*Time later*
*Somewhere in the sky*
Pov: General
The wind howled like a living thing inside the cavernous belly of the massive enemy aircraft, rattling steel beams and vibrating the suspended racks of explosive payloads.
The engines thundered like distant storms, shaking the floor beneath their feet.
The cold blue glow of Tesseract-powered consoles cast alien shadows across the metallic interior, stretching and bending their silhouettes into monstrous shapes.
Steve Rogers stood at the center of that metallic expanse, chest rising and falling slowly, but his breath was no longer calm; there was something feral in it.
His knuckles were bruised and raw, his clothes darkened with blood, some of it his, most of it not.
His sword bore jagged grooves across its surface, as though it had been gnawed on by some relentless beast.
His hair was matted against his forehead in sweat and ice.
His blue eyes flickered with something deeper, darker, something that have been a long time forgotten, but now had been awakened for too long
Opposite him stood Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, his face fully unmasked now, that crimson visage stretched into a rictus grin of triumph.
He looked less like a man and more like a demon carved from sinew and malevolence.
The cold gleam of victory sparkled in his eyes, because he believed this moment was already written, he believed destiny belonged to him.
At least, that was his believe under the influence of the protagonist
"Look at you, Steve "
Schmidt said, spreading his arms wide as though he were welcoming a congregation.
"The shining Hero ideal, the product of science, the symbol of hope and heroism, and yet..."
His smile widened.
"They fails, always."
Steve's grip tightened on his sword but still he didn't speak, not at first.
Words felt insignificant at this point, he had killed too much, fought too hard, watched too many people die in fire.
The serum running through his veins amplified every emotion he carried, but when the battle stretched into endless brutality, when the violence became too much, something inside him awakened again.
The scientists had strengthened his body, but they had not accounted for pain and memories, the kind that settles in the bones, the kind that waits for a crack to pour itself through.
Steve stepped forward, not marching, not sprinting, simply moving with the weight of inevitability from someone who have done this more times that them remembered
"And yet I'm still standing, like I always did"
he finally growled, voice low, deeper than Schmidt had ever heard from him, Red Skull's smile softened into something colder.
"Yes. But what is standing there? A man? A Beast? Or a Monster dressed in a symbol?"
The aircraft shuddered violently as turbulence struck, but neither man looked away from the other.
Outside the windows are miles of gray sky, streaked with storm clouds like claw marks across heaven, but beneath them was the Atlantic.
Steve did not care about the storm, he cared only about the person standing before him, the one who take for the last time his friend.
"You talk too much,"
He finally said, and then, he moved.
The sword struck first, faster than Schmidt expected, faster than any human should be able to move.
It slammed into Red Skull's ribs with a slice like a gunshot, sending him spinning across the platform when he tried to block.
Schmidt caught himself on a railing, wheezing laughter as he wiped blood from his lips.
"Good, show me the truth of your power."
He hissed, and then charged, his own strength unnatural, enhanced by the same primordial energy that fueled the Hydra arsenal.
Their blows collided like hammers smashing against anvils, shaking the walkway beneath them.
Steve slammed Schmidt against a wall, Schmidt retaliated with a strike to the throat that would have collapsed another man's windpipe.
Steve coughed, staggered, then snarled like a cornered wolf and hurled Schmidt across the room.
The Berserk state wasn't mad frenzy this time, it was focus, but focus sharpened to a blade so thin it cut thought from action.
There was no hesitation, no doubt, no fear, only the fight, only the enemy, only the vengeance (Traductor: I'm Batman ☠️)
"Do you feel it now?"
Schmidt croaked, forcing himself upright.
"The clarity of rage? The simplicity of destruction? This is the truth of the world, Steve Rogers, only the strong endure, everything else is illusion."
Steve lunged forward and headbutted him with enough force to crack steel.
Schmidt crumpled to one knee and Steve grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, muscles flexing like coiled steel cables.
"I never endured because I was strong"
Steve said, voice shaking with wrath.
"I endured because I was the last one who remembered them."
Schmidt's grin returned, believing he was talking about the civilians, so he said
"And now you will watch them die."
He pointed toward the cockpit controls, the flight path was locked.
