The first thing Elara learned about celestial warfare was that it was nothing like the sanitized version she'd imagined.
She'd expected something transcendent—beings of pure light engaging in combat that was more philosophical than physical, where victory came through superior righteousness rather than superior violence. What she witnessed instead, from her position in the observation galleries above Training Arena Seraph-Seven, was brutal, visceral, and disturbingly familiar.
"Today you observe actual combat between captured enemy forces and our Virtue-Rank defenders," announced Instructor Zadkiel, his voice carrying the practiced enthusiasm of someone who'd given this speech countless times. "Note how the corrupted souls fight with wild desperation, while our forces maintain discipline and tactical superiority through righteous unity."
Below them, in the crystalline arena that somehow contained the violence while magnifying every detail for the watching recruits, a squad of Heaven's soldiers faced off against what Zadkiel had called "enemy forces." The so-called enemies looked exactly like people—confused, frightened, desperate people whose wings of shadow and ember marked them as soldiers from Hell's army.
Elara watched one of Heaven's Virtue-Rank warriors, his golden wings spread wide as he channeled Seraphic Power into a blade of pure light. His opponent—a young woman who couldn't have been much older than Elara herself—tried to parry with a weapon of crystallized flame, but the heavenly soldier's technique was flawless, his movements flowing with mechanical precision.
The Hell soldier fell with a scream that echoed through the arena like breaking glass.
But she didn't just fall, Elara realized with growing horror. She shattered.
Where the defeated warrior had been, only fragments of some kind of luminous essence remained—swirling motes of what looked like liquid starlight mixed with shadow. The stuff seemed to pulse with its own inner life, as if it were trying to reform itself into something coherent.
"Observe carefully," Zadkiel continued, his tone remaining educational despite the carnage below. "When an enemy is defeated, their corrupted form dissolves, leaving behind pure Anima—spiritual essence in its rawest state. This substance is extremely valuable for our war effort."
One of the Heaven soldiers approached the scattered essence and began gathering it into a containment sphere that gleamed like captured sunlight. The process looked disturbingly clinical, like watching someone harvest organs from a corpse.
"What happens to it?" The question came from another recruit before Elara could voice it herself.
"The Anima is taken to our Sacred Forges, where it is purified and transformed into weapons, armor, and fortifications for our holy army," Zadkiel explained with evident pride. "In this way, even our fallen enemies serve the cause of divine order. Their essence, cleansed of corruption, contributes to the ultimate victory of righteousness."
They're recycling souls, Elara thought, her mind reeling. They're literally processing the spiritual essence of defeated enemies into military equipment. The implications were staggering—and deeply disturbing. If death in celestial combat meant having your very essence harvested and repurposed, then what exactly were they fighting for? And what happened to the consciousness, the personality, the individual identity of the "defeated" soul?
Around her, the other recruits watched with expressions ranging from fascination to approval. One even applauded when a particularly skillful Heaven warrior defeated two Hell soldiers simultaneously, creating a small cloud of harvestable Anima.
This is what my fellow activists have become, Elara realized. People who died fighting for human rights and social justice, now cheering as enemies are literally deconstructed for raw materials. The transformation was so complete, so absolute, that it made her wonder if her own resistance to indoctrination was as strong as she believed.
Meanwhile, in Hell's Crucible Grounds, Kael was learning his own disturbing lessons about the nature of celestial warfare.
"Combat exercise seventeen," Lieutenant Vex announced to the assembled recruits. "Live target practice against captured Heaven forces. Remember—these aren't people anymore. They're tools of cosmic oppression who've chosen to surrender their individuality for the illusion of righteous purpose."
The arena here was carved directly into the volcanic stone, with pools of lava providing ambient lighting and an atmosphere that felt appropriately apocalyptic. The "targets" were a group of Heaven soldiers whose golden wings had been clipped and bound, forcing them to fight on foot against Hell's trainees.
"The whole setup," Kael muttered to Marcus, "is like a gladiator match, except instead of fighting for the entertainment of emperors, we're fighting for the entertainment of... I don't know, cosmic middle management? And also the gladiators are made of souls and everyone thinks this is totally normal."
Marcus gave him that increasingly familiar look of concerned incomprehension. "Would you rather we just let them go? They're enemy combatants, Kael. They chose their side."
Before Kael could respond, the exercise began. What he witnessed made his revolutionary experiences on Earth look like a peaceful protest.
