(Tetra Xvit Xenovia, you have been brought to trial for courting a lower being and passing on a portion of your divinity, thereby breaking the law of the angel race. You may speak in your defense, if you have any.)

An angel with eight wings and a pure white royal gown stood over a grand pedestal, looking down at Tetra. Two others flanked her on either side, dressed the same.

(I have nothing to justify, and I will not be condemned for it.)

Tetra answered in a low voice without looking up. Her four wings had been cut to two, and her palms were bolted flat against her waist with nothing visible holding them there, no wounds, no restraints, just bound, with no way to cast.

(Ignorant!!!)

The angel in the center raised her voice, wings flaring.

(You will be retried once the Great Strife concludes. Until then you are sentenced to solitary confinement with no outside contact. Let that time serve to rearrange your thoughts.)

(Take her away.)

One of the guards stepped forward and escorted her out of the chamber.

...

(Captain, what are you doing?)

The escorting angel asked.

(Do not call me that, Obsidia. I am nothing but a malefactor right now.)

(We cannot just accept this. This has the council's hand in it. You have been a problem for them for years, and now the Grand Chancellor is delaying your trial? They are waiting for the full council to be present.)

Tetra was not troubled by any of it.

(You worry too much, Obsidia. I would argue this is the best possible outcome for now.)

(How is this the best outcome?)

Obsidia asked, genuinely lost.

(...I trust Hou. He will figure it out.)

(THE MORTAL!!!)

Obsidia shouted.

(...)

Tetra said nothing, which was answer enough.

(Do not be so quick to trust, Captain. These humans are not creatures built for commitment or dedication. They are cunning, weak, and cowardly. They are not loyal to anything and will not sacrifice without a clear benefit to themselves.)

Tetra looked down slowly, a faint smile crossing her face.

(That does sound like him.)

(You are not thinking straight. Let's go back and at least request a lighter sentence.)

(...)

...

(No! Hou Yi! No no no no!)

Tetra completely lost her composure the moment she saw what had happened, bursting forward and rushing toward what was left of him.

On instinct she pressed a hand to her own abdomen, but her panic did not last long. The remains on the ground began to pull together, moving in grotesque, wrong-shaped ways until they had reformed into a single body.

It took only a few seconds.

Gasp

"...that was considerably more destructive than how you described it."

Tetra pulled her hand away and straightened up.

(...My apologies. I appear to have overestimated your resilience somewhat.)

"'Somewhat' is an understatement."

Hou Yi was flat on his back, cold sweat breaking out fast, his hands shaking and not stopping.

"So that is what it feels like. Intense pain from the body being destroyed, then a cold sensation, then everything just... stopped."

He stared at his trembling hand. He had experienced death. Not a near-death experience. Actual death.

(This is why I warned against it. Now that you understand, get up. You can rest today and we resume normal training tomorrow.)

Hou Yi did not move. He lay still staring at the sky.

(No.)

"...I have not said anything yet."

(This is not up for discussion.)

"Tetraaa."

(Lee Hou Yi, do not bring this up again. No beneficial outcome is guaranteed, which makes it pointless. And do not even try to talk me into it. I am a proud member of the angel race, a divine being, I will not be swayed by the words of a human.)

...

The following day Tetra showed up for the magic resistance session.

She used different skills from Gravity Strain. But Hou Yi did not take a single significant hit across any of those sessions. He barely got grazed.

Tetra would aim, commit to the cast, and then redirect the invocation at the last second, letting it miss by the narrowest margin while still letting some residual force graze him.

The image of Hou Yi reduced to a pile of blood and broken bones kept surfacing without warning. Every time it did, her hand pulled at the last second.

She kept up the pretense for a while, but after enough failed sessions Hou Yi grew restless.

"Would you mind telling me what exactly you are doing?"

(What kind of question is that. I am obviously helping you build resistance to magic.)

Tetra went with oblivious.

"Then why is nothing landing?"

(If you want that so much, feel free to step to your right in a few seconds. That is where the next one is going.)

There was a trace of irritation in her voice.

Sigh.

"I am not a fearless being, Tetra. My mind would not let me willingly step into death even knowing I would come back from it. That is exactly how weak and cowardly I am. And that is also exactly why I want to do this. To take whatever advantage I can."

(...)

"Any skill, any attribute. As long as it actually lands."

(But your body cannot handle it. If a simple restraining skill killed you, then ordinary fall damage would surely—)

"Let me fall if I must. The one I will become will catch me."

Hou Yi said it sharply, cutting her off. He could feel the same debate from the night before starting to open back up, and he needed to close it before they lost another evening going back and forth.

"I have spent my whole life avoiding failure, clinging to safety, turning away from pain. And the truth is nothing grows in comfort. Every time I hit the ground it is shaping me."

"Pain does not destroy me. It teaches me."

He settled into his stance.

"The time deviation could end at any point now. I am asking you not to limit what I can become out of misplaced sympathy."

Tetra looked at him.

Something lit up in her chest, sharp and unfamiliar.

Reverence? No.

Admiration? Not quite.

...

(You need not worry about him, Obsidia. The mortal I am referring to does not like being held to the standards of a human.)

...

Hou Yi sat back in a reclining chair, book in hand, reading at an easy pace.

