Ashoka was an Arbiter now. Well, he had been a Lawyer just a few moments ago. Did this mean that he was a dual pathway beyonder?
Wait, don't tell me I'm becoming one of those bland, OP, transmigration mc. Hell nah!
Well, the straight answer to the first question was, no. In essence, the power he had recieved from the sefirah was a sort of Boon, giving him the abilities of the neighboring pathway at the same sequence level as his own. This obviously meant that it had a certain time limit and a cooldown period. Although he was unaware of the latter, he knew of the former, and it was precisely 16 minutes.
Well, this is weird...
Strangly, among the options he had to choose from, there was also the option of the sequence 9 Brooker from the Chaos mist pathway. Well, that was definitely strange, since he hadn't gotten the option to choose the potion from that pathway when outside the Nightmare. Sure, there wasn't any chance that he would pick that pathway, considering it was mostly ass in the beginning stages, but still, it would've felt nice to just have the option to choose.
And then... There was the other limitation to this facet of his innate ability...
Even as he stood proudly under the piercing gaze of everyone present, even has he felt his presence grow higher and higher, there was another thing that seemed to disappear from within him.
It was his law proficiency, his lawyer's eloquence. He was losing access to his Lawyer abilities!
I guess nothing really is free in this world, huh? Ashoka did not panic even under the strange feeling, having already realised what was happening.
This was the price he had to pay, he would temporarily—for the same amount of time he had the Arbiter ability— loose access to his lawyer ability.
In that moment, everything around him seemed to loose cohesion, making less and less sense. Everything, everyword, every action seemed almost chaotic and bizzare, his mind suddenly becoming incapable of connecting the dots between cause, effects and reasoning.
Gods... This is... Mind frying... I guess really I hadn't noticed how much... The lawyer potion had changed my perception of the world...
It was as if he had been wearing thick for a better part of his entire life to see the world clearly, only to have them taken away from him without any warning, leaving him blinded.
Ashoka barely managed to stand straight under the disorienting experience, looking around with a calm expression.
The royal hall held its breath.
Ashoka stood on the velvet carpet, his simple commoner's clothes a deliberate insult to the gilded banners hanging above. He let the silence stretch so as to feel the weight of every gaze in the room pressing down on him.
Right. This was why he had decided to forsake his Lawyer abilities in favour of the Arbiter's.
In essence, a lawyer was a defender in court and a legal advisor, mostly focusing on deciphering and finding loopholes in rules to save their skins. But such a thing just wouldn't work in the scenario that Ashoka currently found himself in. There were two reasons.
The First had to do with how the Royal court functioned. There was no law or a systematic Constitution here, the king did not have to particularly follow any rules when passing the verdict, all that mattered here were interest and the emotions, and a lawyers law proficiency was almost useless here.
The second, was also related to the nature of the court. Here, the most important thing was to rally the crowds emotions, and in this aspect, an Arbiter's words were far more effective than the Lawyer's eloquence.
Actually, there was another option that was far better than both of the former combined. It was Prosecutor, the sequence 7 of the Chaos mist pathway, as it dealth with accusing others of crimes, or making sure that a criminal was punished. But of course, the main problem was that it was a sequence 7, while Ashoka was only sequence 9! It was outside the range of power that Ashoka could siphon as a sequence 9.
After letting the silence grow for a brief second, Ashoka reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a sheaf of parchment.
It wasn't particularly dramatic, just the quiet sound of papers being unfolded, and the soft clearing of a throat.
"With your permission, Your Majesty," he said, his voice even, maybe even conversational, "I would like to begin by introducing the people who brought this matter to my attention."
Eldrin gave the faintest nod from his throne.
Ashoka lowered his eyes to the parchment.
"Bremis Hoult. Farmer. Sixty-three years of age."
A shuffle in the crowd, and then a figure stepped forward — hunched, grey-haired, with the kind of hands that had spent decades with soil. It was the farmer from the original court case, and he moved to stand behind Ashoka. A ripple of murmurs followed him.
