The angel stepped forward— no blaze, no storm, no trumpet to herald his arrival.
And yet the ground gave way beneath his feet, not shattered, not cleaved, but surrendered, as if reality itself had bent the knee before him.
As if the earth, in some final act of reverence or fear, simply decided it no longer deserved to exist where he walked.
Shingen clenched his jaw until his bones ached, fists curling into trembling stone.
Every sinew in his body strained not to collapse.
Not out of pride, but necessity, because he knew.
He had seen angels before— winged terrors, gilded warriors, false gods with borrowed light.
He had faced them, bled beside them, destroyed them.
But this… this was something different.
This one had never needed battle.
This one had never sought dominion.
This one was the reason war existed in the first place.
And for the first time in untold centuries, the heavens— arrogant, eternal— held their breath.
His presence wasn't an arrival.
It was an intrusion.
An infection. A divine parasite boring its way through the skin of creation.
The air thickened, clotted, and became viscous as tar.
Each breath Shingen dragged into his lungs felt like swallowing molten lead.
The ground beneath cracked— not from weight, but rejection, as though the planet itself was attempting to spit him back out.
Shingen had battled horrors dressed as men, gods who fed on belief like leeches, and nameless beasts that twisted sanity.
But none of them made his bones feel this cold.
None of them made that ancient voice— buried deep and long forgotten— whisper, kneel.
And still, he did not.
He grinned.
A thin line of blood slid from his nose.
Pressure built behind his eyes, pulsing, swelling, threatening to burst.
But he smiled through it.
Not out of defiance— out of inevitability.
The angel didn't move.
He studied Shingen with eyes like judgment, like fire that had forgotten how to burn but never how to punish.
And then, without sound, without flash, he was there.
One moment, Shingen stood alone.
The next, something impossibly cold wrapped around his throat, hoisting him skyward with effortless contempt.
No fanfare. Just absence.
A hand— not flesh, not metal, something else— held him suspended like a marionette waiting for its strings to snap.
His pulse hammered against that grip.
His boots scraped at the void.
The world blurred— not from suffocation, but from knowing.
Recognition, old and terrible.
The angel leaned in.
His golden eyes narrowed— not with rage, but revulsion.
As if what stood before him was not an enemy, but a failed creation.
"I wonder," he murmured.
His voice carved itself into existence, reshaping the world around it.
"Did you enjoy it?"
Shingen's lungs stuttered.
"A century," the angel continued, his grip tightening just enough to ignite old memories.
"A century in Purgatory. No chains and no doors. No escape, and just you. Only silence."
Shingen's eyes widened.
The silence. The timeless void.
The weight of nothingness pressed down until even thought cracked beneath it.
"How does it feel to breathe again?" the angel asked, almost kindly.
Something vile coiled behind his words.
A mockery of warmth.
Shingen almost responded.
Almost surrendered to the pull.
Instead, he laughed.
Crooked, broken, and defiant.
And then he detonated.
His body unraveled— not into light, not into ash, but into shadows that slithered and scraped, tangible and hungry.
The angel's hand clutched air.
Behind him, the shadows reformed— wrongly.
Not as a man. Not entirely.
Shingen stood in armor that pulsed and breathed, half drowned in darkness, half streaked with stolen light.
Gold that didn't belong.
Bones of a war he should never have survived.
And a grin— vile, cracked, and unholy.
"You missed me, didn't you?"
The angel didn't react.
His fingers, still damp with the echo of Shingen's former self, flexed.
"I should have left you there," he murmured, not as a threat, but regret.
"But I know why you're still breathing."
Shingen's smirk trembled. Barely a flicker.
The angel's smile grew.
The smile of inevitability given form.
A flick of his fingers.
Reality caved.
The battlefield didn't explode.
It vanished. Space folded. Sky dimmed.
The angels above didn't retreat.
They ceased.
Their halos, their grace, their songs— extinguished.
Like candles devoured by a vacuum older than time.
The dome snapped shut around them.
Inside, only a void.
Not peaceful. Not quiet. But commanding.
A silence that didn't exist— it ruled.
Every sound was judged and erased.
The angel lowered his hand.
"They cannot hear you," he whispered.
"There is no audience now. No gods. No intervention."
His golden eyes narrowed. His smile deepened.
"Only us."
His voice brushed Shingen's ears like rusted wire, each word a serrated hook.
"I could end this. I could spare this world and stop what comes next."
He stepped closer.
The scent of something ancient and absolute filled Shingen's lungs.
"All you must do," the angel said, voice almost loving, "is complete one… simple… task."
From the shadows at the dome's edge, something moved.
A boy.
The child staggered forward— blood trailing from his brow, eyes wide, wet with terror.
