She had known the moment she peered into the [Divine Ledger] for the first time. The truth was laid bare.
Kiyotaka was not loyal. He did not even respect the concept.
She had seen it in the way he narrated reality.
It was as if human lives were nothing more than flickering data points on a screen, variables to be moved, used, or deleted.
She had seen what happened inside the Well, and she knew then that Kiyotaka was fundamentally broken.
She knew. And yet, the crushing weight of the government, the suffocating cage of her duties, and a small, poisonous flicker of jealousy for a version of humanity that could actually thrive drove her toward him.
She had been careful. She truly believed she was the one holding the leash. But she was learning the hardest lesson of all.
The moment you think you have seen through his schemes, the moment you believe you have outsmarted him, you have already stepped into the next layer of his trap.
She had not learned the first time. Even when you are in control, even when you feel the pulse of power in your own hands, you are never truly in control against him.
She knew. And yet, she had fallen.
As the essence from the [Divine Ledger] bled into her, uncertainty began to bloom in her chest.
She could not die like this. Not so early. Not to him.
If she fell here and he scrubbed her existence from the earth, it would be so easy for him.
He would make the government forget she ever breathed. He would use his shattered face, his broken bones, and the confused testimonies of the hotel workers to paint himself as the survivor of a monster's whim.
The story of a Sleeper who slew a rogue Soul Reaper would not be a tragedy.
It would be his throne. It would be the stepping stone he used to climb to the very throat of the government.
It was too late to snap his neck. It was too late to run.
There was only one last, desperate gamble left in her dying world.
As the essence of the [Divine Ledger] flooded her senses, she cursed inwardly, forcing every remaining drop of her power into a single command.
She boosted the activation of her armor Memory, bypassing safety and bypassing logic.
Her essence was already leaking at a ruinous rate, and now, by forcing the Memory to manifest at such a violent speed, the drain doubled.
For one agonizing heartbeat, she felt her very soul being hollowed out.
The [Divine Ledger] began to swallow her whole. Her grip on his hair loosened, her fingers sliding away like dead leaves. She had done everything she could to trigger the armor.
Now, she was just a ghost in the dark, waiting to see whether she was fated to live or not.
***
The memory within the [Divine Ledger] was not a distant history. It was a fresh, bleeding wound.
She felt her hair being pulled as her body was dragged across the ground. The low quality clothes she had been wearing tore apart as she was dragged over jagged stones and dry roots.
There was no mercy in the motion.
Then the pain registered. It was a sickening, wet heat that bloomed from her skull.
Her bone was cracked. A crimson mask made of blood covered her entire face, stinging her eyes and filling her mouth with the iron taste of her own life.
She felt herself being dragged up against an old tree as understanding came to her.
'Is that it? Just some pain?'
She realized this time the content of the [Divine Ledger] was her own immediate confrontation with Kiyotaka.
She did not bother being worried if she was still alive or not. She had to worry about this segment right now.
"Oh wow. Your body is stronger than that of a sleeper. It is only possible when your body before getting infected was already as strong as a sleeper's. You know I am waiting for you to get all those eyes over you. Where are they?"
She watched her own phantom self speaking to him.
Blood kept leaking from her cracked skull. It was just pain.
The punching began. Her head hit the bark with each impact.
Her face slowly began to become disfigured. Her eyes felt smashed into their sockets. Her cracked head split further. The entire world became a red mist.
She could not see anything, yet she knew everything.
'Something is not right.'
The punches continued. With each strike, the pain bloomed into something new and more terrible.
"Did you really think any amount of planning would be able to close the gap in power?"
She had really believed that.
She thought there was no way for a Sleeper to defeat an Ascended.
But here she was. Beaten by a Sleeper with a utility aspect. It was a mockery of the natural order of the Spell.
"Let me make this one thing clear. I can do this for hours. Put us both out of our misery and agree to what I am about to say."
She hated this part.
"I don't want anything from you. You want to kill me or not? I don't give a fuck. Just make this one binding Vow with me. Vow that you won't ever turn your back to humanity, and I will heal you and let you go, There's no need for you to join the goverment, I will become your sponsor. Do yourself a favor and do it, or I will kill you right here."
