[From the moment Sevatar followed Curze into the boarding action, the fates of Sevatar and Curze diverged.]
The screen sank into deep darkness. A faint outline revealed a huge figure caged in a cell—First Captain of the Eighth Legion, "The Raven Prince," Sevatar.
[Imprisoned, Sevatar's mind was eaten away by the warp. Blood streamed from his seven orifices; the voices of the dead returned to torment him.]
"Warp?" Dr. Strange raised an eyebrow. "His precognition is spiraling out of control—classic prelude to psychic collapse."
"He's in agony," Wanda murmured, feeling the chaos and torment bleeding through the screen.
[Among those voices was a little girl—Altani. Every time the warp surged, Altani came to talk, and Sevatar found his pain eased.]
[Altani was an Astropath aboard a Dark Angels vessel, eleven or twelve years old, already a prodigy.]
[Only such talent let her mind wander the ship and reach Sevatar for conversation.]
[Warp-addled, Sevatar believed Altani was a ghost of the dead. They spoke of many things, including Nostramo's doom.]
[Yago, are you still alive?]
[I'm here. What do you want?]
[Just to talk. I'm lonely.]
"A child?" Captain America was incredulous. "In a place like this, chatting with… that killer?"
"Telepathy," Professor X said gravely. "The girl's gift is strong enough to pierce bulkheads and speak mind-to-mind. And Sevatar seems to open only to her."
[You sound… different tonight, Yago. Worse pain?]
[Yes—but your voice dulls it.]
[You are the only voice I welcome. What would you ask?]
[What is a raven?]
[Why are you prince of the birds?]
[Strangest question yet.]
[A dry chuckle rasped in Sevatar's throat.]
[A title—a jest among brothers. Ravens feed on corpses, and I've made plenty.]
"Charming gallows humor," Tony Stark commented flatly, eyes sharp. "No denial of what he's done."
[Altani fell silent.]
[Where is your home, Yago?]
[Gone. Dead years ago.]
[What was it called?]
[Nostramo—lightless, lawless. Our father erased the evidence of his failure.]
[Whose side are you on, Yago?]
[No one's.]
[Horus' ambition, or the Emperor's hypocrisy—]
[May they all rot. I spit on both.]
[You tried to run once. I think I know why you stopped.]
[Now you do?]
[You feel you belong here.]
[Justice for everything you've done.]
[So you sit alone in the dark,]
[letting your brain rot,]
[accepting it as your sentence.]
"I take it back," Tony said, removing his glasses to rub his brow.
"I called it a statement of fact. I was wrong. It's a verdict—he's reading his own charges, in the calmest voice possible."
He looked to Steve Rogers, deadly serious. "We talk justice: catch criminals, stop wars, fix the World—because we believe justice is constructive, meant to make things better."
"But he…" Tony gestured at the blackened screen, "shows another kind—purely destructive. Not repair or redemption, total self-accounting. He's not asking forgiveness; he's carrying out an eternal Death sentence on his own soul. A justice I never imagined—absolute and hopeless."
"You're right, Tony," Steve said wearily, reminded of something worse. "A soldier's greatest fear isn't Death—it's losing the reason to fight. Sevatar's worse: he's lost every reason, spurned traitors and Empire alike, and abandoned the very idea of being a soldier."
Cap's gaze swept the room.
"He no longer fights—no enemy, not even himself. He just sits there, 'letting his brain rot.' Total surrender—not to any power, but to his own guilt. A warrior choosing decay over combat… a tragedy deeper than Death. He broke his own sword and waits for rust to finish it."
"In Asgard such a soul would never reach Valhalla," Thor boomed, sorrow and bewilderment in his voice. "Valhalla welcomes those who die in glory. He chooses to rot in shame and self-hate, rejecting the holiest end of a warrior. Not choice of man or god—more like a monster consumed by its own curse."
"No, not a monster," Wanda said softly, eyes glistening. Of them all, she felt minds most truly. "You see only despair and self-ruin, forgetting the girl—Altani."
