Star’s POV

Smoke hung thick over the town, curling around half-collapsed roofs and through streets littered with ash and shattered glass. The fire was patient. It moved slowly, like it was savoring what it consumed, licking at walls that had barely survived the chaos from the bridge. Star walked through it without hesitation. Every step crunching over rubble, every inhale pulling in the acrid scent of burning wood and despair.

Her soldiers followed her silently, armored in matte black suits that reflected the flames faintly. Heavy, durable, battle-ready. Their visors mirrored the firelight, hiding eyes that otherwise might betray fear—or guilt. She didn’t need to see it; she could hear it in the way one soldier dragged his feet, the way another adjusted his gauntlets like it could protect him from her.

Then he appeared.

The soldier Jakari had thrown from the bridge. His body was crooked beneath the armor, visor cracked, the shoulder plate bent inward. He limped forward, hesitating, but didn’t attempt to flee. Even knowing what awaited him, he came.

“My Lady,” he said, voice shaking despite the filtered helmet. “We failed. Posida… she… she’s gone. Jakari—he escaped.”

Star stopped walking. She didn’t turn. The air around her seemed to bend slightly, heavy with judgment.

“Explain,” she said.

The soldier swallowed. “We tried to track the van… we planted a device… but they disarmed it. He—he moved faster than we anticipated. Posida—” His words stuttered. “She didn’t survive.”

Star’s hand rested on the hilt of her katana, a subtle pressure, not yet drawn. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even shift. But the soldier could feel it. The quiet before the storm.

“You believed,” she said softly.

“Yes, my Lady,” he admitted, head dropping. “We believed we could stop him. We failed. I—”

Her boot struck him squarely in the chest, lifting him from the ground. He hit the pavement with a metallic clang of armor, sliding a few feet across ash and glass.

“You watched Jakari walk away,” she said evenly. “You let Posida die. You let my plan—our plan—fail.”

The soldier tried to stand. She brought her boot down again. Hard. Not enough to kill yet—but enough to make him wish he had never existed.

“Take him,” she said, voice cutting like a blade. “To the town hall. I want the Masters to see your failure firsthand.”

⸻

The town hall was a relic, its heavy wooden doors carved with intricate designs of dragons and oni. Smoke from outside drifted inside, curling around the seven thrones arranged in a semicircle at the far end of the hall. The Masters waited.

They were statuesque, terrifying even sitting down: seven men, each over seven feet tall, each weighing well over three hundred pounds of solid, carved muscle. But what made them more formidable than size alone was the discipline they radiated. Samurai-inspired armor: layered, black lacquer plates etched with infernal sigils, crimson tassels hanging from pauldrons and helmets alike. Their katanas rested across their laps, tips glinting in the firelight. Each had a calm, terrifying presence—the kind that made every man in the room feel as if their soul had been counted and found wanting.

Star stepped forward alone. The broken soldier was dragged to the center of the hall. His armor was scarred, dented, smeared with soot. He dropped to his knees, trembling.

The first Master rose. His armor clanked with subtle menace. “You have failed,” he said, voice low and honed. “Again. And for this, the consequences fall upon you.”

Star did not flinch. She looked to the Leader, the tallest of the seven. His helmet was carved to resemble a dragon’s maw, fangs descending over his chest. His eyes were visible beneath the visor—piercing, judgmental, cold.

“Enough,” he said. His voice carried the weight of absolute authority. “Star. Speak. What do you offer to correct this failure?”

Star’s hand brushed the hilt of her katana. The broken soldier’s visor clattered as he whimpered. “I request,” she said, voice steady, “the heart of Azrathion.”

A ripple ran through the chamber. Even the Masters shifted imperceptibly. Azrathion. The Last Warrant. Hell had failed to kill him. Heaven had refused him. And he had been buried in the Black Ice Vault beneath the Arctic Circle, a place too cold for him to rise, too close to Hell for safety, too far from mankind to matter—until now.

One Master’s voice was like gravel grinding over bone. “You wish to summon a force Hell itself could not contain?”

“Yes,” Star said. Her eyes met the Leader’s. “I will control him. He will become the weapon we need to destroy Jakari. He will learn, he will hunt, and he will finish him. And when he does, he will be returned to the only place that belongs to him: his throne in Hell.”

The Leader leaned forward, resting his gauntleted hands on the arms of his throne. “You know the cost?”

Star drew her katana in one smooth motion. The soldiers froze. “I am prepared.”

The ritual began. The broken soldier was offered as a blood price. Star struck. A quiet hiss escaped the room as the energy shifted. One Master stepped forward, hands passing over his armor and into his own chest. Faint echoes and whispers filled the hall—souls caught between life and death—but Star ignored it. She caught the black aura that emerged, felt it pulse in her hands, and held it as though it were already hers.

The Leader’s voice cut through the chamber like steel. “Do not fail me again. The Blood Moon approaches. Use this time wisely.”

Star bowed once. “I understand.”

Hours later, the Arctic winds cut through her armor like knives. Snow swirled, ice sheets groaned underfoot, and visibility was a frost-bitten haze. She moved with precision, her soldiers trailing silently. Three innocents were with them—not children, but innocents—hostages of circumstance, their terror a warning to any who might fail her.

