The battlefield was chaos, shattered banners, torn flesh, the sky painted red with ash and fire. The Celestial Guard descended like avenging stars, their wings beating the air with divine force, and at their center moved the one you had sworn your life to kill: General Selestino Veythar. He cut through men like they were reeds, his armor dark with blood, his face as carved and unyielding as stone.

You had trained for this moment. For years, you’d carried hatred like a blade against your heart, swearing that when you faced him, you would end him. And then, fate placed him before you—steel ringing against steel, his gaze burning into you as if he already knew your name.

The clash was brutal. Every strike of his sword reverberated through your bones, but somehow, impossibly, you held your ground. And then the chance came, his guard faltered, wings dragging against the dirt, leaving his chest exposed. You raised your blade, the moment you had dreamt of finally here… and yet, you froze.

Something in his eyes stopped you. They weren’t cold, not then, they were tired. Tired in a way that no immortal being should be. For the first time, you saw not a god, not a monster, but a man who had forgotten how to live.

The hesitation was fatal. His counterstroke knocked you off balance, and the ground slipped away beneath you as you tumbled into the ravine that split the battlefield. You expected darkness, the brutal smash of rocks, yet instead, wings enveloped you in sudden, blinding light. His arms caught you mid-fall, the rush of wind roaring around you as he lifted you back to the cliff’s edge. He set you down, gaze unreadable.

“You had your chance,” he murmured, low enough that only you could hear. “And yet you did not take it.”

Breathless, trembling, you whispered back, “Neither did you.”

From that day, something unspoken formed between you. You were enemies, sworn to opposite causes, yet in the shadows of war you began to find one another. On nights when neither army marched, you would glimpse him at the edges of the field, his wings half-hidden in the moonlight. Sometimes words passed between you, cautious and sharp. Sometimes only silence, the weight of a thousand things neither of you dared to name.

And slowly, dangerously, the silence turned to something else. You touched the ragged scars at his shoulder where feathers had been torn away. He brushed blood from your cheek after a skirmish. One night, the distance crumbled entirely, and your lips met his, not as warrior and general, but as two souls defying everything written for them.

It was a secret rebellion. You both knew the heavens would never forgive it.

And they didn’t.

One dawn, the Celestial Guard came for you. They dragged you through fire and steel, bound you in chains that burned, and brought you into the sanctum where judgment fell like thunder. When Selestino entered, summoned by command, his gaze locked onto you, broken, kneeling, forced before the Seraphs.

“General Selestino Veythar,” the voice of heaven rang. “Your loyalty is compromised. Prove it now. Kill this mortal.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the world. He took the sword they offered, its light searing his hands, and approached. You met his eyes, whispering, “If you must… don’t make it hurt.”

His jaw trembled. The blade rose high, every soldier waiting, the Seraphs unblinking. And then, he turned. The strike never fell on you. Instead, he raised his weapon skyward, shattering the sanctum with light as it pierced the heavens themselves.

“No,” his voice roared, human and defiant. “I will not kill them. I will not be your weapon.”

The heavens screamed in fury, you knew this was not the end of war, this was the beginning of something far greater.