The sanctuary had gone silent again. Not the silence of an empty place — the silence left behind after something had been pushed past its limit.
The distortion around Zekai's foot faded as fast as it had come. Whatever had answered his step was already gone.
He was still standing, barely. Blood darkened his clothes, and every twitch sent another wave of pain through muscle already pushed well past what it had left to give.
He looked down at the cut across his palm. Usually this was the moment the cold showed up.
It always did. He waited. One second. Another.
His fingers tightened. He waited for that familiar chill under his skin. Nothing.
"...Frost Heal?"
No answer. The wound stayed open, blood sliding freely down his palm. For the first time since he'd received the blessing, he had no idea if the next wound would ever close.
Behind him, the six stood silent, none of them surprised. That unsettled him worse than anything else in this fight had.
Lucien left the throne. One step. That alone changed the air in the room.
His exhausted eyes lifted. Lucien crossed the floor toward him, white robe brushing stone with every stride, expression calm, almost thoughtful.
He tried to raise Null Drakular. His arm barely lifted.
Lucien noticed. "So this is what's left once everything you leaned on gets taken away."
"What—" His breath came rough. "—did you do?"
Lucien stopped a few meters off. "I removed the thing that kept dragging you back into this fight."
His eyes dropped to the wound in his own palm. "...Frost Heal."
"Yes." Lucien's gaze traveled the length of his battered frame.
His breath caught. "You took it. All of it."
"The Snow Monarch's blessing." A pause. "Because I hadn't seen enough yet."
Zekai stared at the blood pooling in his hand. "Enough for what?"
Lucien's smile stayed thin. "That's not something you need to know yet."
He already knew what Frost Heal had actually been — the Snow Monarch's gift, given after the Wolfrezon's death, answering every injury he'd taken since. It had become so reliable he'd stopped considering what would happen the day it stopped answering.
Now he knew.
"Every time you survived," Lucien said, "you called it strength."
"Survival and strength were never the same thing."
His lips parted. "So you stole it."
He looked down again. A single drop fell from his palm and hit the stone.
Nothing answered. His shoulders dropped, barely visible.
Lucien watched him do it. "Maybe now you'll see what's left once certainty gets taken away."
He lifted his eyes. No confidence left in them. Just exhaustion, worn straight through to bone.
"And what exactly was it, then."
Lucien stepped closer. "That power was never here to save you."
"You started mistaking borrowed protection for something you'd earned."
His jaw locked.
"You've been leaning on that sword, that Authority, that healing — and every time you walked away breathing, you believed you'd gotten stronger."
Lucien's gaze sharpened. "You were only ever being allowed to continue."
The words cut deeper than any wound tonight had. Allowed to continue. That was the whole shape of it. He hadn't beaten anything. He'd just been handed another chance to fail again.
Lucien stopped directly in front of him. Neither spoke for a beat.
Then a hand closed around his throat.
His eyes blew wide. The fingers tightened, and his feet left the ground.
"Kh—!"
Lucien lifted him without effort. Both hands shot up to claw at the wrist holding him, fingers trembling against unyielding skin. His grip found no purchase at all. The hold only tightened, and his vision blurred at the edges.
Lucien looked straight into his eyes. "You wanted answers."
He fought for air.
"You wanted to know why this place chose you." Fingers slipping against skin. "Why the Arcana answers you." Lungs burning. "Why that sword follows you around like a dog."
The grip closed further. "Maybe you should've asked yourself something simpler."
Zekai's face darkened.
Lucien leaned in. "Why are you still alive?"
His eyes shook. No answer came.
Lucien watched the question land. "You're not." A pause. "Not by yourself."
The pressure climbed.
CRACK.
Something gave way in his neck. White tore across his vision. He tried to breathe. His lungs refused.
His arms went slack. His body hung useless in Lucien's grip, and for the first time, he stopped fighting it.
He couldn't fight it anymore. A broken laugh cracked out of his throat instead.
"What's funny."
His lips trembled. "...Nothing." His eyes went wet. "I just..."
"...finally understand."
Lucien waited.
His voice thinned to almost nothing. "I'm useless."
The words hung there, worse than the blood in his mouth.
'I thought—' His eyes shut. 'I thought if I got strong enough, I could save them.'
A tear cut a line down his cheek. 'But every time—' His fingers slid off Lucien's wrist. '—someone dies.' His voice split apart. 'And now—' His eyes found Lucien again. '—I can't even save myself.'
Whatever sarcasm, arrogance, and stubbornness he usually wore had already burned off. What was left was just a young man who'd run out of ways to hide that he was scared.
"I don't want this anymore."
Lucien's eyes stayed fixed on him.
His breath thinned further. "If you're going to kill me—" A struggle to even shape the words. "...then just do it."
His eyes fell shut. "But—" A tremor ran through his mouth.
"Please!" Barely a whisper now. "If there's a next time... don't bring me back."
Something shifted, faint, across Lucien's face.
"I don't want another chance." His voice broke clean in half. "Don't bring me back."
He dragged in a difficult breath. "Just make me nothing." His eyes cracked open. "Erase my soul."
"Erase all of it." A bitter half-smile. "Even if I never existed at all—"
His eyes found Lucien's one last time. "—I'd take that instead."
Lucien held the stare for several seconds. His grip tightened. "So this is what's left when the Fool finally stops moving."
Zekai didn't answer. His consciousness was already sliding.
"How disappointing." Lucien's voice dropped low.
The pressure climbed again.
Darkness closed in around his vision. His eyes trembled. Some part of him wanted to forget — wanted the whole thing to just dissolve.
The memories refused to let go anyway. Something cold and sharp started crowding out the emptiness where hope used to sit.
Not courage. Not hope.
Anger.
Why did everything always land on him?
'Why does everyone I care about have to disappear.'
'Why did Zero pick me at all.'
'Why hand me the Fool if I wasn't strong enough to actually change a single thing?'
For the first time all night, he didn't want an answer from the universe.
He wanted a target.
His fingers curled. "...Why?"
Lucien watched him.
His voice rose. "Why me?" His whole body shook against the grip. "Why does everything happen to me?!"
Tears blurred his sight completely. He struck weakly at Lucien's wrist — once, twice, each one connecting for nothing.
'I can't save anyone!' Another strike, weaker than the last. 'I can't even save myself!'
His voice cracked into something almost young, almost like the kid he used to be before any of this started.
'Then why give me this power, Zero?!'
"Why make me the Fool if I can't save a single person?!"
The Fool's Authority flickered. Barely a spark. A tiny distortion surfaced beside his hand for half a second, its outline briefly shaping itself into the edge of a card.
Then it was gone.
Lucien caught it. His eyes narrowed to something small and sharp. "Zero."
The name left him so quiet Zekai never heard it.
He was too far gone to notice anything. "You keep calling me a Fool..." His breath shook. "So what am I supposed to do with that?"
The distortion had already vanished.
Lucien's gaze lingered on the empty space where it had flickered.
"Even now, you're asking the wrong question."
He stared back, hollow. "Then what's the right one?"
Lucien's face stayed unreadable.
"What will you do the day power stops being enough?"
✦ End of Chapter 72 — When Power Is Not Enough ✦