The room was still. The purple tint had vanished, but the smell of ozone lingered like a bad memory. Sora was still slumped against the wall, his breathing heavy and ragged. For the first time, Hana saw him not as a god-like Architect, but as a person who was bleeding out—not with blood, but with shadows.
"Sora... what was that?" Hana asked, clutching the accounting textbook to her chest. "That door... those sounds... you said there was a debt."
Sora looked up, his indigo eyes flickering like a dying candle. "Every structure needs a foundation, Hana. But my foundation was built on a void. I am a fugitive from the Great Blueprint—the system that decides who stays broken and who gets fixed. Every time I fix a 'Broken Doll' like you, I steal resources from them. And the system always collects its interest."
He pulled up his sleeve. Hana gasped. His arm wasn't just skin and bone; it was covered in black, ink-like geometric patterns that seemed to be eating into his flesh.
"The Ledger of Souls isn't just a book, Hana. It's my life support. If it stays in the red for too long... the Shadow Door opens from the inside. And I'll be dragged back to the void."
Suddenly, the lights in the apartment flickered. But it wasn't the magic this time. It was the electricity.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of high heels echoed in the hallway. It wasn't the heavy boots of the Yakuza. It was someone elegant. Someone precise.
The door didn't break. It simply unlocked itself. A woman in a sharp, grey business suit stepped in. She wore silver-rimmed glasses and carried a briefcase that looked more like a weapon. She looked around the room with a cold, analytical gaze.
"Asset #4092, also known as Sora," she said, her voice like ice. "Your 'renovations' in this sector have caused a significant imbalance in the local reality market. I am here from the Audit Department of the Great Blueprint."
She looked at Hana, then at the textbook in her hand. "And I see you've started training a Junior Accountant. Interesting. But she's an unauthorized expense."
Sora stood up, his hand glowing with a desperate blue light. "She's not an expense. She's the cornerstone."
"We'll see about that," the woman replied, opening her briefcase. "Let's start the audit, shall we?"