The corridor ended in a circular chamber of black stone.
Its vaulted ceiling vanished into shadow. Smooth walls curved inward like the inside of a sealed tomb. A single door slammed shut behind them—
SFX: BOOM—
—heavy, final.
No handle.
No seam.
No escape.
Only the faint red glow of emergency runes lining the walls… pulsing in perfect, synchronized rhythm with the crystal slate held in the Administrator's hand.
Levi pressed his back to the door.
Aria stood half a step behind him.
Her breathing was quick. Shallow. He felt it against his shoulder blade, a fragile reminder that she was still here—still real—after hours of running through the lower archives. They had burned every trick, every fused skill, every stolen fragment just to stay ahead.
Now there was nowhere left to run.
The Administrator stepped fully into the rune-light.
Tall.
Featureless beneath its hooded robe, woven from sanctioned darkness and authority. It moved with the unhurried certainty of something that had never once been refused. The slate in its grip shone brighter with every step, throwing razor-edged reflections across the stone floor.
"Shadow 47-L."
The voice was calm. Genderless. Layered with harmonics that vibrated through Levi's bones.
"You have violated containment parameters."
The slate pulsed.
"Return the anomalous Servant designated Aria."
Another pulse.
"Compliance will result in memory partition and reassignment."
A final, colder glow.
"Resistance will result in total dissolution."
The words struck like hooks.
Deep in Levi's mind, something old and hateful stirred.
The remnants of the Protocol.
Thin silver threads—always there, always gentle—tightened all at once. They sank into thought, into instinct, into identity itself.
Obey.
Return the anomaly.
Resume function.
His knees buckled.
Only a fraction—but enough.
He caught himself against the door as the command pressed down, absolute and undeniable. Not loud. Not cruel.
Simply true.
Like gravity.
Every Shadow before him had knelt to it eventually.
He could feel surrender waiting—soft, familiar, merciful.
Then—
Aria's hand closed around his wrist.
Cold fingers.
Steady grip.
"Levi."
One word.
His name.
Not a designation.
Not a serial number.
A name.
The silver threads recoiled.
Just slightly.
The Administrator waited, patient as stone.
"You were designed to serve," it said.
"The anomaly has corrupted your directive."
The slate brightened.
"Sever the attachment."
"Step forward."
Levi swallowed.
Iron flooded his mouth—he had bitten his tongue without noticing.
The sensible choice was clear.
Give her up.
Let the Protocol rewrite him.
Survive as a shadow again.
He had done worse things on orders.
He could do this.
But Aria's pulse beat beneath his fingers—fast, alive—and memory surfaced unbidden:
The first time she had smiled at him.
Not at a tool.
Not at a weapon.
At him.
Levi straightened.
The threads screamed.
"No," he said.
The word came out hoarse. Raw. Almost surprised at its own existence.
The Administrator tilted its head.
"Clarify."
"I'm not giving her back."
Levi stepped forward, placing himself fully between Aria and the glowing slate.
"And I'm not coming with you."
The chamber reacted instantly.
SFX: WHUMMM—
Runes flared crimson.
Alarms screamed without sound.
The Administrator raised the slate.
White chains of scripted light erupted outward—living whips snapping through the air.
Levi moved.
Every stolen skill ignited at once.
Shadow-step folded space beneath his feet.
Blade-dance multiplied his strikes into a dozen overlapping arcs.
Iron-veil hardened flesh into something closer to living steel.
He fused them—reckless, forbidden, wrong.
The chains met a storm of dark metal and shattered inches from his body.
SFX: KRAAASH—
The Administrator advanced, slate weaving patterns faster than Levi could track.
The chamber was too small.
No room to breathe.
Every clash sent sparks cascading across the walls—strobing visions burned into stone:
Aria's wide eyes.
The Administrator's unmoving mask.
Levi's own reflection—twisted with effort and something terrifying.
Hope.
A chain slipped through.
SFX: SZZZT—
It carved across his ribs.
Pain exploded—white-hot.
Blood spattered stone.
The Protocol surged inside him, louder than ever.
Kneel.
This is not your fight.
Protect the system.
His legs trembled.
He almost knelt.
Centuries of obedience bore down on his shoulders like a mountain.
Then Aria stepped beside him.
Not behind.
Beside.
Her fingers brushed his cheek.
"You're not theirs," she whispered.
"Not anymore."
Something broke.
Not a thread.
Something deeper.
The core restraint.
The master chain.
The thing that had bound every Shadow since the Protocol's birth.
It shattered.
SFX: FFFFFFF—CRASH—
The sound was physical—metal screaming as it tore free, a thunderclap inside his skull. Light erupted from him: black, silver, violet—wild, uncontained.
The runes overloaded.
SFX: POP—POP—POP—
Darkness swallowed the chamber.
The Administrator's slate flickered.
For the first time—
failed.
Levi screamed.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
Memories flooded in—his memories.
A childhood sky.
A mother's voice.
Laughter.
Fear.
Choice.
Everything the Protocol had carved out to make him perfect.
Power answered.
Unrestrained.
Shadows condensed into blades of pure night.
Levi crossed the chamber in a single heartbeat.
The slate rose.
He punched through it.
SFX: SHATTER—
Crystal exploded like ice.
He seized the Administrator by the throat and slammed it into the wall—
SFX: BOOOOM—
Stone cratered.
It struggled, authority unraveling, the Protocol's voice reduced to static.
Levi harvested it.
Not carefully.
Not cleanly.
He tore everything out—rank, control, knowledge—and claimed it.
The robe collapsed.
Empty.
Silence.
Only his breathing remained.
Then—
The backlash.
Memories kept coming.
Too many.
Too fast.
Every life he had ended.
Every order obeyed.
Every piece of himself surrendered.
Euphoria and terror braided together until he couldn't tell them apart.
His legs gave out.
SFX: THUD—
He curled inward, shaking.
Aria was there instantly.
She wrapped her arms around him, anchoring him as the storm tore through his mind.
Time lost meaning.
Eventually—
The flood slowed.
The memories settled.
Painful.
But his.
"I remember," he whispered into her shoulder.
"Everything."
She stroked his hair.
"Good."
A soft chime echoed through the chamber.
Gentle.
Wondering.
[Title Acquired: 「Free Shadow」]
[You are the first in four centuries to break the master chain.]
[Permanent Effect: All harvested skills fully integrated.]
[No restraint. No partition. No recall.]
Levi laughed.
A broken sound—half sob, half disbelief.
Aria held him tighter.
Outside, the archives remained vast and hostile. Patrols would come. The hunt would resume.
But for the rest of that long, quiet night—
They stayed there.
Two fugitives in the dark.
Holding each other.
While the chains lay shattered around them.
The Protocol had lost its first Shadow.
And it would never get him back.