Tetra floated behind him, eyes on the same page, reading each line alongside the narration running through his head.

Four months had passed since the magic resistance experiment.

The first few sessions Tetra had used AOE skills to improve his odds of surviving them, but watching Hou Yi reduced to a screaming, barely-breathing wreck over and over again was something she found she could not keep doing. So she had switched to instant-kill single-target skills, thinking it would be cleaner. It was not.

The project was eventually called off. There had been no results to show for it, and the mental toll it was taking on Tetra was becoming visible. Hou Yi could see it in those last-second moments before each cast, the hesitation, the pity, the doubt, all of it crammed into a fraction of a second across her face.

On his end the long-term damage had been minimal. All it required was stripping down so they did not burn through clothes, getting killed fast enough that the pain did not have time to register, then regaining consciousness and checking whether a guiding bolt left any less of a mark than the session before.

On the third day of no progress, Hou Yi called it off himself. He was not willing to push her to the point of breaking.

Since then they have returned to the old routine. Martial arts, reading, the same rhythm as before.

(You have read this one already. Why are you going through it again?)

The book in his hand was The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.

"It is the kind of book that gives you something new every time you come back to it. This chapter for instance, the fox and the lion. How a ruler must know when to be each to stay standing."

(If I may, I don't think—)

Tetra stopped mid-sentence and turned her head toward the horizon, like something had caught her attention that was not visible or audible by any normal measure.

Hou Yi noticed the shift immediately and looked in the same direction. Nothing. The same still sky, the same frozen world it had always been.

"What is it?"

(...It is finished?!)

She turned to him and her expression carried something he had never seen on her before.

(They are coming back.)

"What!"

(Mortal, listen carefully. The time deviation has ended.)

Hou Yi stood up and turned to face her fully.

"I understand that, but why do you look like that?"

(There are things I cannot do because of restrictions placed on me, and things I have not told you. In a short while the world will resume. I will be taken back, and if nothing is done we may never see each other again.)

(I...)

She looked at his face.

(‘Whatever I choose here, the price is regret either way.’)

(Twenty-five years ago, when I returned to heal your legs, that was supposed to be the last time. But I kept coming back. Out of curiosity at first, just wanting to see how you would handle all of it. The more time I spent here the more that curiosity shifted into something else, and before I had a name for it I was already in it.)

(For a long time I did not know what the feeling was. Only these past few months did I finally understand it.)

(And now this may be my last chance to say it.)

(I have fallen in love with you.)

(This is not me speaking as an angel. This is me being selfish as one sentient being to another. Lee Hou Yi, what do you think of me?)

Tetra did not passively read minds. It required focus and proximity, something she only did when the situation called for it. Which meant she genuinely did not know the answer to that question.

The words landed in a way Hou Yi had not been prepared for. He held his breath and searched her face to see if she meant it.

Despite everything she was doing to hold her expression together, he could see it. A faint redness along her cheeks, barely there but unmistakably there. In twenty-five years he had never once seen her make that face. Something about it caught him completely off guard.

"That is a lot to put on someone all at once."

"...I would be lying if I said I had never thought of you that way. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I am infatuated. But..."

"...ahem."

The beauty of the angel race was unmatched amongst all other. They were made to show little to no expression for exactly this reason, to keep lesser beings from being overwhelmed by them.

And standing here alone with one who had just put down every wall she had, Hou Yi felt things he did not have clean words for.

His throat went dry. His palms pressed together. His face was burning.

"I would like to say that I may have felt something close to what you are describing. Though I am not entirely sure.”

“What I am certain of is that I do not hate being with you."

He could not look at her directly anymore. His face had gone completely red.

Tetra, on the other hand, had not taken her eyes off him once. She was not looking away. She was holding the image of him standing there, flustered and honest, and setting it somewhere she could keep it.

"ANYWAY."

Hou Yi cleared his throat loudly to break the moment.

"Ehem. How do I help you stay on earth."

Tetra's expression shifted back into something more serious.

(I cannot say it directly. There is a heavenly restriction on me. But I can answer questions about it.)

"Can I do it now?"

(No.)

"What do I have to do?"

(I cannot answer that.)

"Where do I look for answers?"

(I cannot answer that either.)

...

Hou Yi kept going, question after question, and most came back as either a no or nothing at all.

(It is alright.)

Tetra raised her hand and placed it against his cheek, and rested her other hand on her abdomen.

A blue light came from somewhere beneath her palm, briefly blinding him. When his vision came back there was a sigil mark pressed into his right palm, clear and settled like it had always been there. At the same moment her wings, which had been four for as long as he had known her, were now two.

(Take that. Get stronger, and find the answers. For now, knowing you feel the same way is enough for me.)

Before he could ask what the mark was, a loud ringing tore through his ears and he flinched hard.

Tetra looked up at the sky with a quiet irritation.

(It is happening.)

She began to pull her hand from his cheek. Hou Yi caught it and held it.

"Do not worry too much. I will find a way. I will not stop until I do, and knowing me it will not take long."

Tetra pulled him in and the two of them held each other, only the second time in twenty-five years.

(I find it very detestable when you act confident about things you know nothing about.)

"Then you must not like me at all."

Tetra let out a quiet laugh, arms still holding firm.

(Goodbye, Mortal.)