Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The smell of wet earth hung heavy in the air, and the faint breeze did not stir the red-horned demon. An unnatural silence pressed against him, something unsettling and unfamiliar. Sword's world had always been alive with laughter and cheer, yet now only the reluctant crunch of his footsteps broke the stillness.

Before him lay the headstone. Its freshly carved letters spelled out a familiar name that blurred through his tears: "Rocket." The name he'd call out everyday.

"Rocket, that's your name right? Nice to meet you! C'mon, let's go out and play!"
"Rocket! Dad told me he was going to be out for a while, so I can hang out at your house for the next week!
"Rocket! Guess what? I picked up some new techniques for that move— want to practice some combos?"
"Rocket, one of these days you're going to get caught if you keep sneaking out to see me!"
"Rocket! "
"…"

Tears fell like blood from an open wound, streaming down his face and then splattering onto the black, downturned wings resting on his head.
Sword had always known this day would come, the day that he would stand over the grave of the one who had always been by his side. Yet, no foresight had braced him for this moment. He failed to savor their moments together, and now the weight of regret pressed upon his heart. Petty arguments that he wished he could take back fought against treasured memories that he held on to like fragile threads.

It was cruel to possess eternal youth, while every friend he had ever made fell victim to time's relentless march. At least when his brother died, Rocket had been there to share his grief, to help guide him through the sorrow. But now, even he was gone.

Sword should have found solace in his father’s presence, a constant through each and every painful farewell. Yet he felt contempt instead, his anger aimed at the one who should have known to shield him from the fleeting nature of mortal bonds. His father could have hidden him away, protected him from this relentless suffering.
All those times he'd pleaded to be allowed just a little more time at Rocket's, and every time, his father would give in, when he'd asked for permission to extend his curfew and share a few more drinks with Medkit—now, he wished those moments had never come to pass.

What use was fleeting happiness when their absence promised only endless agony? Why had he let himself love those doomed to depart? Was the warmth of their companionship worth the icy void they left behind?

"Time heals all wounds," Venomshank had said.

But he felt no comfort in the eternity ahead of him. He had forever to move on, forever to grieve, but forever to endure the ache of what he had lost.
Their temporary time together would give him permanent misery. His grieving heart, fractured beyond repair, knew no time together could fill the gaping hole left by their loss.

"Sword," A voice, smooth and commanding, called to him. Sword turned sharply to the sound, his face painted red from the force of his grief, tears streaking his cheeks. A flicker of humiliation crept in, being seen in such a state, though he had been expecting this arrival.

Illumina's presence was a motif of despair. The god was known for exploiting demons’ lowest moments, preying on the cracks in their hearts. This was not their first encounter; Illumina had long sought to sway him, using the demon’s pain and doubt to coax him into joining his celestial army. But forging a bond with Illumina meant severing the one he held with Venomshank— a deal that would betray the loyalty to his father and friends.

Sword had always resisted. Those he loved had faith in him, and the memories that they had shared had made him unwavering. But now, as grief suffocated him, that resolve started to break.

Illumina stood there, radiant and unyielding. "I have long waited for this moment," Illumina said calmly. "Are you ready to take my hand?"

Sword's instincts shrieked at him to strike at the god and declare his rejection to the offer in defiance. But there was no strength left in him to fight.

Illumina stepped closer. "Power and strength, wings strong enough to carry you above this pain, every trace of your sorrow erased. All you need to do is follow me. What say you, then? Will you lend your strength to our cause?"

The consequences of surrendering oneself to Illumina were dire, demanding relentless loyalty to the deity. His followers were bound by an unbreakable oath to obey every command without question or delay. To become an emotionless shell, to leave their past life behind.

No sane demon would ever agree to such terms.

But that was the very desire of all of Illumina’s followers. Their days had seemed filled with unending misery, so to strip themselves of emotion and abandon the life they once led was exactly what they wanted to achieve. It was right to aspire to earn a place in Illumina's cruel-free world.

Indeed, Illumina was merciful. The Inpherno is filled with violence, injustice, and brutality. He was to forge this mess into a new world.

