The revelation struck Cid Kagenou with the force of a physical blow. For a brief, terrifying moment, the resonant link between him and Jin-woo was a storm of pure, chaotic emotion. Confusion, pride, horror, and a dizzying sense of vertigo all crashed together.
Cid's entire worldview, which was built on the foundation that he was the sole, secret author of his own magnificent fiction, was now facing a paradox. If his fiction could spontaneously become fact without his direct input, was he truly in control? Or was the story now writing itself?
He stared at Zenith, who had just finished disabling the last of the Vulture Gang, striking a pose in the center of the room—a perfect, heroic silhouette against the window. It was a pose Cid himself had practiced in the mirror a hundred times. Seeing someone else do it, with such earnest, un-ironic conviction, was profoundly unsettling.
"This is..." Cid whispered aloud, his voice barely audible over the rain.
"...a problem," Detective Sterling finished for him, misinterpreting his awe. "That man is a menace. He acts outside the law. He's just as bad as the criminals he fights."
Cid didn't hear him. He was locked in a philosophical crisis of his own making.
The connection to the Black Feather Killer was now terrifyingly clear. If a heroic aspect of his "Eminence in Shadow" persona could manifest as Zenith, then what about the darker aspects? The ruthless, shadowy manipulator? The being who saw people as pawns in a grand game?
The entire murder mystery was a domestic dispute between two of Cid's own, accidental, narrative children.
Zenith, his work done, vanished from the penthouse in a swirl of shadows, just as the police sirens began to wail in the distance.
"He's gone," Sterling grumbled. "Let's get out of here before the brass shows up."
They retreated back to Sterling's apartment, the air thick with unspoken questions.
Once inside, Cid broke away from the others, standing before a rain-streaked window, looking at his own reflection. For the first time, he didn't see the cool, confident mastermind. He saw a boy playing a dangerous game, whose imagination was now running wild in a world that wasn't prepared for it.
This was his mess. His responsibility.
He had a choice. He could "defeat" his echoes, erasing them as flawed copies. Or, he could confront them, understand them, and perhaps even... guide them.
His 'Fourth Wall Break' ability gave him a flash of insight. The plot was no longer a simple "whodunnit." It was now a "family drama." A story about a creator and his creations. The narrative demanded a confrontation.
"Sterling," Cid said, turning from the window, his voice now stripped of all theatrics, filled with a cold, serious purpose. "The Black Feather Killer. I know where he's going to strike next."
Sterling looked up from his case files. "How?"
"The victims... they weren't just corrupt," Cid explained, piecing together the twisted logic of his own darker half. "They were the ones responsible for the death of the first victim, Lily. They covered it up. The killer isn't just a vigilante; it's an avenger. It's finishing her story. There is only one target left: the man at the top of the conspiracy. The man Lily was about to expose before she was killed."
He pointed to a name on Sterling's evidence wall, a name circled in red a dozen times. "Councilman Vane. The most powerful, most 'untouchable' man in the city."
Sterling's eyes widened. "Vane's residence is a fortress. No one can get in or out."
"A locked room is not an obstacle for a killer who is a shadow," Jin-woo stated quietly.
"And," Cid added, "it will also be where Zenith makes his move. The noble hero will try to expose Vane and bring him to justice. The dark avenger will try to kill him. They are on a collision course, and Vane's penthouse is the stage for their final battle."
The plan was clear. They had to get to Vane's penthouse before the echoes did. They had to intercept the final act of this tragedy.
Councilman Vane's penthouse was the pinnacle of the tallest skyscraper in the City of Perpetual Night. It was a fortress of chrome and paranoia, with retinal scanners, pressure plates, and automated defense turrets.
For Jin-woo and Cid, it was a minor inconvenience.
Jin-woo simply cloaked them in a 'Silence' field so perfect that the automated systems didn't even register their existence. They rode the private elevator up, walked past the laser grids, and phased through the solid steel door of the panic room where Vane was hiding, cowering in fear.
They appeared in the room, and Vane let out a terrified scream.
"Please! Don't kill me! Take whatever you want!" he pleaded.
"We are not here to kill you," Cid said, his voice cold. "We are here to stop the one who is."
As he spoke, the shadows in the corner of the panic room deepened and coalesced. A figure emerged, darker than Zenith, its form less defined, more like a living shadow with two burning, hateful eyes. It held a single, black feather. This was the killer. The dark echo.
At the exact same moment, the reinforced steel door of the panic room was torn from its hinges with a screech of tortured metal. The hero, Zenith, stood in the doorway, his expression grim.
"Vane! Your crimes are at an end!" Zenith declared. He then saw the dark echo. "You... the killer. I will not let you take another life!"
And then, he saw Cid.
Zenith froze. He looked at Cid, who was wearing a nearly identical, if more refined, coat. He saw the same posture, the same aura of mysterious power. It was like looking in a mirror.
The dark echo also turned, its burning eyes fixing on Cid. It, too, felt the connection. The source. The original.
The two echoes, the hero and the killer, both stared at their creator.
The room was a four-way standoff. The corrupt councilman, the heroic echo, the vengeful echo, and the profoundly conflicted original.
"So," Cid said, a strange, complicated smile on his face. "It seems we have a family reunion."
Jin-woo stood back, his arms crossed. This was Cid's story. His mess to clean up. But his hand rested on the hilt of a shadow blade, ready to intervene if the creator lost control of his own creations.
"Who... are you?" Zenith asked, his voice filled with a confusion that shook his heroic certainty.
"I am the story you are based on," Cid replied simply. "I am the original draft. And I am here to tell you both... that your performance is over."
He had to find a way to resolve this. To defeat the killer without destroying the hero. To end this bloody story without erasing the legend it was born from. He had to be... a creator.