The corridor beyond the collapsing illusion felt different—quieter, heavier, as if the Citadel itself was holding its breath. Reiji walked with slow, deliberate steps, each footfall echoing in a space that refused to reveal its size. The walls were darker here, the stone almost black, absorbing the faint torchlight rather than reflecting it. The air smelled old, like dust and burnt parchment—like the remnants of decisions long buried.
At the end of the corridor, a tall archway waited for him.
Carved into the stone above it was a crown split clean down the center.
Reiji stopped beneath it.
A split crown.
A divided throne.
A judgment deferred.
The Citadel wasn't just testing strength anymore. It was testing the fractures inside him—probing the places where choices had cut deeper than any blade.
He exhaled once, steadying his breathing.
Then he stepped through.
The archway opened into a vast chamber so dark that even the torches along the walls seemed swallowed whole. Only a circular ring of pale light glimmered at the center of the room, illuminating a raised platform made of obsidian.
Reiji approached it cautiously.
As he stepped onto the platform, the darkness above stirred.
One by one, figures materialized from the void—silhouettes sitting on elevated thrones arranged in a semicircle, towering high enough that he had to crane his neck to see them fully.
There were nine of them.
Silent.
Unmoving.
Wrapped in black cloth that hid their bodies and faces entirely.
Only their eyes glowed—white, dim, flickering like dying stars.
Reiji's hand slid toward his blade.
He didn't draw it.
Not yet.
A small, cold voice echoed through the chamber—not from one figure, but from all nine at once.
Their words overlapped perfectly, layered and hollow.
"Reiji Shinomiya."
The sound vibrated through his bones.
Another voice followed—slightly deeper, older.
"You have reached the Court of Shadows."
Reiji said nothing.
He didn't trust his voice to carry without betraying the exhaustion clawing beneath his skin.
Another figure leaned forward slightly.
"You carry the chains."
Another spoke, tone sharp as snapped steel.
"You broke the illusions."
A third whispered softly.
"But have you broken yourself?"
Reiji's jaw tightened.
He took one step forward.
"State your intention."
The nine leaned back as one—like a single creature breathing in slow unison.
Their voices merged again.
"Why do you walk these halls?"
Reiji raised his chin.
"To reach the center."
A ripple moved across the thrones—almost like surprise, but too cold, too calculating.
"Many have walked," one figure murmured.
"All for different reasons," another added.
"Power."
"Glory."
"Revenge."
"Redemption."
Reiji's eyes narrowed.
"And what do you think I'm here for?"
Silence stretched.
Then, slowly, the central figure spoke—a voice older, cracked at the edges, but carrying weight like a falling pillar.
"You walk because you cannot stop."
Reiji flinched internally.
Not at the accuracy.
At the familiarity.
The Court was repeating what the illusions whispered—but this time, without malice, without manipulation.
Pure observation.
Reiji's hand closed into a fist.
One of the nine rose to its feet.
Long fingers pointed at him, sharp as shadows cast by a blade.
"You seek meaning in the aftermath of betrayal."
Reiji's breath stilled.
"A betrayal that shaped you."
His heartbeat thudded once, hard.
"A betrayal you survived."
Another figure rose beside the first.
"But survival is not absolution."
Reiji finally spoke, voice low.
"You don't know what happened."
Nine heads turned downward in unison.
Their answer was a whisper.
"We know enough."
Reiji stepped forward onto the center of the platform.
He didn't shout.
Didn't posture.
He simply asked:
"Then judge me."
The torches around the chamber flared violently, sending waves of light and shadow spinning through the darkness.
Slowly, the nine figures lifted their hands.
Chains emerged from their sleeves—thin, black, weightless—floating in the air like strands of smoke. But Reiji could feel the pressure they radiated. Judgment. Expectation. Condemnation.
The eldest figure spoke first.
"We judge not your deeds…"
Another finished the sentence.
"…but your intent."
Then another.
"Your fear."
Another.
"Your truth."
And finally—
"Your silence."
The chains coiled toward him.
Reiji didn't step back.
If this was the trial the Citadel wanted, then he would face it head-on.
The chains wrapped around his arms, wrists, chest, like cold hands gripping him from all sides. They didn't cut; they pressed—forcing him to feel every breath, every heartbeat, every memory resurfacing.
Images surged behind his eyes.
Akira standing beside him under the winter sky.
Akira laughing on nights when the world felt survivable.
Akira collapsing.
Akira reaching out.
Akira fading.
Reiji clenched his jaw, fighting the instinct to recoil.
A voice echoed from the rightmost throne.
"Why did you walk away that day?"
Reiji's chest tightened painfully.
He inhaled slowly.
"I didn't walk away."
"You hesitated."
"I was ordered to retreat."
"And so you obeyed."
Reiji's eyes burned.
"I didn't have a choice."
The court responded instantly.
"You always have a choice."
