The battlefield was quiet now.
The Hero lay in the dirt, breathing—but not moving. His sword was cracked. His pride, shattered.
The villain stood over him, chest rising and falling, his cloak torn, his body scorched with the aftermath of power unsealed.
The firefly light flickered in his pocket.
He didn't kill the Hero.
He should have.
He could have.
But something stopped him.
Something in the way the wind sounded when it passed through broken chains.
Something in the ghost of a smile that wasn't his.
---
Flashback — memory slices through him again:
She tugged at his sleeve.
Wrote with trembling fingers:
> "Will we still be friends if I'm called a monster?"
He didn't answer back then.
He never got the chance.
---
Back in the present…
He turned his back on the Hero.
Walked through ash and silence. Not victorious. Just… existing.
The stars returned, one by one, but none dared look at him directly.
The world was still calling him "villain."
But he was tired of being anything.
His hands curled.
His chest ached—not from magic, but something heavier.
---
Somewhere far away, villagers whispered of his return.
They locked their doors.
Prayed to the gods.
But he wasn't coming for them.
He walked instead toward where her grave should've been—
If they'd even buried her.
---
He sat beneath the tree where she used to leave notes for him.
The paper was long gone.
But the roots still remembered.
He whispered to no one, "I should've run with you."
And the night did not disagree.