The Vanguard Oath: SkyVault Heroes!

🌒 [SCENE — NIGHTFALL OVER SKYVAULT CITY, 2:43 AM]

The night was quiet, but too quiet.

The kind of quiet that warns of death.

On the highest rooftop above Vanguard HQ—a place long fractured and scorched—Kageru stood alone, sword sheathed, eyes locked on the endless skyline. His figure was a silhouette against the rising moon.

Beneath him, the streets were still soaked from rain. Lights flickered. Antennas buzzed. The wind whispered through broken glass.

And then—

Footsteps. Bare. Deliberate. Soft like silk, sharp like razors.

Crimsa emerged from the shadows behind a rooftop vent, wrapped in a crimson shawl with veins of glowing glyphs crawling over her skin. Her voice was ice dipped in honey.

Crimsa:

"You've been standing there for hours. Watching the old world fade. How sentimental."

Kageru (without turning):

"You should've sent someone else. I told you I'd never follow."

Crimsa:

"No one sent me. I came to offer you truth. Again."

Kageru turned at last, revealing tired, cracked eyes. One scarred, the other still glowing faintly with a lingering Vanguard sigil. His body was trembling—not in fear, but in something heavier. Guilt. Rage. Regret.

Kageru:

"There's nothing true about you."

Crimsa (smiling, stepping forward):

"Oh, but there is. Look around, Kageru. Your home's gone. Your team's scattered. The very city bleeds from the cracks you couldn't heal. You couldn't stop it. But with us… with Servix… you'll have purpose again."

Kageru unsheathed his blade. No warning. The sound of metal against air split the tension.

Kageru:

"I don't need your kind of purpose."

⚔️ [DUEL BEGINS — Crimsa vs. Kageru]

Lightning rumbled far away as the two forces clashed.

Crimsa struck first—veins glowing, a psionic whip extending from her arm like an eel of smoke. Kageru parried and ducked, rolled beneath a sweeping arc, and countered with an upward slash that cut a piece of her shawl.

They moved like dancers with vendettas. Graceful. Deadly.

Kageru's blade flickered with condensed wind pressure, creating sonic booms with each swing. Crimsa's shadows bled off her limbs, forming multiple limbs that attacked from impossible angles.

Tiles shattered. Debris rained to the streets below.

🥀 [SCENE — NEARBY DISTRICT, SUKI'S POV]

Suki was mid-mission, helping a family evacuate a collapsing apartment block. But suddenly—

She stopped. Her heart stung, sharp and strange. Like something just snapped in the air.

Suki (internal):

"Kageru…?"

She looked to the sky. A gust of petals flew across the horizon, unseasonal, unnatural. She dropped everything and ran.

⚔️ [BACK TO THE ROOFTOP — CLIMAX]

Kageru was wounded now—deep gash across his left ribs, and one leg trembling from a numbing blow. But he still stood.

Crimsa (taunting):

"Still trying to stand for something? You can barely stand at all."

Kageru (breathing hard):

"At least I'm standing against you."

Crimsa smiled, then launched a barrage—spears of shadow energy, hundreds of them, shot out like shards from her hands.

Kageru slashed through them one by one—his sword burning white from friction. But he was slowing.

And Crimsa wasn't done.

🌸 [SUKI ARRIVES]

A bloom of petals exploded above the rooftop. Suki, flushed and panicked, landed in a low crouch, immediately launching a protective shield made of hard-light blossoms that deflected Crimsa's next attack.

Suki:

"Get away from him!"

Crimsa (mocking):

"Ah. The cherry girl arrives. A little late for spring."

Suki sprinted to Kageru's side. He was leaning against the metal piping, blood leaking from his mouth.

Suki:

"Why… why didn't you call me?"

Kageru (weakly):

"Didn't want you to see me like this."

Suki (crying):

"You're an idiot."

Crimsa's arms extended like sickle-shaped blades.

Crimsa:

"Touching. Shall I kill you together?"

She raised her hand—

🥀 [FLASHBACK COLLAGE — SUKI & KAGERU]

Kageru teaching Suki to balance on a narrow beam over a koi pond.

Suki falling, dragging him in, both laughing.

A night they stole dango from the market and hid in the bell tower.

The first time he told her to "never let her petals wilt."

The moment he left the Vanguards—no goodbye, just silence.

💔 [PRESENT — DEATH SCENE]

The strike came.

Crimsa fired a single, focused lance of void magic.

Kageru's body moved instinctively—he shoved Suki aside and took the full hit.

Suki (screaming):

"NO!"

He dropped.

Suki caught him, cradling him on her lap, petals spiraling around them in a slow, tragic dance.

Kageru (faintly):

"You… were always stronger. Even when I pretended I didn't see it."

Suki (crying):

"Don't say goodbye. Please—"

Kageru:

"Bloom again. Don't stop blooming, Suki…"

And then—he went still.

⚫ [AFTERMATH]

Crimsa vanished in a ripple of shadow. No last words. No theatrics.

Suki sat there for hours. The moon passed behind clouds. Rain began to fall again.

She didn't move.

Not even when the Vanguards finally found her.

Not even when Irion knelt beside her.

Irion (softly):

"He died protecting you."

Suki whispered something too quietly to hear.

And all around her, cherry blossom petals began to rise, orbiting her like ghosts.

🎴 [ENDING MONOLOGUE — SUKI]

Suki (internal):

"I wanted him to stay.

But some petals are meant to fall.

And in their fall…

They feed the roots of what we become next."

[TO BE CONTINUED]