Irina fell next.
Not with a crash.
With the flailing, sparkling enthusiasm of an angel tripping over her own wings.
..
He caught her in the manor lobby.
Afternoon light fell through the tall windows in warm bands, catching dust motes and hints of magic in the air. The manor had settled into its usual organized chaos: Sona and Rias' voices drifted faintly from the study, Asia's humming floated from the infirmary wing, and somewhere deeper inside Koneko and Kuroka were definitely arguing over snacks again.
Irina stood in the middle of the lobby like a disaster in progress.
Arms full of shopping bags, humming some high-energy church song under her breath, she spun halfway on her heel, wings threatening to pop out just from excitement. Her aura was its usual bright, slightly chaotic blend of holy light and sheer earnestness—now braided with the smooth, looping patterns of Myriad Origin circulation Ren had carved into her over the last months. Whenever she summoned her wings now, they glowed a little brighter, lines of refined energy running through the feathers.
She almost walked into him.
"Yo," Ren said. "You free tomorrow afternoon?"
He leaned against one of the lobby pillars like he'd grown there, hands in his pockets, relaxed smile tugging at his mouth.
Irina blinked at him over a stack of pastel bags.
"Mm? For what?" she asked. "Exorcism practice? I can definitely smite something! Or—wait, is it a mission? Ooh, is it a secret mission? Is it a date? Ah, I said it first, that's embarrassing—"
"It's a date," he said, amused. "Good guess."
All the bags almost hit the floor.
"E–eh?!" she squeaked. "With me?" She pointed at herself, eyes huge. "The self-proclaimed angel?"
"You're not self-proclaimed," he said. "You're literally an angel. And personality-wise, yeah, that too." His smile crooked. "And yes. With you."
She stared, brain clearly buffering.
"But Xenovia just—" Irina blurted, then bit her lip hard enough that her cheeks went red.
Ren's mouth curved, a touch softer.
"She and all my girlfriends are very happy and very content right now," he said. "Did you think I'd do this behind their backs?"
Irina flailed, mortified, bags rustling dangerously.
"N–no! I didn't mean—that's not— I just— I thought—"
Ren stepped forward before gravity claimed the shopping.
"Easy," he said, steadying the bags with one hand. "Deep breath. Before you hyperventilate and Sona puts 'Ren-related fainting' in the injury reports."
She made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh.
"Irina," he said quietly. "Look at me."
She did.
Her cheeks were crimson, her eyes wide and glossy with too many emotions piled on top of each other.
"I talked to Xenovia," he said. "To Rias. Asia. Everyone who needed to know. This house isn't a battlefield. Nobody here is going to make you 'win' or 'lose' at love." His gaze stayed steady, gentle but unflinching. "If I ask you on a date, it's because I like you. Not because I'm bored. Not because I want drama."
Her shoulders eased a fraction.
"…You like… me," she repeated, small, as if trying the words on her tongue.
"Yeah," he said easily. "The loud, cheerful, silly girl who keeps insisting she's a pure angel while making faces at devils behind their backs? Very likable."
"H–hey! I don't— okay, maybe I do a little," she admitted, pouting. "But you do it too!"
"Absolutely," he said. "So. Tomorrow afternoon."
She twisted the bag handles between her fingers, aura fluttering like nervous wings.
"…If I say yes," she said carefully, "I'm not just saying 'thank you for inviting me to hang out'."
"I know," he said.
He didn't push. He just waited.
"You're saying," he went on, softer, "that you trust me with the part of you that still prays at night."
Her eyes went bright and wet in an instant.
"That's… a very unfair way of putting it," she whispered.
"I specialize in unfair," he said, not even pretending otherwise. "I'll still accept."
Silence stretched for a heartbeat.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Yes," she said. Her voice shook a little, but the word was clear. "Please take me on a date."
Ren's smile deepened just at the corners.
"Done," he said. "Tomorrow. I'll pick you up. Dress for fun, not a sermon."
"Fun is not inherently unholy," she muttered on reflex.
"Good," he said. "Because I plan to have a lot of it."
...
He took Irina somewhere loud.
Not a battlefield.
An amusement park.
