The white space fell dead silent.
Across the table, Zero's hand hovered with eerie calm.
Zekai trembled slightly—not out of fear, but from the sudden, suffocating weight of understanding what this exact moment carried. This wasn't just a childish game of chance anymore. It was an absolute turning point. A decision that would ruthlessly dictate every single thing that came after this.
Zero looked completely relaxed, as if the final outcome didn't matter to him in the slightest.
That detachment bothered Zekai more than any crushing physical pressure ever could.
He exhaled slowly, purging the hesitation from his lungs.
'Trust your instinct.'
"Rock. Paper. Scissors."
Thud!
Their hands struck the stone table simultaneously.
[ ZEKAI : SCISSORS ] [ ZERO : PAPER ]
Paper.
A brilliant flash of light erupted between their palms, fracturing the local gravity.
[ CURRENT SCORE — ZEKAI : 2 | ZERO : 1 ]
[ THE WINNER OF THE CONTRACT IS CONFIRMED. ]
For a brief second, Zekai leaned back in his chair and let out a long, ragged breath. He had actually won. Against an entity that controlled the rules of reality itself, he had stood his ground.
"…I actually won."
The words felt foreign and heavy on his tongue. He looked across the table at Zero, a sharp, mocking smirk cutting across his face.
"Looks like you're the real fool here."
But the triumph evaporated instantly. Something felt wrong.
Zero was still smiling. His expression held no irritation, no shock, and no defeat. He looked genuinely amused, as if this exact result had been written into the script before the game even started.
"A deal is a deal," Zero said calmly, his voice vibrating with absolute certainty. "Speak your wish."
Zekai didn't answer immediately. A cold sweat broke out across his neck. There was absolutely no way an entity like Zero would suffer a loss this easily. Zekai was just a human—nothing more. But Zero was something existing far beyond that boundary. Something entirely different that couldn't be measured by human logic.
'Did I make a mistake?'
'If I ask for the wrong thing right now, I won't get a second chance.'
Zekai leaned forward, his cold eyes locking onto the entity.
"Wait."
"I changed my mind."
Zero raised a single pale eyebrow. "About what?"
"My wish."
Zekai's thoughts accelerated to a frantic, analytical speed. Escaping this twisted world with Aron would have been the simplest, safest choice. But that would only patch the surface. If terrifying entities like Arcana truly existed, then asking for mere temporary safety was entirely meaningless.
'If I choose wrong... there won't be anything left of me to fix.'
No. Escape wasn't enough. He didn't need a cheap answer to escape the dimension. He needed the raw, undeniable power to keep asking questions. He studied Zero carefully—noting not the smile, but the terrifying certainty radiating from him. The kind of presence that didn't require permission from reality to exist.
Zekai looked straight into the abyss of Zero's eyes. He didn't hesitate.
"I want... you."
Zero's smile cracked into a slight frown. "What do you mean?"
"You. And everything connected to you."
BOMMMM—!
The surrounding white space violently reacted to the spoken words. Only then did the sheer gravity of what he had demanded truly land.
Zero gestured casually behind him. The boundless white world shifted, convulsing as the architecture rearranged itself. The twenty-one colossus statues surrounding them began to transform.
Their rough, incomplete stone forms became terrifyingly whole. Sharp features carved themselves into existence. Limbs completed. Brilliant gold lines erupted across their monolithic bodies like veins of pure, liquid light.
Twenty-one colossal figures now loomed in a perfect circle around the table. Each one radiated a distinct, suffocating pressure. Heavy. Silent. Watching.
They had always been present, hidden in plain sight. But now—they acknowledged Zekai.
"I want all of you," Zekai demanded, his voice hardening. "Every single Arcana." For the first time since their encounter, Zero didn't answer immediately. Then, the entity laughed. It wasn't a mocking sneer, but a sound of genuine, dark amusement.
"In countless cycles, not a single challenger has ever demanded that." Zero leaned forward, his pale gaze boring into Zekai's soul. "Are you sure?"
"Any problem?" Zekai countered ruthlessly.
Zero paused for a fraction of a second, then nodded slowly. "No problem at all."
The compliance came far too easily. A quiet, instinctual alarm blared in Zekai's mind. Deals accepted without hesitation by monsters were rarely simple. But he refused to take it back.
Zero stood up, stepping across the boundary of the shattered table.
