The echoes of Raiden's laughter faded into the stillness of the battlefield. The stench of death clung thick in the air, the only sounds left were the crackling of dying fires and the faint, gurgling breaths of the half-dead who hadn't realized they were corpses yet.
Raiden exhaled, his breath misty in the cold night air. He rolled his shoulders, the weight of his greatsword a familiar comfort. The rush of battle still burned in his veins, but the moment of slaughter had passed.
Now, there was only the silence.
He took a step forward, his boots squelching against the muddy, blood-drenched earth. Bodies lay in heaps—twisted, broken, ruined. Some knights had died quickly, others had been left in agonized, twitching piles of flesh, their last moments spent gasping, weeping, begging.
A few still clung to life.
A knight, gasping for air, his breastplate caved in from a single, monstrous strike, reached for his sword with trembling fingers.
Raiden watched.
The man's breath came shallow, ragged, his body barely holding together. And yet, even now, he still reached.
Raiden knelt beside him, tilting his head. "You still want to fight?"
The knight's bloodied lips moved, forming words too soft to hear.
Raiden leaned closer.
The knight's breath hitched, his lips parting to rasp—
"F…fuck…you…"
Raiden grinned.
He grabbed the knight's throat casually, as if inspecting a piece of meat, then squeezed.
There was a wet, crunching pop as the man's windpipe collapsed like rotten wood.
The knight's eyes bulged, his body convulsing—then he fell still.
Raiden stood, shaking the blood from his gauntlet. "Not bad."
He turned, surveying the battlefield.
The Imperial knights had fallen here. This was no mere skirmish—this was a message, carved in blood and bone.
And yet, Raiden felt nothing. No triumph. No pride. Only the quiet hum of a battle won.
The silence of the battlefield was nearly absolute. Nearly.
Raiden turned, his storm-gray eyes narrowing as he caught the faintest sound—a rustle, the soft crunch of a boot against the blood-soaked earth.
His fingers twitched instinctively toward his greatsword, but then he saw her.
Sienna.
She stood at the edge of the carnage, drenched in moonlight, her form frail yet unyielding against the night. Her hair was disheveled, her face streaked with sweat and grime, but it was her eyes that held him still.
Red-rimmed. Wide with grief. And filled with something raw, something that clung to the edges of despair and triumph.
Tears spilled down her cheeks, her shoulders trembling as she stared at the bodies—the knights, the soldiers, the men she had sworn to destroy.
She had gotten her revenge.
Or at least, that's what it looked like.
Raiden studied her, his expression unreadable. He knew grief. Knew rage. Knew what it was to be consumed by vengeance. But something about her… felt off.
Her sobs were real. Too real.
Yet her hands were still.
Her breathing was measured.
Even as she wept, there was a flicker in her gaze—a calculation, a quiet awareness that most wouldn't notice.
But Raiden noticed everything.
Still, he said nothing.
She suddenly stumbled forward, her steps uneven, her boots slipping slightly in the mud. She was shaking—whether from the cold or from the weight of it all, he couldn't tell.
Her eyes found his.
"It's over." Her voice was a whisper, raw and uneven. "They're dead. All of them. The men who—" She cut herself off, swallowing hard. A sob choked out. "I finally… I finally did it."
She covered her face with her hands, her body trembling.
Raiden tilted his head.
Did you?
The words never left his lips.
Instead, he simply watched.
Let her have this moment.
Let her think he believed it.
Because whether her grief was real or not, it didn't matter.
In the end, everyone wanted something.
Sienna took a shaky breath, rubbing the tears from her face with bloodstained fingers. Her gaze flickered to the ruined battlefield, then back to Raiden—a war god standing amidst the carnage he had wrought.
"Thank you," she whispered. Her voice trembled, but whether from exhaustion or something else, Raiden couldn't tell. "I— I couldn't have done this without you."
Raiden didn't respond. He rarely did.
Instead, he simply watched as she took an unsteady step forward. Then another.
Then she faltered.
Her knee buckled, her body tipping forward as if the weight of everything had finally crashed down on her.
Raiden caught her without thinking.
One strong arm wrapped around her waist, the other bracing her back. She felt small in his grasp—fragile, like a bird with broken wings.
She gripped his armor tightly, her breath coming in uneven gasps. "There's… nowhere to go."
The words were quiet, lost between them.
Raiden felt her fingers clutch at him, as if she were holding onto the last solid thing in the world. As if she needed him.
A strange thing.
No one needed him.
People feared him. Used him. Sent him to kill. But this?
This was different.
His grip tightened, just slightly. "Then we make our own way."
Siena pressed her face against his chest, her breath warm against the cold steel of his armor. Her shoulders shook, another sob wracking through her— and then, for just a fraction of a second…
Raiden saw it.
The look.
Her face was hidden against him, but her eyes—her eyes flickered open.
And they were not the eyes of a grieving girl.
They were sharp. Intense. Hungry.
Fanatical.
A devotion burned there, something twisted and raw—something that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with him.
She closed her eyes again just as quickly, burying herself deeper into his embrace.
Playing the part.
Raiden said nothing.
But he had seen.
And for the first time in a long while, something other than bloodlust stirred in his gut.