It sprawled on the outskirts of town, all neon lights and steel bones, the air thick with the smell of caramel, grilled food, and oil from the rides. Shrieks from roller coasters rose and fell like waves; music from half a dozen speakers overlapped into a chaotic background hum.
Irina stopped just inside the gate and spun around like a kid.
"This place is amazing!" she shouted over the noise, eyes sparkling as she took in everything at once. "There's a dragon-shaped ride! And cotton candy! And— is that a haunted house?"
"You're supposed to be incognito," Ren reminded her, amusement lacing his voice. "Angels aren't meant to draw attention, remember?"
"I am simply expressing appropriate enthusiasm for God's gift of human entertainment!" she declared, chest puffing up like she was giving a sermon. She paused. "…Okay, maybe that's a little blasphemous."
"Don't worry," he said. "If He's watching, He's laughing."
She flapped her hands, wings almost manifesting out of sheer panic.
"You can't just say things like that—!"
He could. He did. All afternoon.
Not cruel blasphemy, not mockery. Easy, offhand remarks that tugged at the stiffness around her beliefs without tearing them apart.
"If God didn't want people to scream on roller coasters," he mused as they queued for the tallest one in the park, "He wouldn't have let humans invent gravity and bad safety decisions."
Irina choked on a laugh, then covered her mouth like she'd committed a crime.
Lightning did not fall.
The sky remained stubbornly blue.
Every time she reflexively flinched and then realized nothing bad happened, some small, tightly-wound knot in her chest loosened.
They ate too much sugar.
Ren won her a ridiculous swirl of cotton candy in a color that did not occur in nature; Irina managed to get half of it on her cheeks. On the second roller coaster, she screamed loud enough that nearby humans covered their ears—then demanded they ride again. On the spinning cups, Ren let her drag them into the fastest rotation until the scenery blurred and her laughter turned breathless and wild.
At a rigged game stall, she pointed at the biggest prize.
"The dragon," she said with absolute seriousness. "Look at him. He's… so dumb-looking. I love him."
Ren eyed the target layout, the subtle skew in the stands, the way the mechanism cheated.
He also had an Immortal Soul Bone that turned complexity into simplicity, and a Dao sense that mapped the world into neat diagrams whether it wanted to be or not.
He handed the stall owner a few coins, picked up the ball, and let his Dao calculate the exact arc that would account for the crooked table and weighted bottles without letting any cultivator nonsense show in the glow of his eyes.
The ball flew.
The bottles collapsed.
The owner stared.
Irina squealed as the enormous stuffed dragon was reluctantly handed over. She hugged it with both arms, barely visible around the soft bulk.
"I hereby name you Holy Dragon-kun!" she declared solemnly. "You will assist me in training!"
Ren raised an eyebrow. "You're recruiting plushies now?"
"Every warrior starts somewhere," she said with dignity. Then she beamed at him over the dragon's head. "Thank you."
The thank-you wasn't just for the toy.
He heard it anyway.
By the time the sun sank and the park lights really came alive, their sugar high had settled into a warm hum. They collapsed onto a bench overlooking the artificial lake at the center of the park. Lights from the rides and stalls scattered across the water, rippling with every small wake.
Irina swung her legs, shoes not quite reaching the ground, Holy Dragon-kun sitting on her lap like a fat guardian.
"…You know," she said quietly, "when I was little, I always thought dates would be very… pure."
Ren huffed a soft laugh. "Clarify pure. That word's doing a lot of work."
She made a face.
"Walks to church. Holding hands very chastely. Earnest conversations about scripture." Her shoulders hunched. "That kind of thing."
"Sounds like you got the wrong boyfriend," he said dryly.
She elbowed him in the side, scandal mixed with a tiny smile.
"I am being serious," she insisted.
"I can tell," he said, eyes on the glittering lake. "So?"
She fiddled with the dragon's paw, fingers tracing idle patterns in the cheap fabric.
"So I thought… if I ever…" Her voice dropped. "If I ever fell for someone, it would have to be someone who understood that part. My faith. My… weirdness." Her mouth twisted, caught between pride and embarrassment. "Someone on the same side. A knight. An angel. Not a human who hangs out with devils, commands dragons, and talks about souls like he's rearranging furniture."
