Men Cry Too

Military boots crunched heavily through the relentless, unforgiving snow, the sound cutting sharp through the howling wind. A towering figure pushed forward against the storm, his sharp eyebrows dusted white with frost, his jaw set like carved granite. Around him stretched the desolate expanse of the North Pole, a frozen wasteland where the freezing earth and the blinding sky bled into a single, suffocating void. Deep within this endless blizzard, entirely invisible to every satellite orbiting the planet, a massive, heavily fortified military base loomed like a dormant beast.

This sprawling compound housed the finest elite forces on the globe, state-of-the-art medical bays, and top-tier artillery systems. Yet, only the highest echelon of the military knew the true purpose of this fortress. It existed not for covert research or global intelligence. It was built to cage one man. A man capable of bringing supreme glory to the three million soldiers of the Oakhaven Armed Forces, currently locked away in the dark.

Marshal Victor Graves ignored the biting cold as he strode through the reinforced steel blast doors.

"That boy's illness is acting up again? Tell me the exact situation," Victor’s voice boomed down the sterile steel corridor, ringing with the heavy authority of a church bell. On his broad shoulders, three golden stars caught the harsh fluorescent light, gleaming with silent power.

A military doctor in a crisp white lab coat scrambled forward, throwing a hurried, nervous salute. He looked utterly exhausted, dark circles bagging his anxious eyes. "Marshal!" The doctor dropped his trembling hand, letting out a ragged sigh. "The Dragon Head is getting worse. This marks the third severe episode this month. His aggression and his raw destructive output have more than tripled since the last fit! We purposely reinforced the holding cell with aeronautical grade alloys, the thickest we could source, hoping he could just rampage until he exhausted himself, but…"

The doctor's words faltered. From a side corridor, heavy grunts echoed off the metal walls. A dozen armored elite soldiers staggered into view, their boots slipping on the polished floor. Sweat poured down their faces despite the frigid air circulating the base. They strained in agony under the immense weight of a twisted, mangled slab of metal. It was a twenty-centimeter-thick chunk of aeronautical alloy wall, violently torn from its secure moorings.

Victor stepped closer to the ruined metal, his face grim. He traced a gloved hand over the surface. The indestructible alloy looked like crumpled foil. Deep, bowl-sized dents cratered the metal, perfect impressions of bare human fists. Beside them, massive indentations shaped like boot prints and the unmistakable, brutal concavity of a headbutt marred the steel. Each strike carried a terrifying amount of kinetic force, enough to shatter reinforced tank armor.

"That boy did all this?" Victor asked, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous murmur.

"Yes, Marshal."

A cold prickle danced across Victor's scalp. This alloy was engineered to shrug off small missile strikes without buckling. Dante Thorne had battered it into unrecognizable scrap metal using nothing but his own flesh and bone.

"I want to see him," Victor ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Panic flashed across the doctor's face. He stepped in front of the Marshal, raising his hands. "Marshal, please reconsider. The Dragon Head has just come down from his violent fit. The aggression could spike again at any second. It is too dangerous to go inside right now. We should wait until his vitals stabilize, so you—"

Victor pushed past the trembling man without another word.

The heavy blast doors hissed open. Inside the custom-built holding cell, the air smelled of stale sweat, copper blood, and raw ozone. A young man sat slumped in a reinforced steel chair. Thick, heavy chains bound his wrists and ankles, locking him securely to the floor plates. Stripped to the waist, his muscular physique was a brutal canvas of gruesome battle scars. Jagged lines crisscrossed over his bulging, bronze muscles, painting a horrific map of a once-glorious warrior forged in the fires of hell.

Yet, his eyes held nothing. They stared at the concrete floor, hollow, emotionless, and drained of every ounce of humanity. A suffocating aura of absolute despair choked the small room.

Victor’s mouth twitched. A sharp, phantom pain stabbed at his chest. "Didn't die again?"

The chained man let out a dry, raspy chuckle. Dante Thorne tilted his heavy head, his chiseled features twisting into a mask of bitter mockery and dejection.

"I've almost crippled myself fooling around in here," Dante rasped, his voice raw from hours of screaming. "But Lucifer just refuses to let me into hell. I think even if I tore myself apart piece by piece, not a single soul down there would care enough to open the gates."

