The wind howled like a wounded beast as Reiji stepped through the ruins of the northern sanctum. The marble pillars—once symbols of divine authority—now hung fractured, half-swallowed by black roots that pulsed faintly, like veins of a dying god. His boots echoed in the silence, each step cutting through the dust-laden air. The scent of burnt parchment and old blood clung to everything.
Reiji's eyes narrowed as he passed the shattered sigil embedded in the floor. The same mark that had haunted his dreams—an ouroboros consuming itself, crowned by hollow eyes. The Monarch's seal.
He stopped, fingers brushing the edge of the symbol. "How many have you devoured?" he murmured. His voice, quiet but cold, was swallowed by the vastness of the broken hall.
The silence answered him—not with words, but with presence. A low, humming vibration filled the air, so subtle it made the bones in his wrist tremble. Shadows began to stretch unnaturally from the corners, converging at the center of the sanctum like liquid night.
Then, a voice emerged.
> "You've come far, Shinomiya Reiji. But tell me—did you ever think the truth would set you free?"
Reiji's jaw tensed. He knew that tone. Calm, cruel, and eerily regal.
> "You're late," he replied. "Or maybe you've been watching from behind the veil, waiting for me to break."
From the darkness, the figure took form—draped in tattered robes of obsidian silk, a crown of fractured glass embedded into his skull. His face was pale, translucent, as though carved from the reflection of a dying flame. The Hollow Monarch.
"You shouldn't have survived Zephyros," the Monarch said, voice trembling like a memory. "The Court had decided your existence was a fault."
Reiji stepped forward. "Then the Court miscalculated."
The Monarch's grin widened. "No… You played your role too well. A shadow born to hunt shadows—what irony."
The air trembled. The sigils along the walls flickered to life, bleeding faint white light that twisted the space into dissonance. The hall groaned, and the Monarch descended from his dais, the hem of his robe floating above the ground like smoke.
Reiji reached for his blade, Kagetsu, the black steel humming faintly against the distortion. "You were supposed to be dead."
"I am," the Monarch whispered. "And yet, so are you."
A sudden pulse shattered the floor. Dust exploded upward as a wave of energy burst from beneath the sigil, throwing Reiji backward. He landed hard, but his body moved before his mind could catch up—training born of survival. He rolled to his feet, blade raised, just as a dozen phantoms rose from the ground.
Each one bore his face.
Reiji froze for half a second. They weren't illusions—he could feel their presence, their weight in the air. Each shadow murmured fragments of his own voice: his doubts, his anger, his guilt.
> "You left Kaede behind."
"You chose silence when you could've saved them."
"You are nothing but another echo."
Their whispers cut deeper than any blade.
Reiji gritted his teeth and charged, his movements slicing through the phantoms in a blur of black and silver. Each strike connected, yet every shadow that fell dissolved only to reform again—thinner, darker, angrier.
"You can't kill what you've denied," the Monarch's voice echoed. "You created me, Reiji. Every lie, every sin you buried—I am the throne built from your silence."
The Monarch raised his hand, and the phantoms lunged as one. Reiji's body moved like a machine driven by rage. He cut, parried, spun, every motion precise and desperate. His breath came ragged, his vision edged with red.
The blade clashed against incorporeal weight, sparks flaring in a darkness that swallowed even light. His shoulder burned, his hand trembled—but he didn't stop.
Then, a faint voice pierced through the chaos.
> "Reiji."
He froze. That voice—soft, fragile, almost human. Kaede's voice.
For a moment, the phantoms halted too. Reiji's breath caught as he turned. In the far distance, through the flickering haze of the sanctum, a single silhouette stood—a girl wrapped in light, her eyes filled with sorrow.
"Kaede…?"
But the Monarch laughed, a sound that cracked like shattered mirrors.
> "Do you still not see? Even your memories are mine now."
Reiji's vision blurred as the girl's image began to distort, her body twisting into a hollow shell, eyes turning black. The Monarch's laughter merged with her cries until the sound became unbearable.
Reiji dropped to one knee, the blade shaking in his hand. Blood trickled down his temple. "You think you own my past?"
"No," the Monarch said, descending closer, his hollow crown reflecting nothing. "I am your past."
Silence stretched. Then, Reiji smiled—cold, tired, but alive.
"Then let me do what I always do to my past," he whispered.
The blade ignited with black flame. Kagetsu pulsed once, resonating with the fragmented sigil below. The ground cracked open, swallowing the light. A surge of energy exploded from Reiji's core, and the phantoms screamed as they disintegrated into ash.
The Monarch staggered, the void flickering. For the first time, he looked uncertain.
Reiji rose slowly, eyes burning. "You're not my creator. You're my consequence."
And with that, he drove the blade forward.
The impact tore through the veil of the sanctum, shattering the crown and splintering the Monarch's form into countless shards of darkness. A single echo lingered as the hall collapsed around them:
> "If you destroy me… who will bear your sins?"
Reiji didn't answer.
As the roof caved and dust filled the air, he walked through the falling debris, the flickering embers painting his silhouette in crimson and black.
The Hollow Monarch was gone—but in his absence, a heavier silence took root.
---
When Reiji stepped outside, dawn had not yet arrived. The world was gray, the horizon veiled in smoke. He looked at his reflection in the broken window of the sanctum—his eyes darker than before, his pulse steady.
"Another ghost buried," he murmured. "And yet…"
The reflection smiled back at him, faint and wrong.
"…the shadows still move."