The cathedral groaned under the pressure of existence trying to rember what it was supposed to be. Smoke drifted lazily across the fractured floor, curling around the golden blood Gereon still hadn’t bothered to wipe away. He looked utterly composed, as if bleeding out was a minor inconvenience, sothing he’d handle after finishing his cigar.
For a few long seconds, no one moved. The only sound was Gereon’s cigar crackling softly, like the universe itself was too nervous to speak. He exhaled a stream of smoke that curled into the shape of wings before dissolving into the air. It would’ve been majestic if it wasn’t so smug.
Across the battlefield, May, Quill, and Luther stood in ragged formation. Their breaths ca in uneven gasps, their armor cracked, eyes wild with exhaustion. May’s spirit burned the brightest — defiance warring with terror.
Quill’s sword hand trembled; every disciplined motion drilled into him from childhood was now just a mory of poise. Luther’s right arm hung limp, his jaw bruised and bleeding. Still, they stood. Because giving up would’ve felt worse than dying, they had a life to live after all.
Maybe it wasn’t much, but they all had people they wished to be with.
Gereon took a slow drag from his cigar, exhaled a ring of smoke that twisted into faint glowing rings before fading.
"So," he said, his tone as casual as a bored teacher, "you believe the power of words is simply shouting until the air feels guilty enough to obey?" He smiled. "Allow to clarify the curriculum."
He raised one hand and spoke with crisp precision. "Kneel."
The air folded inward like paper soaked in oil. May, already weakened by her previous demanding struggle, collapsed instantly, her knees smacking marble.
Luther and Quill resisted, at least they tried to, their muscles twitched violently as invisible gravity doubled, tripled — then broke them, pressing them to the floor. Gereon’s golden eyes glinted with faint amusent. "Efficient reaction tis. But you misunderstand the principle. You align your will with the void. You do not command it. And yes, there is indeed a difference."
He snapped his fingers. "nd."
Reality obeyed. The debris slowly rose to be hung in the air, and then reassembled in elegant sequence: the pillars and walls rebuilding themselves, glass windows reforming, corpses fading into silence, candle flas returning as though soone hit undo on tragedy.
"Reality," he said lightly, "is a language. I’m rely fluent. You lot are still stuttering through your alphabet."
May’s teeth grit as she rose. Blood streaked her face, but her eyes glowed with desperate fury. She whispered sothing under her breath—an incantation half-learned, half-felt. The marble beneath Gereon trembled, rippling upward in a rising wave ant to crush him.
He didn’t flinch. "Stop."
The entire wave froze midair. Dust and rubble hovered obediently. Gereon strolled through the suspended chaos, brushing a floating shard aside. "Volu control, May," he said with a mock sigh. "You need it."
He flicked his wrist, but sighed as he rembered that they were back in reality. "Return", he commanded, and everything politely reassembled itself into the floor.
Quill roared and lunged, sword gleaming with ether light. His slash cut the air like a cot. "Slow," Gereon murmured. Instantly, ti around Quill thickened. The air beca syrup, and his movents dragged at a snail’s pace. Gereon sidestepped lazily, tapped the blade with a single finger. tal wept into liquid and puddled around Quill’s boots.
"Cheap weapon," Gereon said flatly. "Or perhaps cheap conviction."
Luther charged, voice ragged. His fists burned with etheric fla. This ti, his punch landed. For a heartbeat, the impossible happened — Gereon’s head snapped back, the cigar flew from his lips.
Then he whispered, "Rewind."
Ti convulsed. The blow reversed. Luther found himself standing exactly where he’d started, still screaming mid-strike, unhurt but utterly robbed of aning. Gereon caught the cigar midair, replaced it in his mouth without missing a beat. "You hit hard," he said. "But I would prefer it if you didn’t scream like a drunk animal."
Luther stumbled, panting. In that blink of humiliation, he saw his sister again — smiling, soot on her cheeks, the night fire devoured their ho. Never helpless again, he had promised. He’d trained, killed, bled for strength. But in Gereon’s shadow, he felt like a boy still hiding beneath smoke and mory.