After two hours of walking, they found it: a small, unassuming door in the ice, carved with subtle markings only visible when the light struck right. It opened to a stairway descending into the depths of the Earth itself. The air grew warmer as they went deeper, thicker, tinged with sulfur and shadow—the breath of a realm between Hell and Earth.

At the bottom, the ancient black door loomed. Covered in skulls and demonic sigils. Chains pulsed faintly across the surface. Star nodded. The captives were placed before the door. They shrank back, crying, pleading. Their voices echoed, bouncing off stone and ice. The symbols flared. Three unseen mechanisms activated below them. Ripping though their bodies and exiting through their heads. Blood spilling to the ground. Their screams ended abruptly, leaving the chamber in a suffocating silence.

The door slowly creaked open. Black chains hung from the ceiling. The man bound in them swayed slightly. Star stepped forward. Soldiers pressed hidden buttons along the walls. 

The chains finished withdrawing with a sound like the world exhaling.

Azrathion stood fully upright now.

Tall. Broad. His body was carved with scars that weren’t wounds but records—battles etched into flesh, symbols burned so deeply they seemed to move when the light shifted. The black chains lay coiled on the floor behind him like shed skin.

His eyes found Star.

Not her soldiers.

Not the chamber.

Her.

“Who,” he repeated, voice rolling through the vault like distant thunder beneath ice, “has decided to wake the thing Hell buried?”

Star stepped forward.

“I have,” she said.

His gaze dropped—to the object in her hand.

The heart.

It pulsed once.

Azrathion’s lips curved slightly. Not a smile. Recognition.

“So,” he said slowly, “they finally grew desperate enough to let you hold it.”

Star raised the heart higher. “You know what this is.”

“I know,” he replied, voice low, amused, “that it should be inside me.”

A faint pressure rippled outward. Several soldiers staggered, gripping their helmets as if their skulls were suddenly too small.

Star didn’t move.

“I want Jakari,” she said. “I want him hunted. Broken. Studied. When the time is right—killed.”

Azrathion tilted his head.

“Jakari,” he echoed, tasting the name. “A man.”

“Yes.”

“A man,” he repeated, softer now, “who escaped Hell’s notice long enough that I am woken for him.”

His eyes lifted back to hers.

“No.”

The word landed heavier than any blow.

Star’s fingers tightened around the heart. “You will reconsider.”

Azrathion laughed.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t wild.

It was controlled.

“You mistake this moment,” he said. “You didn’t summon me to serve. You interrupted my silence.”

He stepped closer. The ground beneath his feet darkened.

“I do not hunt men for favors.”

Star met his gaze, unflinching.

“Then hunt him for purpose.”

She paused.

“For your throne.”

That got his attention.

The chamber shifted.

The air thickened. The sigils along the walls flared, reacting to something ancient stirring.

“My throne,” Azrathion said quietly.

“Yes,” Star said. “Your rank. Your authority. Restored. Hell needs its executioner again.”

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then—

“You speak as if Hell still remembers me fondly.”

“They remember what happens,” Star said, “when you are unleashed.”

Azrathion’s smile widened, sharp and knowing.

“And what makes you think,” he asked, “that I would accept your leash?”

Star lifted the heart slightly.

“Because you still exist.”

His eyes darkened.

Then he laughed again—this time louder.

“You hold my heart,” he said. “You think that makes you my master?”

“No,” Star answered. “It makes me necessary.”

Silence.

Then—

“One condition,” Azrathion said.

Star stiffened. “Speak.”

“I will hunt Jakari,” he said. “I will learn him. I will enjoy him.”

He took another step closer. The soldiers behind Star began backing away without realizing it.

“But I will not do it as your weapon.”

Star’s jaw tightened. “What do you want?”

Azrathion leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper that carried to every corner of the vault.

“I want to stand before the Seven Masters,” he said.

“I want them to look at me.”

“I want them to remember why they sealed me instead of killing me.”

Star hesitated.

For the first time.

“That is not part of the bargain.”

Azrathion’s eyes flared.

“Then there is no bargain.”

The heart pulsed violently in Star’s hand.

Slowly… carefully… she nodded.

“They will meet you,” she said. “When Jakari is dead.”

Azrathion smiled.

“No,” he corrected. “Before.”

A beat.

Star exhaled once. “Agreed.”

The moment the word left her mouth—

Azrathion moved.

The soldiers screamed.

Not as bodies fell—but as something else was torn free.

Shadows ripped from armor. Light drained from visors. Their cries stretched, distorted, burning into something inhuman as their souls were drawn into Azrathion like sparks into a furnace.

He threw his head back and groaned—deep, satisfied.

The chamber filled with the sound of burning voices, echoing, overlapping, pleading.

Star stood her ground.

Azrathion lowered his head, eyes glowing brighter than before.

He smiled at her.

“Tell the Masters,” he said, voice dripping with anticipation,

“that the Last Warrant is walking again.”

His laughter followed her out of the vault—

layered with screams,

with fire,

with memory.

And somewhere far away—

Jakari’s fate shifted.