All eyes turned to her.
"Why does he open only to her? Because she's the only one who approaches without purpose," Wanda's voice trembled. "Heroes want to 'save,' villains to 'use' or 'destroy.' The girl wants nothing. She's simply… lonely. With the purest, judgment-free loneliness she touches another lonely soul."
"So Sevatar answers. In a bloody Universe that connection is the only clean thing. 'You are the only voice I welcome' may be the truest sentence of his life. The girl isn't a savior—more like the single white flower proving he was once human in his rotting black swamp."
"Hence his final laugh…" Bruce Banner adjusted his glasses, voice hushed. "Not relief or madness—because at the very end, when he's defined himself as garbage waiting to rot, a pure soul understands him and, in innocent words, stamps 'justice' on his silent self-trial. That understanding outweighs any decree of the Emperor."
"And that's the true terror," Nick Fury rasped, stepping from the shadowed corner like a statue come alive, his single eye glinting with something near fear.
"We analyze the threats of the Warhammer galaxy—fleets, supersoldiers, war scale—thinking weapons or Primarchs are the worst."
He moved into the light, surveying each Avenger in turn.
"We were wrong. The deepest horror isn't war—it's peace; not rage, but despair."
"Sevatar isn't an enemy you can punch. He's a symptom—the final rot from within a civilization that knew ultimate glory, betrayal, and violence. He has no foes; he is the abyss. You can't defeat a soul that no longer wants to live."
[Sevatar's verdict echoes: total self-condemnation, endless, absolute.]
"We faced Thanos, and we knew we had to fight. We faced Ultron, and we knew we had to destroy it. But if one day we meet someone like Sevatar… someone who just sits quietly, waiting for the whole Universe to rot along with him… what do we do?"
No one could answer.
For the first time, they realized there was a darkness that light could never defeat.
It was the darkness from the depths of the soul that chooses to embrace nothingness and calls it the ultimate justice.
DC Universe
"Hah-ha… ha! Ya-ha-ha-ha! Oh, brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"
A shrill, maniacal laugh exploded from the deepest cell of Arkham Asylum. The Joker sprang off his cot, the crimson grin on his chalk-white face stretching to his ears, eyes glittering with sick delight.
The blurry images had vanished, but the echo of the conversation lingered.
"See that? See it! A Daddy of the Night who wanted to be 'Batman,' using fear, violence, and 'rules'—what did he raise in the end? A perfect, pure version of… me! Hah-ha-ha! A masterpiece of fate! Cosmic black comedy!"
The Joker danced, waltzing grotesquely around his cell as if celebrating a long-awaited festival.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. The laughter cut short. The Joker slowly turned and pressed his face to the reinforced glass.
From the shadows, Batman's towering figure emerged.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself." Batman's voice was low and hoarse. After watching the footage, the need to be certain had driven him here.
"Enjoying? Oh no, my dear Bat," the Joker's face squashed against the glass, "I'm empathizing! That Little Raven is so like me! We both saw the truth—the World's a lousy joke with no punchline! We both spit on those self-righteous hypocrites and schemers!"
He slammed the glass.
"But he—oh, my poor Little Raven—he blew it! He made the fatal mistake you and I never would, Bats: he actually believed! He believed in 'justice'! In 'punishment'! He downgraded himself from a great nihilist artist to a self-flagellating penitent in the corner! How dull! How dreadfully earnest!"
Batman stood in silence, eyes sharp as blades. He saw through the Joker's glee and understood Sevatar's choice.
"He is nothing like you." Batman spoke, each word chipped from ice. "You use the World's absurdity as an excuse to spread chaos. He uses his own sins as the reason to judge himself."