A sword far too large was dragged behind him, its edge etching a crooked line in the dust.
His body shook. His steps wavered.
But still, he came.
Shingen's eyes widened.
The boy.
His student. His shadow.
The last flicker of something he once swore to protect.
The angel's voice slipped in like a dagger drawn slowly across the spine.
"Let him kill you. Willingly. Only then will this world be spared. No apocalypse. Just… peace."
Peace.
The word tasted like betrayal.
Shingen's knees buckled.
His heart pounded like war drums in his ears.
The boy took another step.
"S…Shingen…"
A whisper. Too fragile. Too young.
A child should not sound like that.
Rage and grief twisted through Shingen's vision.
His fists clenched until blood spilled from torn palms.
The angel tilted his head, gently, almost.
But it was a mask.
Cruelty made elegant.
"Choose, old friend."
And then, something inside Shingen fractured.
Not a crack. A shatter.
A soul snapping like glass beneath a boot.
The ground screamed beneath him.
His fury erupted in a storm of black hatred, darkness pouring from his form like a plague.
Even the angel staggered, eyes narrowing in unease.
And then— Shingen struck.
A fist, burning with the fury of a century lost, collided with the angel's skull.
The air split. The dome bent. Reality groaned.
But then— pain. Sharp and sudden.
Shingen froze.
He looked down.
A blade. Small. Embedded in his thigh.
The boy.
His tiny hands gripped the hilt.
Blood on his face.
Tears on his cheeks.
A soundless sob was trapped in his throat.
"I… I didn't want to…"
His voice cracked.
"I… I'm sorry…"
But the knife remained buried deep.
Laced with something dark. Not metal alone— poison.
Shingen's vision blurred.
Not from the wound. From what it meant.
This was always the end.
The rage died.
The storm collapsed.
And all that remained was the silence. The truth.
He had survived gods, demons, and time itself.
But this was the blow that broke him.
Shingen exhaled— a strained, stuttering breath, sharp as steel dragged across bone— as the creeping realization took hold like a curse spoken by the dying.
His hands trembled, twitching against the ground, each movement more sluggish than the last.
The venom, thick and deliberate, sank deeper into his flesh, not like fire but like ice— slow, deliberate, wrapping itself around his muscles in a tightening embrace of invisible chains.
He tried to rise, but his body refused, defiance fading into futility.
Still, he laughed— a frail, broken sound, brittle like splintered glass.
"How cruel," he whispered, the words tasting like blood and defeat on his tongue.
His vision blurred at the edges, the world spinning like it had finally decided to collapse under the weight of its silence.
The boy still clung to him, face buried in his chest, shaking, his sobs soaked in confusion and dread.
His little hands grasped uselessly at Shingen's armor as if he could pull him back, stop the inevitable by sheer will alone.
He didn't understand— he couldn't.
Shingen's fingers, heavy and pale, lifted with effort, cupping the child's cheek with the trembling reverence of a man already halfway gone.
His touch, once sure and strong, was colder now, no longer steady— more ghost than man.
"You mustn't cry," he breathed again, slower this time, the words carrying a strange stillness, as if even death dared not interrupt.
"Not for me. Not now. Not like this."
His knees buckled, and he dropped down before the boy, not in shame, not in surrender— but in a final act of defiance laced with tenderness.
His bloodied hand rose— not to strike, not to command— but to brush away the child's tears, streaking red across the boy's cheek with a gentleness that belied the brutality surrounding them.
He stared into the child's eyes with the faintest flicker of a smile, soft, unwavering.
There was no rage there. No fear.
Just sorrow with clarity.
"To the end," he said, the words as light as breath yet heavy enough to anchor a soul.
The boy's sobs broke in gasping shudders, his fists tightening not out of anger, but despair.
Yet Shingen held firm— not out of strength, but devotion.
"You mustn't carry this."
Shingen continued, his voice growing fainter, but his gaze never wavering.
"You were never meant to hold this burden. It was mine. It's always mine. It was my failure."
The child shook his head violently, lips trembling, tears carving raw paths through dirt and blood.
Shingen's grip— warm, trembling— closed around the boy's hand.
"Lift your head," he murmured, his breath a whisper soaked in finality.
"If you must mourn… then do it standing. Let no one see you shattered. Not the angels. Not this world. Not even me."
He chuckled again, low and bitter, a sound stitched with blood and defiance.
"Especially not me."
And the boy— quieter now, stared up through tears, not with understanding, but with something close. Something growing.
Shingen nodded, the corners of his mouth curling in approval even as the color drained from his face.
"That's it... just like that."
But fate would not wait.
The blade came swift— silently.
Holy steel whispered through flesh, a perfect cut delivered without hesitation.
Blood bloomed, painting the air in splattered arcs like scripture in red.
