Dawn never breaks over the Academy.
Not because time has ceased, but because the concept of 'daylight' no longer applies.
The sky resembles a dull, greyish-white pane of glass, devoid of depth and reflecting no glimpse of the future.
Li stood at the centre of the courtyard.
The Judgement Array had extinguished, yet he knew the ritual was not concluded.
It had merely reserved the final step for him alone.
The first anomaly was the absence of pain.
It was silence.
The collective spiritual energy of the entire academy plummeted to its lowest point in a single second.
Students halted in their tracks, conversations froze mid-utterance and some even forgot what they had been about to say.
It was not control.
It was instinct.
Much like how animals freeze when they sense a predator.
Li felt it distinctly — every single person was being 'scanned' by some gaze.
And that gaze came from him.
The mark of sin no longer burned.
It no longer throbbed.
It had 'settled'.
It was like a core finally returning to its proper place.
Li raised his hand to shield his left eye, but he was a moment too late.
The world deconstructed anew within his vision — not that the image grew clearer, but that meaning was annotated.
What he saw was not merely sin.
For some, the 'sin' upon them was responsibility that had long been shifted onto others.
Some souls were riddled with fractures yet had never truly harmed another.
Others appeared spotless, yet their innermost depths were piled high with 'permitted evil'.
The Eye of Judgement held no emotion.
It performed one task only:
To drag everything obscured, rationalised or concealed by systems into the light.
For the first time, Rei understood that this eye never truly judged 'who was guilty'.
Rather, it judged those who bore sins not their own.
The mark of sin no longer burns or throbs; it has settled.
It is as if the core has finally returned to its rightful position.
Li raised his hand to shield his left eye, but it was a moment too late.
The world deconstructed once more within his vision — not because the scene became clearer, but because its meaning was rewritten.
What he saw was not just sin.
For some, the 'sin' they bear is merely responsibility that has been shifted onto others.
Some souls, though scarred beyond measure, have never truly harmed another.
Others, seemingly flawless on the surface, harbour depths piled high with 'permitted evil'.
The Eye of Judgement knows no emotion; it serves one purpose only:
'To drag into the light all that is obscured, rationalised or concealed by systems.'
For the first time, Zero understood that this Eye had never truly judged 'who deserved punishment'.
It judged those who bore sins not their own.
When the Eye of Judgement opened fully, there was no light.
There was no explosion.
Only one choice lay clearly before Rei:
Not 'saving the academy'.
Nor 'becoming the sole vessel'.
Nor 'letting the rift devour everything'.
But a fourth option: to render the Judgement itself void.
Not to shut it down.
Not to destroy it.
Rather, to strip it of the very condition that made it necessary.
Li spoke softly, as if declaring it to the world yet merely to himself:
'If all sins are laid bare and all responsibilities returned, would you still require a scapegoat as your judge?'
For the first time, the Rift remained silent.
This was a question it could not process.
Gradually, the students came to their senses.
None of them could remember what had just happened.
Only a lightness in their chests remained, as though something that had weighed on them for a long time had been lifted.
Li remained standing, neither collapsing nor vanishing.
He looked down at his hands.
They still trembled.
They still ached.
They still grew weary.
He was still human.
But this time, it wasn't because the system permitted it.
It was because he had chosen to keep it.