PROLOGUE

The first time Taehyung died, it was quiet.

Not heroic.

Not glorious.

There were no triumphant shouts or victorious drums — only the sound of something breaking.

Flame against harmony.

Light collapsing inward.

Jungkook remembers the warmth.

That is the cruelest part.

Not the blood.

Not the battlefield.

Not the scream lodged in his own throat.

The warmth of Taehyung's hand against his cheek.

"Stay with me," Jungkook had whispered — though he does not remember if he said it aloud or only in his mind.

Taehyung had smiled.

Even then.

Even with fire devouring the edges of his spiritual core, even with the sky trembling under fractured resonance — he had smiled as if this were simply another small inconvenience.

"I told you," Taehyung murmured softly, as though they were alone in a quiet courtyard instead of standing in the center of a dying field,

"I would not let you break."

The world had been screaming.

Jungkook's harmonic core had split open, layers unraveling under the pressure forced upon it. He could feel every soldier's heartbeat, every fractured leyline, every unstable pulse of energy begging to be stabilized.

He could fix it.

He could save them.

But not him.

Flame surged.

Harmony answered.

And something irreversible happened.

Taehyung's body had shielded his.

Not from steel.

From collapse.

When the light finally dimmed, Jungkook was still standing.

Taehyung was not.

The enemy fell soon after — cut down by a final, desperate release of harmonic force.