral zone.
On him.
Cyrus braced his hands on the railing. Ditto tightened instinctively, scarf pulling snug. Meltan vibrated once, sharply, then stilled.
Gengar rose until it was eye-level with Cyrus, face unreadable.
"I'm awake," Cyrus said. "You don't need to..."
The world tilted.
Not physically. Conceptually.
The city blurred, not disappearing, but becoming distant, like a reflection on glass. Cyrus was still standing on the balcony, still breathing, still aware of his team, but something else layered over reality.
A dreamspace without sleep.
Darkrai didn't appear.
It didn't need to.
Cyrus felt the presence as a vast, cold perimeter closing in. not to crush, but to define. To see where the edges were. Images flickered at the margins of his mind: the Divide Line stretching endlessly, the city split and never mended, people learning to live with imbalance because it was easier than fixing it.
"You're wrong," Cyrus said aloud, voice steady despite the weight behind his eyes. "This isn't correction. It's stagnation."
The pressure shifted.
Not anger.
Interest.
And far beyond the city, past the skyline, past the divide, something stirred.
Cyrus gasped as a second presence bloomed into awareness, fragile but undeniable. Pale. Luminous. Unsteady.
Cresselia.
She wasn't ready.
He felt it instantly, the imbalance, the strain. Her aura pushed outward reflexively, lunar energy bleeding into the dreamspace like light through cracked glass. The divide shuddered. Bioluminescent growth flared too bright. Dark flora recoiled, then surged back harder.
The city groaned.
"No," Cyrus whispered. "Not yet."
Cresselia's presence flickered, confused, defensive, awake before recovery had completed. Her influence pressed against Darkrai's narrowing focus, not opposing it cleanly, but distorting it.
The pressure on Cyrus doubled.
He staggered back, catching himself against the railing as pain flared behind his eyes. Gengar reacted instantly, phasing halfway into him, anchoring his consciousness.
"Gengar," it growled, more force than sound.
Cyrus clenched his teeth. "I'm...still...here."
A ring shimmered into existence beside him.
Hoopa leaned out, unusually quiet, eyes sharp instead of playful.
"Oh," it said softly. "That's early."
Cyrus shot it a look. "Don't."
Hoopa raised both hands. "I'm not touching. I'm watching."
The dreamspace trembled. Darkrai's focus tightened further,not withdrawing now, not expanding. Holding. Testing Cyrus against Cresselia's unstable light.
This wasn't a battle.
It was a balance check.
"You see it now," Cyrus said, forcing the words past the pressure. "If you push her like this, the city fractures."
Darkrai didn't deny it.
Cresselia's presence wavered again, weaker this time. Her light dimmed, then flared erratically, bleeding into the divide in uncontrolled waves.
Hoopa tilted its head. "Mmm. Two forces pulling. One anchor."
Cyrus laughed weakly. "I didn't sign up for that job."
Hoopa smiled. "You did when you stood still."
The pressure peaked.
For a heartbeat, Cyrus thought he might lose consciousness, might slip sideways into sleep and let the dreamspace swallow him whole. Ditto squeezed tight. Meltan chimed sharply. Gengar anchored harder, shadow binding him to himself.
Then Cyrus did the only thing he could.
He stopped resisting.
Not surrender.
Acceptance.
He let Darkrai's focus pass through him instead of against him, grounding it, not in fear, not in defiance, but in awareness. He acknowledged Cresselia's light without forcing it outward. He became what he'd promised in the council chamber.
The line.
The pressure eased.
Not gone.But stable.
The city exhaled.
Streetlights steadied. Dreamwave activity flattened, not silent, but manageable. The divide stopped flaring and settled back into its ancient, uneasy equilibrium.
Cresselia's presence withdrew slightly, still awake, but no longer thrashing.
Darkrai's attention lingered on Cyrus a moment longer.
Then loosened.
Not finished.
Just… noted.
The dreamspace peeled away, leaving Cyrus gripping the railing, breath ragged, sweat cooling fast against his skin.
Hoopa floated beside him, unusually subdued.
"…Huh," it said. "You held."
Cyrus didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was hoarse.
"That can't happen again."
Hoopa smiled, not playful this time. "It will."
Cyrus closed his eyes briefly.
Night Four wasn't over.
But the city was no longer the battlefield.
He was.