He shrugged lightly.
"I contain multitudes," he said. "And bad metaphors."
She laughed despite herself, quietly.
Then she turned.
Her whole body angled toward him, seriousness settling over her like a cloak. The noise of the park seemed to recede a little, the world narrowing to the bench, the lake, and the boy who shouldn't fit into any of the categories she'd been given as a child.
"Ren," she whispered. "I like you."
His smile softened.
She kept going, words rushing now that they'd started.
"I like you when you're smiling. I like you when you're terrifying. I like that you never make me choose between being an angel and being a girl." Her hands tightened in the dragon's plush. "I don't want to just… play. I want… to be serious, too. Even if I still shout about being an angel sometimes."
"You can shout as much as you want," Ren said softly. "As long as you also let me do this."
He slid his arm from the back of the bench around her shoulders, moving slow enough that she could pull away if she wanted. His hand settled against her far shoulder, drawing her gently into his side.
Irina squeaked, body going stiff for half a heartbeat.
"…This is very intimate," she muttered into his shirt.
"Wait until I hold your hand," he said. "Scandalous."
"You—!" She buried her face in his shoulder to hide the grin he couldn't see but definitely felt.
He let her heartbeat even out against him, the rhythm calming from hummingbird to something more human. The warmth of her aura soaked into his side—holy, bright, threaded quietly with Myriad Origin's clean circulation.
Then he brought his free hand up, fingers tilting her chin up with gentle pressure.
"Last chance to flee," he murmured. "Once I kiss you, it's too late. No refunds."
She stared up at him, eyes wide and wet and stubborn.
"…I'm not running," she whispered. "Not from this."
He kissed her.
It was different from Xenovia. Xenovia had met him head-on, fierce and straightforward, passion slamming into his with no hesitation.
Irina's lips trembled at first, unsure. Her fingers clenched reflexively in his coat like she was bracing for thunderbolts and final judgment.
The world did not end.
Her wings did not wither.
Heaven did not scream.
Slowly, trembling, she leaned in. That hesitance tipped into a desperate little eagerness that made his chest ache—like someone who had spent too long alone at the edge of a crowd finally stepping into the circle.
Her hands crept up around his neck, clinging tight, holding on to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had tilted too many times.
And somewhere very high above them, in systems of law and taboo forged long ago, something quietly failed to trigger.
Ren Ming didn't have to worry about that old rule of angels falling for lust or impure thoughts. His essence—Dao-tempered, chaos-refined—didn't fit into the checks Heaven used. Contact with him slid sideways through those conditions, the way water flowed around a stone.
Xenovia, Irina, Griselda, Gabriel—any angel who walked this path with him would remain an angel as far as Heaven was concerned. Their "fall" would depend on their choices, their hearts, not on a single kiss or heated touch.
For Ren, who never cared much about other people's systems, that was only natural.
When they finally broke apart, Irina pressed her forehead to his, breath hitching.
"…You're really… really unfair," she whispered.
"So I've been told," he murmured back. "Consider it divine punishment."
"That's not how that works," she said faintly.
"New theology," he said. "You'll get used to it."
She laughed, quiet and breathless, and for the first time since she'd sprouted wings, the word "angel" in her chest felt less like a chain and more like one part of who she was.
...
Griselda was a different mountain entirely.
Where Irina burned bright and flustered, Griselda Quarta had been tempered in old, cold fires: the Church, the sword, responsibility.
The first time Ren had met her, her gaze had been perfectly polite and perfectly distant— the look of a woman who had already seen every kind of trouble the Church could produce and found all of it beneath the dignity of raising her voice.
When he asked to see her now, that gaze didn't change much.
But her fingers tightened minutely on her teacup.
They met in one of Heaven's administrative sitting rooms.
It was neutral ground by design: white walls, soft light, nothing ostentatious. A few simple paintings of doves and lilies hung on the walls, and a stack of documents sat neatly arranged on a side table. The air smelled faintly of paper, ink, and holy light.
Griselda set her cup down with perfect grace.
"I assume this is not a formal diplomatic visit," she said. "Rias would have sent three letters first."
