From the moment the dome was erected, the world beneath it had changed too. For generations, its dwellers would tell the tale of the two nights and days that should have wiped them from existence, yet none of the changes weakened them as they should have. By all rights, their bodies ought to have faltered.
Heat blazed down during the day, swelling the veins, urging sweat to cool flesh that should have been exhausted. Nights bit with cold, sharp as knives, forcing the blood inward, vessels constricting, muscles trembling for warmth. Such relentless oscillation between vasodilation and vasoconstriction should have broken them. The cardiovascular system was not forged to withstand such cruel rehearsals. Hormones should have spiked wildly; cortisol should have surged as the body fought to adapt. Sleep should have shattered, disrupted by temperatures that mocked the circadian rhythm. Joints should have stiffened, pain should have followed sudden snaps of cold, and inflammation should have flared under heat.
But none of this happened.
Instead, the fluctuations nurtured the residents as if hardship itself was grace. Their skin grew resilient, their muscles strong, their slumber strangely deep even under the strangest weather. Adding the rains was like giving the land steroids. Vegetation grew in excess, bursting through soil with green abundance. Grain bent heavy with promise, fruit ripened quickly, and wild forests seemed drunk on vitality.
This was not the cruelty of unstable weather. This was a healing presence. Mike's grace, weakened as it was, flowed into the world casually, almost carelessly, as if even his diminished light was more than sufficient to restore a broken realm.
Uriel, standing by his side, felt it all. The breath of life in the trees, the subtle rhythm in the soil, the strange calm in the people. But her body, her nearly-mortal body felt weariness. Her wings, hidden from mortal eyes, twitched faintly. She was practically mortal now, bound by her choice, bearing the weight of years upon years. A mortal with a very long lifespan, yes, but mortal all the same. She could only stay awake so long. Her eyelids closed despite herself.
Mike, who had seen wars consume stars and silence the hymns of heavens, watched her shoulders slump. He did not wake her. Gently, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to a cottage nearby. Its roof smelled of pine and its stones were warm from the day's heat. He placed her on the bed as carefully as if she were a child, though in truth she was his equal once. He brushed a lock of hair from her brow and lingered for a heartbeat.
When he stepped outside, he did not look back. His gaze went upward.
And then he was gone.
He reappeared where he had left the wings dis-attached, celestial appendages that, once rejoined, unfurled until they wrapped the planet itself. Light bent. Winds screamed. Blades invisible to the mortal eye shredded through the void, their echoes tearing rifts of silence in the black expanse.
Buddha stood there, lost for words.
He had seen gods. He had walked with kings. He had sat unmoved beneath the Bodhi tree while the world tested him with desire, fear, and death. But this, this display of wings spanning a planet, left cold sweat dripping down his back.
Behind him, where once Loki had stood, there was nothing. The trickster had long vanished, leaving only the echo of a projection. Of course he had not stayed. Of course he had left Buddha to face this storm alone.
Mike's hands went to his weapons. The pangas slid from their sheaths with the sound of judgment. They glowed blue, stripped of crimson. The edges were sharp but unstained, almost merciful. Buddha swallowed. He understood: Mike had judged him unworthy of blood's mark.
Inside the cottage, Uriel's eyes opened as soon as Mike vanished. She had not truly dozed off. She had felt the hesitation in him, the heaviness in his movements. She rose and went to the doorway, staring at the sky that roared faintly with unseen winds.
"You know it's just an avatar of an avatar," she murmured, voice carrying no further than the night breeze. "It's pointless to kill it. The owner isn't anywhere near."
But how could she know what it had cost Buddha to stand here? His form was an avatar of Vishnu's own avatar, an incarnation forged within another. To craft such a thing had drained him, pressed him to the edges of endurance. Every breath in this form was pain. Yet he had chosen it. Why he would dare do such a feat would be a story for another time.
For now, the time of words had come.
"Michael," Buddha said, voice steady though his chest tightened, "this is unnecessary. Look around you. The world beneath your wings thrives. The dome's burden has become its gift. The people do not suffer. They flourish. Why then do you unsheathe your blades?"