Sword sank to his knees. His mouth refused to move, and so the only gesture he could make was a silent bow of his head, which Illumina took for a nod.

For a moment, Illumina just watched, his expression unreadable. Then, he extended his hand. "If that is what you desire," he said, his tone laced with quiet triumph.

Sword hesitated for a moment, his eyes fixed on the hand as if it were both salvation and doom. He reached for it, his fingers trembling as he shook it. In that instant, Illumina's power coursed through him, sharp and unrelenting. Sword screamed as a piercing pain cleaved through his mind, ripping the memories from his soul. He felt them fracture, each one tearing away a piece of himself.

A sudden pang of regret struck his heart. Would erasing them mean losing the only fragments he had left of those he loved? Perhaps immortality was a gift after all—not a curse, but a chance to keep their memory alive, to ensure they were never forgotten. At least, maybe the fact that they were still alive in his heart could be enough. Was it fair to them if he chose to forget?
To forget, to be reborn, would be to erase not just the past, but the very essence of what had shaped him—Sword—into who he was. If it was the memories that made him who he was, who would he be with them gone?

Illumina knew the answer. Sword would be his disciple, wholly his own design, borrowing only bits of flesh with which the Spawn had used to shape a body. Born of his will alone, bound to him in unwavering loyalty. Demons were made anew when they pledged themselves to him.

It was too late. Blood-coated wings arose from his back, meat and skin tearing to allow the passage as they erupted. His height grew, casting an imposing shadow across the tombstones. His tears hardened and burned into his skin, leaving etchings of Illumina’s sigils on his face. His horns were reshaped, swirling into a soft lilac hue that perfectly mirrored the god's own, and twisted into jagged spires. His once vivid eyes turned pale, glowing with an unnatural luminescence that seemed to pierce the darkness.

Illumina watched the transformation with satisfaction. "Rise, Follower," Illumina commanded, his voice filled with divine authority. "Together, we shall create our own realm and finally rid of this chaos."

Sword stood, his body now a vessel of immense power, but his heart felt empty. As they ascended together, he cast a final glance at the grave below, catching sight of the name etched in stone. “Rocket.”

The name lingered in his mind, faint but persistent. And though he could no longer recall the face nor the voice it belonged to, a single tear fell, carving its way down his etched cheek before vanishing into the wind.

Chapter Text

Long before war touched the world, the stars told their stories in silence. They didn’t speak in words, but in light—scattered patterns across the dark, tracing lifetimes too big to hold in memory. They whispered of souls who burned bright and brief, and of the rare few who didn’t vanish when they died. The ones who came back.

Rocket had always been one of them, though he had not known it in life.

Rocket had always been different. Not because he was faster, or louder, or more reckless than the others (even though he was all of those things) but because the stars seemed to answer him when he reached for them.

He was born under a sky that never seemed to sleep, stars scattered above him like the exhale of a breath in the air. Rocket lived fast, laughed freely, and loved with the kind of intensity that left an imprint on everyone he touched. He moved through life like a comet flaring too close to Sun: beautiful, brilliant, and bound to die.

He lived fiercely. That was the only word for it. Every emotion was a burst. Every mistake, a crash. 

He loved Sword with all the intensity his soul could hold, as though he’d always known time would never be enough. He never said goodbye softly. Never left things unsaid. As if he feared there wouldn’t be a next time.

There shouldn't have been.

And when he died, it was not darkness that greeted him.

It was starlight.

____

When death came, it came quietly. Sword’s hand in his. No final battle. No grand farewell. Only the slow, inevitable fading of a heartbeat. And then stillness.

But Rocket did not fall into shadow. He rose into silence.

What came after was not a place. It had no walls, no time, no direction. Drifting within a breath held by the universe. His memories peeled away like old paint. His body dissolved into something unmade. He should have vanished.

But the stars remembered.

Death, for Rocket, was not an end. It was a suspension. A drift into a space between endings and beginnings.

There, in the hush of nonexistence, he lingered. His essence scattered across the heavens like embers from a dying fire. The stars did not forget him.

In that infinite stillness, light began to stir. Not heat. Not flame. Something quieter. Memory, given form. A single, pulsing rhythm. The stars had watched him. Had marked him. And they refused to let go.

