The white blade gleamed beneath the endless sapphire sky.
Zekai turned it slowly in his hand. Ancient patterns shimmered faintly along the pristine white steel, as though the sword itself were breathing.
He couldn't explain why, but holding it felt less like discovering something new and more like remembering something he'd always carried.
"...So this is Null Drakular."
Sebastian walked over. "Thirteen years."
Zekai looked at him.
Sebastian let out a slow breath. "I've entered Null Reality for thirteen years. I've watched countless people stand before those relics."
"...Not a single one of them was ever acknowledged by the core." His eyes drifted toward the sapphire eye still hanging overhead.
"...Until today."
Without warning, the sword in Zekai's grip started breaking apart into black ash. Within seconds it had vanished entirely.
Sebastian didn't watch it go. His eyes stayed fixed on Zekai the whole time.
After a moment of silence, he finally asked, "...Where'd the sword go?"
Zekai blinked, and only then noticed his hand was empty. "...Huh?"
His eyes swept the grass around him. Nothing.
"...Don't tell me I just unlocked it and immediately—" He searched the field, useless. "Where did it go?"
The blade was gone. Completely. His pulse spiked.
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA ARSENAL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Primary Weapon
Null Drakular Originless Rare Sword
State: Sealed Resonance: 12% ─────────────────────
Secondary Weapon : None ─────────────────────
Relics : Black Stone Cube
Classification: Unknown
─────────────────────
Equipment :None
─────────────────────
Weapon Mastery Swordsmanship: Novice
─────────────────────
Storage : Empty
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Weapons floated silently before him, suspended like sacred relics encased within invisible glass. Each occupied its own place, accompanied by a brief description. Most of the slots remained empty. Only one glowed.
The Arcana Arsenal is not an inventory. It is a repository of Authority. Every weapon, relic, or artifact acknowledged by the Arcana is recorded within it. Their power grows alongside their bearer, and their true forms awaken only when the Authority permits.
His mind circled back to the glowing image of Null Drakular.
...Stored? His fingers twitched.
If it's synced to my soul, then where it physically sits shouldn't matter.
He lifted his empty hand. "...Null Drakular."
Silence. One full heartbeat passed with nothing.
Then—Zzzzsup!
Black ash spiraled out of empty space, gathering around his hand. Golden light intertwined with crimson threads as the particles rapidly condensed.
CLANG.
The white blade solidified back into his grip, exactly like it had never left.
He stared at it for a moment. A faint smile crept across his face.
"...So that's how it works."
"It doesn't get stored somewhere else. It just comes back." His fingers closed around the hilt. "Because it's already part of me."
Sebastian watched the whole thing without a word.
Several seconds passed before he finally exhaled.
"...Soul Armament."
Zekai glanced over.
His expression had gone unusually serious. "I've seen relics answer to their owners before. Weapons bound through Grave Energy." His eyes lingered on the blade. "I've never seen a weapon dissolve straight into someone's Authority."
A beat of silence.
"You're not carrying that sword anymore." His eyes met Zekai's. "It's carrying you."
Zekai looked back down at Null Drakular, admiring it a moment longer. The flawless white steel threw back the endless green of the plains. Ancient golden engravings shimmered faintly beneath its surface, while the crimson line running through its center pulsed softly, like the heartbeat of something that had only just awakened.
With a single thought, the sword dissolved back into drifting black ash. Within seconds, nothing remained — not gone, just returned to wherever it actually belonged now.
His eyes drifted to the Relics tab. The moment he read it, his expression shifted.
Black Stone Cube.
Still there. He'd forgotten about it entirely for the last several hours.
"...Tch." He scratched at his forehead, irritated.
"No matter where I go, this thing keeps following me."
An idea surfaced.
If it's registered inside the Arsenal, can I just get rid of it?
"Status."
"Destroy the Black Stone Cube."
Nothing.
"Delete."
"Remove."
"Erase."
Nothing answered any of it. No matter what command he threw at it, the relic sat exactly where it was, refusing to budge.
The Arsenal held it, catalogued it, let him reach for it like anything else in the list. It just wouldn't let him unmake it.