She looked at the sorry state of herself. She saw a pathetic creature who still tried to steer this boy toward humanity.
She saw someone who mistakenly thought he could change. Someone who was blinded by her own greed for a better future of humanity.
She was just a brute without a brain.
She had succumbed to the promise of peace, the same empty promise she ridiculed the government for believing in.
Perhaps they had fallen the same way she did, thinking everything was under their control until the moment the blade reached their throat.
Her mouth opened. Blood rushed out. She asked herself the question that ended everything.
"Tell me, Jet. Did you feel in control?"
Even after all this, Kiyotaka did not feel a single thing. This entire torture was just another task to be completed. He was a void.
Then she heard it. Her own thoughts were being crowded out by his. His voice echoed in the Ledger, ridiculing her.
'Jet, you were really cautious this time. Dealing with you was perhaps harder than my first Nightmare. But you made one tiny mistake.'
It was not sympathy.
It was the sound of a winner explaining why the loser had failed. She did not want his sympathy. She hated this memory.
Her hand moved against the chains as the [Divine Ledger] appeared.
She felt her grip on her hair loosen. At the same time, his hands moved, gripping the back of her throat and pulling her down as his knee came up.
'This guy, There is something really wrong.'
'The only mistake you made was actually believing my planning wouldn't be able to bridge the gap in power.'
As the knee connected with her throat, she felt the jolt of impact. It hit iron. Her memory had worked. The black armor had manifested just in time.
'Her reaction time was too fast.'
Instead of celebrating she just went quiet as she finally realised.
'He wants to make a deal.'
***
She saw through his eyes as he looked down at the fallen Jet. Her armor was perfect, yet it reeked of blood.
It was a pristine casket for the woman inside.
Jet looked at herself through his gaze without saying anything.
Kiyotaka knelt beside her. He wrapped one of her hands over his shoulder and stood up. He started walking away, dragging her deeper into the silence of the forest.
Jet felt her hand hooked around his neck as they moved. The trees seemed to swallow the sound of his footsteps.
She heard his voice again.
'You told me once that control is a skill and that if without it, I am nothing, I have built myself on something fragile.'
It was from their therapy session.
She had asked him four questions, and this was his delayed, clinical autopsy of her words.
'I am not sure I understand your point. Control is not a pedestal I stand on. It is the floor itself. It is not built on something fragile because it is not built at all. It is simply what remains when everything else is stripped away. It is not a choice, Jet. It is just me.'
Kiyotaka was replying to her remarks now. But why now? Why in this grave of trees?
Jet wasn't in the mood to talk. She couldn't reply, so she simply listened.
'I would like to ask you, Jet. If my control is fragile, what are you without yours?'
The question was a silent, crushing blow.
She had ridiculed his definition of control only for him to strip her of her own.
Without the control of the situation... She is exactly what Kiyotaka claimed himself to be.
Not herself.
She wanted to refute him, but she couldn't. What Kiyotaka said was correct. The thing she called fragile had dismantled her.
'At first, I thought you were a fool for aligning yourself with a government and not using your power for yourself. But once I learned of your Flaw, the mechanics made sense. But why stay now?'
She stayed quiet as the pain radiated through her. She felt naked. She hated the feeling of being known this deeply.
'You joined the government so you could reach the gates and consume essence, but... why stay? You have made such a name for yourself. Why do you still wear their leash? Why do you force yourself into the role of Humanity's Savior?'
Kiyotaka didn't need to say more. He knew the outskirts had been a wasteland for her.
'You told us not to sacrifice our lives, yet you offer yours up for a humanity that will forget you. You are a walking irony, Jet.'
He kept walking deeper into the dark. Her feet dragged on the ground, leaving twin furrows in the dirt.
She was an Ascended, so the earth did not hurt her, but the drag felt like a slow execution.
He walked and he walked, deeper into the sunless heart of the woods.
'Would any of this have happened if you had assumed the worst, Jet?'
She hadn't. She had let a flicker of hope blind her to him. Now, that hope was the very thing he was using to hollow her out.
It felt as if her entire life had been a script and he was the only one who had reached the final page.
'So... how does it feel? To know that in this entire world, the one who knows you the most is the one currently ending you?'