"Excuse? Reason? Word games!" the Joker giggled. "We both stand at the edge of the abyss, Bats! I choose to drag everyone into the dance, while he—he chose to jump in alone and slam the manhole shut! He could've been a plague sweeping the galaxy, the ultimate joke no one gets! Instead he locked himself away to play 'confession' with an imaginary little girl! It's the most shameful betrayal of the art of chaos!"
"That wasn't confession." Batman's voice carried icy certainty. He stepped forward, shadow filling the window. "That was sentencing. He found a justice you will never understand."
"Oh?" The Joker raised an eyebrow theatrically, pressing closer to the glass. "Do tell, Mr. Dark Knight. What kind of 'justice' brings you to the place you hate most, to chat with the person you hate most?"
"My justice is to ensure the tragedies I've lived through never repeat on any innocent." Batman's voice was as clear as a law of physics. "I exist to protect. I forge my pain into a shield."
"And Sevatar," his voice dropped, dissecting the dark mirror, "forged the crimes he committed into a cage that imprisons only himself. His justice is reckoning—aimed solely at himself. He abandoned his Primarch, abandoned keeping the Legion alive, abandoned every external stance, and simply, utterly loathed what he had done. He isn't seeking redemption; he's carrying out an endless Death sentence against his own soul."
The Joker's grin froze. He straightened, and for the first time, spoke without mania, in a venomous whisper: "So… you saw it? You saw the line, didn't you, Bruce?"
For the first time, he spoke Batman's real name.
"That line… separating 'protection' from 'reckoning.' You dance on it every night. You use fear, inflict pain, turn yourself into a monster. You tell yourself it's for others. But what if one day you're tired? If the city you protect keeps rotting, keeps betraying your efforts… would everything feel meaningless?"
Would you, like that Little Raven, find a dark corner, sit down, and say: 'That's it. For everything I've done, this is justice.' Then… smile and wait for the rot?"
Batman's fist clenched, knuckles cracking.
"He didn't find justice." Batman's voice was iron-hard, a vow to himself and to the devil. "He only found a more refined, more decisive way to kill himself. He surrendered. I never will."
"Ha… ha-ha-ha!" The Joker burst into thunderous laughter, brimming with satisfaction and triumph. "I knew it! I knew you'd say that! You're always so predictable, so… boring! Go on, crawl back to your dark little cave and play guardian! But don't forget—you saw a possibility tonight. A vision of what you'll become when your string snaps: a noble, self-destructive… poor wretch!"
Batman said no more. He turned, black cape swirling, footsteps fading away.
He had won the argument, but he knew the Joker had planted the most poisonous thorn in his heart.
Unlike Gotham's gloom, the air on Watchtower was heavy with sorrow.
"He never saw the Sun." Superman's voice was filled with deep grief. Gazing at the blue Planet beyond the viewport, the Kansas farmhouse sunlight felt like yesterday. "My power comes from the Sun, but what made me 'Superman' was the love and guidance of the Kents. They taught me hope."
Sevatar was born into eternal night, raised in fear, shaped by a father who mistook tyranny for Order. Not once in his life did a real ray of sunlight touch him. When he finally had a choice, he no longer knew there was anything besides darkness."
His 'justice,'" Superman turned, blue eyes full of pain, "isn't what we understand as safeguarding good or bringing hope. It's merely… the only tool he could find on his Desolate Wasteland of despair to end himself. He didn't find justice; despair drove him into a corner, and he named that wall 'justice.'"
"A warrior's honor lies in the meaning of her fight." Wonder Woman Diana held the Lasso of Truth, expression solemn. "Sevatar once fought for his Legion, for his father. When he discovered it was all lies and hypocrisy, his battle lost its meaning. On Themyscira, we teach lost sisters to find new purpose—fight for truth, for peace."
"But he chose to stop fighting." Sorrow flickered in Diana's eyes. "He abandoned the core duty of a warrior—to fight, even against the demons within. He chose to punish himself through passivity and decay. In the Amazon Code, that is a disgrace greater than defeat. He found disgust for his crimes, yet failed to turn that disgust into the strength to keep fighting."