Raven didn't move. He didn't even lift his hands.

The sky above him was filled with falling green cannon balls, each one big as a house pillar, each one ready to explode the moment they hit the ground.

Dodging felt useless. Fighting back felt pointless.

His men were shouting, praying, some frozen in fear… but Raven's mind was far away, stuck on one single picture.

"Sir Raven… please come back safely."

The girl's voice echoed again, soft and warm, like a memory wrapped in sunlight.

She stood there in his mind wearing a simple white gown embroidered with small red flowers.

In her hands, she held a handkerchief with a smiling face stitched on it, and her name written below it.

"Erza….."

He tried to see her face again. He tried with everything inside him.

But every time he focused, her face blurred, like fog covering a mirror.

Her lips moved, her hair swayed in his thoughts, but her expression… it just wouldn't come.

It slipped away again and again.

He clenched his jaw.

Why? Why couldn't he see her? Why now, at the end, when he wanted nothing more than to hold that memory?

Raven's heart felt heavy.

Above him, the huge green cannonball was already falling, big, glowing, deadly.

He didn't dodge.

There was no point. A hundred more were coming down with it.

There was no place to run, no shield that could save them.

And even if he tried to chop it down with his mana, this Cannon ball would explode releasing the green poison-like thing that could kill anyone with just a few seconds of contact, so there wasn't any point in resisting it.

But even in that moment, even with death racing toward him, he had one last wish…

To see Erza's face just once.

Just once more.

He whispered her name again, voice cracking as the green light grew brighter over his head.

"Erza…"

As the cannon ball dropped toward him, Raven shut his eyes.

He didn't run.

He didn't lift his sword. He just tried one last time to see Erza's face… and let everything end.

But before the green light reached him—

"RAVEN!!!"

Manoj's scream cut through the air, raw and desperate.

Raven barely had time to open his eyes when Manoj slammed into him, grabbing his armor with both hands.

Then Raven felt himself flying backward.

BOOM!!

The cannon ball exploded where he had been standing a moment ago.

The blast shook the ground so hard it felt like the world cracked open.

The force threw Raven even farther, tossing him like a ragdoll across the frozen soil.

His body hit the ground face-first.

Ice stung his skin. Dirt filled his mouth.

His helmet slammed against the earth so hard everything went white for a second.

Rinnngggg!

A sharp ringing filled his ears, loud and painful, like metal scraping inside his skull.

He tried to push himself up, but his arms shook under him.

Rinnngggg!

The sound wouldn't stop. His head throbbed.

His vision was blurry, shifting in and out like a broken lantern.

He shook his head a few times, trying to clear the fog, trying to remember where he was… trying to breathe.

Cold air burned his lungs. His fingers scraped against the ice.

Slowly, very slowly, his senses started to return.

But when he opened his eyes, he wished he had stayed blind.

Half the remaining soldiers were scattered across the ground… and many weren't whole anymore.

Some men lay with their lower bodies crushed, legs twisted at impossible angles.

Others were missing everything above the waist, their armor torn open like paper.

The battlefield looked less like a place of war and more like a broken butcher's yard.

Despair hit him so hard his breath froze in his throat.

The green gas was spreading slowly, crawling over the bodies like a living thing.

The ones who weren't dead yet were coughing, choking, screaming for help that wouldn't come.

Their voices were getting weaker with every second.

"No… no…" Raven cried under his breath, his voice shaking.

He was just far enough from the gas to breathe clean air, but he didn't stay there, not even for a heartbeat.

He ran forward.

Not because he wanted to save the falling soldiers, his mind wasn't even thinking clearly.

He ran because he had seen something else… something he never wanted to see, not even in his darkest nightmares.

A memory flashed, Manoj shouting his name.

Manoj grabbing him. Manoj throwing him aside.

And right after that, the cannon ball had exploded.

Raven's heart squeezed painfully.

"Manoj… Manoj… please tell me you aren't dead, buddy…" he stuttered, stumbling as he searched through the smoke and broken bodies.

He pushed aside fallen shields, stepped over shattered armor, ignoring the burning smell of green gas.

His hands trembled. His chest hurt with every breath.

He kept calling his friend's name.

"Manoj! Answer me!"