Victor stared at the broken shell of his greatest protege. Dante Thorne. The Dragon Head. The legendary Lord of Strike. For decades, he was the sharpest blade in Oakhaven's arsenal, a pillar of unshakeable faith for millions of soldiers. Victor had trained him, bled with him, and watched him rise to unparalleled godhood.

Three years ago, Dante led a heroic, suicidal siege against the holy grounds of the First Organization. Separated from his vanguard, he blasted his way through the seven Thrones alone, painting the sacred halls red with enemy blood. That impossible feat cemented his legacy as the Lord of Strike.

But victory demanded a cruel, unforgiving price. During the slaughter, Dante was afflicted with the diabolical Mandraka Poison. The incurable toxin coiled in his veins, dormant until it flared into beast-like violent fits. When the poison seized his mind, he became a mindless engine of destruction, incapable of recognizing friend from foe. As the years bled by, the fits grew more frequent, the madness deeper. The greatest soldier of their generation was reduced to waiting in a frozen cage, watching himself decay into a senseless monster.

"Live?" Dante's dead eyes remained fixed on the blank wall. "What is the point of me living, old man? I sit in this godforsaken box every single day. I count the seconds, waiting for the poison to snap my mind in half again. I lie awake terrified that I'll break these chains and tear my own loyal comrades apart."

Dante strained against the cuffs, the cold metal biting deep into his scarred wrists. "I cannot fight anymore. I am not fit to wear the uniform. What purpose do I serve besides draining your precious medical resources? Every breath I take in this cage is torture. Death is the only release left for me."

He was not afraid to die. He was simply numb. He looked into the future and saw only a black, yawning abyss. The crushing guilt of injuring his brothers-in-arms during his blind rampages gnawed at his fractured soul. For a proud, peerless warrior who once fiercely defended his land, surviving as a chained beast was a fate worse than execution.

Outside the open cell door, the elite guards lowered their heads. A few rubbed at their stinging eyes. The suffocating weight of the Dragon Head's agony pressed down on them all. Even the iron-willed Marshal stood in heavy, agonizing silence.

The quiet was broken by the hesitant shuffle of footsteps. The nervous military doctor crept into the cell, clutching a small, transparent medical bag. Inside, an addictive crystalline white powder shifted like crushed glass.

"Marshal," the doctor stammered, his hands shaking as he presented the bag. "The Dragon Head's condition is deteriorating rapidly. The Mandraka Poison is adapting to his immune system. If he remains in this demotivated, volatile state, the neural strain might prove fatal during the next surge. If this continues... I fear we have no choice but to use this to sedate him permanently."

Victor froze. His gaze locked onto the bag of crystalline drug. He was a man of decisive action, a leader who ordered thousands to their deaths without blinking. Yet, staring at the powder, a deep, agonizing hesitation rooted him to the spot. This was Dante Thorne. The boy he raised. The pride and joy of a million-strong army. Was he really going to resort to this? To turn the Lord of Strike into a dependent, docile shell? But the alternative was watching him descend into a mindless, rampaging monster three times a month until his brain melted into slag.

Dante's head snapped up. The dead void in his eyes vanished, replaced by a flash of feral, unhinged fury.

"Get out!" Dante roared, the sound tearing from his throat like a wounded lion.

He surged forward, the heavy chains screaming in protest as they strained against the floor bolts. His bare foot shot out, slamming into the doctor's hand. The medical bag launched across the room, striking the far wall and bursting open. A thick cloud of white dust rained down onto the sterile floor.

"I am a soldier!" Dante bellowed, his chest heaving as the bronze muscles bunched across his shoulders. "I am the renowned Lord of Strike! You dare bring that garbage into my cell? You dare suggest turning me into a pathetic drug addict to keep me quiet?"

The elite soldiers outside gripping their rifles felt a cold sweat break across their backs. Despite the heavy alloy cuffs securing him to the chair, the raw, primal intent radiating from Dante made their survival instincts scream. If he fought hard enough, if the rage pushed him past his physical limits, they knew he could snap those chains and slaughter them all before they could even aim.

"How can I face the brothers who died beside me?" Dante spat, thrashing against his bindings. "How do I honor the uniform on my back if I let you turn me into a trembling junkie? I would rather bite out my own throat!"

Victor’s hesitation evaporated, replaced by a volcanic surge of wrath. He stepped forward and delivered a devastating kick to the steel table anchored to the floor. The heavy metal shrieked as it tore loose, flipping over and crashing into the far wall. The doctors scrambled backward in sheer terror.

