Anger flickered across Zimbara's face—he had fed on fear for ages; joy and courage were bitter, unfamiliar foods. He drew from the ruin's stones a cluster of black thorns and hurled them, each one sprouting a mirage of a villager's doubt. Children in the square shrank as their doubts became monstrous, but Bheem and Krishna acted in seamless rhythm. Bheem, with raw strength, smashed a thorn into pieces; Krishna, with a soft word and a note, returned each frightened villager's memory to them, knitting their courage back into place.

Bheem tightened his grip on his gada. "Not while I'm breathing," he declared.

Zimbara, now wounded, shifted forms. He breathed images into the air—visions of failure for Bheem, visions of betrayal for Krishna. Bheem saw a future where he could not protect his friends, where laddoos no longer tasted like triumph. He staggered, near to faltering. Krishna stepped close, touching Bheem's shoulder, grounding him. "Courage is not the absence of fear," Krishna whispered, "but the choice to act in its presence." The words were not a lecture but a warm hand. Bheem's jaw set. He felt every friend, every laugh, every small victory—and found his center.

"Will he come back?" asked Chutki, fingers twisted in Bheem's shirt.

The End.