And so, in the vast dark where souls either fade or ascend, something began to stir.

He was not alone.

It was not mercy that found him, nor fate, but an old and inevitable balance. Ghostwalker, the god who moved between the veil of the living and the lost, came upon what remained of Rocket— not as a savior, but as a silent architect of what must return.

Ghostwalker moved through the void like an echo. He did not disturb the stars. Where others would burn in their presence, he existed beside them.

He did not summon Rocket back with words or commands. Instead, he began to gather what had unraveled. Threads of memory, sparks of personality, echoes of laughter, shards of pain: all the pieces of a life, broken but not destroyed.

In the quiet space where time had no shape, Ghostwalker rewove the fallen boy.

Not into the same body, nor the same form. But into something remembered by the cosmos and made from its remnants. The result was not a resurrection in the mortal sense, but a rebirth in the language of the stars, a soul not returned, but transformed.

Piece by piece, Rocket was drawn back.

His new body did not rise from flesh. It manifested in orbit. Skin shaped from aurora. Bone laced with the cold precision of star metal. A gear floated at his back, shimmering slightly. He hovered above the void as though gravity had surrendered to him.

The pain of rebirth was not physical. It was memory, each one rethreaded, each emotion stitched into his new form. 

The stars that return are never made from nothing. They are born from the remnants of what once was— from the shattered fragments of dead stars, from the scattered dust of collapsed light. In the language of the cosmos, destruction is never final. Each supernova leaves behind the seeds of new constellations, new beginnings forged in the wreckage of what came before.

Rocket was no exception. His body as stitched back together from the faint traces of his past self, reconstructed through myth and memory. The gear he would come to weld floated beside him in the stillness, not forged by hands but manifested from celestial will. 

The process was neither gentle nor quick. Rebirth through starlight was a kind of rupture—of what was, what could have been, and what now must be. Pain etched itself into the fibers of Rocket’s being, not as punishment, but as proof. His return came at a cost, one he would carry not on his skin, but deep within the architecture of his soul.

No grand pronouncement followed his recreation. No thunder. No applause. Only the quiet of the dark, broken now by the steady rhythm of something new: a heartbeat.

The stars, never silent, now pulsed in time with him.

His form, rebuilt by grace and gravity, drifted back toward the mortal plane. He would return to a world that had moved on. He would walk into a place that no longer had room for him—and carve that space back open. He would find the boy he had loved changed, armored in grief. He would walk again beneath the sky that had borne witness to both his birth and his ending. 

But he would not be the same.

Stars that die do not simply vanish. They collapse, they become, they return.

Rocket had died.

And now, the fragments left of him burned brighter.

He was not a replica. He was not a shadow. He was the second rising of a fallen star, cut from celestial ash and threaded with loss. He had not been resurrected.

He had been reborn.

And rebirth, in the language of the stars, was never without purpose.

He returned not as he was, but as what the world now needed. A being shaped by remembrance. By love. By grief sharp enough to split through divinity. The gods were no longer at peace. Illumina had begun to shift the order of things, so delicately it almost looked like mercy. But beneath the surface, the Inpherno was being hollowed out, its psyche unraveled thread by thread.

____

A sudden, sharp breath surged through his lungs, as though he were gasping after having forgotten how to breathe. He floated in weightlessness for a moment longer, the quiet hum of the stars still fading from his ears. His body, newly woven and unfamiliar, felt both distant and close—like stepping into a memory that was no longer his own.

He just stares ahead in silence at first, hands limp at his sides, heart thudding somewhere deep beneath his ribs, but it feels as if it doesn’t belong to him.

His room is still, dimly lit by a familiar crack of sunlight through half closed blinds. Clothes laid scattered across the floor in a familiar disarray, and mechanical parts spilled from a corner pile, just as he had left them, never returned to their proper place. The same posters clung to the walls, with their corners curled. Even the paint, chipped and fading, matched his memory with unnerving precision.

Was this the afterlife? Why was he back? 

He remembers death. Not like a dream, not like something faded with time—he remembers dying. The way Sword held his hand. The way the air got thinner. The world pulling away from him, piece by piece. He remembers slipping. He remembers the quiet. The nothing.

