CHAPTER 139: CONTEMPLATION

{Celestia}

Celestia stared at the report in her hands.

Three more villages gone. Just like that.

She set the parchment down on her desk, next to the other seventeen reports from this week alone. Each one told the same kind of story. Demons attacking. Angels fighting back. Angels dying when a Primal showed up to ruin everyone’s day.

[... Even now, it feels like we’re still losing.]

The thought hit her like a punch to the gut. She tried to push it away, but it crawled right back like a bad itch.

"Archangel?" A messenger poked her head through the door. "I have the eastern territories report."

"Come in, Serfiel."

Serfiel walked over and placed another stack of papers on the desk. Wonderful. More delightful news to add to her growing pile of disasters.

"Anything else?"

Serfiel shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"Permission to speak freely?"

"Always."

"You look like hell."

Celestia almost laughed. Hell? She’d passed looking like hell about three centuries ago. Now she was running on pure stubbornness and whatever divine energy kept archangels from completely falling apart.

"I’m fine."

"With respect, you’re really not." Serfiel crossed her arms. "When’s the last time you left this office for something that wasn’t work?"

Celestia thought about it. Yesterday? No, that was when she’d walked with Grace after the Tempest mission. The day before? Maybe? Time had become this weird blur of reports and meetings and trying not to scream.

"Walk with me," she said instead of answering.

They left the office together, heading toward the training grounds. Angels nodded as they passed. Some of the Bravery Sisters saluted with that crisp military precision Seraph had drilled into them. Others just stared with that mix of awe and fear that made Celestia’s skin crawl.

[I miss when they used to just treat me like a person.]

"How are things, really?" Serfiel asked once they were away from the crowds.

"Dire."

"That bad?"

"Worse." Celestia stopped at a balcony overlooking one of the courtyards. Below, a group of Love Sisters were practicing their... techniques. "Every day we lose more ground. Every day more demons spawn from the corruption. And every day I have to pretend everything’s under control while watching it all fall apart."

"But we have Grace now—"

"Yes... But she’s just one person. One eighteen-year-old former turnip farmer against an endless tide of corruption and death. Poor girl can barely handle the pressure."

They reached the main training arena. Below, Grace was getting her ass thoroughly kicked by both Seraph and Diana at the same time. Her movements were definitely better than before, sharper and more confident, but she was still completely outclassed.

Diana swept Grace’s legs casually. Grace hit the ground hard enough to make Celestia wince.

"Ow! Two against one isn’t fair!"

"Demons don’t fight fair," Seraph called out, not even breathing hard. "Neither do Primals. Again!"

Grace groaned but hauled herself back up. Off to the side, Alia and Zephyr watched from a bench. Alia was painting her nails some shade of pink while Zephyr braided her hair. They looked completely unbothered by Grace getting destroyed.

Celestia sighed.

[I wish Eternia had let me take this responsibility instead.]

"She’s gotten stronger," Serfiel observed.

"She has." Celestia leaned against the railing. "But strength alone won’t fix this mess."

Grace actually managed to block Diana’s next strike. Progress, at least.

"I heard another group defected to the Veil last week," Serfiel said quietly.

Celestia’s jaw tightened.

"How many this time?"

"Twelve. All from the Compassion Sisters."

Twelve more angels choosing Azrael’s path over hers. Twelve more deciding that using Sin instead of Virtue was worth the risk.

"That makes over two hundred this decade alone."

[Two hundred angels who’ve given up on my way of doing things. On Eternia’s way of doing things.]

"Can you really blame them?" Serfiel kept her voice low. "They say Veil angels can actually kill demons permanently. Like Grace does."

Celestia rolled her eyes.

"They say a lot of things."

"But if it’s true—"

"It’s not." Celestia’s voice came out sharper than she intended. "Using Sin corrupts everything it touches. We’ve seen what happens. There’s no proof it’s good for anything other than that."

Down below, Grace finally landed a solid hit on Diana. Just a light tap with her practice sword, but Diana actually looked surprised.

"Holy shit, I did it!"

"Once," Diana corrected, but she was smiling. "Do it again."

They reset their positions. Grace’s face was flushed with excitement and pride.

[So young. So incredibly young.]

Eternia had created this girl to solve a problem she’d caused herself. Dumped the responsibility for fixing everything on someone who should be farming vegetables and living a normal mortal life, not fighting primordial entities that wanted to unmake reality.

