By the time the afternoon hit its peak and the music from the courtyard bled into every hallway, Max had finally broken free.
He slipped out from behind the main stage tent, peeled off a pair of work gloves, and handed them to a breathless first-year who immediately fled the scene like the gloves were cursed.
Max leaned against the side of the building to catch his breath. Someone's band was warming up nearby—guitars tuning, drums stuttering through a nervous intro. It should've felt loud. It should've felt overwhelming.
Instead, he just felt late.
Sera. He'd promised.
He pulled his phone out, checked the time—3:41 PM—and scanned for messages.
Nothing.
He pushed off the wall and started through the crowd. A group of girls in light blue traditional dresses giggled as they passed. A pair of boys from the astronomy club wheeled a telescope across the courtyard, nearly running over someone's foot. Teachers stood at tables pretending not to be exhausted.
Max moved past all of it, head on a swivel.
"Emi!" he called once, low enough not to attract attention, but loud enough to try.
No answer.
He passed the theater club, the food stalls, the game booths—and then spotted a familiar face packing up props.
It was Takada from karate club—white gi tied around his waist, hair a mess, hands full of boards.
"Takada," Max called, stepping up.
Takada blinked at him, then grinned. "Yo, Holloway! You're everywhere today."
"You seen Emi?" Max asked. "Black hair, hoodie, probably looking annoyed."
Takada tilted his head, thinking. "Oh—her? Yeah. She came by earlier asking if we'd seen you."
Max's shoulders loosened a fraction. "When?"
"Like an hour ago," Takada said, scratching his cheek. "Said she was heading to the martial arts wing to check there but I hear the martial arts wing is restricted today," he said.
Max stopped dead. "What?"
Takada blinked. "Yeah, that's the weird part. They shut that whole wing down. 'Maintenance hazard' or something. We got moved outside for the demonstration." He gestured toward the field. "Showcase was over there."
Max stared at the barricaded entrance just visible across the courtyard—chain pulled through the doors, a sign slapped on the glass: NO ENTRY — STAFF ONLY
He felt his pulse throb once behind his ribs.
"Why is it restricted?" Max pressed.
Takada shrugged helplessly. "Dunno. Was like that this morning. We checked the schedule; no mention of repairs or anything. Kinda stupid but whatever."
"And Emi still went there?" Max asked, voice tightening.
Takada nodded. "I tried telling her it was blocked, but she just said thanks and left. Thought she'd go meet you after."
Max didn't hear the rest.
He was already moving.
The sound of the festival fell away the farther he got from the courtyard—music thinning into echoes, voices dissolving into quiet. The air in the hallway felt colder, like the AC ran differently here.
The martial arts wing sat at the edge of the building—older than the rest of campus, with exposed rafters and heavy reinforced doors. The kind built for sweat, collisions, and mats that never quite lost their smell.
Yellow caution tape fluttered across the entrance.
Max stared at it for half a second.
Then he tore it aside.
The door wasn't locked. It slid with a metallic groan, loud enough to make his teeth grit.
Inside, the wing was dark—lights off, no ambient hallway chatter, no students yelling from the dojo. Just the faint smell of wood polish and dust, untouched for hours.
Max's footsteps echoed down the corridor as he moved, checking the empty training rooms one by one—mitts hanging on hooks, polished wooden floors, sunlight slicing through high windows.
Nothing.
No Sera.
He reached the farthest door—the main dojo—and stopped.
The door was cracked open.
Something wrong sat in the air. Not loud.
Not obvious. Just wrong.
Max pushed the door slowly.
The dojo was lit only by the high windows—shafts of pale afternoon light reaching across the straw flooring.
For a second, he saw nothing.
Then his eyes adjusted.
And there—near the center of the mats—lay a body.
Small. Still. Facedown.
Black hair spilled across the flooring.
His breath vanished.
Max crossed the room in three strides, knees hitting the mat with a dull thud. He turned her over gently, hands trembling despite himself.
Sera.
Her neck was twisted at an angle no living thing should wear—chin pulled too far toward the shoulder, vertebrae misaligned, a thin bruise marking where a hand had gripped too hard. Her hoodie was rumpled, one sleeve torn slightly at the seam.
Her eyes were open.
But there was no one in them.
The world narrowed to a point.
Max didn't hear the distant noise from outside. He didn't feel the chill of the room. He didn't taste the copper in the air.
He only felt heat.
Climbing up his spine. Curling around his ribs. Pressing against his teeth.
The Vice inside him stirred—not whispering this time, not tempting—
Just rising.
His aura warped the air—subtle distortions rippling outward like heatwaves over asphalt.
He closed Sera's eyes with a shaking hand.
Her skin was already cold.
Max's jaw clenched until bone ached.
He stood up slowly, every muscle drawn tight, every breath measured—it was the only thing holding the fire in his skull from igniting the room.
A faint sound padded across the tatami.
Not heavy. Not rushed.
Measured.
Max didn't turn at first.
He just listened.
One step. Two. Three.
Then silence.
A voice, calm and unhurried, cut through the dojo's still air:
"You're late, Holloway. Or maybe it's best to call you Max Hart."
Max's eyes lifted.
Ryo stood ten paces away—hands in his pockets, blazer immaculate despite the murder scene behind him. His face held no triumph. No mockery. No regret. Just… acknowledgment.
Dominion. Max didn't know how he knew the word — until Envy whispered to him:
"The Vice of Dominion."
Ryo had not slipped. He had not panicked. He had not run.
He had waited.
Waited for Max to see. To understand.
Ryo tilted his head the slightest fraction, studying Max the way a scholar studied text.
"I don't waste breaths," he said quietly.
Max didn't speak.
He didn't trust what would come out if he did.
Ryo stepped once to the side, motioning toward the exit with a tilt of his chin.
"Come outside," he said. "So we can finally settle this."
Then he turned and walked out of the dojo without checking if Max followed.
Because Dominion never checked.
Dominion presumed obedience.
Max didn't move for a long second.
He stared at the door.
At the floor.
At Sera.
At the place where something soft in him had finally been trusted—and then broken.
He knelt, brushed Sera's hair from her face, and said nothing. He didn't need to.
There were no words large enough.
Then he stood.
And the air around him trembled.
When Max walked toward the exit, his footsteps didn't echo like Ryo's.
They burned.