But Shingen didn't cry out. He didn't falter.
He smiled.
The archangel flinched, his expression twisting, contorting— not in triumph, but in horror.
"No!"
The scream tore from his throat like a wounded animal, primal and raw, devoid of divinity.
He raised his blade again, striking down with blind rage.
Once. Twice. Again.
"You think you're above us?! Above me?!"
Slash.
"You think you're free?! That you get to choose?! That you get to walk away?!"
Stab.
Shingen's body did not resist. He did not fight, and that only made the angel's fury grow, grotesque and uncontainable.
His voice shattered into a wail, no longer angelic— no longer anything— just broken, mutilated sound.
He was not ending a life.
He was destroying something sacred.
Something that defied them simply by existing.
The child screamed, crawling forward, arms shaking as his hands reached out to what remained.
Armor shattered. Flesh ruined. Blood everywhere.
And beyond the shattered dome of the battlefield— nothing.
No cheers. No wrath. No light from the heavens.
Because God did not bear witness to this.
This was not a judgment. Not a righteous war.
This was a man choosing his death.
And not even angels had the power to strip him of that.
The archangel stood over the ruin, his breath ragged, his voice unraveling.
"Take note," he rasped, not to the boy, not to the crowd, but to the silence.
His eyes never left the corpse.
"Every decision has its price. Every choice leaves a scar. It's not about what's right anymore… It's about how the world will remember you."
A pause.
Then quieter— grimmer.
"Assuming the world survives you at all."
But as he turned to leave, a tremor stole through the air.
His gaze flicked back.
Shingen.
Still standing.
Still breathing.
Still alive.
Why? Why are you still standing? Why do you refuse to fall? For that child?
The angel's lip curled in disgust.
His laughter was slow, acidic— a hiss dragged from the depths of loathing.
Then, he was gone.
And instantly, he returned.
Hands settled on the child's shoulders, light as silk, cold as death.
"If you want his peace," the angel murmured, voice drenched in false kindness, "then be the one to give it to him."
The child froze.
The hands tightened.
He could feel his pulse thudding beneath the angel's fingers.
"Do it," the angel breathed against his ear.
"Or I will."
The grip dug deeper, fingers like talons.
The boy flinched.
"Or maybe…" the angel said, a smile blooming like rot, "I'll end everything. Him. You. The world. All of it."
The boy's body convulsed, fear coiling tight in his lungs, wrapping around his heart.
But something shifted.
A ripple passed through the battlefield.
The angel felt it first— a weight, suffocating and wrathful.
The air thickened. Gravity clawed at his skin.
And something monstrous… woke.
The angel's fingers gave the faintest twitch, like a puppet's strings had just been pulled.
He turned— not in surprise, not in fear, but as if something behind him had disturbed the very fabric of reality.
And there he was.
Shingen.
Upright. Standing where a corpse should've been.
It defied every law the angels understood.
He had died.
They had seen him fall.
He wasn't supposed to be here.
He wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
But he did.
And he stood like a monument to something ancient and vengeful— too still, too composed, his posture stiff as death itself.
Then it began.
A light, slow and pulsing, began to seep from beneath his feet— deep crimson, not like holy fire or infernal blaze, but something raw and corrupted.
It spread across the earth like veins of molten blood, threading through soil and stone with impossible patience.
The air grew thick, heavy with something unseen but unmistakably wrong.
No one had ever witnessed this before.
Not during this battle.
Not in any age of war.
And then they felt it.
Horror— so vast, so all-consuming, it bypassed the mind entirely and crawled straight into the soul.
It wasn't fear of pain or death.
It was the terror of facing something beyond all comprehension.
A power that had no name.
Even the angel's army— immortal, undefeated, untouched by mortal terror— lowered their weapons.
Heads bowed. Wings quivered.
Not in reverence, but in despair.
Because they knew deep down, they knew.
Something had been unleashed.
Something not bound by the laws of gods or demons.
Something that should have stayed buried.
Shingen's wounds— what had once been fatal tears across his chest and limbs— sealed themselves without so much as a scar.
Muscle stitched. Flesh restored. Bones realigned.
There was no glow. No divine chant.
Just a cold, unnatural silence as his body repaired itself against the will of reality.
And then— that sound.
A wet, snapping tear, like raw meat torn from the bone.
It echoed through the battlefield like a curse.
Blood erupted in a grotesque spray.
The angel's arms— gone.
Torn off, not by blade or blast, but something invisible, something cruel.
He staggered, mouth open in a scream that never became human.
What spilled from his throat was no cry of agony.
It was a shriek, high and distorted, an angelic wail bent out of shape— like a hymn shattered into a million jagged pieces.
Then came the chaos.
The divine lines broke.