She hated it deeply.
Her arm hung around his neck as he walked, her body limp, already slipping into silence.
He did not slow, did not look back.
This was not a choice, not even an action.
It was an end that had already been decided, and he was simply the one carrying it forward.
***
He walked and he walked until he reached deep into the forest. Only then did he let the body drop.
The obsidian armor hit the damp earth with a heavy sound.
Thud.
The chains between them remained. Kiyotaka did not look up from the [Divine Ledger].
'Now slowly all of your essence will run out and you will completely be dead. I will be here on your final moments so you don't die alone.'
Jet heard him and said nothing. She felt her essence leak into the iron links, a steady evaporation of her soul... But, There was no fear.
Hours passed.
Her Flaw began to eat here.
By 4 AM, she was next door to death. The forest was silent, save for Kiyotaka who kept throwing rocks on her armour.
Kiyotaka sat beside her with a bunch of stone.
'Any time now he should begin.'
In the absolute clarity of the void, her wits sharpened into a edge.
The proximity to the end stripped away the noise, leaving only the reasoning.
Just then, the voice came. Relief washed over her. She was correct.
He had been waiting for the exact moment her resistance reached zero.
He waited for her to be so hollow that she could no longer reject whatever offer he made.
It was the same game she had tried to play. She had simply failed to be the one holding the stone.
***
Jet, when I first looked at you, my mind was already made. You were too precious and smart to die. I would rather have you as a teammate than an enemy.
I know you can only hear and not speak. There is a reason for that. It is because you are showing hostility toward me. This seems to be one of the functions of my Aspect.
I know you cannot just get rid of that hostility. I also know that even if I made a Binding Vow asking you not to kill me, you would still do it and sacrifice yourself. It is just a feeling.
In your eyes, I am a threat to humanity.
So, here is how we will do this. You do not want to die and leave humanity alone with me.
I will make a Binding Vow where you must at least hear me out. Only after that can you kill me. You will die too, of course.
So at least hear me out.
Two chains appeared in the air. One connected to me, and the other stopped right beside her throat.
Accept it, Jet. Having you alive will make things easier for me. You will benefit without sacrificing anything.
I waited. Minutes passed while she processed the weight of the choice. Then, the chain slowly connected.
She did not wake up, but I could instinctively feel her life fading. She was at the threshold, yet she could still access the interface of the Vow.
[My essence enters you. Your vitality comes to me. The exchange is sealed.
If this flow is broken, what was taken will turn against its bearer. It will consume, it will end.
If you accept this vow, speak it. Say, 'I vow.']
"I vow," I said aloud.
She must have done the same, as the next runes appeared. But this time, it was different.
[Those Who Step Before the Loom]
[The Sacred Equilibrium]
[The Judgment of the Unseen]
There was no measure. Why?
I stayed quiet, searching for an answer. Perhaps it was because the chant was short. But another possibility was blooming within me. Something terrifying.
What if this Aspect is growing with me?
It would make sense, considering how the mechanism spun faster as I added new rules. I will have to revisit this later. For now, I began completing the Vow.
[Those Who Step Before the Loom]:
Kiyotaka.
Jet.
[The Sacred Equilibrium]:
Kiyotaka: I will free her of the last vow, In return she cannot kill me.
Jet: I will hear him out before deciding to kill him or not.
[The Judgment of the Unseen]:
Fate now stands witness to this vow.
If the Measure of the Thread is fulfilled, the chains will fade and release you both, their purpose complete.
But if the vow is broken, the chains will pass judgment themselves, tightening around the betrayer's soul until nothing remains. Fate does not forgive. It only enforces.
>>>
It was seven in the morning and A PTV stood outside the Academy.
The door opened.
A foot hit the ground, followed by a body that should have been broken.
Kiyotaka stepped out. His face was smooth, his skin healed, and his skull mended. He looked up at the sky with a face that showed nothing.
Not a single word passed between them. No goodbye, no look back. He simply walked toward the iron gates as the car pulled away into the morning mist.
Inside the car, Jet sat in silence. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel. She watched him in the mirror until he was gone, a cold feeling growing in her chest.