"Correct," Ren said, taking the seat across from her without bothering to fidget with protocol. "This is a rude personal visit."
Her lips twitched before she could stop them.
"…You truly don't care for protocol," she murmured.
"I care more about people," he said. "Protocol can adapt."
She folded her hands in her lap, posture straight, every inch the capable overseer of Heaven's operations.
"Then what does this rude personal visit entail?" she asked.
Ren regarded her for a moment.
Griselda Quarta—strict, upright, polite to a fault. She'd spent years wrangling troublesome exorcists, then shepherding lost young angels into the Brave Saint system. She'd taken care of Asia until the Church chose doctrine over compassion. Now she half-ran the bridge between Heaven and their messy little alliance, dignity wrapped around exhaustion like armor.
In his Dao-sense, her Soul Palace was a disciplined world of orderly streets and shining spires. Everything had a schedule. Everything had a place. Underneath those roads, fatigue pooled like water behind a dam.
"I'm here to give you a break," he said.
She blinked.
"A… break," she repeated.
"Yes," he said. "From being everyone's guardian."
"…I do not need a guardian," she replied, steel slipping quietly into her tone.
"I know," he said. "That's the problem."
Silence settled between them.
She looked down at her hands, thumbs pressing together just a little too hard.
"I have my duties," she said quietly. "Gabriel-sama relies on me. The exorcists need guidance. The younger angels… there is still much confusion." Her mouth tightened. "I cannot simply—"
"Griselda."
He said her name gently. No title. No distance.
Her eyes flicked up, startled.
"You can," he said. "You just won't. Because you're responsible. Because you hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else in the room." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice still soft. "I respect that. But your shoulders aren't the only ones in Heaven."
She searched his face, wary.
"…What are you suggesting?" she asked.
"A small heresy," he said, eyes warm. "Take a day off. Let the world prove it won't collapse without you. Spend that day with me."
Her breath caught.
"A… date," she said. Not quite a question.
"A very polite one," he confirmed. "I promise not to assault your virtue in any way you don't approve of."
Her cheeks flushed in a way that had nothing to do with holy light.
"You are… very presumptuous," she said.
"Yes," he agreed, deadpan. "Also persistent. You can say no. I won't be offended. I'll just show up again next week with better tea."
He smiled when he said it—easy, unbothered, like he meant it.
Griselda looked at him for a long, long moment.
Her Soul Palace streets thrummed under the weight of her hesitation—schedules whispering that she was needed, that every tick of the heavenly clock required her hand.
"…One afternoon," she said finally. "If only to prove to myself that Heaven will not crumble."
Ren's smile tilted a little sharper.
"That's my favorite kind of reason," he said.
...
They walked.
Not in Heaven.
In a human park.
The sky here was simple blue, not layered with law. The trees were just trees, rustling quietly in an ordinary breeze. Children's voices filled the air—laughter, crying, parents calling names. A dog barked at a squirrel. Somewhere, a vendor's bell chimed.
Griselda wore plain clothes: a long skirt, a soft blouse, a light cardigan. On anyone else, it would have been forgettable. On her, it was like seeing a statue step off its pedestal and realize the ground was uneven.
To the humans around them, she looked like a very composed teacher on a much-needed day off.
To Ren's perception, she glowed.
Not with the raw radiance of a Seraph, but with the restrained light of an angel who had learned to dim herself so others wouldn't feel overwhelmed.
"This is… peaceful," she admitted after a while.
They watched a group of kids chasing each other across the grass, their shrieks rising and falling. A toddler toppled over; their parent scooped them up, soothed them, set them down again.
"I had almost forgotten," she said, "how noisy normal life can be without feeling… heavy."
"No one asking you for decisions every five minutes," he said. "Novel concept."
She huffed.
"You are mocking me," she accused.
"A little," he said. "Affectionately."
Her lips wanted to smile. She didn't quite let them. Not yet.
"You're very good at making people lower their guard," she said instead.
"Trade secret," he replied.
They eventually found a bench under a tree. Ren sat beside her without crowding, letting the world flow around them—children, pedestrians, birds.
He didn't try to fill the silence.
