The light on the other side of the gate wasn't divine.
It was the kind of light that forgets what warmth means—cold, sterile, drawn from the heart of a machine that never sleeps.
Reiji stepped into a corridor of iron veins and whispering pipes. The air trembled with the pulse of unseen engines. Each breath tasted of rust and smoke. The world above—the tribunal, the mirrors, even the sky—had collapsed into silence.
Now there was only the city beneath.
He had heard of it once, in the records that survived the old wars: a place built under the foundations of the Capital, where the condemned were sent not to die, but to be erased. It had no name in official archives, only a codename etched into classified reports—Section 0.
As he walked, the shadows around him began to move, like they recognized him. Faint silhouettes flickered on the walls—workers, prisoners, ghosts of forgotten trials. Their movements repeated endlessly, fragments of lives replayed like broken film.
Reiji whispered to no one, "How long have you all been trapped here?"
The echoes didn't answer. But the corridor did—it led him forward, as if the place itself had decided that his judgment wasn't over yet.
At the end of the passage stood a terminal, glowing faintly with blue runes. The same sigil from the gate was carved across its screen, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. When he touched it, the light responded—shifting into words he didn't want to read.
> RECORD: TRIAL SEQUENCE 07
SUBJECT: SHINOMIYA, REIJI
STATUS: INCOMPLETE
His chest tightened.
"Incomplete…?" he murmured.
The terminal continued, voice synthetic yet eerily calm:
> "Judgment suspended. Emotional core unstable. Proceed to lower levels for continuation of the trial."
He stepped back, eyes narrowing. "Even here… I'm still in your system."
The walls hummed in reply. Somewhere deeper, machinery stirred awake.
---
The descent began with stairs carved into the iron bones of the city. The deeper he went, the louder the whispers became—low, overlapping, speaking fragments of his name like a broken prayer. Each level bore the scars of what once was a civilization: shattered monitors, flickering neon signs, rusted banners with symbols of the old Court.
When he reached the bottom, the air was colder than death.
He stood before an enormous circular chamber—the Central Archive.
Rows of glass capsules stretched endlessly in every direction, each containing a suspended human figure. Thousands, maybe millions. Their eyes were closed, their bodies preserved in pale blue light.
Reiji approached the nearest one. The plaque beneath it read:
> Subject: Kurobane Shou. Verdict: Erased.
His pulse stopped for a second. He reached out to the glass, his reflection trembling against it. The man who once tried to kill him was now nothing more than an entry in the Court's archive.
And beyond Kurobane's capsule, he saw others—faces he'd judged, witnesses he'd condemned, even innocents who'd vanished without a trace. All of them here, catalogued, frozen between life and death.
"This… is where they sent everyone." His voice broke. "This is what judgment meant."
He stumbled back as the capsules began to flicker, one by one, reacting to his presence. The whispers grew louder, forming words now.
> "You left us in silence."
"You said it would bring peace."
"You were our judge, Reiji."
The chamber pulsed like a living heart. The lights overhead dimmed, and from the far end, something massive began to awaken—a monolith of machinery, its surface carved with thousands of names. The system's voice returned, booming across the hall:
> "FINAL RECORD REQUIRES COMPLETION."
"SUBJECT MUST CHOOSE: ERASE OR REMEMBER."
Reiji stood still, trembling. "Erase… or remember?"
The voice repeated, louder, almost angry now:
> "TO ERASE IS TO END THE CYCLE. TO REMEMBER IS TO CONTINUE IT."
He laughed, a dry, broken sound. "That's your logic? That's all this was?"
The monolith responded with silence, and in that silence, he understood: this wasn't a trial anymore. It was a machine built to sustain guilt forever—to recycle judgment, to feed on regret.
He took a slow breath. His reflection in the metal floor looked hollow, cracked. But behind those cracks, a new light flickered—small, human, alive.
He lifted his blade.
"If memory keeps me human," he whispered, "then I'll remember every one of them."
The chamber screamed. The machinery convulsed, the capsules bursting one after another. Light and shadow spiraled through the room as the system tried to overwrite him.
> "ERROR—SEQUENCE FAILURE."
"SUBJECT REJECTED VERDICT."
"REALIGNMENT IMPOSSIBLE."
Reiji pressed forward through the storm of light. Each step shattered another echo, another illusion of control. The faces of those he'd judged surrounded him, not as ghosts now—but as people freed from silence.
He felt their voices guiding him: "Don't let them erase you too."
At the core of the monolith, a final panel opened—its screen flickering between his face and the Court's insignia. A single command appeared:
> SHINOMIYA REIJI — REWRITE IDENTITY?
[Y/N]
He hesitated, staring at it. The weight of every past decision pressed against his chest.
Then he reached forward and pressed N.
The screen shattered instantly. The entire city shook. Light poured from the fractures, rising upward like smoke escaping from a dying machine.
When the dust settled, the Archive was silent. The capsules lay empty. The monolith was gone.
And Reiji stood alone, breathing hard, surrounded by nothing but faint blue embers floating in the dark.
---
He sheathed his blade and looked up. Through the cracks above, faint traces of the real sky were visible—distant, cold, but free. For the first time in what felt like forever, he smiled, even if it hurt.
"Not erased," he whispered. "Not forgotten."
He turned toward the stairway leading up. The whispers had gone quiet. Only one remained, barely audible, following him as he walked.
"To remember is to fight the silence."
Reiji didn't look back. He climbed toward the surface, toward whatever still waited beyond the city of the dead.
And as he vanished into the dim light above, the last machine in Section 0 flickered once more…
displaying a single message before fading into darkness:
> TRIAL COMPLETED. SUBJECT RETAINED SELF.