And yet here he is, sitting in the middle of a moment that shouldn’t exist.

“I’m dead,” he whispers, just to hear his voice.

He stays still, afraid to move, as if shifting even slightly might cause the whole illusion to shatter around him.

He’d lived a good life. Not perfect. But he’d done the best he could. He made mistakes, but he’d made peace with the end. It had felt final.

It had been final.

So what is this? Some god’s idea of mercy?

He rubs his eyes with his hand to try and wake himself up, and his skin feels solid. Real. Too real.

Cautiously, he swung his leg over the side of his bed and lowered his foot to the floor. The wood was cold, its chill biting into his skin. 

By the bedside table, he saw his prosthetics, right where he usually left them. But they weren’t the same. The design was different, clearly not Medkit’s work. Hesitantly, Rocket slid them on. 

At a glance in the mirror, he appeared the same. But only at a glance. The differences revealed themselves slowly—subtle alterations that were difficult to define. His limbs were slightly leaner. His horns carried a darker hue. The marks once imprinted around his eyes from his goggles had vanished.

And his eyes themselves?

The irises had turned pitch black—voidlike, unsettling. Staring into them felt like gazing into something infinite. He recoils a little. 

“Nope,” he mutters. "Ew."

But when he leaned a little closer, he noticed the glimmer of stars embedded deep within: tiny constellations blinking back at him, drifting silently within the darkness. A galaxy nested in each. A literal twinkle in his eye.

He touches his face, presses the heel of his palm to his chest.

Heartbeat. Fast. Erratic. But he noticed something else.

Etched into his skin, faint but unmistakable, was a mark: a scar in the shape of a star. Not a perfect shape, but raw and jagged, as if the cosmos itself had branded him. Five uneven points, like the remnants of something that had exploded inward and refused to heal smooth.

It did not bleed. It glowed.

The scar shimmered faintly each time his heart beat. He placed his fingers over it, feeling the warmth. As if something old and immense stirred just beneath his ribs. The light did not fade. It lived with him now.

Two steps away, the closet door stood half-open. Inside, a suit hung neatly, and pants embroidered with delicate star patterns. He couldn't even recall the last time he'd wore a suit. It felt unnatural, but he still reached for it. Folded carefully beneath the pants was a pair of gloves—midnight black, with faint stitching that shimmered when they caught the light. On the inner doorknob, where his goggles once hung, a mask had been placed instead. Smooth, unfamiliar, and elegant. He held it for a moment, turning it in his hand, then slipped it over his face. 

He looked ridiculous, like he was about to attend a masquerade. But he'd rather have something covering his eyes.

Rocket then approached his door with hesitation, his gloved hand resting against the familiar surface. It looked ordinary, aged slightly, paint peeling at the corners, but something about it pulsed faintly beneath his touch, like it was waiting for him. Before he exited, he summoned his gear, preparing for anything that might come at him. It didn't look different, but it felt noticeably lighter.

He turned the knob and opened the door. Beyond it was not a hallway.

It was the stars.

A vast, endless expanse unfolded before him, silent and infinite. Galaxies swirled like ink in water with constellations drifting above his head. It was space, but not cold or empty. It welcomed him.

There was no floor beneath his feet.

He stumbled forward instinctively then began to fall—or rise—or float—he couldn’t tell. Gravity no longer mattered here. 

Alone in the cosmic void, Rocket looked down at himself. His clothes shimmered faintly, the embroidered stars on his pants seeming to glow more brightly now, responding to the expanse.

The cold should have reached him. The vacuum should have crushed him. But neither came.

He looked downward. There, impossibly far below, was the world. Shrouded in mist and cloud, barely visible beyond layers of smoke and storm. The Inpherno. Where he was born and where he belonged.

Rocket began to fall—not with fear, but with purpose. His descent was slow, graceful. The air changed around him, heat replacing the cold touch of starlight. His mask held firm over his face, shielding him from the intensity of reentry. The sky of the Inpherno opened below him, vast and ash-colored.

He was coming home.
___

The sky split.