"Calla Wensh. Seamstress. Forty-one."
A woman with a patched shawl and tight jaw walked out next.
"Torvin and Liset Mara. Innkeepers. Fifty-five and fifty-two."
A husband and wife, both walking with the careful dignity of people who had rehearsed this moment in their heads a hundred times and were terrified of making a mistake.
The names continued. Ashoka read them without emotions.
"Dasha Orvain. Tanner. Forty-eight."
"Pell Corvus. Woodcutter. Thirty-seven."
"Essa Thorne. Midwife. Sixty."
Each name brought a new figure from the crowd, each stepping forward with the same careful, deliberate walk — the gait of the careful poor, who had learned long ago that to move too boldly was to invite punishment.
By the time Ashoka had read the fifteenth name, there was a small cluster of people standing behind him, silent and still like ghosts.
Ashoka paused.
He thenbturned, just enough to look at them over his shoulder. His eyes moved across their faces without hurry. Bremis stared straight forward. Mikael Roan kept his hat clutched in both hands, wringing the brim.
Just fifteen... Out of forty.
Ashoka turned back, and he looked down at his parchment.
When he continued, his voice hadn't changed.
"Garrin Sells. Mason. Thirty-nine."
There was Silence.
"Amara Voss. Herbalist. Fifty-two."
No one moved.
"Crin and Bora Hael. Dyers. Forty-four and forty-three."
The murmurs in the crowd were different now. Lower and Quieter.
Name after name — Ashoka read them all. Twenty-five more. The hall remained still, no new figures stepping forward, the space behind him growing heavier and not larger. He felt the crowd's confusion curdling slowly into something else. He kept reading. He made sure to give each name its pause, as if he genuinely expected someone to appear.
When the last name had been swallowed by the silence of the hall, Ashoka lowered his parchment.
He turned fully to look at the empty space where twenty-five more people should have been standing.
For a moment, he said nothing.bThen, softly, he tilted his head, as if genuinely perplexed.
"It seems they couldn't come to meet with us today." There was a deliberate, short pause. "...What a pity."
The hall erupted into noise as the crowd realised something simultaneously, one person whispering to their neighbor and then their neighbor whispering to the person behind them, like a flame jumping from wick to wick.
These people didn't know — not even after the previous week — just how many of them had been wronged by the prince. Well, he had to give it to him. The bastard was carefully and very deliberate in who he choose as his prey. Everyone one of them was someone who had been socially disconnected or outcasted. They were people who would not stir talks among the people even if they one day disappeared.
Ashoka heard the word "dead" surface from somewhere in the middle of the room, then again from somewhere near the back, then from a dozen places at once, until it wasn't a whisper anymore, it was just the truth hanging open in the air.
All dead.
All those names.
He didn't look at Oswald yet. He kept his face toward the fifteen people standing behind him, as if their presence was the only thing that mattered.
But from the corner of his eye, he saw the prince's expression twist.
It was a small thing. The frown that seemed to have always creased his brow—as if he had constantly been suffering from a severe headache— seemed to deepen noticeably. His expression changed into that of a man who has walked into a trap and only just realized, far too late, that it had been built specifically to catch him.
Good. Ashoka turned around to face the fifteen and smiled.
"Then, if you would be so kind, please tell His Majesty what it is you've come here to say."
They spoke. Their words were neither clear nor precise, but they spoke, sometimes their words cut short with an awkward "Um", sometimes looking around them, as if asking for confirmation from those beside them. One family had watched a tax officer arrive and leave the same day their land deed changed hands. Another described the price quoted to them to buy back what had once been theirs, numbers so absurd they had laughed when they heard them, until they realized the man quoting the numbers wasn't laughing at all. They all shared the same peculiar detail: somewhere in the chain of transactions, a familiar name had appeared consistently.
