Ascending Halo

The air cracked again. And again. And again.

Each thunderclap echoed through the trees like a celestial execution. The forest trembled beneath the divine percussion, leaves dislodging, dust spiraling upward. The scent of scorched bark and mana residue thickened the atmosphere. Golden scatterlights shimmered in the air like splintered holiness unleashed in fragments.

Behind a wide-bellied tree, Samael crouched low, her breath sharp through her clenched teeth. Her once-pristine flesh was torn across her shoulder, thigh, side, and cheek. A dozen fresh wounds poured slow rivulets of blood, her wings twitching erratically behind her as she poured her concentration inward. 

Her Hemo Psyche pulsed unnaturally, strands of red energy converging into her palms and spreading into the open flesh. Muscles knitted back together, sinew crawling into place with reluctant obedience.

"...This is why I hate Fatelings," she hissed beneath her breath, her tone low, venomous, shaken. "A ticking time bomb. Always one moment from apotheosis. One misstep, one spark of divine alignment, and they slip into something else. Something not themselves…"

A whirring silence followed.

But silence was not an indication of safety.

Samael twisted to the side instinctively.

The barrel of the Remington hovered inches from her temple.

Kivas stood beside her, silent, expressionless. Her gilded irises had receded, leaving behind blank voids that shimmered with unfiltered light. The weapon in her grasp hummed faintly, reacting to her Mana Psyche with an eerie eagerness.

Before the eerie angel could shoot, Samael raised the cinquedea and swiped the shotgun aside in a sweeping arc. 

The next blast roared into the canopy, tearing through ancient wood as shards of glowing magic sprayed into the heavens.

Kivas didn't flinch.

"Accursed Fateling!"

Samael stepped in, blade reversing as she swung across the torso. 

The edge met resistance, then pierced. A deep gash ripped through Kivas' luminous robe and skin, spilling—not the red blood that she used to have, but radiant light that spewed like molten dawn.

Kivas took the blow without a sound. Her hands remained steady, shotgun already repositioning toward Samael's chest.

Samael's second strike arrived faster.

Her blade carved through muscle, tendon, and bone—severing Kivas' right arm at the elbow before she could squeeze the trigger again. 

The fingers spasmed reflexively, releasing the weapon. It fell to the forest floor, still whispering with stored mana.

Kivas staggered. Only barely.

"Hmph!"

Samael then stepped into her reach, grabbed the angel's silky collar with one hand, and forced the blade's edge beneath the pale skin of her throat. 

Light bled upward from the contact point, forming radiant veins along her neck.

But still—no reaction.

Kivas' eyes never left her.

No fear. No resistance. Only the instinctive act to observe, to preserve itself in its progress to ascend beyond mortal comprehension.

Then Samael saw it.

The halo above Kivas' head—unstable before—now shimmered with layered rings, forming complex geometries of fire and divinity. Lines etched themselves mid-air around it, folding and spiraling like recursive glyphs.

A soundless burst of light surged outward. 

"Tch!"

Samael's body was hurled backward through the trees, cracking branches and displacing entire trunks. 

She flipped midair and slammed her heel into the ground, sliding backward through a curtain of fallen leaves.

Smoke curled from her shoulders as she regained her stance.

Ahead, Kivas reached for her severed arm.

Her body leaned as she picked it up, golden ligaments unraveling from the exposed joint like ethereal threads. She pressed it against the stump. Muscles found muscles. Bone fused with bone. Flesh rewrapped itself with a surgical miracle.

Throughout the entire process, her gaze never left Samael.

Not even a blink.

Samael's body tensed.

But her observation yielded a boon of knowledge.

"...It seems like she's not able to gauge our distance."

Samael wrenched her cinquedea from the soil and, with a single powerful motion, flung it toward Kivas' face.

The blade embedded itself between her eyes, just above the bridge of her nose, and held.

No sound. No flinch. Kivas simply absorbed the strike.

Samael charged forward.

Her body blurred through the light, reclaiming the hilt mid-dash. She drove forward, using the sword's momentum to slam Kivas down into the earth. 

The impact cratered the ground beneath them. Kivas' wings flared out, radiant feathers twitching as she tried to rise.

Samael yanked the blade out of her skull, turned it, and plunged it downward—nailing the left wing into the dirt.

Kivas retaliated.

Her right arm transformed.

From skin and bone emerged holy steel—segmenting into a cannon-barreled construct that gleamed like sanctified artillery. 

Light coalesced at the muzzle before erupting in a wide arc of blazing bullets. Trees behind Samael disintegrated into dust, shredded by divine ordnance.

Samael pivoted, dashing sideways in a sharp crescent.

She snatched the discarded Remington mid-roll and spun toward Kivas.

Six blasts tore through the clearing.

Each shot collided against the armored appendage, forcing Kivas to stumble. One clipped her shoulder. The next disrupted her conjuration, interrupting the cannon's structure, causing it to fracture into shrapnelized particles of failed divinity.

"The only way to prevent a Fateling's ascension without killing them—" Samael pressed in and grabbed at the short sword that was nailing Kivas to the ground. "Is to destroy their holy organs!"

Her blade sang from the soil, through the air, and with the feather, cutting across Kivas' left wing.

Freed from the ground, Kivas launched herself backward, creating distance once more. Her arms stretched wide as a massive spear of condensed holy light formed above her—shaped like a rocket, thruster igniting with a silent fury.

Samael fired three more shots in quick succession. One cracked Kivas' ribs. Another destabilized the forming projectile. The third forced her out of position.

Samael lunged again.

She stabbed her blade into Kivas' last wing, pinning her in place.

However, the holy rocket above continued to build power, engine burning audibly in the void.

"Oh no, you won't!"

She grabbed the handle of the sword with both hands, feeding power through the sword until it pulsed with Voidling strength.

Unpinning Kivas' wing, then slashed upward.

The rocket veered from the strike.

It spiraled into the sky—its trail burning a hole in the forest canopy—before detonating midair in a sunburst of pure soul light.

Below, Samael finally twisted the blade and tore the final wing free.

Both wings were finally cut, and there seemed to be a great decrease in the intensity of the foreign energy within her.

However, Kivas had not yet returned to her former self.

The wingless angel tried to rise, mouth barely opening—but her frame betrayed her, knees buckling, breath faltering.

Samael punched the angel to the ground, before throwing her sword aside.

Samael then reached for the halo above Kivas' head. Her fingers curled around it.

The fire scorched her hands, biting deeper than any flame she'd known. But she held fast, channeling every drop of strength she had.

Kivas' hands rose—grasping Samael's wrists—fingertips trembling.

They locked eyes.

"Break, dammit!"

And then, with a scream that shattered the tension in the sky, Samael shattered the halo.

Its radiant rings cracked and burst, scattering in fiery shards. A shockwave erupted, throwing her backward across the clearing.

Samael landed, rolled once, then steadied herself on one knee.

Kivas then finally stood up.

Barely.

Tears streamed from her eyes—liquid gold tracing her cheeks. Her expression had returned. Confusion. Despair. Awareness.

Her hands clutched at her chest like something precious had been torn from it. 

She collapsed to her knees, weeping with ragged sobs that carried far too much weight for a single voice to bear.