The throne room reeked of death.
Charred flesh clung to the cracked marble like black moss, bodies fused into walls where flame and spell had collided. Once-proud banners now hung in tatters, soaked in the blood of kings and monsters alike. The air was thick with the stink of burning sinew, of melted steel and rot. Screams still echoed, even though the throats they came from had long since stopped bleeding.
At the center of it all, he sat.
The Demon King.
Barefoot, blood-caked, and draped in the skin of a divine beast he had butchered with his bare hands. His crown was forged from the shattered halos of fallen archangels. His eyes—once a soft brown—were now nothing but dying embers in a skull too tired to crack a smile.
His fingers twitched against the armrest, drumming a rhythm only he understood: one-two, one-two-three. A pattern carved into his flesh during the years he spent chained beneath the world, dreaming of fire and him.
The hero.
He was here.
Marching through rivers of corpses with eyes alight and a god's will crawling in his veins. The army behind him had no soul—just meat puppets of justice, gnawed hollow by righteousness.
But the hero—he looked just like him.
Like the boy he had once burned alive to save.
The Demon King remembered the scream. The skin splitting beneath his nails as he clawed his brother out of the fire. The smell of his own hair burning. The moment his vision blurred and the world collapsed inward. He had died with his brother's name on his lips—only to awaken centuries later with power he didn't ask for and a hunger he couldn't escape.
They fed him lies. Trained him like a dog. Crowned him in blood.
And now they called him a monster.
He licked his teeth. They still tasted of the high priest he had devoured this morning—bones crunching like dry leaves, his last prayer gargled out through crushed lungs. Pity. The priest had begged for a painless death. No one in this world deserved that mercy.
The doors shuddered.
Holy light oozed in through the cracks like pus from a wound. Something divine and wrong and final.
The Demon King rose, barefoot stepping on a melted helmet with a sickening crack. He dragged his blade—twelve feet long and stitched with the tendons of the fallen—across the floor, drawing a deep scar into the stone.
From his chest he pulled a locket, blackened and nearly fused shut by heat. Inside: a child's drawing, burnt at the edges. Two stick figures. One labeled "ME" and one labeled "BIG BRO."
He stared at it.
"Look at me now, little brother," he rasped, voice raw. "Look what they made me."
The doors burst open.
And the hero entered.
Eyes shining. Blade singing. Covered in divine sigils that hissed and peeled against the air.
For one second—the smallest, most cruel second—the Demon King thought he saw his brother in that face. The child he gave his life for. The boy who once clung to his hand in the rain.
But no. That boy was dead.
What stood before him was the world's weapon.
And the Demon King was tired of playing the villain.
He spread his arms wide, like a martyr awaiting crucifixion.
"Come," he whispered.
"Make me the monster they want me to be."
The first strike wasn't steel.
It was a look.
The Hero hesitated.
Only for a breath. Only for a moment. But it was enough.
The Demon King didn't lunge. Didn't parry. Didn't roar like the monster they wanted.
He just stared.
And in that quiet, something broke open inside him.
His lungs filled with smoke—not from the battlefield—but from that night.
Then.
The house was already collapsing when he reached the second floor.
Smoke clawed at his throat like barbed wire. His hands were bleeding, torn from pounding at the flaming door. Every breath tasted like copper and regret. His knees shook, but he didn't stop—not while his little brother was still inside.
"Ren!"
His voice cracked as he kicked the door off its hinges.
Inside the room, flames danced like devils. The wallpaper peeled in strips, curling into black petals. But there, curled into a ball beneath a burning beam, was his brother. Six years old. Hiccupping sobs. Soot covering his cheeks like war paint.
"Big bro?"
That voice—tiny, confused, hopeful.
That voice would follow him into death.
He didn't answer. He just ran, scooped Ren into his arms, and turned toward the window.
But behind them—timber cracked.
He spun.
The ceiling buckled.
A burning support beam came down like a guillotine.
Time slowed.
He threw Ren with every ounce of strength he had left—through the window, into the cold night. He remembered the glass shattering. The scream. The blur of stars.
And then pain.
White-hot, world-ending pain.
The beam struck him square in the back. Bones cracked. Flesh split. He couldn't feel his legs. But he was alive long enough to hear Ren screaming his name from outside. Long enough to see neighbors pulling the boy away. Long enough to smile.
Then the flames swallowed him whole.
Now.
Clang.
The Hero's sword met his in a shower of sparks.
The Demon King barely blocked. One foot skidded back. His arms trembled—not from the impact, but from the memory still bleeding inside him.
Ren's face was different now. Sharper. Stronger. Eyes cold with divine purpose. But beneath it all, the same boy. The same little brother who once cried when he scraped his knee and begged him to kiss it better.
"Do you remember," the Demon King rasped, "what you used to call me?"
The Hero didn't answer.
He lunged again, faster—this time drawing blood.
The Demon King staggered. His cheek split open.
He didn't retaliate.
Instead, he laughed. It was hoarse, broken. Like something clawing out of a grave.
"You called me your shield. Remember? 'My big bro's my shield. He always stands in front of me.'"
The Hero's sword trembled—just a twitch. But enough.
"Who told you to forget?" the Demon King asked. "Was it the angels? The saints? The pretty priests who fed you lies and dressed you in light?"
The Hero screamed and charged.
But the Demon King was already drifting.
Then.
It was raining that day.
He remembered the smell of wet earth and soap from their tiny house.
Ren was five. He was nine. And he had just punched a kid twice his size for stealing Ren's lunch.
They were hiding behind the school.
Ren sniffled, looking up at him with big, watery eyes.
"You're gonna get in trouble again."
He shrugged. "Don't care."
"Why?"
"Because you're mine to protect."
Ren blinked. "Always?"
"Always."
And Ren had smiled—wide, missing teeth and all—and hugged him so hard he thought his ribs might snap.
Now.
The Demon King's knees buckled.
A holy slash ripped through his side. His ribs were cracked. Blood poured from the corner of his mouth. His vision blurred.
But he kept standing.
He always stood.
Because the boy before him didn't remember those rainy afternoons. Didn't remember the scraped knees or late-night stories or the taste of burnt toast and cheap jam.
All he saw was a monster.
And maybe that's all the world would let him be.
Still… he took one step forward.
His spine ached. His lungs burned. His blade dragged like a corpse behind him.
One step closer.
Closer to the only family he ever had.
"You want to kill me, Ren?"
The Hero hesitated.
"I'm right here," the Demon King whispered, smiling through the blood. "Do it like they taught you."
And for the first time, the Hero faltered.
Because somewhere, buried beneath divine mandates and holy indoctrination—
That name meant something.