Had she done the right thing? Or had she just built a better trap for herself?
The words of the Vow stayed in her mind.
[The Sacred Equilibrium]:
Kiyotaka: I will join the government once I return from the Dream Realm and will work directly under Jet. Her words will have more weight than mine whenever we are on a mission. I also won't scheme against humanity unless I have to choose either me or humanity.
Jet: Once he goes to the Dream Realm, I will safely escort his body to a safe place and hide him from everyone but me. I will not tell the government about the details of the test until he comes back and will not interfere with his academy life for the next three weeks.
She had agreed to keep his secrets. She had agreed to let him stay in the dark. But the logic of it felt wrong.
He was a joker who had allowed himself to be caught, a man who had picked the terms of his own leash, Just like her.
Why had she brought a joker into her circus called the goverment and called it a plan?
The facts were clear, but the risks were scary. He was too useful to kill. He was a weapon that could either save the world or destroy it.
He had promised not to plot unless it was necessary, but "necessary" was a word a man like him could change whenever he wanted.
It had to work.
All she had to do was lead him.
She had to make sure that when the time came, what he wanted was the same thing she wanted.
***
I stepped out of the PTV and walked toward the Academy gates without looking back.
With that, my gamble was finished.
Now if my Aspect were to be leaked while I am away.
I could enter the Dream Realm without the constant threat of being kidnapped.
Working for a clan with no freedom was the last thing I wanted. I walked through the hallways, no longer caring about the stares from other students, and made my way to the cafeteria.
Sunless and Cassie were already there. Sunless glanced at me briefly before returning to his food, he had been pushing himself hard in training lately.
I moved toward them, intending to greet Cassie, but she turned her head and looked directly at me with a smile.
"I got to know you were out last night,"
I stopped.
How did she know I was standing right there?
This had never happened before.
Ovee the last week, she was completely unaware of my presence until I spoke.
I searched for a reason but found nothing.
She couldn't be plotting against me.
Over the last seven days, my [Embraced by Fate] had effectively blinded her.
My plan for her was a slow, invisible harvest. It wasn't about a single moment of control, but a cycle that fed on itself. [Embraced by Fate] would nudge her affection upward, just enough that she wouldn't question it.
She would then feel that warmth and mistake it for her own natural trust.
Once that new baseline was set, the Aspect would check again and raise it further.
I was essentially rewiring her intuition. A seer relies on the "feeling" of the future, but I had turned her internal compass toward me.
By making her heart a feedback loop for my own influence, I ensured she could no longer see the shadow I cast.
She had become entirely dependent on me, unable to see through any move I made because she had lost the ability to want to.
"I apologize, I will let you use the [Divine Ledger] while you eat as an apology."
Her smile grew even brighter, and she nodded eagerly.
The reason I approached Cassie wasn't only so I could fool the government into underestimating me.
It was deeper than that.
My Flaw turned my ability to remain calm upside down. Jet could only kill, and Sunless could only speak the truth.
Our strengths were turned into weaknesses, but even during my first nightmare, I had come to understand one thing.
The Spell can be cruel, but it is never unfair.
The moment I saw a girl whose Flaw left her blind, yet who refused to end her own life despite everything, it told me everything I needed to hear.
She was dangerous, perhaps more than anyone else within this Academy.
So, I simply took her ability to plot against me.
She will see visions only for me. She will breathe only for me, and she will laugh only with me.
We were fated to meet: the blind seer and the false prophet. All seers are prophets, but not all prophets are seers, especially the false prophet.
I will be the only light your eyes can see, Cassie.
***
The days blurred into one another until the calendar hit the twenty-seventh day.
On the surface, nothing much changed. Everything seemed to follow a natural order, but it was a nature quietly directed by a hidden hand.
The Academy had become a machine, its gears turning exactly as they had been wound weeks prior.
Kiyotaka began meeting with Kath every single day for hours at a time.
Sunless was elsewhere, pushing his body to the breaking point. He practiced his footwork with a desperate, honest intensity, training until the basics became second nature and the transitions between styles became seamless.
Caster, for reasons known only to himself, never approached Kiyotaka. He stayed in the background, keeping his distance as if sensing a change in the air that made it safer to remain in the shadows.