He let her watch.
After a while, she spoke again.
"Xenovia looks… different lately," Griselda said. "Lighter. Happier." A faint curve touched her mouth. "Even Irina, for all her theatrics."
Ren's eyes slanted her way. "Is this the part where you interrogate me about my intentions toward your girls?"
She gave him a flat look. "Do I need to?"
"No," he said. "But you can, if it'll make you feel better."
She paused.
"…No," she said quietly. "I've seen enough."
She folded her hands in her lap, fingers lacing together.
"They trust you," she went on. "You make them stronger without… breaking them. That is more than I can say for many men the Church once praised."
Ren dipped his head, accepting the compliment without preening.
"I am, however," she continued, "concerned about myself."
"Oh?" he asked. "Because you're on a date with me?"
"Because I do not know what I am doing," she said, very calmly. "My life was duty. Training. Missions. Then administration. I never thought—"
"That you'd be allowed to want something just for yourself," he finished.
Her eyes widened.
"…You are infuriatingly perceptive," she murmured.
"It's a talent," he said lightly. "Also, I cheat."
His fingers brushed lightly along his spine where the Immortal Soul Bone rested, cold and alien inside his body. It whispered patterns into his awareness—the flow of her aura, the knots of fatigue, the way her Anima curled up small in a corner of her own Soul Palace like a woman kneeling beside a desk, still working long after she should have gone home.
"So you must already know," she said slowly, "that I am… not opposed to this."
Color rose in her cheeks again.
"I just… do not know what to do with the feeling," she admitted.
Ren smiled, proud.
"That," he said, "is what progress looks like."
She blinked. "Progress?"
"For you," he said. "Admitting you want anything at all? That's like moving half a mountain."
For a heartbeat, instinct made her want to argue.
Then she laughed instead. Soft. Disbelieving.
"…Perhaps," she conceded.
Ren shifted slightly, turning to face her fully on the bench.
"Griselda," he said. "I'm not asking you to dive headfirst into anything. Not yet." His eyes warmed. "But I am going to do something very scandalous."
She tensed on reflex.
He opened his arms.
"Come here," he said.
Her brain stalled.
"…You are asking me to—"
"Hug your scary, overworked self," he said. "Yeah."
"That is hardly scandalous," she muttered.
"For you?" His smile deepened. "It's revolutionary."
Duty, habit, pride—old chains tugged at her.
She should be reviewing reports. She should be back in Heaven. She should be keeping a polite distance from the man calmly reworking the rules of every faction he walked through.
She moved anyway.
Slowly, stiffly, she shifted closer and allowed herself to lean against his chest. His arms came up around her, warm and strong, not trapping but steady. He left just enough space that she could pull away if she wanted.
She didn't.
At first her muscles stayed tense, shoulders tight, back straight, as if she might leap to her feet if someone called her name.
Seconds ticked by.
Nothing exploded.
No urgent summons ripped through her communicator.
Heaven continued to turn.
Her body realized it before her mind did. Her shoulders eased. The lines at the corners of her eyes softened. Her head found a comfortable spot against his shoulder. Her hands hovered, then settled lightly against his chest, fingers curling in his shirt.
"…This is more comfortable than I imagined," she admitted quietly.
"High praise," he murmured into her hair.
"You will not tell the girls," she added, still serious even with her cheek pressed against him.
"Absolutely not," he said. "They'd be too happy. Then they'd demand daily reports."
Griselda's shoulders shook with silent laughter.
They stayed like that for a long time—the stern administrator of Heaven letting herself be just a woman in a park, and the strange cultivator whose Dao threaded through her aura in tiny, careful lines, reinforcing the cracks without her even noticing.
When they finally parted, she cleared her throat, cheeks flushed but eyes softer than they had been in years.
"…I suppose I shall have to concede," she said. "You are… good at this."
"At hugging strict church ladies?" he asked.
"At making impossible things feel… possible," she said.
He filed that away as one of the better compliments he'd ever earned.
...
Penemue, on the other hand, was never going to admit anything without a fight.
If Griselda was a mountain, Penemue was a cliff edge with a "do not approach" sign written in sarcasm.