The chains constricted.
Reiji's breath hitched.
Flashes of that day roared through him—smoke, fire, collapsing debris, Akira pinned beneath shattered steel beams, shouting at him to move, to go, to not die with him.
Reiji tried to shout back.
But the memory drowned beneath the Court's voices.
"You chose survival."
"No," Reiji whispered.
"You chose fear."
Reiji's knees bent as the chains dug deeper.
"That's not—"
"You left him behind."
"I tried—"
"You abandoned him."
"STOP."
His voice cracked through the chamber like lightning.
The chains froze.
The Court fell silent.
Reiji stood hunched, breathing hard, arms trembling—but he forced himself upright.
"No one was supposed to survive that collapse," he said, voice shaking with anger he rarely allowed himself to feel. "Not me. Not him. Not anyone."
The air trembled as he continued.
"We both knew that."
He lifted his head, meeting the nine pairs of white, flickering eyes.
"Akira wasn't betrayed by me."
He swallowed hard.
"He was betrayed by the world."
The Court did not immediately respond.
Reiji pressed on, voice stripped bare.
"He didn't die because I hesitated. He didn't die because I ran. He didn't die because I wanted to live more than he did."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"He died because the world we lived in was built to consume people like him."
The room darkened.
"And people like me."
Silence stretched, colder than the stone beneath his feet.
Then the eldest figure descended from its throne—floating rather than walking, robes dragging across the floor like spilled shadow.
It stopped only a meter from Reiji.
"If this is your truth," it murmured, "then prove it."
Reiji lifted his head.
"What do you want me to do?"
The figure extended its hand.
The chains around Reiji suddenly snapped upward, dragging him to the center of the platform.
The ground trembled beneath him.
Stone shifted.
A symbol carved itself beneath his feet—a cracked crown intertwined with broken shackles.
The cold voice spoke:
"Face the one who carries the echo of your unspoken guilt."
Reiji stiffened.
No.
Not again.
But the Citadel had already decided.
A shadow rose from the floor—shifting, twisting, taking shape.
Not Akira this time.
Worse.
A silhouette of Reiji himself.
Every wound.
Every scar.
Every regret.
A reflection made from the parts of him he tried to bury.
The chains fell away.
The Court spoke their judgment:
"Defeat the shadow wearing your name."
Reiji's blade slid free with a soft metallic whisper.
His reflection drew its own.
A perfect mirror.
No—an accusation.
The fight began in silence.
Reiji struck first, slicing in a clean horizontal arc aimed at the neck. The shadow parried instantly, steel clashing against steel with a sound sharper than thunder. Sparks scattered, dancing like fireflies in the dark.
The reflection moved exactly as he would.
Every step.
Every counter.
Every instinct.
A duel with himself.
The one battle he had never prepared for.
Reiji shifted his weight, redirecting his strike.
The reflection matched him.
Reiji feinted low—
—it feinted low.
Reiji spun left—
—it spun left.
Every movement was mirrored with perfect, merciless precision.
The Court watched in silence.
Reiji gritted his teeth.
"You're not me."
The reflection didn't answer.
It didn't need to.
They clashed again, blades locked. For a moment, their faces were inches apart—one alive, one hollow. Reiji saw himself reflected in a warped version of his own eyes.
Not the eyes of who he was.
The eyes of who he feared he would become.
The reflection whispered.
"You should have died with him."
Reiji shoved the blade upward violently, breaking the lock and forcing the shadow back.
"No."
He attacked with a flurry of strikes—faster, more aggressive, abandoning form for pure instinct.
"You're wrong."
Steel rang against steel.
"You're just the part of me that refuses to heal."
The reflection lunged, blade aimed for his throat.
Reiji ducked and countered with a brutal upward slash that tore across the shadow's chest, scattering it into fragments of smoke that instantly reformed.
"You're the weight," Reiji growled.
Another strike.
"You're the chain."
Another.
"You're the voice that tells me I'll never move forward."
He drove his knee into the reflection's stomach, grabbed its wrist, and forced its blade aside.
"And I'm done listening."
Reiji stabbed straight through the reflection's heart.
For a moment—
Nothing.
Then the shadow cracked.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
Before shattering completely, dissolving into a gust of black mist that swirled upward and vanished into the void above.
The Court remained silent.
Reiji lowered his blade, chest rising and falling steadily.
He hadn't won because he was stronger.
He won because he chose to move.
The eldest figure bowed its head.
"You have passed."
Reiji didn't answer.
He simply nodded once.
The Chamber trembled.
A new passage opened behind the thrones—lit by a single, cold white flame.
The Court spoke as one last time:
"Proceed, Reiji Shinomiya.
The next truth awaits."
Reiji sheathed his blade.
Then he walked toward the flame.
Toward the next chamber.
Toward whatever the Citadel would demand next.
He didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
Not anymore.