Hell's soldiers fought with savage enthusiasm, channeling Tempestuous Power into weapons of shadow and flame. But what disturbed Kael wasn't the violence itself—he'd seen violence before, had even participated in it when necessary. What disturbed him was the way his fellow recruits seemed to relish not just victory, but the complete destruction of their opponents.
Because that's what happened to defeated Heaven soldiers—they shattered just like their Hell counterparts, dissolving into those same swirling motes of spiritual essence. But Hell's treatment of the Anima was very different from Heaven's clinical harvesting.
"Feed!" Vex shouted as the first Heaven soldier fell apart. "Take what you need! Grow stronger through conquest!"
The Hell warriors descended on the scattered Anima like wolves on fresh meat. They literally consumed it—drawing the spiritual essence into themselves through some kind of absorption process that made them glow with stolen power. Kael watched one soldier grow visibly larger and more intimidating as he devoured the remains of his defeated opponent.
They're eating souls, Kael realized with sick fascination. Not just defeating enemies—literally consuming their essence to make themselves stronger. It was raw, primal, and somehow more honest than Heaven's industrial approach to soul processing. But it was also deeply horrifying in its implications.
"Your turn, Reeves," Vex called out, gesturing toward a bound Heaven soldier who looked young and terrified. "Show us what you've learned."
Kael stepped into the arena, his hands already beginning to flicker with Tempestuous Power. The Heaven soldier across from him couldn't have been more than twenty-five, with the kind of idealistic face that reminded him of his fellow activists back on Earth. Someone who'd probably died fighting for something they believed in, just like he had.
"This situation," he said, more to himself than anyone else, "is like being asked to destroy a mirror of yourself, except the mirror is a person and destroying it makes you stronger but also makes you into the kind of person who destroys mirrors that look like people."
The bound soldier looked at him with confusion and fear. "What?"
"Sorry," Kael said, raising his hands as the Tempestuous Power built to combat levels. "I'm really bad at analogies. But I think what I'm trying to say is... this is all completely fucked up, and I don't think either of us chose to be here."
The words felt like heresy in the middle of Hell's training ground, but they also felt true in a way that cut through the artificial certainty of Tempestuous Power. The Heaven soldier's expression shifted from fear to something like recognition—the look of someone encountering an unexpected moment of sanity in an insane situation.
But before either of them could explore that moment further, Vex's voice cracked like a whip: "Less talking, more fighting! The enemy doesn't care about your philosophical qualms, Reeves!"
Kael felt the weight of observation from his instructors, his fellow recruits, the entire hierarchical structure that had welcomed him as a champion of freedom but now seemed to demand unquestioning obedience to a very specific interpretation of what freedom meant.
He channeled Tempestuous Power into his hands, feeling the intoxicating rush of righteous anger that made everything seem clear and simple. The bound soldier was an enemy. Enemies were obstacles to freedom. Obstacles should be removed.
But removing obstacles shouldn't feel this much like becoming one.
The thought flickered through his mind just as he launched his first attack—a bolt of shadow-wreathed flame that his opponent barely managed to deflect with wings that were more light than substance. The Heaven soldier stumbled, already weakened by captivity and the restraints on their power.
I could end this quickly, Kael realized. One more strike and they'll shatter like the others. Their Anima will scatter, and I'll be expected to consume it, to grow stronger from their destruction.
Is this what revolution looks like in the afterlife? Is this what fighting for freedom actually means?
Above him, in the observation galleries, Vex watched with approval as Kael pressed his advantage. Around the arena, other recruits cheered as more Heaven soldiers fell and were consumed. The whole scene pulsed with the raw energy of Tempestuous Power, a symphony of beautiful, terrible freedom.
But in the space between one heartbeat and the next, as Kael prepared to deliver what would certainly be a killing blow, he found himself remembering something his grandmother had told him long ago: "The most dangerous moment in any fight is when you start enjoying it."
His attack faltered, the shadow-flame flickering as doubt crept through the artificial certainty of his power.
And in that moment of hesitation, both he and his opponent caught a glimpse of something that neither Heaven nor Hell seemed eager to acknowledge: they were more alike than different, and the war they'd been conscripted into might not be the righteous struggle either side claimed it to be.
The realization would cost them both dearly.
But it would also plant a seed that no amount of divine indoctrination could entirely uproot.