Then there was Cassie.
She and Kiyotaka grew closer with every passing day. By now, the cycle was complete.
Cassie couldn't stop smiling at the mere mention of his name, a bright, constant expression that lived on her face whenever he was near. When she was away from him in class, a heavy, quiet sadness would settle over her.
He had become the only fixed point in her world.
By the twenty-seventh day, the work was finished. Kiyotaka knew about the world better than the people who had lived within its walls for years.
The preparation phase was over. The pieces were on their squares, and the board was locked.
Kiyotaka opened his eyes.
He had just woken up.
***
My eyes still felt heavy even after I woke.
Tomorrow was the winter solstice, and as the week dragged on, the Sleepers had pulled further into themselves. They were closing off, retracting in the shell of silence.
The halls of the Academy were no longer filled with the sound of human connection. There was no more talking, no more planning, no more noise.
The students just stayed where they were, rooted in a hollow stillness. The communication that once defined this place had died out.
Tomorrow, we would all be in the Dream Realm. I knew the statistics. For many of the people in these halls, the sun setting tonight would be the last one they ever saw. Some of us would simply never return.
Knowing all this, I opened the door and stepped out.
The Sleepers were already moving toward the cafeteria, their footsteps were really slow... They didn't look like teenagers anymore, they looked like a long line of ghosts inhabiting bodies that were already half-gone.
This time, no one looked toward me. There was no curiosity left, no fear, and no judgment.
They just moved in a daze, too tired to care about a stranger, walking toward a meal they probably wouldn't even taste.
I walked past them and entered the cafeteria.
Everyone wore the same vacant expression, their trays sitting untouched as they stared into nothing. No one was actually eating.
To blend in with the rest of the room, I skipped the food line and made my way toward my usual table.
Every face I passed was a mask of grief or exhaustion, except for the one waiting for me.
Cassie looked toward me and smiled brightly. In a room full of people trembling at the thought of tomorrow, there was not a hint of fear on her face.
Since classes had been canceled for today and tomorrow to allow everyone to prepare mentally, I simply sat down beside her.
Sunless was there too, though he seemed miles away, buried in his own head.
I called the [Divine Ledger] into my hand. I let my fingers brush against the surface before placing it on the table next to Cassie. She reached for it with an eager, trusting familiarity.
I watched her, the girl who should have been the most terrified of us all. Instead, she was perfectly calm, anchored entirely to my presence.
Today, my work with her would come to an end.
The final stitch in the wound was ready to be closed.
***
The two of them sat in the cafeteria, a small island of calm surrounded by a sea of grief.
They shared the same senses through the [Divine Ledger], both aware that many of the faces they saw today would be gone by tomorrow.
Cassie wore a gentle smile. She had already come to terms with the end.
What she could not bear was the thought of being separated from him. To her, Kiyotaka was a rarity. He was a soul so pure and honest that he felt like a quiet light in a world going dark.
He was the only person who did not look at her with pity.
As she held the Ledger, a thought bloomed inside her mind.
'I wanted to speak with you, Cassie.'
His voice... Even in its flat tone, it felt like the only thing keeping her grounded.
She replied with the impulsive heat of a teenager lost in a first love.
'I am always here to listen. Always.'
She was no longer a seer looking into the distance. She was a girl who had let her own identity slip away to make room for him. She waited, breathless, for his response.
'Not here. This conversation is too heavy for a room full of eyes. Let us walk.'
Cassie nodded, her smile widening. Through his eyes, she saw the other students staring.
They looked at her with confusion, wondering how she could find joy in such a grim hour. But no one dared to speak. She was walking beside him, and in her mind, that made her untouchable.
When he stood, she rose instinctively. Her movement was a perfect echo of his.
They walked past the rows of the hollowed out students and past the staff who watched with tired eyes.
The Academy fell away until the world was reduced to just the two of them.
They reached a corner of the school rarely used. It was a quiet, empty classroom where the dust danced.
They stepped inside and simply stayed there in the silence.
Gently, Kiyotaka reached out. He took the hand she was using to touch the [Divine Ledger] and slowly pulled it away, closing the book.