The Fallen Angel Cadre lounged on a couch in the Grigori's main office when he walked in, one leg hooked over the other, clipboard in hand. Long purple hair spilled over one shoulder. Her wings were hidden, but her presence still crackled with casual authority—the kind you only got after centuries of surviving bad decisions, most of them not your own.
Penemue looked up as the door shut.
A slow smirk slid into place like it had been waiting.
"Well, well," she drawled. "If it isn't the human apocalypse in casual clothes. To what do we owe the pleasure? Bored of terrorizing vampires already?"
Ren dropped into the chair opposite without waiting to be invited, slouch relaxed, completely unbothered by her sharp eyes.
"I came to steal your time," he said.
"Oho?" Her eyes glinted. "Be careful. That's a dangerous thing to say to a Fallen. We might demand… compensation."
"I brought coffee," he said, sliding a cup across the table.
She glanced down, sniffed, then took an appreciative sip. The smell of good beans cut through the office's usual mixture of papers and tired Fallen aura.
"You're forgiven for the next twelve minutes," she declared. "After that, we renegotiate."
He smiled.
She watched him over the rim of the cup, expression amused and faintly predatory.
"So," Penemue said. "You've added more girls to your harem since we last talked. Valerie, hm? She's cute. Shy. Makes even Azazel look guilty." Her lips curled. "And the Church girls. Griselda looked like somebody finally let her sleep eight hours last night. That was you, wasn't it?"
"Maybe," he said.
She clicked her tongue.
"Dangerous man," she murmured.
"Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment."
"You should."
He let the banter hang between them for a moment, easy as breathing.
Then he leaned back, stretching his legs out just enough to be comfortable, not enough to be rude.
"I'm taking you out," he said. "An even better date than last time. One that'll rock your world even harder."
Her eyebrows shot up.
"Bold," she said. "Azazel will be jealous."
"He can schedule his own date," Ren said. "I'm busy."
Penemue laughed, low and pleased.
"You really are something else," she said. "You do realize I'm a Fallen Angel Cadre, yes? One of the leaders of an organization that's been manipulating world politics since before your great-great-grandparents were born?"
"Since when has any of that mattered to me?" he replied, giving her a crooked smile. "That's just one of your perks."
"Perks," she echoed, amused. "Most men say 'threat'."
"I'm not most men."
She lounged back, tapping her pen against the clipboard.
"And what exactly do you intend to do with this dreadfully dangerous Cadre?" she purred. "Take me to a nice restaurant? Try to get me drunk? See if I spill secrets between flirty comments?"
"No," he said. "I'm going to drag you out of your office and remind you why flying exists."
Penemue's smirk faltered for half a second.
"…You're serious," she said.
"I usually am," he said. "Under the jokes."
Her smile changed—thinned, became something more real.
"…You're dangerous," she repeated, softer this time.
"I remember," he said. "You told me already."
...
They didn't go far.
Not in distance.
In height.
One of the Grigori's private training grounds hung in the sky above an uninhabited island: a wide, open space layered with wards, illusions, and enough defensive arrays to survive Azazel's worst experiments.
Normally, Penemue used it to drill recruits until they saw light spears in their nightmares.
Today, there were no recruits.
Just Penemue—floating in the open air with easy grace, wings spread, light weapons flickering around her fingers out of habit—and Ren, standing on nothing as if the Dao itself had decided to be solid under his feet.
"You brought me to my office," she said dryly, glancing around.
"I brought you to your playground," he corrected. "Big difference."
"Mmm."
She twirled a spear of light between her fingers, then let it dissolve.
"So?" she asked. "Are we sparring? I warn you, I don't hold back just because you have a pretty face."
"I'd be offended if you did," he said. "No. Today's lesson is 'how to move without thinking about everyone else's paperwork'."
She snorted, but her wings flexed, interest betraying itself.
"Show me," she said.
Ren stepped closer.
Close enough that she could count the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. Close enough that every instinct born of war told her to classify him as either danger or ally before he got in range.
Her breath hitched, just barely.
He slid one hand to her waist, warm through the layers of her clothes. The other closed gently around her wrist, guiding her arm up and outward.