But the battlefield only gave him smoke, broken ground, and dying voices.

He moved faster, eyes wide, desperate.

Because if Manoj wasn't alive…

Raven wasn't sure what pieces of himself would be left.

Raven pushed deeper into the green gas, coughing, eyes burning, panic twisting his chest.

He kept shouting Manoj's name again and again, like the sound alone could pull his friend back to him.

But then—

A cold hand grabbed his leg.

"R-aven…"

Raven spun around so fast he almost fell. His eyes shook as he looked down.

A man lay there… or what was left of him. Calling him a man felt wrong.

His left leg was gone. His right arm was gone.

His stomach was open, his insides slipping onto the frozen ground.

The snow around him was dark and wet.

Raven dropped to his knees at once.

"Old man…" he whispered.

It was him, the old soldier who used to sit by the fire and tell him stories about past battles, drinking cheap wine and laughing like nothing could scare him.

Now he didn't even have the strength to lift his head properly.

His lips trembled. His skin was pale and cold.

He looked at Raven with eyes filled not with fear, but regret.

"Listen… kid…" The old man struggled, reaching slowly toward his chest with his one remaining hand.

He pulled out a small pouch tucked under what was left of his armor and placed it in Raven's shaking palm.

"Take… pity on this old man… and give this… to my daughter…"

He coughed, hard, and thick black blood spilled from his mouth.

Raven's eyes wavered.

He grabbed the old man's cold hand with both of his, trying to steady it, trying to hold onto him as if that could keep him alive.

Tears rolled down Raven's cheeks before he even realized they were there.

"I'm sorry…" Raven whispered, voice breaking.

"Because of me… our whole army died… I couldn't protect anyone… I'm sorry…"

But the old man didn't react to his words.

It was like he couldn't hear anything except the mission he had left.

His cloudy eyes focused on Raven with one last push of strength.

"I… wasn't a good… f-ther…" he breathed out slowly. "Please… give her that… and tell her… her father was sor—"

His voice cracked.

His breath stopped.

His eyes slowly lost their light.

His head tilted to the side and went still.

The old man died with the last word unfinished on his lips.

Raven held onto his hand even after the life had left it, the pouch sitting heavy in his shaking fingers.

The gas drifted around him, cold and green, but for a moment Raven didn't move.

All he felt was the weight of another life lost in his arms.

Raven stayed there for a while, frozen in place.

His legs felt heavy, his chest felt tight, and his breath came in short painful bursts.

The old man's cold hand still rested in his own.

For a moment, Raven couldn't move at all.

But after a long, trembling breath, his eyes snapped back into focus.

He knelt down properly, placed the pouch carefully on his own armor, and bowed his head to the ground.

His forehead touched the cold earth.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice shaking. "I wasn't worthy of leading you all… I'm sorry."

He lifted his head slowly, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and gently closed the old man's eyes.

Then he stood up again.

He didn't run. He didn't shout right away.

He just walked forward with his body trembling, whispering under his breath:

"Manoj… where are you, buddy…?"

As he moved, he passed scattered bodies, some broken, some barely breathing, some coughing out green foam.

Every face he saw made his heart sink lower.

His boots splashed in puddles of melted snow mixed with blood.

His hands shook more with every step.

The poison was in him too now. His vision blurred at the edges.

His skin felt cold and hot at the same time.

His breath tasted bitter.

But he didn't stop.

He kept searching.

He pushed aside a fallen shield. He stepped over a broken spear.

He forced himself deeper into the smoke and the gas until his chest burned with each breath.

After a long time that felt like forever,

Raven stopped walking.

His whole body shook as he threw his head back and roared into the air:

"MANOJ!!!"

His voice echoed across the broken field.

For a moment, only silence answered him.

Then—

"Shut… up…"

A weak, cracked voice came from somewhere behind him.

Raven spun around instantly, eyes wide, searching the ground.

He moved left, then right, pushing aside pieces of armor and broken debris.

His eyes darted everywhere, desperate.

And then he saw him.

A body lying on the ground.

Raven's eyes shrank. His face turned even paler, almost white.

He felt his heart drop to the bottom of his chest.

"Manoj!" he shouted, voice filled with fear and pain.

He ran toward the collapsed figure with everything he had left.

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