Cassie felt the warmth of his skin against hers. Her vision went dark as the connection broke, but she did not mind the blackness.
The heat in her face and the touch of his hand were more real than any vision.
'We have come to know each other well these last few weeks, haven't we?'
Cassie could feel her heart hammering against her ribs. Her mind raced toward the images of lovers in old stories, confessing their hearts before a great battle.
Was this it? Was he going to say it?
A wave of panic hit her.
How could she accept? They might never see each other again.
She fought a battle in her mind, her face turning red, before she finally gave a small, shaky nod.
"Cassie, I want you to use your eyes. Look at me. Tell me what part of me is truly living."
It was a strange request. They had shared the secrets of their powers, but she had always been afraid to look too deep. Now, she focused. She looked past the mask and deep into his soul core.
The smile vanished from her lips.
There was nothing. No flicker of warmth, no spark of anger, no pulse of joy. It was a tiny, gray void.
It was not that he was dead. It was that he was an absence. The thing that made a human different from a machine was missing.
Kiyotaka held her hand firmly, as if anchoring her to that void.
"It is alright. Be honest with me. What do you see?"
Cassie trembled. How could she tell him? How could she explain that his soul looked like a graveyard?
She was terrified that if she spoke the truth, he would leave her. She was terrified he would realize he was broken and give up.
"I see... I see someone who is tired" she whispered.
Kiyotaka sighed, a sound that carried no weight.
"There is nothing there, is there? No color. No heat. I wish to change that, Cassie. I want to be the person you think I am. I want to laugh with you. I want to feel the anger and the tears that everyone else takes for granted. But those things have been stolen from me."
His soul core remained still. It was just a flat gray. Her hand shook in his. She realized he wanted to stay with her.
He wanted to feel the things she felt. The thought was beautiful and tragic.
"I am trapped in this state. The moment I feel even a spark of something real, my Flaw interferes. It takes it away before I can even name it. It turns me into a tool. A thing. I am not myself anymore. I am just a shell waiting for a purpose."
'How could fate be so cruel to someone so kind?'
Her own blindness felt like nothing compared to his emptiness. Her flaw was just darkness, but his was a total absence of self.
"I do not want to live like this. I do not want to be a machine. But the weight of it is overwhelming. Sooner or later, I will lose the last piece of who I was."
Impulsively, her other hand closed around his.
She wanted to tell him they were the same.
She wanted to say that the visions overwhelmed her too, and that the fate watching them made her feel like a puppet.
But she stopped herself. His pain was so much greater.
She felt lucky compared to him. She felt like she owed him her entire life just for being able to feel the love she felt now.
"I know you feel the eyes too, Cassie. You told me you feel the stares of fate. I feel them as well. I feel naked in front of it. I hate the feeling that every step I take has already been written by something that does not care if I live or die."
His voice never changed, yet Cassie felt a deep, crushing sorrow for him.
She had asked him before if people were staring, and he had said yes. Now she understood. He did not mean the students. He meant the universe itself.
"But being with you made it all easier. Knowing that I could talk with you without a mask was the only thing that kept me human. You are the reason I am still here, Cassie. You are the only light I have left."
Cassie could not hold herself back. Tears escaped her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
"Yes" she sobbed. "You made it easier for me too. I forgot I was blind when I was with you. I felt like I was finally living."
Kiyotaka slowly released her hand. For a moment, she felt a cold fear that he was pulling away. Instead, she felt a hand behind her head. He pulled her forward and wrapped his arms around her back.
He was hugging her.
Cassie felt the heat explode across her face. She heard his heartbeat, a slow thump that was barely audible.
It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. She was lost for words, her mind drowning in a sea of devotion.
She hugged him back, squeezing him as if she could pull the gray out of his soul and replace it with her own warmth.
"Cassie, I know you have given up on surviving. I know you expect to die. But I am asking you to change your mind. Please, live. I do not want to be alone in this world. Live for me, Cassie."
It was not a request.
She nodded into his chest, her tears soaking his shirt.
She would do it.
She would survive the Dream Realm.
She would walk through fire if he asked her to.
She belonged to him now, and for the first time in her life, she was glad to be caught.
