In truth, Buddha had believed his plan flawless.
He had set his eyes upon Uriel's grace, cloaking himself in the guise of a teacher. It was not long after Lucifer's fall. Michael had already spiraled into a vengeful crusade, slaughtering beasts, angels, gods, and even their children. Uriel blamed herself. She thought Michael's rampage had been his way of fulfilling her desperate wish: to save Lucifer from damnation.
Broken and guilty, she abandoned the Heavens and descended into the mortal realms. There she resolved to embody her essence of judgment and illumination more humbly, not from a throne, but as a wanderer among mortals. Yet pain haunted her. Her wings were sealed, her grace hidden, and she was adrift.
That was when she met Buddha. She never revealed who she truly was, nor the radiance sealed inside her. Still, the man was perceptive. He sensed faint traces of her grace, and when centuries passed without her aging, his suspicions hardened into certainty.
At last, he asked her to share her grace with him.
Uriel recoiled. A guarded distance grew between them. Buddha knew then he had revealed too much of his greed. And so, ambition consumed him: if she would not give it, he would take it. Believing the legends of angels to be mere exaggerations, and mistaking Uriel's broken state for weakness that applied to all her kind, he tried to subdue her and he succeeded or so he thought.
Yet when he searched her soul for the radiance of grace, he found only seals. Curious, he tried to pry them open. But the attempt backfired with divine wrath, scarring his very soul. For more than a decade he limped in spirit, his wisdom shaken.
Uriel had not resisted. She let him bind her, let him dig, let him fail. She knew the truth: only one of her brothers could undo the seals she had placed.
When Buddha abandoned her and sought counsel elsewhere, whispers spread. Many gods came to know: the so-called God of Lies had become the God of Chaos, and Archangel Gabriel was at the heart of the storm.
It was then that Buddha sought Loki.
He expected resistance, yet Loki required little convincing. The trickster's price was simple: wings. He revealed the truth — more than ninety percent of an angel's grace dwelled in their wings, and if one could be severed from them, unimaginable power could be claimed. But Loki gave a warning: angels, and archangels above all, were beyond belief in their strength.
Buddha scoffed. He had subdued one already, had he not? What were seals to the God of Wisdom?
And so Loki agreed. But the moment his chaos touched Uriel's seals, they shifted violently. The backlash maimed Loki's soul, leaving him with wounds no healing could mend. Uriel's grace recoiled, retreating deeper within her soul, out of reach leaving her in that cursed state.
Buddha went into hiding, nursing his pride and awaiting the angel who would one day come for Uriel. She remained trapped in her loop, broken, wandering, sealed.
But when Mike appeared, radiant and terrible, Buddha knew he had blundered. He felt the storm of power, saw the wings unfurled, and remembered Loki's warning. Panic gnawed at him. He thought to flee, but Loki himself arrived, healed, smirking, and savoring his vindication.
Now Buddha could not run. To flee would be to shatter the illusion of his wisdom. To cower would be to lose the name he had spent centuries building. He was Buddha, the mighty sage, the master of intellect. Surely he could still talk his way through this.
But if he had heard Mike's words when he departed the Ninth Heaven, he would not have hesitated. He would have run. Even though this body was but an avatar, it was not worth the price of pride.
And yet, he stayed.
indeed a blundersome immortal sage.