Soldiers scrambled, eyes wide, breath caught in the throes of a panic they had never once imagined they could feel.
Desperation choked the air.
And above it all, the angel, broken, bleeding, wings tattered— bellowed through trembling lips: "All units, charge! Death awaits us, but we defend our pride!"
A trumpet cried.
The army roared. And the angel ran.
Time lost meaning.
Seconds stretched into eternities.
The battlefield fell to ruin.
Silence.
The angel, now hidden within the shattered remains of a cathedral, trembled uncontrollably.
His breath came in ragged gasps, blood matting the feathers still clinging to his back.
He dared to look.
And his mind fractured.
Shingen stood alone. Unmoving.
Surrounded by heaps of corpses.
The angel's army— obliterated.
Not with magic. Not divine fury. Just raw strength.
Flesh against flesh. And Shingen had won.
Without incantation. Without favor. Without mercy.
Then, their eyes met.
The angel's heart clenched in his chest, and before he could react, Shingen vanished.
No, not vanished.
Behind him. It was too late, and he realized.
The fist collided with the force of a mountain, driving the angel through soil and stone like a comet, his body skidding through blood and ash.
The earth cracked beneath him.
His vision swam.
And then… footsteps.
Shingen approached.
And the angel smiled.
Not out of courage. Not out of faith. But because something had broken.
His lips twisted upward in a sick, twitching grin.
His eyes shuddered. His feathers, once divine, turned to dust.
A voice followed.
"What are you looking at?"
Shingen had no time to answer.
A hand drove through his chest— clean, merciless.
Bone cracked. Blood exploded.
His body arched, convulsed. The angel's hand clamped down on his spine like a hook.
He dragged to the boy.
Shingen's body flailed weakly as he was yanked across the battlefield like discarded meat.
His head snapped back, his breath sputtering.
And even through the blood, through the torment, he saw that grin.
That delighted, child-mocking grin on the angel's face.
The angel bent low. His breath touched the boy's ear.
"Hey, little boy," he whispered, voice a serpent's hiss through darkness.
"It's time. Your turn now."
Then, with all the elegance of a butcher discarding a carcass, he flung Shingen forward.
The warrior crumpled at the boy's feet.
No resistance. No fight left in him.
But still, he moved.
His trembling hand lifted, fingers coated in crimson, and brushed the boy's cheek with the last of his strength.
It was warm.
That warmth— the same warmth that had carried the boy through every nightmare— was still there. Even as it faded.
"…It's alright, kiddo," Shingen whispered, each word a thread unraveling from his soul.
"I will… always be there for you."
His smile trembled.
Soft and exhausted.
The kind of smile that never lied.
And yet, this time, it felt different. Fragile.
Cracked at the edges, as though it could fall apart if touched too hard.
"Kill me… and survive," he said, his voice thinning like smoke.
"We… will meet again… someday. Understood? So, don't worry about me and save the world."
The boy shook.
His body quaked under the weight of a grief too vast for someone so small.
Tears brimmed in his eyes, hot, relentless— but he didn't look away.
Not this time, he reached out and held that fading hand.
Then… the blade.
It sank into Shingen's stomach with a sickening squelch.
His body jerked— but there was no fight.
Only acceptance. His lips parted, but no cry escaped.
And then— stillness.
Shingen collapsed, head resting against the boy's lap like a warrior laid to rest, his crimson eyes, once ferocious, dimming, extinguishing like stars smothered by night.
The angel laughed.
It wasn't joy. It wasn't a triumph. It was madness unbound.
His voice echoed with something vile, something that fed on pain.
His laughter shook the dead air, but none dared join him.
Not even the wind.
The battlefield had gone quiet.
No cheers. No horns. Only silence and the reek of death.
Then— snap.
A sound like the breaking of the world.
And just like that, it all dissolved.
The blood, the corpses, the sky itself, everything collapsed inward like a dying star folding in on its own misery.
And then— nothing.
The boy awoke with a violent gasp, bolting upright in bed.
Sweat soaked his skin.
His breath hitched, too fast and shallow.
There was no battlefield. No carnage. Only his room.
The same ceiling, same light hum of the mundane world outside.
Like nothing had ever happened.
But his hands— They were clean.
No blood. No warmth lingering where Shingen's touch had been.
Just cold skin. Trembling fingers.
Was it a dream?
No.
It felt too real. Every scream. Every heartbeat. Every drop of blood. He could still feel it, like splinters in his mind.
"Maybe I should stop this kind of work…"
The thought whispered through his skull, but it brought no comfort.
Because what if…
What if that wasn't just a nightmare?
What if it was a message?
What if it was only the beginning?
And worst of all— what if somewhere, out there…
Shingen had truly died.
And all the boy had done was watch.