My SuperVillain System: Building Legion of SSS-Ranked SuperHeroines
Chapter 111 - Seleyena’s Despair

Chapter 111: Chapter 111 - Seleyena’s Despair

The heat kept rising. A living, breathing thing—pressing, suffocating, alive.

Seleyena’s vision trembled. Her lashes fluttered, blurred with tears that refused to fall. They burned instead, vaporizing before they could even streak her cheeks. Her throat clenched—tight as a noose. She tried to speak, but her lips only quivered.

Then she saw it again—his skin. The skin along his shoulder.

It was blackening. Peeling.

Bits of him were sloughing away—raw, red, and cracked like earth in drought. His chest heaved with restraint, but she could feel it. The tremble in him. The shake in his grip. The heat licking over her like an omen, but she knew it wasn’t hers.

It was his.

The burning smell—it wasn’t from the villa. Not entirely.

It was him.

Her Cruxius.

Her voice broke.

"N-No... no... no, no please—!" A sob ripped from her throat, jagged and high.

"P-Please... j-just—just leave me! Leave me here!"

She screamed it.

Not because she wanted to die.

But because she couldn’t bear this.

Couldn’t watch him suffer.

Couldn’t watch the man who looked at her like she was everything burn alive just to save her.

She clutched at him weakly, her fingers curling against his ruined skin as if to push him away—only to recoil in horror at how hot he was. How his back sizzled beneath her palm.

"Please!" she sobbed again, voice splintering. "I-I can’t—I c-can’t take this—Cruxius—y-you’re..."

Her whole body shook. Her limbs, useless. Her soul, screaming.

Her lips grazed his cheek. Her tears finally fell—but the moment they touched his skin, they hissed, turning to steam.

She choked.

A hiccup stumbled out of her mouth.

"I-I thought... I thought you’d run... b-but... y-you stayed, you..." A soft whimper. "You’re carrying me... e-even when it’s... it’s k-killing you..."

The fire roared. The walls collapsed behind them.

But he didn’t stop.

Couldn’t stop.

Even when his heel dragged through flame again—more skin crisping off, the smell of it nearly making her vomit.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, shaking her head, voice quaking. "I’m so sorry, I—I should’ve been stronger—I shouldn’t have made you—!"

Another hiccup. Wet and gasping.

Her voice grew smaller, like a girl begging a god who wouldn’t listen.

"I don’t want this... Not like this—Cruxius, please... please just leave..."

She buried her face in his neck, her body pressing tighter to him as if she could shield him with her broken self. Her tears rained down, each one meeting his burned skin like curses.

"Okay," he said and suddenly halted.

But it wasn’t a promise, or surrender, or even a breath of hope—it was something far colder, far deeper.

She didn’t understand it right away.

Not until his arms shifted. Not until the searing heat of his chest pulled away from her broken frame and the trembling of his steps finally stopped.

She felt herself descending, gently, slowly, as though he were laying her down in a bed of feathers and not on cracked stone that radiated waves of unbearable heat.

Her back met the ground with a dull thud, and her body gave no resistance.

Everything inside her was hollow.

Her arms slipped from his shoulders like wilted vines. Her fingers twitched, reaching instinctively—just for the brush of his skin, a last connection—but he was already pulling back. Already turning away.

Her eyes opened wide.

"No..." she mouthed, her voice nothing more than dry air.

She watched him step back, the space between them growing too fast, too final.

No farewell, no look, no word—only the stench of burning flesh trailing behind him.

Her chest constricted as if something vital had been ripped out and tossed into the flames.

She wanted to scream again, to beg, to cry harder than she had ever cried before—but no sound came out. Her lungs had given up, or maybe it was her heart.

He was leaving her.

No... he was saving her.

And the truth of it—his choice, his sacrifice—landed in her like a blade twisting through her ribs.

She lay there, tears slipping silently down her cheeks only to hiss and vanish into steam before they could touch her jaw.

The stone beneath her pulsed with angry warmth, searing her bare skin, but even that pain faded beneath the ache in her chest.

A hollow, slow-dripping pain whispered this wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

But at least... he would live.

Her cracked lips moved, barely making sound, but her heart poured through every syllable. "It’s my fault... I deserve this..."

The words tasted like ashes. Her fingers curled weakly against the stone. The fire around her surged higher, and her skin was starting to feel numb.

The heat was pulling the moisture from her mouth, her eyes, her soul.

She gasped faintly, staring up at the broken ceiling, the flames, the world crumbling above her, and the only thought that echoed was ’No, at least he’ll be safe... he’ll be safe...’

And then—

A weight slammed into her. Heavy. Wet. Cold.

She gasped—a visceral, instinctual noise—as something soaked and suffocating covered her entirely.

She jolted under it.

Her body arched off the ground as the shock of ice-cold water burst through her overheated skin, crawling into every pore and pulling a breathless scream from her throat.

Her vision blurred with water and steam.

The blanket was soaked to the core, drenching her instantly, pressing her into the stone as if to extinguish her along with the fire.

And then she looked up.

Her heart stuttered.

He was standing over her.

Not whole. Not human. Not really.

His body—ruined.

Skin blackened, peeled back in bleeding strips, flesh raw and blistering.

His hair—what was left of it—still smoked, strands curling and melting into his scalp.

Half his face was red and swollen, cheek torn open, teeth visible through the exposed meat.

And yet... he was smiling.

A smile that didn’t care about pain. A smile that had endured the fire and come back for her anyway after getting a blanket and using water bottles from the refrigerator to make it wet.

"You’re mine, Seleyena," he whispered, voice hoarse, guttural—like his throat was lined with coals and blood.

She couldn’t move.

Not because of the cold. Not because of the fear.

But because of him.

"Not even death can part us..."

As his words left his mouth, his left hand sprawled flat, his head turning back, falling directly lifeless like a rag doll on the burning floor.

Thud

Seleyena, with her tears and body wrapped in that cold blanket, kept looking towards Cruxius, blinking before her heart stopped as the realization dawned on her.

"CRU-CRUXIUS—!?" She scrambled—hands slipping over the soaked stone, crawling on all fours as if the fire beneath couldn’t touch her anymore, as if pain didn’t matter now.

"No—no, no, no—Cruxius!?" she screamed again, but his name cracked halfway out of her throat.

Her palms flattened on his chest—no rise, no fall. Just stillness. Too still.

Her fingers curled into the charred remnants of his shirt, pulling him toward her, begging the universe to rewind just ten seconds.

"Don’t do this to me—" Her voice broke.

Her forehead pressed to his, her tears soaking into the wreckage of his skin, uncaring of the steam, uncaring of the smell.

All she wanted was the sound of his breath. One more breath. Just one.

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