The weeping illusion of the Aron froze instantly, the tip of the knife locked in place.
"…No," Zekai said flatly, his voice stripping away every shred of vulnerability.
The blade stopped completely, unable to advance a single millimeter.
"No," Zekai repeated, taking a step forward into the point of the blade, forcing the illusion to yield ground.
The twisted smile on the Aron's face twitched erratically, the pixels of the dream fracturing.
"No," Zekai whispered, his tone dropping into a frozen, deadly baseline.
The entire structure of the false world began to tremble and fracture. Zekai looked directly into the hollow eyes of the figure standing before him. For the first time since the distortion began, he wasn't looking at Aron anymore. He was looking at the lie.
"You are not him."
CRACK.
The illusion's face distorted horribly, the skin tearing open to reveal the pitch-black shadow beneath.
"You don't know the first single thing about him," Zekai snarled.
The real Aron had chosen him.
CRACK.
The infinite store shattered into a million irrelevant shards. The shelves exploded into splinters. The fluorescent tubes burst into dust. The entity trapped within the facade let out a deafening, inhuman scream as its stolen human twisted and collapsed back into a writhing, pitch-dark silhouette.
The Soulreaver. Found out.
The creature's stolen humanity peeled away like wet paint.
Zekai's hand shot forward like a lightning bolt, grabbing the entity by its smoky throat instantly.
The entire fake world collapsed with a deafening roar.
BOOOOOOM!!
The ancient throne hall rushed back into existence with violent force.
The real Aron lay on the stone floor nearby—broken, bleeding, but visibly breathing. Alive.
And directly behind the Aron's unmoving form—the shadow of the Soulreaver manifested.
Zekai's eyes turned completely cold—colder than they had ever been in his entire life. The terrifying weight of his killing intent flooded the chamber. A terrifying, murderous aura radiated from his body.
The Soulreaver actually flinched, taking a hesitant step backward. For the very first time since their encounter began, the cosmic anomaly exhibited clear, unadulterated fear.
Then, acting on pure survival instinct, a violent torrent of black fire erupted from the creature's shadow palm. It shot the localized storm of light-devouring flames directly toward Aron's defenseless body.
"ARON!"
Zekai lunged forward, his muscles tearing under the sudden acceleration. He was too late.
The roaring black flames swallowed Aron's body completely, enveloping him in a sphere of light-devouring fire. For a terrifying second, the entire throne hall fell dead silent as the flames raged.
Then, the midnight fire vanished into nothingness. No new wounds appeared on the boy's skin. No horrific burns charred his garments. No physical damage registered on his body.
Aron slowly lifted his head, his movements slow, confused, and entirely lost. His eyes drifted across the debris until they met Zekai's panicked gaze.
Then, the boy smiled politely—the distant, empty smile of an absolute stranger meeting someone for the first time on the street.
"…Excuse me," Aron whispered, his voice light and unburdened by memory.
A agonizing pause hung in the freezing air of the hall.
"What a place is this?"
"Who exactly are you?"
Zekai didn't answer.
The question hit harder than every blade, every death, and every accusation combined.
Across the hall, the Soulreaver smiled.
It hadn't burned flesh.
It hadn't damaged a soul.
It had erased a bond.
And for the first time since becoming the Fool, Zekai felt something colder than rage.
He felt loss.
Everything inside Zekai's mind stopped dead. The calculation, the strategic pathways, the cold logic—all of it ground to halt.
Across the room, the shadow of the Soulreaver began to smile its jagged, hollow white smile once more.
And for the absolute first time in his existence, Zekai didn't just want to win a fight. He truly, deeply wanted to torture something to death.
The Soulreaver Knight raised its massive sword, the black flames licking up the length of the steel. Zekai stepped forward to meet it with nothing but his bare hands.
The enforcer moved with far greater speed than before, the blade coming in a brutal, horizontal arc aimed straight for Zekai's head. Zekai leaned his torso back just enough to let the wind of the strike pass his face, then stepped inside the guard, driving a heavy, concussive kick directly into the creature's ribs.
"Die."
The force launched the knight backward, but it recovered its balance instantly, its boots sliding against the stone. The sword thrust forward a second time, a low puncture aimed at Zekai's stomach.
He reached down and caught the bare metal with his hand—
"No."
The perception of pain arrived first, then the visual data of the blade. The cold steel was already buried deep into his palm before his eyes even saw the weapon move. The edge cut deep into his skin, grinding against bone.
"…Tch."
[ DAMAGE REGISTERED ]
Physical Integrity: Compromised
[ RESPONSE ]
Pain Suppression: Active
Motor Control: Maintained
Warm, dark blood ran down Zekai's wrist immediately, staining his sleeve, but his grip around the blade never loosened a single millimeter. If he let go of the iron now, the weapon would drive straight through into his vital core.
A agonizing spike of pain shot up his forearm, but he arrested the momentum of the blade before it could pierce his flesh any deeper. Before the knight could apply more leverage, Zekai snapped his left hand forward, clamping onto the upper length of the steel—and violently shattered the weapon in half.
For a fraction of a second, the world itself seemed to lag.
It wasn't a pause in time or a distortion of physical space. The world simply delayed its reaction to the event. But Zekai's body didn't halt. He moved cleanly inside that small delay before reality could catch up to his coordinates.
[ PERCEPTION DESYNC ]
Reality Alignment: Unstable
Temporal Drift: Minor
User State: Ahead of Sync
Zekai seized the knight's heavy upper torso, spun the massive weight using the momentum of the delay, and slammed the enforcer into the ground repeatedly. Each consecutive impact shattered more of the black armor, sending dark shards skittering across the floor.
The Soulreaver Knight crashed heavily to the stone, its flames flickering wildly.
Then—something internal shifted. Zekai's vision suddenly doubled, the environment blurring as his eyes struggled to focus back onto a single point.
✦ End of Chapter 22 — Zekai's Guilt ✦