Black chains tore up from the ground around him. One. Five. Ten. They wrapped his arms, cinched his waist, coiled around his throat and chest until he could barely draw breath.
He thrashed against them. "Get off!"
They only pulled tighter. Something inside him started to give — deeper than muscle, deeper than bone. His soul, dragged toward the edge of his own body.
"Fool Authority!" Nothing answered. "Fool!" Still nothing. His breath came in ragged pulls.
His eyes found Null Drakular lying a few meters off. So close he could count the runes on the blade. Too far to matter.
Hella lifted one hand. The shadow pooling beneath him split open, and black arms reached out of it — one closing around his wrist, another his shoulder, a third wrapping the arm he'd swung the sword with.
His pupils shrank. "Don't." The grip tightened. "Touch it."
She smiled. The shadow-hand pulled, and Null Drakular scraped across the stone toward her.
Something lurched low in his gut — some part of him understood, bone-deep, that losing the sword meant losing everything.
His stomach dropped. "No." The blade kept sliding. "No—"
The six Witnesses watched from where they stood, each locked onto something different. Jerom said nothing. Fenros tracked movement. Ossian's mouth curved without a trace of warmth in it. Nihil turned a page in his Grimoire. Astrael simply waited, unmoving as the pillars around him.
Fenros read his body. Hella read his restraints. Nihil read his very existence. Astrael read the choices he hadn't made yet.
His expression settled into something grim.
They're not even fighting the same fight. And with that thought came the full weight of exactly how outmatched he actually was.
His fingers clawed at the ground. "Don't—"
The sword stopped moving.
Hella's shadow-hands closed fully around the hilt — Then they shook. Her face shifted. She pulled harder. Nothing gave.
She pulled again. Nothing. The chains cinched down until the stone under the blade split clean through, and still Null Drakular didn't move an inch.
Her composure finally cracked. "...What?"
Nihil closed his Grimoire, slow, eyes narrowing on the sword. "Don't pull it."
"Why?"
His gaze stayed fixed on the blade. "Because I don't think it's resisting you." A pause. "I think it's waiting for him."
He let that settle. "It's already chosen where it belongs."
Hella's eyes cut toward him. "What—"
She looped another chain around the hilt, then another. The sword sat there, immovable.
Nihil shut the Grimoire fully, gaze never leaving Null Drakular. "Interesting."
Zekai stared at his own sword and felt something stir low in his gut — unnamed, unfamiliar, real. But beneath the fear, beneath the pain, beneath the humiliation of hanging here like caught prey, something was watching him back.
Waiting on him.
His lips parted. A whisper cracked out. "...Come to me."
The blade trembled.
Hella's mouth fell open.
Then Jerom spoke. "Enough."
Not aimed at Zekai. Aimed at his people.
Every weapon froze mid-motion. Ossian went still. Even the air seemed to hold.
Zekai clocked it — how instantly they obeyed. All six, stopped cold on a single word.
He hung there in the chains, beaten, clothes torn, blood drying on his face. And still he found a smile. Barely one.
Jerom's eyes settled on him. "You've mistaken our restraint for weakness." His gaze dropped briefly to the blood soaking Zekai's shirt.
"You haven't even begun to understand what you're carrying."
He stared back, breath uneven, body begging to give out. His pride wouldn't let it. He forced out a laugh. "So—"
He swallowed blood. "—you were holding back."
"Considerably."
The smile fell off his face. That single word landed harder than any of the punches had.
They hadn't even been serious. Every strike he'd thrown, every desperate dodge — all of it had been a performance for an audience that wasn't impressed.
His head dropped.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then his mouth moved on its own. "Then—" His fingers curled. "—I'll make you serious."
He hauled against the chains, every muscle straining past what it was built to give. Nothing. He pulled again. Nothing. His breath sawed in and out, thin and uneven.
Again. Still nothing. Hella just watched, silent.
His arms shook. Whatever confidence had been left in his eyes drained out, replaced by something closer to desperation. "Move."
Nothing.
"Move!"
Nothing answered him. His vision blurred at the edges, pulse hammering too fast to count.
His eyes dragged back to Null Drakular, still buried under Hella's chains.
Then he heard it. A faint metallic click.
Tick.
His eyes cut sideways. For one instant the whole world seemed to skip a frame — the chains flickered, the six Witnesses flickered, even his own raised hand seemed to occupy two places at once.
He went still. What was that.
The moment passed. His Authority stayed silent. Something else answered in its place instead — a thin system window, red text warping and reforming before it settled.
[ ARCANA STATUS — ERROR ]
FOOL AUTHORITY RESPONSE DETECTED.
PRIMARY CONDITION:
SURVIVAL
CURRENT STATUS:
UNRESOLVED
METHOD:
UNDEFINED
...
[REMEMBER]
THE FOOL DOES NOT GUARANTEE
SURVIVAL.
IF YOU CANNOT SURVIVE...
YOU WILL END.
-----
He stared at it, mouth twitching. "What is this."
The Fool's Authority had gone silent before. Now something had finally answered — too weak to break a single link of chain, too weak to save him. Strong enough only to watch. Like it had finally noticed its bearer was about to die and wanted to see what he'd do with that information.
...You're watching me?
No reply came. The window held a second longer, then dissolved.
Was it a threat? A warning? Or was the system just stating a fact the way you'd read out a weather report? For once he couldn't tell if the Arcana was giving him an objective or simply narrating his own death in advance.
He looked at the six of them again. Untouched. Unhurried. Waiting on their own schedule, not his.
A single realization settled into him, heavier than the chains. He'd thought getting stronger meant he'd finally climbed out of that old helplessness for good.
He'd been wrong. He hadn't circled back to where he started.
He'd just walked far enough to see how much higher the actual ceiling went. For the first time since becoming the Fool's Bearer, he didn't feel chosen.
He didn't feel special.
He felt small. And for the first time, he understood exactly why that was true.
Hella raised her hand. The chains cinched tighter. His knees buckled.
Ossian stepped forward, the bone-white whip dragging behind him with a dry scrape against stone. Fenros rolled his neck until it popped. Jerom just watched. Nihil opened the Grimoire again. Astrael's gold eyes settled on him and stayed there.
Six beings that broke every rule he understood.
One human.
And not one of them had needed to take him seriously yet.
Far beyond the battlefield, hidden from every eye that mattered, a man sat watching through a still pool of crimson light.
Lucien rested his cheek against one palm, expression calm, edging toward amused. He watched Zekai fight the chains, then let his gaze drift to Null Drakular.
Something amused flickered at the corner of his mouth. '...So it really did choose him.'
His eyes returned to Zekai's trembling body. "You still don't understand."
The crimson pool rippled with the image of him shaking against his restraints.
Lucien's smile deepened. "This isn't your battle yet."
Back in the sanctuary, Zekai lifted his head one more time.
The chains pulled tight again — and this time he had nothing left to break them with.
Clank.
His knees hit stone.
Null Drakular sat a few meters away. Close enough to see every detail of it.
Too far to reach. his fingers dug into the ground beneath him, breath shaking in his throat.
His eyes stayed locked on the blade anyway. For the first time since he'd become the Fool's Bearer, all he had left to do was survive.
✦ End of Chapter 65 — The Fool's Last Stand ✦