The Crossroads lay in its usual haze—its winding streets and fractured plazas bathed in the muted glow of flickering lamps. The chaos had become routine: traders arguing, gears clanking, distant laughter in alleyways stained by smoke. Life persisted.

And above it, the stars began to move.

A glimmer appeared in the sky. Thin at first, barely more than a flicker between the clouds. Then it grew. Rapid. Unrelenting. A streak of piercing light tearing downward through the atmosphere like a blade of fire.

But the clouds swallowed the noise. The city did not look up.

No witnesses, no raised eyes. The stars kept it hidden.

The streak broke through the sky directly above the heart of Crossroads. The impact came swift and sudden.

There was no explosive shockwave, no firestorm. Only a violent pulse of pressure as if the world had inhaled and refused to exhale.

And then stillness.

A crater smoked in the middle of the plaza, no larger than a room, jagged at the edges, glowing faintly with heat. Bits of molten stone lay scattered, hissing quietly against the cold. 

His limbs were a twisted sprawl of stardust and scraped metal, one leg half-bent beneath him, the other sprawled out at an impossible angle. His gear had detached on impact and lay nearby, flickering in its orbit like a broken satellite. Pale steam rose from its fractured edge. His fingers were curled into the scorched stone, knuckles split, nails cracked from the landing.

But he was still alive.

He gasped once. Sharp. Strangled. Then again.

The impact had knocked the breath out of him. His chest ached with the pressure of descent, as though the stars themselves had punched through him. He tried to move—but pain lanced up his spine.

His mask had been jolted askew, one strap snapped, the cracked edge biting into his cheek. He fumbled weakly at it, more from instinct than clarity. He was still trembling. Still stunned.

Slowly, agonizingly, he uncurled his limbs from the wreckage. His right shoulder screamed in protest as he shifted. The star-marked scar over his heart throbbed like something alive. Each movement felt disconnected, like his body hadn’t fully remembered how to be his.

Dust clung to him in patches. Ash blackened the edges of his suit. He dragged one knee beneath him and pushed upward—but collapsed halfway, landing hard on his side with a grunt.

His gear hovered faintly nearby, its rotation weak and faltering. When he reached for it, the motion nearly toppled him again. It took everything he had to pull it back into orbit.

Breathing hard, shaking, he forced himself upright. His knees were scraped, one palm sliced open. But he was standing.

He stumbled forward out of the crater. His boots crunched on glass and blackened rock. Behind him, the gear hummed to life once more, steadying.

He inhaled sharply, and for the first time, he felt the weight of being real again.
___

Crossroads was still there—but not the one he remembered.

He knew this street.

Or at least, he had.

Once, it had been full of color. Lanterns strung across archways. Walls scrawled with graffiti messages in dozens of hands—directions, warnings, jokes. A market stall just to the left had sold spare parts and sweetbread. The air used to hum with voices, with gears ticking in rhythm, with life.

Now, the walls were clean. Too clean. The chalk was gone. The posters he remembered were replaced with stark, lifeless notices bearing the seal of Illumina’s temple. The market stall had vanished. In its place stood a sleek metal structure.

He turned down a narrow path. One he had run a hundred times before, usually with Sword at his side, laughing, pushing, always late for something that never really mattered.

But the walls had changed. Taller. Shadowed. The graffiti was gone here too, painted over in muted gray. Even the cracks in the stone—those little breaks he used to trace with his fingertips—were gone. Replaced. Erased.

The chaos was gone. The noise. The clutter. The life.

Rocket slowed, breath catching in his throat. He leaned against a wall and shut his eyes.

This was where Zuka used to walk him home after dark. Where Medkit patched up his arm after a sparring match went wrong. 

No one passed him. No one brushed shoulders or muttered excuses. The city had always been crowded, overflowing—but now it breathed like it had been cleared out.

He kept walking.

Rocket instinctively gripped his gear, fingers poised just above the trigger. These alleyways had always been dangerous—turn a corner, and you might find yourself in the middle of a duel. But there was nothing.

The city is quiet.

Too quiet.

Rocket walks the street he once knew like the back of his hand. Everything’s colder now—muted. Clean in a way that feels unnatural. Wrong.