Mike said nothing. His eyes were fire, unblinking, piercing through the illusion of calm.
"Violence is not the answer," Buddha pressed. "Your wrath does not bring peace. It only fuels the wheel of suffering. Samsara turns endlessly because of hatred, because of desire, because of ignorance. Step away from your pangas. Sit. Be still. You will see truth needs no weapon."
At last Mike spoke. His voice was low, like thunder rumbling beneath the earth.
"Truth requires blood. Covenant requires blood. There is no redemption without the price paid. You speak of cycles, but your cycles are chains. Men live, suffer, and die, hoping for release that never comes. I have seen them cry out in that endless circle. I will break it."
"Break it with slaughter?" Buddha asked. His voice trembled, not with fear but with sorrow. "The wheel cannot be shattered by rage. Only compassion frees."
"Compassion without justice is mockery," Mike replied. "Your dharma bends but never redeems. You offer detachment, but not forgiveness. You tell men to let go of their suffering, but you do not bear it with them. My Lord bore it. My Lord carried sin upon His shoulders, and in His blood the covenant was sealed. That is justice. That is love."
Buddha closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again, calm as a lake. "You mistake compassion for detachment. To see the world clearly is to love it without possession, without demand. I sought not to bear all suffering but to show men that suffering is not eternal. That in enlightenment, there is release. Not by blood. Not by endless guilt. But by awakening."
Mike's grip on the pangas tightened. "You call awakening what is only blindness to truth. You ask men to dissolve themselves into emptiness, and you call it peace. But peace without the Living God is not peace. It is silence, death wearing the mask of serenity."
Buddha realized then that words would not win this night. His calm did not falter, but within he knew: Michael had made his judgment. The archangel's patience was spent.
"Then come," Buddha whispered. "Strike, if you must. My compassion remains even in death."
Mike moved.
The pangas slashed through the void, blue arcs of fury. Buddha raised his hands, forming mudras that glowed with golden light. Mantras spilled from his lips, 'Gate, gate, paragate… ' each syllable a shield, a wall of stillness. But Mike's blades shredded them as if they were cobwebs.
The world beneath shivered. Rain poured, sheets of water crashing upon fields and roofs. Lightning split the dome, illuminating the cottage where Uriel stood, her hand clutching the doorframe. She did not move. She did not interfere. Her eyes glistened with tears she would never shed aloud.
The duel was not simply steel against silence. It was theology against theology, faith against philosophy. Each strike was a sermon. Each defense a sutra.
Mike's wings flared, casting blades of wind that tore apart Buddha's illusions. The Bodhi tree he conjured splintered, leaves scattering into void. The lotus he summoned was cleaved in half, petals falling like bloodless wounds.
Still, Buddha did not scream. His calm held, his compassion unwavering. He whispered words of release even as Michael's pangas struck flesh. Golden ichor spilled, bright as the sun, dripping into the void like nectar.
Uriel's voice was a whisper carried by storm. "Michael, stop…" But he did not.
At last, with one final arc, Mike's blades pierced through the avatar's chest. Buddha staggered. His hands fell to his sides. His lips parted in a final murmur.
"Compassion… even… for you."
Then his form dissolved into golden mist, scattering like incense smoke into the void. The avatar was gone. The strain of maintaining it had ended. Somewhere, far beyond, the true essence of Siddhartha shivered in silence, weakened but not destroyed.
Mike stood over the fading light, wings still stretched, blades dripping with the remnants of grace. He did not look victorious. He did not even look relieved. His face was carved from stone, unreadable.
Uriel closed her eyes. "Nothing is won," she whispered. "Only postponed."
The rain eased. The world beneath continued to thrive, unaware of the clash above its sky. Fields glistened with water, and children laughed in their sleep, untouched by the bloodless war of heaven and dharma.
Mike sheathed his pangas. His wings folded back into him, vanishing into silence. The void calmed, though not entirely. Somewhere in the shadows, Loki's absence lingered, a reminder that this night's battle was not the end but the prelude.
Uriel turned from the sky, her steps heavy. "Even angels cannot bear the untamed fury of gods," she said softly, though only the walls of the cottage heard her.