His expression darkened. "...So it's outside the Arcana's authority entirely."
His thoughts spiraled.
Is this fate. Or just the wreckage of every choice I've already made.
A hand landed on his shoulder before he could chase that thought further. Sebastian.
"What's wrong, Zekai? You've been muttering to yourself since you got that sword."
He paused before answering. "...It's nothing."
Inside, nothing had changed. Whatever that thing is, I'm destroying it. No matter what it takes.
He let out a slow breath, the tension finally draining out of his shoulders.
"Tch. Enough, Mr. Sebastian. I can't deal with any more of this today."
"Just let me go."
Sebastian smiled, faint. "Whether you ask or not — that was already the plan."
"After this, you're free."
A small smile broke through on Zekai's face. First time all day he'd actually felt something close to relief.
Then—
"But it's not that simple."
"There's one condition."
The smile disappeared. "...What."
Sebastian pulled off his cracked glasses and tossed them aside without ceremony.
"You join the BSA. Help us protect this world."
"No." Immediate. "That's not something I can do."
"I'm not the right person for it."
He turned without another word, heading for the exit out of Null Reality.
"Find someone else. I've got things I need to do."
Sebastian didn't move. "...You know Bureau protocol says I should be arresting you right now."
Zekai didn't turn around.
Sebastian let out a slow breath. "You've turned down the Bureau's offer. You're still the only survivor of a Reality Fracture. Still the primary suspect in an investigation that isn't over."
Another pause.
"Everything says I shouldn't let you walk out of here." His eyes dropped for a second. "...But."
A faint smile crossed his face. "I've spent enough years judging people to recognize fear when I see it."
"And today, I'm choosing to trust my judgment."
"Go. I'll take responsibility for it."
"Walk away, if that's really what you want."
"But before you do—"
"—answer one question first."
Zekai stopped walking.
"How long are you planning to keep pretending that person never existed?"
Silence.
"You can hide who you are from everyone out there. Not from us. We already know exactly who you are."
His feet stayed rooted where they'd stopped.
Sebastian's voice dropped lower. "We know exactly who you were in Thyra Covenant. Linoria."
His whole body went rigid.
"And we know exactly why you left."
He froze completely. His eyes widened.
A memory tore itself loose from wherever he'd buried it. His father. His mother. Standing motionless in a wide sea of red.
Silence stretched across the monochrome plains for a long time.
Then—
"...Don't." His voice came out low, vibrating with something close to genuine cold. "Don't talk about that place."
The words caught halfway up his throat. His hand curled slowly into a fist that wouldn't stop shaking.
"You and your Bureau don't know one single thing about what happened there."
Sebastian held his gaze, unbothered by the sudden crack in his composure.
"We know enough, Zekai. And we know one more thing." He took a slow step across the grass. "You're afraid."
Another step. "Not because you can't fight."
"Because you can't survive losing someone important again."
"So you've convinced yourself it's safer to walk alone."
"If nobody gets close to you—" he said, "—nobody can be taken from you."
He gestured loosely at the impossible world stretching out around them.
"Nobody in the Bureau is entirely good. Nobody out there is entirely evil."
"People simply become whatever their circumstances force them to become to survive."
He looked straight into Zekai's rigid stare.
"This is your path. And you're walking away from it anyway."
His voice stayed level, carrying the weight of someone who'd seen this exact moment play out before, more than once.
"This is your real chance, Zekai."
"A chance to finally reclaim yourself."
He held his hand out across the space between them.
"Choose."
For one second, Aron's voice echoed somewhere far back in Zekai's mind.
*Mr. Zekai...*
A faint, hollow smile crossed his face.
"...I already made my choice."
He didn't look back once. He turned and walked toward the massive exit out of Null Reality, resolute in the one thing he still had left to hold onto.
"I already know exactly what my path is."
His fingers drifted toward his empty waist on instinct.
Nothing there. For a second, he almost smiled at that.
Null Drakular didn't rest at his side anymore, not in any way flesh could grasp.
It rested somewhere deeper — woven straight into what was left of his soul.
Waiting for the next time he needed to say its name.
✦ End of Chapter 49 — Who Am I, really? ✦