Quill’s knuckles turned white. He rembered his father’s ruler striking his hand for every wrong word spoken, every imperfect stance. "Precision, Quill. Precision is power." He had sought perfection on the battlefield because ho had none.
And yet this — this precision of Gereon’s — was terrifyingly casual. Quill realized his father’s cruelty had been an imitation of n like Gereon, who could unmake the world with punctuation.
May scread, her voice cracking as she threw herself back into the fight. The sigils she wove this ti were desperate, ragged, beautiful. "Fall!" she commanded. The words turned to shockwaves.
Gereon clapped once. "Invert." The force spun midair and slamd back into May, driving her into shattered marble. She spat blood and dust, but her glare never wavered.
"You’re shouting again," he said. "That tone doesn’t suit you."
"Shut—" she tried to snarl, but Gereon’s word cut hers short. "Silence." The command carried through her body. Her throat moved, but no sound ca. He smiled faintly. "Better."
Quill, eyes wild, tried his own verse. His voice cracked like lightning through the air. "Bind!" Light shaped itself into distorted luminous chains, spiraling toward Gereon.
Gereon stared as if watching a child’s doodle. "Forget." The word rewrote existence. The chains vanished from mory. The air itself looked confused.
Quill’s eyes bled. "How can you twist the principle that far?"
"Twist?" Gereon smirked. "Child, I wrote it."
He turned to Luther again, voice gentle as a lullaby. "Sleep."
Luther dropped instantly. His body collapsed, his mind fell into the quiet of dreams. He stood in a mory again, his sister holding his hand beneath a burning sky. "It’s okay," she whispered. He wanted to believe her. He almost let go.
Then, her face burned away.
He gasped awake. "No." His ether flared in defiance. "No!"
He rose, blue fire bursting from his back like spectral wings. Gereon arched an eyebrow. "Admirable. Self-resurrection through trauma. Classic mortal move."
Luther charged, fist first. Gereon said, "Divide."
Reality fractured. Two worlds unfolded simultaneously—one where Luther’s punch shattered Gereon’s skull, one where it never landed. The two versions bled together, Luther existing in both victory and failure before the universe chose the latter. Gereon stood pristine, brushing imaginary dust from his coat.
"You see?" he said. "You strive to live the best version of yourselves, when you could live all of them. But you’d rather cling to one fragile line of fate. Pathetic."
Luther staggered, coughing blood. May knelt, trembling but unbroken. Quill still clutched the hilt of his lted sword.
Gereon exhaled slowly, his tone softening almost to pity. "Look, I get that you’re trying. Training every day and night to get better. To protect sothing, or maybe to destroy it." He shrugged. "It’s cute."
He took another drag, smoke curling around his head like scripture. "But your peak? That’s not even enough to gaze upon at my worst. And it still has more substance than your best."
He stepped forward, boots clicking against perfect marble that shouldn’t have existed. "Don’t try to look up to ," he said quietly. "You’re just staring at my floor."
The three of them froze — sowhere between despair and awe. The cathedral fell silent, the candles flickering in reverence. Even the wind refused to breathe.
Gereon flicked his cigar. The ash scattered as golden dust, falling across their bruised faces like a benediction or an insult. "Lesson over."
He started to walk forward, but it was neither in the direction of the door nor was he walking toward any of the trio. He stopped behind an unassuming pillar. "How long are you going to watch?"
Soon after he said that, a woman materialized out of thin air.
She wore a mask — a simple, unadorned white disk that obscured her face entirely, save for two dark, hollow eyes that seed to swallow the light. Those eyes were deep, endless, like two pockets of void.
Barachiel gave him a composed but polite bow. "How long have you known I was there?"
Gereon laughed, putting back the sarcastic grandpa’s mask, or purely amused by the person in front of him.
"From the very beginning." He smiled.
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