He turns a corner without thinking. Muscle memory, not direction. And something about the curve of the wall, the bend in the alley, the metal pipe still crooked just so—triggers it.

---

He’s here again.

The night crackles with life. Heat rising off pavement, the scent of oil and rust and too many people packed into too little space. Somewhere, music blares from a half busted speaker. Voices echo across the rooftops. Lanterns cast shadows that move like they're alive.

“Rocket, what if this explodes in my hands—”

“It won’t explode,” Rocket says, slamming a hatch shut on the oversized device balanced across his knees. His fingers are stained with grease, his goggles lopsided, and his prosthetic leg was frozen.

Sword stands across him with his arms crossed, watching Rocket work his usual expression, a perfect mix of exasperation and quiet concern.

“I said what if.”

Rocket spins the gear once. It clicks.

“It’s gonna fly!”

“It’s gonna catch fire!”

“Maybe both.”

Sword groans. “Why am I even here.”

“Because you like me,” Rocket says, flashing a grin and leaning back on his elbows. “And because if it does explode, I need someone to carry me to Medkit.”

“I’m leaving,” Sword mutters, already walking away.

Rocket’s immediately jumps to his feet, laughing, chasing after him with a trail of sparks left behind. He shouts something about a field test. Sword doesn’t even flinch anymore. 

The night fades into motion—rooftops, alleyways, makeshift ramps. Rocket leading, wild and half mad with joy, Sword following because someone has to make sure he doesn’t actually die. It’s not safe, and it’s not quiet, and it’s definitely not allowed.

A world of gears and gravel and late nights. Laughter and scraped elbows. 

---

Then, the it’s silent again.

Rocket stands still, heart aching, jaw tight. The spot’s the same. The alley. The pipe. Even the curve of the bricks where they used to lean while eating half burnt sandwiches.

But it’s quiet now.
___

He keeps going, past the edge of the district, where old buildings give way to new construction. Or what he thinks is new. Something massive looms on the horizon, cutting against the sky like a blade of glass and white light. 

He drifts closer.

A temple.

“What the hell…” Rocket whispers.

Towering, pristine, sharp-edged and luminous—like it had been plucked from the stars themselves and dropped into the center of the Inpherno. The stone is so pale it reflects the sky. At the top, a symbol glows faintly: a blooming sigil, unmistakably divine.

Rocket’s breath catches.

He's seen that emblem before.

Illumina?

He walks up, careful, slow, until he can witness the temple's full, overwhelming grandeur.

The gates aren’t guarded, but they don’t need to be. Something about the place radiates reverence, like it was too holy to even approach.

A temple.

To Illumina.

Something happened while he was gone.

Something that burned everything familiar and left this behind.

He doesn’t go in, just yet. Doesn’t dare. Just stares, and lets the cold of it sink in.

He doesn’t know what happened after he died.

But whatever it was—it started here.

___
Rocket steps forward, one foot after the other, slow and measured, as if the air itself might shatter beneath him. The temple looms ahead—so tall he has to crane his neck just to see the peaks of its spires, where light twists like burning mist. It doesn’t feel like a place meant to be entered. It feels like something meant to be worshipped from afar, like the surface of a star: awe-inspiring, deadly.

And yet… he walks.

The marble under his feet is cold, too clean, polished to an unnatural shine that reflects the sky above like a mirror warped by heat. Pillars rise on either side of him like silent watchers, carved in the likeness of ancient celestial beings—some with faces, others with none at all. Their eyes seem to follow him.

He swallows. Every step is a challenge, like the temple is testing whether he truly belongs. His gear floats just behind him, shifting in silent orbits. The closer he gets to the main threshold, the heavier the air becomes. Like the weight of what he’s doing is pressing down through the fabric of reality.

A massive archway marks the entrance, and across its surface is etched a mural: a god descending from the heavens, arms outstretched, light pouring from his fingers as the Inpherno bows below. Something in Rocket’s chest twists.

He steps through.

Instantly, the hum grows louder. He’s inside.

