The Whisperer didn't want to leave.
It had found a home in Inyocha's heart a crack that hadn't fully healed, a wound that was still bleeding. And it fought back with everything it had.
Lee saw visions as the light poured into his brother visions of Inyocha's past, of the twelve years he'd spent alone in the Sunken City, of the hunger and fear and desperation that had shaped him into the Shadow Weaver.
He saw the moment Inyocha had first consumed a soul a demon that had attacked him in the darkness. The power had been intoxicating. Addictive. And Inyocha, starving and alone, had taken more. And more. And more.
He saw the moment Inyocha had built the Eclipse Engine not out of malice, but out of desperation. He had seen the Hollow King in his dreams, had felt the thing's hunger pressing against the walls of reality, and he had thought foolishly, desperately that if he could control the door, he could control what came through.
He saw the moment Inyocha had realized his mistake the moment the engine had started feeding on its own, the moment the door had started opening, the moment he had understood that he was no longer in control.
And he saw the moment Inyocha had chosen to fight back to reach out to the Emerald Coalition, to send the messenger that had brought Lee to the Lotus Archipelago.
He wanted to be saved, Lee realized. Even then. Even at his darkest. He wanted someone to stop him.
The golden light surged.
The Whisperer screamed not through Mara's lips, but through Inyocha's, a sound of pure, distilled hatred.
"YOU CAN'T SAVE HIM!" the Whisperer shrieked. "HE'S MINE! HE'S ALWAYS BEEN MINE!"
"He's not yours," Lee said. "He's not anyone's. He's his own person. And he's choosing the light."
"No! NO!"
The darkness in Inyocha's chest convulsed and then shattered, exploding outward in a wave of shadow that knocked Lee off his feet.
When he looked up, Inyocha was on his knees, gasping, his eyes brown again clearer than Lee had ever seen them.
And the Whisperer was gone.
Not dead. Lee could feel it slithering away, wounded but alive, retreating to the shadows to lick its wounds and plan its next attack.
But for now, for this moment, it was defeated.
"Inyocha?" Lee crawled to his brother's side. "Are you okay?"
Inyocha looked up. His face was wet with tears, but he was smiling a real smile, fragile and uncertain, but real.
"I can still feel it," he said. "The hunger. The darkness. It's still there."
"I know."
"But it's quieter now. Like... like it's been beaten. Like it knows it can't win."
Lee pulled his brother into a hug. "That's because it can't. Not as long as we're together."
Inyocha hugged him back tight, desperate, grateful.
"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you for not giving up on me."
"Never," Lee said. "I will never give up on you."