"Bullshit!" Victor roared, his voice shaking the overhead light fixtures.

He closed the distance in two massive strides, his hands shooting out to grab fistfuls of Dante’s sweat-soaked hair. He yanked the younger man’s head back, forcing Dante to look him directly in the eye.

"Who the hell is Lucifer to lay a single finger on a soldier who belongs to me?" Victor barked, his spit flying. "You belong to Victor Graves! Listen to me, Dante Thorne. You will live, and you will live well! Nobody gets to claim your life on my watch. Not the First Organization, not the Mandraka Poison, and sure as hell not you!"

Victor’s chest heaved. Behind his burning anger, a deep, paternal grief threatened to break through. "Oh, so now you remember you're a soldier? Now you remember you're the Dragon Head? If you know who you are, then why the hell are you acting like a pathetic coward over some poison? Why are you begging for death every single chance you get?"

He shoved Dante's head back, jabbing a thick, calloused finger into the younger man's chest, right over his pounding heart.

"Where is your dignity?" Victor demanded. "Where is your honor as a soldier? What happened to your tenacious, determined fighting spirit? If I hear you breathe the word 'die' one more time, I will kick you out of the vanguard myself! My army has no room for cowards who quit when the fight gets hard!"

The cell fell into a ringing silence. Dante’s throat clicked as he swallowed hard. The furious fire in his eyes dimmed into a deep, crushing shame. In the face of his mentor's righteous fury, the legendary Lord of Strike could only lower his head, letting his heavy hair obscure his face.

Victor stood over him, his breath coming in ragged huffs. He harrumphed, adjusting the cuffs of his uniform. He reached inside his breast pocket, his expression unreadable, and pulled out a thick, classified manila file.

He stood there for a long moment, staring at the sealed flap. He had kept this secret buried in the darkest vaults of military intelligence for five long years.

"I’ve been keeping this from you," Victor said, his tone dropping to a grim murmur. He tossed the file onto Dante’s lap. "It's high time you knew the truth. Take a look. Make of it what you will. If you're still so hell-bent on rotting away in this cell and leaving them both alone... then go ahead and die. See if I care."

Dante frowned. Them both? Mother and daughter?

His chained hands trembled slightly as he reached for the file. The thick paper felt heavy, loaded with an invisible gravity. He flipped open the cover.

Inside rested a single, high-resolution photograph.

Dante’s breath hitched in his throat. The air rushed out of his lungs. Staring back at him from the glossy paper was an exquisite little girl. She had soft, doll-like features, rosy cheeks, and bright, piercing eyes that perfectly mirrored his own.

"I..." Dante choked on the word. He dragged a thumb over the image, afraid it would shatter like glass. "I have a daughter?"

The dead void that had consumed him for three years shattered in an instant. A sudden, burning spark ignited in his chest. It roared into a raging inferno of renewed hope. The suffocating gray walls of his cell seemed to melt away.

"Is this true?" Dante’s voice cracked. He pinched his own arm hard, hissing as a sharp spike of pain confirmed he wasn't hallucinating. "Old man, tell me this is real."

"The Dragon Vanguard does not operate on false intel," Victor stated plainly, crossing his arms. "Why would I lie to you? Think back to your mission in Riverdale. Five years ago. That night."

Dante’s mind raced backward. The memory surfaced through the fog of blood and battle. A quiet bar in Riverdale. A forgotten, passionate night wrapped in the scent of rain and cheap liquor. The heat of her skin, the desperate tangle of limbs, and the elegant silhouette slipping out before dawn. The only woman he had ever allowed himself to touch.

Before Dante could process the massive revelation, Victor reached into his coat again and slapped a second document over the photograph.

"This is your discharge report," Victor declared. "It goes into effect the second you sign it. Considering your unprecedented, outstanding contributions to this country, the brass will revoke your military authority. But you get to keep your rank. You keep your position. Now stop acting like a corpse, get out of this frozen wasteland, and go meet your wife and daughter."

Dante stared at the paper. A wild storm of emotions crashed through him. The Dragon Vanguard operated on an absolute, unbreakable rule: Exit by death only. Once you swore the oath, you belonged to the nation until you returned in a flag-draped coffin. It was the ultimate demonstration of resolve. No exceptions.

