The storm had passed, but the city remained drowned in silence.
Reiji stood at the threshold of the Hall of Judgments, staring at the corpse of his former mentor as dawn's first light bled through the cracks above. Dust drifted like snow through the broken ceiling, settling over the sigil that had once burned at his feet. Its light was gone now—only the faint scar of its shape remained.
For the first time in years, there were no voices left to accuse him.
Only silence, vast and unyielding.
He sheathed his sword. The motion was slow, deliberate, almost reverent. Around him, the remnants of the Court's false glory seemed to sigh. Statues without faces, benches long decayed, lawbooks turned to pulp by rain. Yet something still lingered—something beneath. A low hum, faint as a heartbeat under stone.
Reiji knelt, pressing his palm to the floor. It vibrated.
A mechanism—hidden, alive.
Without hesitation, he drove his blade into the crack between tiles. The marble split open with a dull groan, revealing an ancient staircase spiraling down into darkness. A cold breath rose from below, carrying the scent of dust, old paper, and secrets meant to die.
He stared into the abyss and whispered,
"Even the dead hide doors."
---
The descent felt endless.
The further he went, the more the walls began to change—carvings of eyes and hands reaching out, as if pleading from within the stone. Torches lit themselves as he passed, igniting with pale blue fire, casting long, flickering shadows.
The air grew colder. The whisper of the Court returned, though softer now, scattered, fragmented like broken thought:
"Record... truth... silence must remain..."
He reached the bottom at last.
And there it was.
A hall that stretched farther than sight, filled with rows upon rows of sealed archives. Yet there were no doors—only blank walls dividing corridors that led nowhere. The shelves towered like cathedrals, filled with scrolls wrapped in black silk, their titles erased. The Hall with No Doors.
Reiji stepped forward, boots echoing faintly. His reflection rippled on the floor—it was not water, yet moved like one, reflecting fragments of memories.
A whisper accompanied his steps.
"You've come too far, Reiji."
He turned.
A figure stood between the shelves—tall, clad in a coat of shadow that seemed to breathe. The face was hidden beneath a porcelain mask shaped like his own. The eyes behind it glowed faintly blue.
Reiji's breath stilled. "Another mirror?"
The figure tilted its head. "The last one. The part of you that the Court couldn't destroy."
Reiji stepped closer, his voice low. "If you are me, then you know what I came for."
"To unseal the truth," the reflection answered. "But every seal is also a coffin."
It gestured toward the nearest wall. A faint outline appeared—one doorless arch carved into the stone. Reiji placed his hand against it; warmth pulsed beneath, like the slow beat of a buried heart.
The reflection spoke again, voice shifting between tones—sometimes Reiji's, sometimes others'.
"Behind every wall here lies a name erased, a memory rewritten, a life traded for silence. The Court's true record. But open even one…"
Its voice faltered, trembling like glass.
"…and the city will remember."
Reiji looked at the wall. He remembered Kurobane's words—Justice doesn't whisper. It remembers.
Perhaps that was what he feared most: that the truth would speak again.
"Then let it," he said, pressing his hand harder. "Let it remember."
The wall cracked. Light seeped from the fractures—blinding, violent. The reflection staggered back, clutching its head.
"You don't understand!" it cried. "The truth devours! Once seen, it cannot be unseen!"
But Reiji didn't stop. He drew his blade and struck. The wall split apart, releasing a storm of white fragments that screamed like dying memories. The light consumed the hall, revealing flashes—faces, moments, blood-soaked verdicts, the Court's hand signing deaths in silence.
And then—Kaede.
Her image flickered in the chaos, standing in a corridor of fire, eyes filled with sorrow.
"Reiji," her voice trembled. "You promised you'd never come back here."
"I had to," he whispered.
"This place isn't the Court's grave," she said. "It's yours."
The reflection lunged, shoving him back, its voice breaking into rage. "You've doomed us both!"
Their blades collided—same style, same rhythm, same fury. Every strike echoed in pairs, as if the hall itself were mimicking them. The shelves shattered, scrolls unraveling into dust and screams.
Reiji fought with the precision of memory, but the reflection anticipated every move.
"You can't kill me," it hissed. "I am the silence that kept you alive!"
"Then I'll learn to live with the noise," Reiji spat back, driving his blade through the mask.
It cracked.
The reflection froze—its form dissolving into a thousand motes of light that rained around him like broken glass. Reiji fell to one knee, breath ragged, blade trembling in his grasp.
The wall before him stood open now.
Inside—an empty room. No shelves. No sigils. Just a single chair at its center, facing away. On it sat a record book bound in black leather, its surface pulsing faintly like skin.
He stepped closer. The pages fluttered open on their own. Ink bled across the parchment, forming words that weren't written but remembered.
> The Court's final decree:
"When the Shadow learns its name again, the city shall awaken."
Reiji stared at it, the whisper filling his head again, louder this time, overlapping voices of those he'd killed, those he'd failed to save. They merged into a single truth—clear, cold, and unbearable:
He had never left the Court.
He was still part of it—its last function, its final witness.
He looked up at the roofless hall, his reflection fractured in the mirrored floor.
"The Hall with No Doors…" he murmured. "Because there's no way out of what I am."
The last candle extinguished.
Darkness reclaimed everything.
When the silence settled, the hall whispered one final phrase, like a verdict carried on dying breath:
"All shadows return to their beginning."
And with that, Shinomiya Reiji vanished—leaving only the open book, and a blade cooling beside it.