Interlude – The Cold War Awakens (1945–1960s)
The Second World War ended in fire. Cities smoldered, nations limped, and the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima cast a shadow that would never fade. The victors promised peace, swore the horror had changed mankind forever.
Ivar knew better. He had lived too long to mistake exhaustion for wisdom. Storms did not end. They only changed their shape.
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1945–1946 – Occupied Lands
When the guns fell silent, he did not leave. He stayed in Europe, walking the ruins. Berlin was a carcass, half-starved children staring at him with eyes that had seen too much. He gave them bread, water, and the kind of quiet steadiness that felt like hope.
In Nuremberg, he stood in the crowd as generals and ministers were dragged before judges. Once, these men commanded armies. Now they trembled in chains, insisting they were only following orders. Ivar thought of Crassus, of Caesar, of Hitler, of every man who believed power excused cruelty. Their fates were always the same.
He left without cheering. Justice was not victory. Justice was only survival.
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1947 – The Iron Curtain
Peace split in two. Soviet banners draped the east, Western flags the west, and barbed wire crept across Europe like ivy.
Ivar drifted through Berlin, watching neighbors separated overnight, families cut apart by lines no one could cross. Soldiers glared at each other across checkpoints, fingers itching on triggers.
"This is no peace," he muttered once, staring at the Soviet guards. "This is the silence before thunder."
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1948–1949 – Division and Fire
He was in the Middle East when Israel was declared a nation. Streets turned into battlegrounds overnight. Survivors of camps fought for a homeland, while others fought to keep what was theirs. Ivar carried children from alleys, cut through soldiers who fired into crowds.
"This will not end," an old rabbi told him, weeping.
"No," Ivar answered softly. "Wars written in blood never end. They only pause."
That same year, Germany broke apart. East. West. A scar that would not heal.
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1950 – Korea Burns
The peninsula ignited.
Ivar fought at Pusan, at Inchon, at Chosin Reservoir. He endured snow that froze men solid, swarmed hills where machine guns tore hundreds apart, dragged Marines through blizzards while Chinese trumpets blared in the dark.
When the armistice came three years later, he stood at the line dividing North and South, his sea-colored eyes on the barbed wire. He did not celebrate. He did not mourn. He only whispered, "This is silence, not peace."
And then he kept walking.
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The Nuclear Shadow
He watched the new weapons rise. In Nevada, he stood miles from the blast as mushroom clouds blossomed into the sky, soldiers cheering like boys with fireworks. In Moscow, he saw missiles paraded down streets while crowds roared.
He felt something strange in those years. Even Ares seemed wary. What was war when it could end the world in a heartbeat?
But Ivar did not waver. He bowed his head the same way he always had — not begging, not cursing, only grateful to still be alive, to still remember.
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1956 – Budapest
Hungary rose, tanks answered.
Ivar fought in the streets of Budapest, blades flashing through alleys where Soviet soldiers fired indiscriminately. He pulled men bleeding into basements, shielded women from machine-gun fire, cut through squads when the only answer was steel.
When the city fell, when bodies lined the streets, he left in silence. He had seen this ending too many times.
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1959 – Havana
Havana sang with revolution. Castro's men toppled Batista, crowds filled streets with cheers, and for a moment Ivar thought of Spartacus.
But when firing squads began their work, when fear replaced celebration, he knew. Revolutions burned bright but always consumed themselves.
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The 1960s – Waiting for Fire
By the early '60s, the world balanced on a knife. Berlin was cut by walls, Cuba nearly sparked nuclear fire, and Vietnam smoldered with the promise of another storm.
Ivar moved among it all. Sometimes in shadows where nations tested one another with proxy wars, sometimes in cities where children played unaware that missiles slept in silos beneath their feet. He carried people out of flames, fought in skirmishes no history book would bother to name, and endured the constant hum of fear that now wrapped the globe.
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Closing the Interlude
On a gray morning in Berlin, Ivar stood at the Wall, sea-colored eyes scanning the barbed wire, the guards, the families waving across a divide they could not cross. His black hair stirred in the cold wind.
"This isn't peace," he whispered. "This is the world holding its breath."
He touched the hilts of his swords, the same steel he had carried since Capua. They had seen every storm. They would see the next.
Because storms never end. They only wait.
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Would you like me to now move into Chapter 18 – Vietnam War (Part I: 1965–1968, the escalation and Tet Offensive), written at full 2,100+ words, or keep the pacing slower and show Ivar's movements through the civil rights movement and 1960s America before plunging him into the jungle?