Elena lay on the cold asphalt, her body curled inward like a wounded animal. Her eyes were fixed on the dark sky above, but she saw nothing. The stars, the clouds, the distant moon—all of it was meaningless background to the grief that consumed her. Her tears had dried once, temporarily, as if her body had run out of water to shed. But now they flowed again, fresh and hot, carving new paths through the dirt and dried salt on her cheeks. It was like someone had unblocked a canal deep inside her, releasing a flood that would not stop.
Why was this happening to her? First her parents, just a few months ago. That accident, those phone calls, that funeral where she had stood in black clothes and accepted condolences from people she barely knew. She had thought that was the worst pain she would ever feel. She had thought nothing could surpass that emptiness, that endless falling sensation of losing the people who had raised her, loved her, been the fixed points in her universe.
She had been wrong.
Now this. Now Leo. Now fire and metal and a scream torn from her throat that had changed nothing, saved no one, only added her voice to the night's chorus of destruction. She did not understand why the universe kept taking from her. She did not understand what she had done to deserve this endless punishment.
Her gaze, unfocused and distant, drifted toward the burning wreckage. The flames still rose. The metal still glowed with terrible heat. It was a funeral pyre, and inside it lay the body of the boy she loved.
Then her eyes widened.
She saw something. A shape. A figure. Moving among the flames, untouched by them, walking with steady steps away from the inferno. It was a back, familiar and beloved, bare and gleaming in the firelight. Arms extended, hands gripping two figures by their throats, holding them suspended in the air like broken dolls.
Leo.
It was Leo.
He was alive. He was walking. He was holding Stefan and Lexi, those two complicated people,dangling them from his hands as if they weighed nothing.
Elena did not care about Stefan. She did not care about Lexi. She did not care about vampires or devils or any of the impossible truths that had been revealed tonight. All that mattered was the one truth that burned brighter than any fire: Leo was alive. He had survived. He was standing, moving, breathing.
"LEO!"
The scream tore from her throat, raw and desperate. It was not a call for help. It was not a warning. It was simply his name, spoken with all the remaining strength in her body, a declaration of joy and relief and love so intense it felt like it might crack her ribs from the inside. She needed to see his face. She needed to believe, truly believe, that he was real and alive and here.
Leo heard her.
His hands were tightening around the vampires' necks. His grip was absolute, crushing, cutting off air and blood and life. His eyes, which had been their normal dark color, began to change. Red bled into the irises, followed by black, deeper and darker than any night. The transformation was not complete, not the full devil face he had shown Stefan, but it was there, visible, a warning of what lay beneath his human skin.
He looked into their eyes. Stefan and Lexi stared back at him, and in their gazes he saw fear. Pure, absolute, soul-deep fear. The fear of prey caught by a predator too powerful to fight, too swift to escape, too merciless to beg. Their mouths opened, gasping for air that could not pass their throats because his hands blocked the way. They were going to die. They knew it. He knew it. It was only a matter of seconds.
Then Elena's voice reached him again.
"Leo! Can you hear me?"
The red and black bled from his eyes. They returned to normal, human, almost gentle. He did not turn around. He did not look at her. He kept his gaze fixed on the two vampires hanging from his hands, their lives balanced on the edge of his decision.
He was thinking. Really thinking, for the first time since the attack began. Should he kill them? They deserved it. They had tried to murder him. They had endangered Elena. They had shown no mercy, no hesitation, no regret. Even if they died a thousand times, it would not be enough punishment for what they had done.
But he was not the Lucifer who had lived millions of years and killed enough people to build a mountain of corpses. He was not that ancient being, hardened by eons of existence, numb to the weight of taking life. He was a normal person at heart. He had gone to normal schools. He had lived a normal life. He had received a serious education about right and wrong, about the value of life, about the difference between justice and murder.
Yes, he had been transmigrated into this world. Yes, he had been given the gift—or curse—of becoming Lucifer Morningstar. He had every single power that being possessed. But he was not that being. He had not killed those countless enemies. He had not built that mountain of corpses. He was still, in the core of his being, the person he had always been.
And that person did not know if he could kill.
The guilt would follow him. The weight would press down on him forever. In his long, immortal life, that single act of killing would never fade, never diminish, never stop echoing in the empty spaces of his soul. He would carry Stefan and Lexi's deaths with him for eternity, and he did not know if he could bear that weight.
Elena's voice came again. Softer this time, but still desperate, still searching.
"Leo?"
He made his decision.
His hands twisted sharply. Necks broke with a sound like dry branches snapping. Stefan and Lexi went limp in his grip, their bodies falling slack, their eyes closing. He released them, and they crumpled to the ground in unconscious heaps.
This would not kill them. Vampires did not die from broken necks. They could only be killed by three methods: sunlight, if they wore no daylight ring; a stake through the heart; or fire. He had not used any of those. They would wake eventually, hours from now, with headaches and confusion and the memory of what they had attempted.
He did not look at them. He did not spare them a single glance. In an instant, using his impossible speed, he crossed the distance to where Elena sat on the ground.
He dropped to his knees before her. His hands reached out and caught her, supporting her, holding her upright. She was trembling, shaking, her whole body wracked with sobs and relief and the aftermath of terror. Her hands were scraped raw. Her knees were bloody. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He touched her face. His palm cupped her cheek, gentle, careful, as if she were made of glass. Then he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly, pressing her against his bare chest, feeling her heart hammer against his own.
"Elena," he whispered into her hair. His voice was soft, steady, full of everything he could not say. "Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
She sobbed against him, her fingers clutching at his arms, his shoulders, any part of him she could reach. He held her and let her cry, let the fear and grief and relief pour out of her in great, heaving waves. The fire still burned behind them. The unconscious vampires still lay on the ground. The night still surrounded them, dark and cold and full of things they did not understand.
But in that moment, none of it mattered. Only this. Only them. Only the warmth of two bodies holding each other in the wreckage of a night that had nearly destroyed them both.
.....
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