***
We stayed in that embrace for a long time. I could feel her sense of self dissolving against me. Her identity bled away until only the warmth of her surrender remained.
She was like a bird that had forgotten the purpose of its wings.
"You will live, right Cassie?"
I felt her nod against my chest.
I tightened my grip, and she mirrored the action. She clung to me as if I were the only solid object in a world of shadows.
Two chains erupted from the floor beside us. Their links glowed with a sharp, divine radiance. The light cut through the gloom of the empty classroom.
Cassie turned toward the sound for only a second before her grip tightened even further. She buried her face into my chest. She refused to look at anything that was not me.
"Cassie, these chains will connect us. I do not want you to be startled by the words of the chant. They are a necessity."
I watched her for any sign of hesitation.
"You can walk away whenever you wish. Is that alright?"
Her fingers dug into my skin, anchoring her to my body. Her voice came out muffled and thick with a devotion that was nearly horrific.
"I would never run away."
I reached out with two fingers and guided the spectral metal.
One chain fastened itself around my throat.
The other settled around hers.
The text of the chant shimmered in the air between us. I did not need to read it. I already knew the terms of the bond I was creating.
[Oh fate, bind our threads into a single cord.
Let the vow we speak endure as long as time itself.
We are but two stones cast into the same still water.
If you are ready, say: I vow.]
The light had barely finished forming the words before she answered.
"I vow."
She had not even paused to read the content of the chant I offered.
She did not care about the terms or the cost. She simply agreed to me.
When the chains had connected me and John, he had come out of [Embrace by Fate], but it had some factors to it. He was an awakened and was only under its influence for a short while.
On the other hand, Cassie is weak and has been under it for almost a month. It would be understandable if she couldn't overcome it.
The runes started to appear.
[Those Who Step Before the Loom]:
Kiyotaka.
Cassia.
Her hug loosened just a little as her breathing became a little heavier and she took deep breaths.
"Just a few more moments."
I comforted her.
[The Measure of the Thread]
Until we return from the Dream Realm.
I set the boundary.
My presence in her life had been a calculated infection. I knew how the [Embraced by Fate] worked because it thrived on irony.
[Embraced by Fate] would inevitably use our proximity to pull us into the same region of the nightmare, making my survival dependent on her stability.
It was an insurance policy for her life and a complication for mine.
If we were dropped into the same hell, she would be more than a tool. She would be a massive liability.
[The Sacred Equilibrium]
Kiyotaka: Cassie shall no longer see any visions of me.
This was the correction of an imperfection.
If she were kidnapped or if her mind was flayed by an enemy Aspect, my entire history would be exposed.
I was removing the risk before it could breathe. The logic was sound. The description of this vow spoke of removing flaws, and as long as she asked for something of equal value, the scales would balance.
Then, the physical world began to shift.
The hug we were sharing felt wrong.
It was the one I had maintained to keep her anchored in the lie.
It was not a sudden break, but a slow and agonizing decay of strength. I felt her fingers, once white-knuckled and desperate against my back, lose their grip.
Her hands drifted from my waist. They moved with a haunting deliberation until her palms rested flat against my chest. She did not shove. She simply pushed. It was a soft but absolute rejection of the warmth I had manufactured.
The connection was severing, and the heat between us vanished into the biting chill of the classroom.
I stepped back to mirror her movement. I gave her the space the ritual demanded.
I looked at her.
Her face was still wet. The tears were still escaping those sightless blue eyes,
tracking down her cheeks in silver lines.
She did not move to wipe them away. She simply stood there with her head tilted. She stared directly into my eyes.
She was smiling.
It was the same gentle and fragile smile she had worn for weeks, but the context had rotted away. In the flickering light of the runes, that expression appeared rather ominous.
Just then, I looked up at the runes as my heart stopped for a fraction of a second. My eyes widened.
Cassie: He won't make vows that free other people from my visions. He must fulfill one of my wishes when I ask for it, and his attribute [Embraced by Fate] shall stop working on me.
I stopped. My eyes searched the shimmering silver text, looking for any scrap of logic to hold onto.
This should not have been possible.
Her Aspect should not have let her claw her way out of the influence of [Embraced by Fate]. For a month, the weight of that attribute had been absolute.