Eldrin listened quietly with that familiar face. His expression was very still, very young, and doing considerable work to appear neither. Atleast that was an amusing sight for Ashoka to see.
When the last of the fifteen had spoken, the king's gaze moved to his uncle.
"Uncle Oswald." The voice was quiet, with that strange quality it had — soft and yet somehow bottomless, the crown lending it a weight that didn't belong to a thirteen-year-old. "What do you have to say to this?"
Prince Oswald stepped forward.
He was a tall man, broad across the shoulders, with the burn scar on his left cheek and eyes that had learned a long time ago how to arrange themselves into an expression of dignified injury. He clasped his hands behind his back, and shook his head slowly, like a man burdened by the maliciousness of the world.
"My King. I understand these people have suffered greatly. And I am deeply aggrieved to hear it." His voice was measured, practiced. "But I cannot be held responsible for the actions of every official in this kingdom, nor for the misfortunes of those who fell into debt of their own accord. What is being implied here is—" he gestured, "—simply without basis."
"Fair enough," Ashoka said without any emotion, as if he hadn't even thought of getting a fair answer. Well, that was because he hadn't, and that wasn't the point of this little play to begin with. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the crowd stir uncontrollably with emotions. This was what he had wanted to achieve.
Ashoka was already turning to a fresh page of his parchment.
"Then let us talk about something more concrete." He looked up. "Are you acquainted with a man named Kirison Aldvar? Former taxmaster of the eastern ward?"
Something shifted almost imperceptibly in Oswald's posture. "I know of him. As I know of many officials in this kingdom."
"Of course." Ashoka nodded pleasantly. "Would you then be surprised to hear that approximately four months ago, an unregistered shipment of soul shards was delivered to Kirison Aldvar's private residence?"
A pause. "Soul shards move through this kingdom constantly. I hardly see what that—"
"Unregistered," Ashoka emphasized, his voice carrying a faint hint of mockery. "No seal of origin. No transaction record in the army's ledgers." He let that sit for exactly three seconds. "The sender was listed only as: the Royal Family."
The murmurs returned. Larger this time.
Oswald's face was composed. It was very, very composed, which was, in Ashoka's experience, always the most damning thing a face could be.
"I have no knowledge of any such delivery," Oswald said evenly.
Ashoka nodded again, as if this were the perfectly reasonable thing he had expected to hear. He turned his head slightly — not toward Oswald, but toward a soldier standing at the edge of the hall. One of Gaius's men, who had been waiting there since before the court had convened, still and unobtrusive as part of the architecture.
"You oversee the kingdom's soul shard distribution records?" Ashoka asked.
The soldier stepped forward, giving a sheepish smile. "Well, if we are being technical, no, but I do atleast have the authority to see the list itself. So, yes, sir. Under the command of Prince Gaius, our unit maintains records of all officially sanctioned soul shard transfers."
"And is there any record of Prince Oswald formally requisitioning soul shards over the past year?"
The soldier produced a folded page from his coat. "Four separate instances. Each one listing the purpose as..." He paused, reading. "...internal administrative expenses."
The hall went very quiet.
Administrative expenses. Several of the merchants near the back exchanged a look. Essa Thorne, still standing behind Ashoka, made a sound that might have been a laugh, bitten off before it could escape.
Ashoka repeated the words thoughtfully. "How thorough." He turned back to Oswald. "And yet — despite these four requisitions being officially filed — the soul shards that arrived at Kirison Aldvar's home were unregistered, with no corresponding entry in the distribution records." He tilted his head. "A mystery."
"I won't stand here and be accused on the basis of—"
"I haven't accused you of anything yet, Your Highness. I'm only asking questions. And I have one more." He raised his voice slightly. "Would you tell this court, in your own words, whether you have ever personally visited the home of Kirison Aldvar?"
"I may have," Oswald said carefully. "In an official capacity."
"Of course." Ashoka reached into his satchel.