The light here is wrong. Too soft. Too sterile. The vast temple chamber stretches endlessly in every direction, a massive labyrinth of corridors and sanctuaries. Somewhere above, music plays—low, resonant tones that make the walls feel like they’re breathing.

His breath catches as he takes another step inside, the cold touch of marble beneath his feet. He’s never seen a sight like this before. 

Rocket exhales slowly, steadying himself. The silence inside the temple is absolute.

Rocket’s footsteps echo faintly as he starts to ascend the staircase at the far end of the chamber. The stairs are wide—too wide for a single person, as if designed for gods instead of mortals. Each step is smooth, seamless, made from the same cold marble as the floor, with faint silver veins running through it.

He climbs slowly at first, unsure of where the stairs will take him, or if they ever truly end.

The further up he goes, the thinner the air feels. It feels like he’s climbing out of reality and into something else entirely. Gravity shifts slightly underfoot, the strange sensation blurring his movement.

As he rounds the next curve, a hallway opens up on the left. He slows, glancing down its corridor. Empty. Lined with altars and small shrines, burning with pale purple flames that emit no smoke. The faces carved into the walls are masked and faceless.

He keeps going.

Up and up and up, the stairs wind like a spiral. At one point he stops, pressing a hand to the stone wall beside him, steadying himself. His body isn’t tired, but something deeper is beginning to ache. The temple hums around him, not with malice—just with immense, ancient weight.

A faint breeze brushes past him. There’s no wind inside, he knows that, but something moves. Something higher. Watching.

His hand instinctively hovers near the gear at his back.

Still, no one appears. No alarms. No guards.

Why is it so quiet?

Why hasn’t anyone stopped him?

He quickens his pace now, climbing faster, his bare feet gliding more than stepping. He doesn't know why he's going up—just that he has to. Something is waiting. Something important.

Around the next bend, the stairs widen, flattening into a long platform—a hallway flanked by windows. Not stained glass, but open stone arches that look out onto the Inpherno below. The view is staggering.

Crossroads stretches out in all directions. Roads twist like veins, buildings rising and falling in impossible shapes, nothing quite where he remembers it. The temple is far above it all, built on some floating foundation that keeps it suspended like a fallen star locked in orbit. Rocket realizes, with a strange sort of calm, that he is no longer in any normal place.

This is divine territory.

The hum of the temple thickens in his ears, layered now with something sharper… something heavier.

A pulse. A presence.

He reaches the landing, breath light, eyes scanning the open chamber ahead.

And then—he sees him.

A lone figure stands near the far edge, silhouetted by one of the great windows carved into the temple wall. His back is to Rocket, posture rigid, arms behind his back in perfect stillness. From his back unfurl two enormous, jagged wings—bone white and shimmering faintly. A blade hangs at his side. 

At first Rocket thinks he's just another disciple. Maybe a high ranking one.

But then the figure turns.

And Rocket stops breathing.

His face is different—almost unrecognizably so. Paler, colder, face marred by faint sigils that curl like bruises under his eyes and across his cheek. His horns are sharper now, twisted into pale violet spirals. His visor had been shattered on one side, revealing an eye. And that eye...his eye is wrong. Not bright and warm like they were in memory. They glow softly with pale, divine light. He looks back at Rocket with a blank stare. 

Rocket knows that face.

It's him.

“Sword…?” Rocket breathes, barely louder than a whisper.

The man narrows his eyes. Tilts his head. His hand hovers near his blade.

“Thou speak’st a name I know not,” the figure says. His voice is cold, each word polished and distant. “I am Follower. Sworn blade of Illumina. And thou—trespasser—hast no right to be here.”

Rocket blinked, heart lurching. That voice…

No. It couldn’t be. His voice was deeper now. Older. But still.

He doesn’t recognize me?

“I...I didn’t mean to trespass,” Rocket says quickly, stepping back with his hands slightly raised. “I just—I don’t know how I got here. I’m sorry.”

“Thou dost trespass,” he said, voice echoing. “Name thyself.”

“I—” Rocket started. He hesitated. His hand hovered near his mask to take it off. “—It’s me. It’s Rocket.”

The moment the word left his mouth, the armored figure drew his blade.

Rocket stumbled back instinctively. “Wait—" he started, voice cracking.

