Love is Poison, Victory

True love is victory.

Love is not affection or attraction, nor promise or commitment. Words cannot uphold it, and actions betray it.

That was the humiliating reality for Siegfried Akkwood as he watched the love of his life marry another.

He sat in silent humiliation from the frontmost pew. She who once swore undying love to him, now would swear the same to another man. Siegfried was the bride’s Man of Honor—a title that dripped with personal disgrace for him.

Voices hundredfold erupted in cheer as the couple exchanged vows.

To forever hold each other dear, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health.

It was a crock of shit—All of it.

True love? Nothing but a lie.

She was nothing more than a trophy for the groom, a prize won from a duel Siegfried should have won.

Indeed—was true love victory?

Every battle he fought for her, every victory in her name—just meaningless spectacle for the world’s amusement.

The crowd roared as the newlyweds stepped into the light. Church bells rang, heralding the start of their new life together. But for Siegfried, they tolled for his utter, crushing defeat.

And he smiled through it all.

The most painful smile of his life.

There was no trace of bitterness in his expression, no hatred in his eyes. He lied, that he did, almost to a professional level. Oh, if it were going to come to this in the end, Siegfried should have pursued a career in acting instead!

But deep down, he knew: Lies did not make him.

Not long ago, Siegfried had been on top of the world.

A legend, a warrior, one of the greatest cheval pilots in history:

A Solaris Knight.

A title granted only once every few years to those who dominated the Chevalier War Games: a grand spectacle of a sport where nations watched giant knights of steel clash iron against iron.

And yet, for all his victories, he had lost the only battle that mattered:

The right to marry the heir of Sankaku Corporation—his fated love:

Kiana Hamasaki.

That day, a hard rain hammered the badlands, turning the earth into a wretched mix of stone and muck.

Siegfried had never been a reckless fighter. In Honor Battle, his cheval wasted no movement—every strike was measured, a masterclass in speed and precision.

He never fought a battle he wasn’t prepared to win.

But most of all, he was no coward.

If challenged to a cheval duel, he would never refuse, not even in the midst of a hurricane.

That day was different.

Siegfried drove his cheval past its limit, its metal groaning under from his reckless fury.

He attacked without restraint, his cheval’s energy blade wild and desperate. It was so unlike him that he had convinced the audience that someone else must have been in the cockpit.

“Rage isn’t like you, Sieg!” Sert’s voice cracked over the comms, sharp with amusement.

His rival—his enemy—parried each unsteady strike with ease. Then, with a brutal kick, Sert’s red-and-black cheval sent Siegfried’s machine skidding across the canyon floor. The white-and-gold mech slammed against the jagged rock wall, mud splattering as it struggled to keep its footing.

Siegfried forced his cheval back on its feet and charged again. He lashed out in a whirlwind of slashes, emerald blades of light flashing—but his usual precision had all but left him.

His blade cut nothing but the paint off Sert’s cheval. Sert sidestepped and, with a single thrust, drove his spear clean through Siegfried’s slashing arm. The severed limb crashed to the ground with a shower of sparks.

“You would dishonor our duel like this?” Siegfried stepped back. Sert honored his opponent a chance at a few words. “You said you wouldn’t lay a finger on Kiana until this duel is won. And yet, you—”

“I said that, yes. And I willingly upheld it.” Sert readied his mech’s spear close to its chest. “You’re the one who’s been fooling yourself all this time. You think she’s that into you. She’s not. I wouldn’t have touched a single hair on her, but that was if she was yours. But she came to me.”

Siegfried’s grip on the controls tightened, almost enough to crush the lever in his hand.

“You could’ve honored your word.”

He lunged.

“And now, we are beyond that point, Sieg!”

Sert didn’t flinch. He braced and drove his spear straight through the bottom of Siegfried’s head unit, shattering half its jaw with a single, merciless blow.

Sert could have ended it then. One solitary strike to Siegfried’s Feather Antenna, and it would have been done. But he hesitated.

Siegfried was still his old friend.

Friends still deserved a final chance.

“Love isn’t something you gamble on a battlefield, Sieg,” Sert said, his voice calm but firm. “The moment you did… the moment you even got to a headspace that you could, you’d already lost her.”

You damn liar.

If hell has a place for the lustful and the gluttonous, so too did it have a place for betrayers.

That was the last straw.

Siegfried roared, his cheval boosting forward full tilt with one remaining arm. He snatched up his fallen sword and swung for Sert’s own Feather—desperate, clutching at an invisible victory.

If he couldn’t have Kiana, then he could at least—

Sert parried. Blade met blade, beams sizzling against each other. Siegfried’s blade spun from his grip, spilling its cracked handle onto the mud.

Before Siegfriend could react, Sert lunged. He leapt into the air, his cheval twisting before driving its spear downward. A piercing crack rang out as the weapon struck true, shearing Siegfried’s last remaining arm clean from its joint.

The onlookers gasped.

Siegfried Akkwood—the young Solaris Knight—had never been seen in such dire straits. And yet, here he was, his once-proud cheval reduced to little more than a battered shell.

But mourn, the crowd did not.

They cheered. There was no greater thrill than watching a titan fall. No greater spectacle than seeing a legend undone by an underdog.

Sert pressed the advantage. He spun his spear into Siegfried’s right leg unit, carving through its metal like a blade through silk. And then—without pause, the left.

Siegfried’s crippled cheval collapsed into the mud, its weight sinking into the drenched earth.

Sert stood above it, his crimson-and-black cheval framed against the rain. His spear hovered over his opponent’s Feather, the only thing that remained worth cutting off.

“It’s over.”

With one heavy swing, he severed the antenna.

Both chevals stilled. Their targeting systems no longer recognized each other.

It was finished.

Sert had won.

Siegfried lay defeated.

Defeated not just in battle, but in every way that mattered.

The rain fell heavier now, drowning out the noise of the arena. The storm cared not for victory or defeat, only simply washing away the oil, gunk, and filth of the battlefield.

But shame? It did not wash.

Siegfried stumbled as he climbed out of his cheval’s ruined cockpit. His knees hit the mud, but he barely noticed. The only thing left was the weight in his heavy heart.

Above him, Sert loomed.

There was no more need to gloat. He didn’t even sneer. He only spoke with the same calm that had stripped Siegfried of everything.

“The victor was known from the very start,” Sert’s voice carried through the megaphone, cold and absolute. “Kiana and I only agreed to this for your sake. You couldn’t accept people’s feelings on their own terms, so I’m speaking for her behalf—and mine.”

Siegfried didn’t look up.

He could not.

For above him was the truth. The truth would blind him. If he looked up now, the light of living a lie would burn his eyes.

Sert hadn’t only earned the right to call Kiana his—but had also stolen Siegfried’s greatest triumph:

The Solaris Knight.

That was the truth that he couldn’t—wouldn’t face.

He bled for that title. He fought for it, won it, with everyone. The title should have made him untouchable. Unbeatable.

And yet, not even a day had passed since the title failed him. Left him to rot.

Siegfried swallowed the poison rising in his throat, and held it close to his heart.

A poison that would become a grudge.

A wound that would never close.

It would fester for decades, transcending time and space, passed down if need be. Kin, student, friend, anyone—so long as someone carried it, so long as the sin was repaid.

His broken heart will be avenged.

Victory will be his.