"Old man," Dante whispered, looking up. "Can I really leave? How did you get the old geezers in the capital to agree to this?"

He knew the immovable bureaucracy of Oakhaven. To force a living discharge for the Dragon Head was an impossible feat. It defied military law. One could only imagine the endless political hoops he must have jumped through to make this happen.

"Don't make me laugh," Victor scoffed, his chin raised in arrogant pride. "Who on this earth can stop Victor Graves from doing whatever the hell he wants?"

Dante smiled, a genuine, human expression finally breaking through his hardened facade. But as he looked up at Victor's broad shoulders, his smile faltered.

The gleaming golden stars on Victor’s epaulettes caught the harsh light of the cell.

There were only three stars instead of four.

A cold realization hit Dante like a physical blow. The missing golden star screamed of a massive, unthinkable sacrifice. Victor hadn't just argued with the capital. He had traded his own prestigious, hard-earned rank to buy Dante’s freedom. He sacrificed his glorious legacy to force the discharge through the relentless meat grinder of military politics.

"Old man..." Dante’s voice trembled. "Your rank. You gave up—"

"Look at you, dilly-dallying like a crying school girl!" Victor barked, his face flushing red as he quickly masked his immense sacrifice. He stepped forward and planted a firm kick right on Dante's side. "I feel disgusted just looking at you. Sign the damn paper and get out of my sight! And remember to manage your condition. Take your meds. Don't go around having your pathetic fits and dishonoring my name in public!"

Dante gripped the pen provided by the trembling doctor. With swift, decisive strokes, he signed his name. The heavy chains binding his wrists and ankles were unlocked, falling to the concrete floor with a heavy, metallic clang.

He stood up. The raw power in his towering, scarred physique returned. He grabbed his tattered camouflage jacket, throwing it over his broad shoulders. He carefully tucked the photograph of his daughter into his breast pocket, placing it right over his beating heart. The paper felt oddly warm against his skin, promising a future full of vibrant life.

"I'm going, then," Dante grinned, the fire fully restored in his gaze. "When you finally kick the bucket, old man, I’ll come back, pour one out, and drink all your expensive alcohol."

"Scram!" Victor roared, pointing toward the heavy steel doors.

Dante laughed, turning his back on the sterile cell. He strode down the long corridor, his boots striking the floor with renewed purpose. Every step carried him further away from the suffocating nightmare of the past three years.

The heavy blast doors of the base slid open, revealing the raging blizzard outside. The freezing wind whipped against his face, stinging his skin with ice crystals. He stepped out into the howling white expanse.

"Dante Thorne!"

He paused after taking just two steps into the snow.

Behind him, Victor Graves stood at the threshold of the base. The old Marshal stood planted like an unmovable mountain against the screaming wind.

"Remember!" Victor’s voice tore through the blizzard, carrying the weight of a thousand battles. "Once a Dragon Vanguard, always a Dragon Vanguard! Even when you are gone! The sky is for me to hold up, the earth is for you to walk on! This world, and every damn elite standing in it, will bow before you! That is the Lord of Strike I know! That is the soldier I raised!"

With a resounding, sharp smack, Victor Graves snapped his boots together. He threw his hand up in a perfect, rigid salute.

"I, Victor Graves, humbly send you off! Dragon Vanguard’s Lord of Strike!"

The command echoed over the howling wind. Instantly, a chorus of sharp smacks ripped through the freezing air. Dozens of armored soldiers, lining the walls and the snow-covered courtyard, stood at absolute attention. They slammed their fists against their chests in perfect unison.

"We humbly send you off, Dragon Vanguard's Lord of Strike!" the soldiers roared together, their voices shaking the snow from the reinforced roofs.

Dante stood in the center of the storm. The blizzard raged around him, threatening to bury everything in white. He straightened his spine, pulling his shoulders back. He took a massive stride forward into the worsening snow.

He never once stopped. He never turned around. It wasn't out of coldness or a lack of heart. In all his brutal years as a soldier, tearing through enemy lines and surviving pure hell, he had bled rivers and sweated oceans, but he had never once shed a tear.

But as the roaring salutes faded into the wind, hot moisture spilled over his eyelashes. The legendary soldier let the tears stream heavily down his scarred face, the drops freezing against his cheeks. Men cried too, but more importantly, they forged bonds that could never be broken. He marched forward into the white void, walking toward the daughter he never knew he had.