S T E P.

The first time I ever wore a suit was on my wedding day.

The chapel smelled of lilies and oak, sunlight cutting through stained glass, painting my black jacket in color. I remember standing at the altar, my palms slick, my heart pounding as she walked down the aisle—my bride, my world.

When our eyes met, it felt like gravity itself shifted, like the universe had finally given me something worth holding onto.

We were together as one for three years.

One night, she rested her head on my shoulder, voice barely above a whisper:

“Cass… do you think we’ll have kids one day?”

I stayed silent too long, and she shifted, looking at me with soft brown eyes that expected something I couldn’t give.

“I don’t know,” I finally muttered. “I’m… not sure I’d make a good father.”

She frowned, pulling her knees to her chest.

“It’s not about perfect fathers. It’s about having a family… something real. Don’t you want that?”

I stared out at the glittering city, a pit forming in my stomach.

“…I’ve never had anything worth protecting. How the hell am I supposed to protect a kid?”

Her silence hurt worse than her words when she finally spoke:

“You don’t have to be perfect… but if you can’t even try, Cass… maybe this isn’t what I thought it was.”

The next morning, her side of the bed was cold.

The suitcase was gone.

The note said only three words:

“I can’t wait.”

I had never had anything to cherish. Nothing to shield.

I thought protecting something meant standing in front of it, building walls, stopping the monsters from breaking through.

But Haruto…

Haruto…

He just… gave everything.

No walls. No hesitation. No fear.

And in that instant, with his voice still echoing in my ears, I finally understood:

It was never about protecting.

It was about giving—every ounce of yourself, every drop of blood, every final breath, until there’s nothing left to give.

I kicked the car door open.

My legs didn’t stop, even as the pavement melted under my feet, the world narrowing to a tunnel with one blazing figure at its center.

Her.

The goddess floated there, calm, untouchable, a crown of fire framing her head, a single blazing wing spilling molten light into the air around her. She wasn’t towering or monstrous.

She looked human.

But everywhere she stood, life disintegrated.

A sound tore out of me, half-growl, half-scream:

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

My body moved like it belonged to something else, muscles coiled tight, the ground cracking under my boots as I launched myself at her.

Heat lashed against my face, peeling skin like wet bark.

The closer I got, the more my body failed me—hair igniting, lungs searing with every breath.

But still I drove forward, teeth bared, eyes locked on hers.

Time bent.

Slowed.

Warped.

I saw my fist draw back in agonizing detail.

Every tendon stood out in my forearm.

The skin blistered instantly, bubbling like molten wax.

Fingers blackened, splitting at the knuckles as the fire chewed them away.

The bones glowed faintly through shredded flesh, but my grip only tightened, my scream only grew louder.

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The final step into her inferno stripped me to pure, boiling willpower.

My arm disintegrated piece by piece as it swung forward—

Fingernails curled into ash mid-swing.

Skin peeled back in fiery ribbons.

Muscle fibers snapped like guitar strings, glowing red.

The very air distorted, warping as heat waves shattered the space between us.

Every instinct screamed to stop, to save what was left of me…

But Haruto hadn’t stopped.

He hadn’t even tried.

And this punch… this single swing…

Was the first thing in my life that felt worth giving everything for.

And then my molten, blood-soaked fist connected, cracking the silence like thunder.

Blood hissed as it splattered across her cheek, evaporating into steam that curled.

The impact carried my entire weight, every ounce of fury, grief, and desperation crashing into her perfect, divine skin.

The goddess’s face twitched. The faint surprise that had flickered when my fist landed dissolved into something else entirely—

Anguish.

Without a word, she snapped her hand forward, fingers clamping around my throat like an iron vice. My boots scraped across the scorched pavement as she lifted me off my feet with no effort at all.

The heat… it wasn’t like Haruto’s.

This wasn’t a slow burn.

This was hell itself.

Her fire flooded my skin, digging past flesh and muscle straight into bone. My scream never left my throat—the flames swallowed it before it could escape.

She held me there, watching as my skin blackened and cracked, smoke rolling from my arms in choking plumes.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

The only sound was the hiss of my own body searing like meat left on a skillet.

Then, with as little thought as tossing away a broken matchstick, she flung me aside.

My body hit the ground with a sickening crack, the charred remains of my arm dragging behind me uselessly. Black ash flaked off in the breeze as I lay there, a husk barely clinging to life.

The world tilted.

My vision tunneled.

I heard nothing but the relentless roar of her fire as she turned away from me.

“I’ll… fucking… kill you.”

The words didn’t roar this time.

They slithered out of me, hoarse, trembling—not with weakness,

but with a rage that even death couldn’t strangle.

Aestura turned.

And there I was.

Not crawling.

Not dragging myself through ash.

But standing.

My body should’ve been nothing but carbon and bone-dust.

Every nerve had burned past pain into a numb, endless void.

But somehow—

I refused to fall.

The fire clung to me like a second skin, chewing through my charred flesh, curling my fingers into blackened claws.

My muscles screamed, my lungs shredded for every breath, but my legs moved with a will that wasn’t human anymore.

Step.

The ground beneath me sizzled, molten footprints burned deep into the pavement.

Step.

The air warped around me, flames bending and twisting as if afraid to touch me further.

Step.

Each motion a miracle wrestled from oblivion, an affront to death itself.

And for the first time since her birth from divinity—

She took a step back.

Her crown of fire flickered, her solitary wing curled inwards, the molten glow of her eyes trembling, not with pity,

not with mockery—

But with fear.

Because something in the air shifted.

It wasn’t just defiance that pushed me forward.

It wasn’t vengeance.

It wasn’t even courage.

It was something far older,

something that gods themselves had long forgotten—

A mortal’s will to damn himself completely

if it meant dragging a god down with him.

Every atom of my body screamed to collapse,

but my spine locked straight,

unbending,

unyielding,

prolonging.

I was no warrior.

No hero.

No chosen savior.

But right then—

With every step I carved through hellfire and smoke—

I was the man who made a god retreat.

And yet…

The body has limits even will cannot shatter.

My knees buckled.

I collapsed, the inferno consuming me fully, flesh finally giving way to the blaze.

But even as darkness rushed in, even as my vision blurred into nothing—

I saw it.

Aestura’s face.

The god looked human in her molten, trembling stare.

I saw it clear as day:

Fear.