"Don't brace," he said. "You're not expecting an attack right now. You're just… flying."
"I'm not exactly new at flying," she pointed out.
"Not like this," he said. "You're always calculating angles, threat vectors, line-of-sight. Today you let me worry about all that."
"That's an awfully arrogant thing to say to a Cadre," she murmured.
"Good thing I'm arrogant," he replied.
He moved.
Not fast.
Not with any of the overwhelming speed he could bring to a battlefield.
Just steady, leading her through lazy arcs in the sky, spirals and gentle turns that had no tactical purpose. His hand at her waist guided her center of gravity. His presence expanded around them like a second sky, reshaping the wind into something soft.
At first, her body didn't know how to follow.
Her wings beat just a little too hard, over-correcting. Old habits made her eyes constantly scan horizons, cataloging invisible enemies, escape routes, optimal firing angles. Her muscles stayed tensed, ready to summon a hundred light spears at once if something went wrong.
Then, slowly, a different rhythm bled in.
Ren's Dao brushed her inner world—her Soul Palace, a stark, high vantage point crowded with hovering reports and endless maps of power structures. The Immortal Soul Bone compressed that complexity and offered her a simpler pattern: beat, glide, breathe.
His hand stayed steady.
"You're safe," he said quietly, almost under his breath. "If something wants to shoot you out of the sky, it goes through me first."
Penemue scoffed automatically.
"How chivalrous," she said. "You do realize you're softer than a Cadre in terms of politics, right? One bad rumor, and all the old men will—"
"I don't care about old men," he said. "Or their rumors."
His grip on her waist never tightened, never claimed, but it didn't waver either.
"You're allowed to enjoy your own wings," he added. "Just once."
Her sarcasm dried up in her throat.
They drifted.
Two figures etched against the blue, tracing wide, unnecessary loops. Their shadows slid across the wards below them; the island's silent stones watched.
Little by little, the lines of her body loosened.
The habitual calculations dimmed.
She still saw angles, of course. Training like hers didn't just vanish. But the roaring background noise of "what if, what if, what if" faded under the quiet certainty that if something attacked now, the man guiding her step wouldn't treat her like a fragile secretary or an untouchable Cadre—he'd treat her like a partner, and the world would break before she did.
"…I had forgotten," Penemue said finally, voice low, "what it feels like to fly for no reason."
"Feels good?" he asked.
"…Infuriatingly so," she admitted.
He chuckled.
They let the sky hold them.
At some point, she realized how close they were.
His hand was still on her waist.
Her own hand had, somewhere along the way, ended up braced lightly on his shoulder.
Her heart gave an undignified lurch.
"…You're doing this on purpose," she accused.
"Obviously," he said.
She glared at him.
It was not as effective as she would have liked.
"You know the stories they tell about me?" she said. "Calm. Collected. Teasing. Unflappable."
"Accurate," he said.
"Then stop looking at me like that," she muttered, flustered. "It's bad for my image."
His smile changed again—eyes warm, a little wicked, the way they sometimes got just before he did something reckless and kind.
"Penemue," he said. "Your image will survive a few cracks."
He dipped his head before she could throw another quip like a shield.
The kiss wasn't rough.
It wasn't exactly gentle either.
It was confident.
His lips met hers with a surety that made her breath catch. The hand on her waist anchored her in the air; the world's sense of up and down blurred for a moment, revolving around the point where they touched.
For the first time in a very long time, Penemue—Cadre, leader, expert at keeping the world a comfortable arm's length away with teasing words—forgot every clever line she'd ever used.
Her wings flared wide, feathers catching the sunlight. The light weapons floating around them fizzled out, forgotten.
She kissed back anyway.
Because she wasn't a woman who backed down from a challenge.
When they separated, their foreheads rested together, breath a little uneven, wind tugging at hair and clothes.
"…You really are terrifying," she said softly.
"I know," he said. "Still not going anywhere."
She let out a shaky, breathless laugh.
"…You're going to make so much work for me," she muttered. "Emotionally, I mean. Azazel is bad enough."
"You can bill me," he said.
She scowled.
"Don't say things that make my heart flutter like that," she complained. "It's unbecoming."
He just grinned.