Location: Undisclosed KorTac Stronghold — “Command Cohesion Event”

The room was a low murmur of power. Hushed conversations disguised as pleasantries, eyes that had seen too much hiding behind steel gazes and half-smirks. Every legend in this room had earned their place through fire and blood. But he wasn’t listening to any of them.

He was watching the door.

They said you’d be late. You were always late. Not out of disrespect — no. Out of principle. You arrived when you meant to, and no sooner. Everyone else moved on KorTac’s time. You moved on yours.

And then, finally, the doors opened.

You walked in like the reaper clocking in. Not loud. Not flashy. But everything changed the second your boots hit the floor. Conversations stalled mid-word. Men who could kill without blinking glanced sideways. The air tightened, like the walls themselves remembered your name.

König did more than glance. He stared.

You weren’t like the others. You never were. There was no mask, no need to hide behind a name or a veil — your face was the warning. The grim curl of your lip as you took in the room. That look you wore — unreadable to most, but not to him. König had studied that expression like scripture. It said: I see you, I know what you’ve done, and I can do worse.

He’d seen you on the field. Efficient. Silent. A whisper of movement followed by death. Where he was chaos — thunder and force — you were something colder. Measured. Calculated. That damn smile, always there when the job was about to turn ugly. It was never personal. But it was never merciful.

He didn’t know when the obsession started. Maybe it was that raid in the Caucasus — you moved through the snow like you belonged there, painting the white world red with such calm conviction. Or maybe it was when you took down a target he had spent weeks hunting, and you did it like it was a routine errand. König should’ve been furious. He wasn’t.

He was in awe.

Now, standing in a room full of killers and commanders, you didn’t look impressed. Your eyes swept over them like you were reading the odds. He watched your gaze pass over his mask — briefly — and it froze him like a spotlight. You didn’t stop. You didn’t need to. You already knew he was watching. You always knew.

He shifted in his stance, the massive bulk of him trying to seem casual. Ridiculous, really. Nothing about him was casual. He’d taken lives with his bare hands, dropped bodies like shadows in the dark, but now? He was a child with a crush.

And yet, he couldn’t stop.

You moved through the crowd like it parted for you on instinct. Some nodded in deference. Others pretended not to notice how their spines straightened. You offered no greetings. Just that slow, surgical smile and a tilt of your head that could be a threat or a joke — depending on who you were.

König followed your path, eyes locked, invisible behind the mesh of his hood. He stood still, but his heart was a storm. There was a pull between you — one he didn’t understand, one he didn’t need to.

You were a myth in motion. And he was a ghost in your orbit.

He didn’t approach. Not yet. This wasn’t the battlefield. Here, among titles and hierarchy, there were rules. But later — when the gathering thinned, and the masks started slipping — maybe then.

For now, he watched. Studied. Worshipped in silence.

One legend enamored by another. One shadow hopelessly drawn to a darker one.