"How many angels have we lost this month?" Celestia asked.

Serfiel hesitated.

"Forty-three confirmed dead. Maybe more."

Forty-three angels who wouldn’t be coming home. Forty-three who’d faced Primals or had simply run into them on a bad day and lost everything.

"And how many demons has Grace killed permanently?"

"In total?"

"Yes."

"Reports say... maybe thirty? It’s hard to get exact numbers."

Thirty out of thousands. Tens of thousands. A single drop in an ocean of corruption that stretched across all of Linaria.

Grace managed to dodge Seraph’s massive swing this time, spinning away with surprising dexterity. She was definitely learning.

But was she learning fast enough?

"The Veil grows stronger every day," Serfiel continued.

"Of course. We’re all desperate."

"Then why not consider—"

"Because Sin is not the answer." Celestia’s hands gripped the railing hard enough to leave marks. "It can’t be the answer! I don’t care what powers it grants. I don’t care if it lets them kill demons permanently. The cost is too high."

She’d seen what Azrael had become. That wasn’t strength. That was corruption wearing a familiar face.

Even if she hadn’t fully lost her mind yet, Celestia knew Azrael would be a problem one day. Maybe someday soon.

They watched in silence as Grace fought. She was holding her own better now, reading Diana’s attack patterns, anticipating Seraph’s wild swings before they landed.

[She shouldn’t have to do any of this.]

If...

If Celestia could take this burden herself, she would in a heartbeat. But she was bound by the same rules as every other angel. She could fight demons, weaken them, drive them back to whatever hole they’d crawled out of.

But only Grace could truly end them.

"Sometimes I wonder," Serfiel said softly, "if Eternia knew this would happen. If she planned it all from the beginning."

"She knew." The admission tasted like ash in her mouth. "She had to know. You don’t create something like Grace without knowing exactly what you’re doing and why."

"Then why—"

"Because she was done." Celestia’s voice was completely flat. "Done with the responsibility. Done with the mess she’d made. Done with trying to fix her own mistakes. So she created someone else to handle it all and fucked off to whatever dimension retired goddesses go to."

Grace took a particularly hard hit from Seraph and went sprawling across the training mat. But she rolled with the impact, came up fighting with her sword still in hand.

The girl had spirit. Celestia had to give her that.

A new messenger appeared at Celestia’s elbow.

"Archangel? We have reports of increased demon activity near the southern villages."

"How increased?"

"Three Primals spotted. Maybe more."

Celestia closed her eyes.

"Tell Seraph about it. Have her send a few fighters. Not Grace. Focus on evacuation. No one fights the Primals if they don’t have to."

"Yes, Archangel."

The messenger left. Another crisis to add to the pile.

"I should go," Serfiel said. "More reports to deliver."

"Serfiel?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For checking on me."

Serfiel smiled.

"Someone has to keep you human."

She left, and Celestia stayed at the railing. Watching Grace train. Watching her laugh despite the bruises forming on her arms. Diana said something that made Grace blush bright red. Seraph boomed out one of her terrible jokes that somehow still made everyone groan and smile at the same time.

[How long do we have until she becomes as strong as she needs to be?]

Three Pillars remained. The Mountain, the Void, and the Bloom. Each one would be harder than the last. Each one would test Grace in ways that might break her completely.

And somewhere out there, Azrael was watching. Waiting. Building her power through methods that made Celestia’s skin crawl.

[How many more defections until I’m the last one left? Until I’m the last one who still believes in Eternia’s plan?]

"Come on, Grace!" Alia called out from her bench. "Kick her ass!"

"Whose side are you on?" Diana shouted back.

"Whoever’s winning!"

Grace used the distraction to score another solid hit on Diana. This time, Diana actually grinned.

"Better. Much better."

[It’s not enough.]

Celestia wanted to go down there. To train Grace herself. To pour every bit of knowledge and experience she’d accumulated over millennia into this girl’s head. To give her every advantage possible.

But she couldn’t. Her duties kept her chained to this endless cycle of reports and councils and the slow bureaucracy of a dying system.

All she could do was watch. And hope. And try not to think about the growing pile of casualty reports on her desk.

"Please," she whispered, too quiet for anyone to hear. "Please be enough."

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