He did not hurry, nor did he look at Oswald. He drew out a second sheaf of papers, settled them in his hands, and reviewed them with what appeared to be genuine professional interest. Then he turned to the two soldiers standing at the far entrance to the hall and gave the faintest nod.
The doors opened.
The man who shuffled inside was not easy to look at.
He was in his fifties, though he looked older now, and what had once been an official's bearing had been comprehensively destroyed by the past few days. His face was purpled and swollen at the jaw, one eye half-shut, his lip split and crusted brown.
Kirison stopped in the center of the hall.
The silence that followed was the kind that presses on your eardrums.
Oswald went absolutely still. And for just one instant, something crossed the prince's face that was far more honest than anything he had said in the last ten minutes.
Ashoka didn't comment on it. By now, he was starting to enjoy everytime the face of that demon almost seem to twist into a snarl.
"Kirison Aldvar," he said. "Former deputy taxmaster of the eastern ward. In your own words, please, what were the soul shards delivered to your home used for?"
Kirison's one good eye moved around the hall. It moved to Eldrin, then to Oswald, then, slowly, to the floor. His throat worked.
"...My son," he said at last, quietly. "Aldric. He had always wanted to join the army. But he hadn't... he hadn't been able to awaken his essence on his own, and there was no other way—" He stopped. Steadied himself. "The shards were given to me... By the prince. So that Aldric could awaken and be enlisted..."
The crowd did not erupt this time. It went very still instead, the kind of stillness that comes before something large moves.
Everyone in the hall understood what soul shards meant. They weren't currency, weren't gifts, weren't administrative expenses. They were handed to soldiers and the ordinary citizens who had bled for Casamir — to men and women of the highest excellence who had done great service for their kingdom. To receive soul shards from the crown or the army was to be recognized in a sense, to know that their kindness and hardwork had a meaning. But to have them purchased quietly, privately, filtered through a corrupt official's hands so a deputy taxmaster's son could leapfrog every person who had earned their place in line— that was like putting a price to kindness, to their sweat and blood, and nothing infuriated people more than that.
The murmurs were not murmurs anymore, but shouts instead, reverberating through the hall like a symphony to Ashoka's ears.
He turned to face Prince Oswald... and smiled. It was a wide smile, unhurried and perfectly sincere.
He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. The crowd had recieved a collective voice now, one that called for justice, and nothing could stop it now.
By now, he could already feel the power of Arbiter disappearing, but the goal had been achieved.
The people continued shouting, but even that couldn't fully supress the voice of Ashoka that seemed to boom like thunder within the great hall of black pillars and silver banners.
"Do you still not recognise these names? The names of the people who's life you have turned to ash?!"
Ashoka felt his lawyer potion digesting rapidly, reaching, and then slightly passing the halfway crescendo. He smiled at the euphoric sensation.
'Acting principal: A court case, in essence, is a play, with characters and pieces, with truth and lies and many more things beside. And in this grand play, a Lawyer is, and should be, the ultimate director, guiding how the pieces moves and the story unfolds to the spectators.'
***
The world... Was a wash of crimson.
There was the bright, burning crimson of fire, dancing around like performers in the silent battlefield, filling the place with the sound of crackling.
There was also the dark crimson of blood, flowing through the soil like rivers in a basin. It was the blood of humans.
No, this was no battlefield, this was a place of an absolute massacre. Melted remains of bodies and limbs and the silently screaming, body less faces of people who once walked with dignified poise, strewn about in a mess, like the beautiful masterpiece of a mad butcher.
Everyone was dead.
.
.
.
[A/N: today's chapter might feel a little different, and thats because I had to get the help of one of my friends to write this ch. Yep, I don't know how to write court scenes! Crazy considering I'm literally writing about a lawyer pathway mc lol, but here we have it! Also added Ashoka's art in the auxiliary chapter. Anyways, imma try to finish the next ch up by the next day. Peace✌️]