The aircraft was on a collision course straight into a major city, thousands of lives already hanging in the balance, Steve's heart pounded, not with fear of failure, but with a surge of primal fury so sharp it nearly blinded him
After all, this was his new live, he wouldn't allow his story would repeat
"You planned to die anyway"
Steve whispered.
"Yes, but you? You will live to bear the guilt."
Schmidt said.
The words echoed, but did not land. Steve no longer had room for guilt, and frankly, he didn't care, because only resolve remained.
He threw Schmidt into the central power conduit, the Tesseract glowed with cosmic fire, casting both men in unnatural blue radiance.
Schmidt slammed into the console, sparks erupting around him.
They grappled there, each gripping the other like ancient titans locked in an eternal struggle.
The explosions began, small flickers of fire along the hangar walls.
The engines groaned; the aircraft descended faster.
"You can't win,"
Schmidt hissed, spittle flecking Steve's face.
"Even if you kill me, you lose!"
Steve's expression hardened, not bleak, not broken, just certain of a man who have done this before
"Then I'll lose on my terms."
With a roar that tore itself from somewhere buried deep inside, a roar that was part berserk, part monster, part wounded soul, Steve slammed his sword forward, and It struck with the force of a meteor.
The console shattered, the power core ruptured.
Red Skull screamed, not in pain, but in fury, as the blue light swallowed him, dissolving him into a beam of cosmic energy that twisted and spiraled into the air like a serpent of stars before vanishing into the void.
Silence followed, but not true silence, the roaring silence of a man who has gone past emotion into numbness.
Steve stood alone.
The plane was going down.
He reached the cockpit.
The radio crackled. Familiar voices called his name, concern, fear, hope, all of them calling him for who he was in this world
But Steve looked at the controls, at the ocean stretching infinite and cold below him, at the empty sky ahead.
He could land safely and risk the payload detonating near civilization.
Or he could guide it down into the ice and let it end here, with him.
This was not a heroic decision. Not a noble sacrifice. It was necessity, the final decision of a man who had already become a weapon who hoped never be again.
He gripped the controls.
His breath slowed.
His eyes softened, not with peace, but with acceptance.
"I can do this, because I have to, like always."
The plane descended.
The frost spread across the windows.
The ocean rose up like a wall of silver.
And Steve Rogers, the berserk, the monster, the hero, closed his eyes as the world became white
*At the same time*
*Somewhere far away*
"Well... that was boring."
The protagonist said with clear disinterest, sitting in his room inside the White House.
★ "Why do you say that?"
The System asked, sounding somewhat intrigued, but mostly because it already suspected the reason behind his words.
"I thought that Steve, with all the modifications made to the planet, might be able to change his fate… but I guess I expected too much from a simple mortal."
★ "Well, not everyone is like you, someone who can literally shape destiny if they wanted to."
The System replied, as if stating the most obvious fact in the world.
★ "Besides, I know you never actually intended to save him.
In the end, you could still just pull him out of Antarctica anytime you want."
The System added, without much interest, after all, it found it exhausting to even think about it, already fully aware of what the protagonist's answer would be.
"Nah..., why would I? Let him stay there, he was useful enough already."
★ "Anyway, you should get ready you will need to attend Steve's memorial."
"...Since when do you act as my assistant?"
The protagonist asked, confused, but still got up to prepare, because, annoyingly enough, the System was right.
*Time later*
After getting dressed, he got into an armored car along with his adopted "relatives," whose minds he had already altered long ago.
Upon arriving at the memorial, they were greeted by a massive crowd.
The entire gathering remained silent in honor of Steve, among them were influential politicians, famous business figures, veterans of "BALANCE", and countless civilians whose lives Steve had saved.
Then the President walked up to the podium and gave a speech, an incredibly dull and painfully generic one.
So dull that even regular civilians could tell how empty and insincere his words were.
But nobody bothered to call him out on it. They would deal with him later.
For today, they had gathered for one purpose only:
To say goodbye to the greatest being the world had ever known.
Someone who, by his very existence, defined what it meant to be loyal, a friend, a comrade, but above all else, a hero (Translator: Fullmetal alchemist moment .PNG)