"I grant you myself," the Zero murmured calmly. "And the Arcana. But the final outcome..." Zero leaned closer, his whisper cold enough to freeze blood, "...is yours."
The words felt like a massive iron mechanism locking into place inside the universe. Zekai felt a sharp twist in his chest, as if an ancient key had just been forcefully turned inside his soul.
Zzzzsup!
[ AN ABSOLUTE CONTRACT HAS BEEN INKED. ]
Zero placed two fingers directly against Zekai's temple.
"From now on..."
"You are the Fool."
Something deep within the fabric of the white space accepted that title before Zekai's conscious mind could even process it. The word didn't echo; it settled heavily into reality like a tarot card slammed onto a table.
The twenty-one monolithic statues moved. One by one, their massive golden heads lowered. They didn't just bow—the literal geometry of the space bent and warped around them in absolute submission.
A silent acknowledgment. Something terrifying had already begun. The moment the title settled into the white space, something inside Zekai's spiritual core collapsed inward.
Then, everything broke.
CRACK—!
His vision instantly blurred. Every single muscle in his body tensed a fraction too late, his nervous system bracing for a wave of agony that hadn't even arrived yet. Then, it tore through him like liquid fire.
The world seized. Zekai's eyes rolled back, the whites flooding his vision. A violent, cataclysmic pressure surged through his skull, ripping straight down his spine and shattering his human limitations.
An overwhelming, ancient presence flooded his heart—vast, cold, and entirely too massive for a human body to contain.
His body lifted completely off the ground, suspended in mid-air, twisting violently as if an invisible force was tearing him down to the molecular level and rebuilding him from scratch.
"Without this," Zero's voice echoed directly inside his mind, bypassing his ears entirely, "you cannot exist outside."
It wasn't a sympathetic warning. It was a rule. Weight settled inside him.
A massive, crushing weight settled deep into his core. It felt like an eternal responsibility thrust upon his shoulders without a single word of explanation—something ancient claiming residency inside Zekai whether he understood it or not.
The Arcana statues remained silent. Watching. As if confirming a decision had finally been made.
Thud!
Zekai's body convulsed one last time as his heart slammed back into motion like a piston. He collapsed heavily onto the floor.
The impact knocked the air out of him. His breathing came uneven and delayed, like his body had forgotten how to function. His fingernails dug into the white floor hard enough to crack it.
"What the hell... did you do to me?" Zekai choked out, coughing up static.
His heartbeat felt heavier—like it was counting something he couldn't understand.
"Nothing," Zero replied calmly. "Just a correction."
Zero clapped his hands once.
Zzzzsup!
Blinding, blood-red words burned themselves into the open air above Zekai.
[ WARNING: ONE YEAR OF YOUR LIFESPAN HAS BEEN REDUCED. ]
Zekai breath stopped. His chest tightened—like something had been quietly removed. He froze, completely.
"…What?"
His body reacted before his intellect did. Something deep inside his newly altered soul... began to count.
"One year. I didn't know what that meant."
But his body did.
His pulse skipped—not a beat, but a count. Something inside him recalculated—quiet and automatic.
Like his body had been keeping numbers he was never meant to know.
"Just a token advance," Zero murmured, his smile returning.
"For what?" Zekai hissed, forcing himself onto his elbows.
The terrifying meaning landed in his mind a second before the actual fear did.
"Being me... costs your life," Zero replied quietly, his eyes glowing with an ancient luster.
"There is no escape for you anymore, Fool."
Zekai's mind went entirely quiet. It wasn't the silence of fear—it was the cold, clinical silence of calculation. It wasn't just about losing one year. A dark intuition told him that the next time he drew upon this power, the price tag would not be the same.
"What happens now?"
Zero raised his hand.
Fwump—
The boundless white space began to rapidly collapse from the edges inward, folding like origami. Reality rushed back toward Zekai's consciousness like an ocean bursting through a shattered dam. Before the darkness reclaimed him, Zero leaned into his ear.
"Sleep well."
"Soon... you'll break."
"Wait—!"
Darkness swallowed his voice. The white space shattered completely into millions of pixelated shards.
And as his consciousness faded into the abyss, he understood one undeniable truth. Something monstrous had officially awakened inside him.
And something else had already begun taking everything from him in return. There was no turning back anymore.
Deep within his soul, the clock had already started counting down to zero.
✦ End of Chapter 16 — The Wish ✦