But Follower didn’t hesitate. He moved with terrifying precision. His footsteps echoed with finality.

Rocket raised his arm, panic blooming in his chest. “I’m not here to fight!”

The blade came down.

He didn’t scream. He couldn’t. The breath had been carved from his lungs the moment the blade pierced him. Follower’s sword didn’t just slice—it split. It tore. The sound was obscene: the thick, wet grind of steel through cartilage, the dull crack as rib gave way, the high whine of metal vibrating against bone.

Rocket’s mouth hung open, breathless, red pouring from the corner of his lips in a thin, shaking stream. His eyes bulged, unfocused, stars swirling in their depths like dying galaxies. His knees buckled. Blood slicked the floor beneath him, hot and endless.

He choked once.

“No, no—stop!” he gasped, staggering back. “Sword—it’s me! Rocket—”

“Thy name is unknown to mine ears,” Follower said, approaching with slow, relentless steps. “Thy form is false. Thine intrusion, unforgivable.”

And then the blade twisted.

It ground through the meat of his chest with a sickening crunch, and Rocket’s body convulsed, his hands scrabbling weakly against Follower’s armor, twitching fingers trailing bloody smears down violet metal.

The pain was unbearable. And yet it didn’t end.

Follower withdrew the sword slowly, as if savoring the sound of tearing muscle. A thick, crimson string followed the blade’s edge, snapping as it came free. Rocket collapsed onto all fours, coughing violently, splattering the floor with blood and fragments of teeth. His vision swam.

Another blow.

It crashed down into his shoulder—shattering bone, cleaving muscle. His scream this time was guttural, hoarse, inhuman, strangled beneath the weight of his own blood. He fell sideways, twitching, arm hanging uselessly by threads of skin and sinew.

And still, still—Follower was not done.

The next thrust punched through his lower stomach, right below the ribs. The tip burst out his back with a spray of fluid, catching air and armor both. Rocket spasmed once, twice—then froze. His blood sprayed across the temple wall. The pristine surface was marred, ruined by the sticky, dark liquid that dripped down, a brutal blotch against its sacred stillness. He blinked slowly, eyes wide and unseeing.

His hand twitched toward his mask, half broken on the ground. Fingers found nothing. The blade left him again with a nauseating noise, and he toppled over, head hitting the stone with a sickening wet thud.

His limbs were wrong now—sprawled, limp. His breathing was faint. Shallow.

Then stopped.

Follower stood above him, the edge of his blade dripping with pale, star flecked blood. The body below twitched once more.

And then, silence reigned.

___

Rocket’s eyes fluttered, heavy lids peeling apart. The cold stone beneath him had vanished. Instead, soft light filtered through an unseen window, gentle and warm—like the first caress of morning after a long, endless night.

His breath came ragged at first, shallow and uncertain, then deeper, filling the hollow ache in his chest.

He blinked again, slower this time, struggling to piece together where he was, what had happened.

Pain was there, beneath the haze—a dull throb, a heavy weight pressed just beneath his ribs.

He shot upright, chest heaving, hand flying to the center of his chest.

The old scar was still there, the jagged star he’d woken up with the first time, glowing faintly beneath his ribs. But now there were others.

One at his left shoulder. Another low on his abdomen. And the one over his heart was brighter now.

Rocket stayed hunched for a long moment, arm wrapped tight around his knee, forehead pressed against his shoulders. The glow of the scars flickered dimly through the fabric, little pulses of starlight.

He didn’t cry.

He wanted to. It felt like he should. But all he could feel was that wrong kind of stillness again—like he was underwater, like the world had gone quiet just for him.

What if I’m not really alive?

What if he wasn’t being saved? What if he was being trapped?

His eyes flicked to the window.

“...Am I in purgatory?” he questioned aloud. His voice cracked.

Some endless loop. Some cosmic punishment. A place between endings, where nothing could move forward.

That’s what this felt like. A reality stitched together wrong on purpose, just to make him watch. Just to make him feel it.

And Sword—he hadn’t remembered him.

That’s what cut deepest. Not the blade. Not his death.

The emptiness in Sword’s eyes.