She had even begun to believe her feelings were genuine. She had built a sanctuary out of a lie. Yet, in a single heartbeat, she had dismantled the entire architecture of my control.
It defied every calculation I had made. Even a Legacy like Caster had to punch himself like a brute to resist the pull of fate.
An Awakened like John only escaped because he was lucky enough to have a brief exposure.
But Cassie had been submerged in it for weeks. She had been drowning in a manufactured devotion that should have overwritten her very soul.
How did she come out?
My thoughts raced back through the last 27 days. Every smile she gave, every word of devotion, every time she leaned into my touch.
Had she been awake the entire time? No it can't be.
To break free now, she would have had to endure a mental fracture. She would have had to watch her own heart betray her and still choose to reach for the truth.
But more importantly... how did she know the name of my attribute?
I had never spoken it. I had never even thought it in a way she could hear. Yet, there it was, etched in divine silver. [Embraced by Fate].
She hadn't just felt the strings, she had identified the weaver. Not just the name, but the contextz the exact mechanical function of how I was binding her.
To name it in a Vow, she had to understand its nature. She had seen through the gray void of my existence and mapped out the very power I used to hide.
And her demand on the equilibrium was not even equal to mine. It went far beyond a simple trade. She was stripping away my leverage, disabling my power, and holding a debt over my head all in exchange for a single blind spot in her visions.
She was not just negotiating. She was colonizing my future.
I had walked into this room to secure a tool, but the tool had been waiting for me to bring the chains.
She was inviting me to continue.
I had lost the lead. I was no longer the one directing the flow of this contract.
I must continue. Even if I am walking straight into a trap of my own making.
***
I waited for a moment as the realization of what had occurred settled into my mind.
A part of me wanted to cancel this vow immediately.
If I broke the ritual now, I would regain control of the situation before the binding became absolute.
But another part of me pushed back.
I had not seen this coming. I wanted to see more of it. I needed to understand exactly how she had outsmarted me.
I adjusted my own terms to match the weight of her demands. I needed the scales to balance.
[The Sacred Equilibrium]
Kiyotaka: Cassie shall no longer see any visions of me. She shall explain how she pulled this off and why she chose to reveal herself now. Her wish must not put me or any of my plans at risk, and it must be reasonable.
It still was not perfectly equal, but it would function. I needed to know how badly I had been played.
I wondered if everything she felt had been genuine or if she had simply lied to herself. I wanted to know how she managed to come so far.
What did she think as she lost herself more and more to my influence? What was she feeling after achieving such a feat?
I truly wanted to know the depth she had reached to get to this point.
The vow moved toward completion.
The next rune appeared to warn us of the price for breaking the contract. The penalty was exactly the same as it always was. The silver light flared one last time.
Then, her mouth opened.
"A man falling between black and white through a waterfall. Gazania flowers opening up in the night. A certain dog being fed food on top of a world of chains. A shapeless creature making a deal with a ghost. The shapeless creature dragging the dog and throwing it into the cage, but there was never a dog. There was only the ghost. The shapeless creature walking with a rusty crown. And at the last, the shapeless creature just sat looking at the void."
She stared directly toward me.
"Those were my visions about you," she said. "Before I even entered the academy, I had already accepted my death. But these gore and cruel visions overwhelmed me. They changed me. They came every night. They made me fear sleep itself. I really wanted to meet you, the one who mistook me for a dog."
She paused, her smile never wavering.
"But sadly for you, I am the ghost."
********
Alright, this chapter ends here. After all the hype I put into this one... did I deliver, or did I underperform? Let me know.
I know some of you might be disappointed that I didn't kill Jet. It wasn't because I couldn't, but more because I never planned to. I have so many plans for her character that killing her this early just wouldn't make sense.
And no, I won't shy away from killing anyone. I actually wanted to kill Kiyo and end this fanfiction at one point. I even wrote the scene, but it was accidentally deleted, so I just kept going.
If this chapter lived up to my promise, then here is another one: the next chapter will be just as good, if not better. It will cover the end of the Academy arc and the conclusion of Volume 1.
The next chapter is titled: Dramatic Irony (End).
See y'all then.