The room beyond the door was warm.
Not comfortable—warm, like a cellar that had been sealed too long.
The air clung to Neme's skin the moment he stepped inside, thick with the layered scent of fermentation, old alcohol, and something faintly bitter beneath it all.
Herbs.
Fruits.
Yeast.
But ultimately failure.
Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, packed tight with bottles of every shape imaginable.
Some were corked.
Some sealed with wax.
All were top tier wines to both the mortal races and the gods themselves, however to the god of wines who brewed them… all were utter failures.
Tables were cluttered with glassware, stained cloths, half-written notes, and cracked ceramic jugs.
A few bottles lay shattered on the floor, their contents dried into sticky amber streaks.
At the center of it all sat Soma.
The god was hunched over a worktable, long silver hair falling loose down his back, sleeves rolled to the elbow as he carefully poured a clear liquid from one flask into another.
His movements were precise.
Patient.
Obsessive.
He looked thinner than Neme remembered from the anime—less indulgent, more hollow.
A man who had forgotten how to sleep.
He didn't look up when the door closed.
Didn't flinch at the sound of boots on the wood floor as the person approached.
He didn't react at all, to absorbed in what he was doing, his one remaining passion… brewing.
Neme took three steps into the room, blades still drawn, and stopped.
Soma continued working.
The clink of glass echoed softly.
Minutes seemed to stretch, broken only by the slow drip of liquid and the faint crackle of a low-burning burner beneath one of the vats.
Finally, Soma spoke.
"You tracked blood into my room," he said mildly. "That's going to ruin the floor, and might affect the quality of my wines."
His voice was calm.
Detached.
Not bored— just elsewhere.
Neme said nothing.
Soma sighed and set the flask down.
He wiped his hands on a cloth that had once been white and turned, pale eyes settling on Neme at last.
His gaze flicked to the blades.
To the black clothing.
To the faint specks of blood that had already begun to darken.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked,
"Is Zanis dead?"
"Yes."
For the first time since Neme had entered, Soma reacted.
It was subtle.
A tightening around the eyes.
A faint inhale held just a fraction too long.
"…I see," Soma murmured.
He looked past Neme, as if expecting Zanis to appear anyway.
When nothing happened, Soma leaned back against the table, fingers resting on the edge, shoulders slumping.
"That's… unfortunate," he said.
Then, after a pause, "And fortunate."
A faint, tired smile tugged at his lips.
"Without him," Soma continued, "perhaps my children might finally remember why they came to me in the first place. Wine was never meant to be a leash. Only a reward. A goal."
His eyes sharpened slightly. "A summit."
Neme took a step forward.
Soma noticed this time.
"But," Soma added quietly, "you didn't come here to deliver good news."
"No," Neme said. His voice was flat. Controlled. "I came to pass judgment."
That earned him Soma's full attention.
The god studied him now—not with divine pressure, not with arrogance, but with genuine curiosity.
As if Neme were a new ingredient, dropped into a familiar recipe.
"Judgment," Soma repeated. "From a mortal."
Neme advanced another step.
"You abandoned your Familia," he said. "You withdrew from them, not in shame, but in convenience. You let Zanis rule in your place. You let extortion become policy. You let robbery become routine. You let murder become a tool."
Soma's smile faded.
"Every death," Neme continued, "every addiction, every ruined life that came from your wine—it rests on you. Not because you commanded it. But because you allowed it."
The room felt tighter.
Soma straightened, eyes narrowing—not in anger, but in something closer to regret.
"I did not foresee—"
"You didn't care to look," Neme cut in.
Silence followed.
Soma closed his eyes.
"…Perhaps," he admitted. "Perhaps I was tired. Perhaps I believed that if I withdrew far enough, the problem would resolve itself."
He opened his eyes again and looked at Neme with something like resignation.
"If that is your charge," Soma said softly, "then I accept it."
He spread his hands.
"I will return to Heaven. My presence here has clearly caused more harm than good. Let Oranos clean the mess. Let my children scatter and find better gods."
For a heartbeat, the room was still.
Then Neme sighed.
It was a quiet sound.
Almost disappointed.
"A god's crimes," Neme said, "aren't something to be answered with exile."
He moved.
Soma barely had time to register the intent before steel flashed.
Neme's blade slashed across Soma's side.
Blood splattered across the worktable.
Red.
Real.
The god fell from his chair to the floor with a sharp intake of breath, one hand flying to the wound.
His eyes widened—not in pain, but in disbelief.
"…That shouldn't—"
Nothing happened.
No divine surge.
No golden light.
No forced return to Heaven.
The wound itself simply existed, a thing that shouldn't be possible for a divine being.
Blood seeped between Soma's fingers, dripping onto the stone floor.
Soma stared at it, breathing unevenly.
Then he looked up at Neme.
Slowly.
Carefully.
"What," Soma said, voice no longer distant, "did you do?"
Neme didn't answer.
He stepped closer, blades steady, eyes cold.
Soma a god who had long since given up merely watched from the floor as his lifeblood continued to seep away.
Questions arose in the aged gods mind, but ultimately he knew his time was coming to a close.
Getting the answers wouldn't stop that so rather than prolong things he would accept this mortals sentencing and atone for the sins he has caused over the long years since he descended down from the heavens to be among the mortals of the land.
Gods were meant to be figures of reverence and belief, but Soma himself had instead caused that reverence to shift to wine instead of himself, stripping them of their belief and replacing it with addiction instead.
Neme carried on walking forwards, also choosing not to speak further, his skill actively repressing the divine abilities of a god.
Rather than letting the old man suffer until he simply bled out, Neme gripp his twin daggers tightly before driving them both down, and in an instant like snuffing out a candle flame the first divine life was slain.
The indolent god soma, now lay upon the floor of his familia mansion, a pair of daggers resting deeply into his skull, granting the god a quick and merciful end to his eons of existance.
Meanwhile both within Orario, around the world, and even in the heavens up on high, the gods felt a ripple of something they couldn't quite place, were they mortal they would know this to be the fear of death itself something they were wholely unaware of being immortal divine beings.