A heavy pause fell between them.
"You saw the coat," Aron said softly, his voice echoing off the plastic shelves. "You saw the tarot cards. You read the warning signs written into the world." He slowly closed the distance. "And you chose to touch the anchor anyway."
Zekai's expression darkened, his jaw locking tight.
"…"
"You always do that," Aron continued, his footsteps making no sound at all. "You see danger. You know it's dangerous. But you touch it anyway."
"It will end in disaster. But you reach out your hand and open the door anyway."
The fluorescent tubes above their heads flickered violently. Once. Twice. Three times. The temperature inside the store plummeted into a freezing chill.
"You never truly consider the consequences for those caught in your wake," Aron said.
Zekai clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.
"That's enough."
Aron completely ignored the interruption. "You wanted your answers from the universe. So you kept moving forward, so you kept digging. And every single person who stood beside you paid the ultimate price on the ledger."
Zekai's chest tightened, a physical ache blooming behind his ribs. The words struck deeper than they should have. but they hit harder than any kinetic blade the King Knight had wielded. Because a dark, hidden part of Zekai's mind agreed. A part of him had already quietly blamed himself for the Aron's suffering.
Aron stopped walking, standing just a few feet away.
"You know what the most amusing part of this is, Mr. Zekai?"
A smile spread across the boy's face. But it wasn't kind. It wasn't warm. It was a frozen, mocking grimace.
"You still don't truly regret what you did."
"…"
"You regret what happened to me," the illusion whispered.
"But you do not regret opening the door to the dark."
Silence. Zekai couldn't form an answer. Because deep down, in the darkest recesses of his soul, he wasn't entirely sure.
The lights flickered again, and the shelves around them began stretching unnaturally, lengthening into the dark, warping further and further away. It was as if the convenience store was expanding into an infinite labyrinth.
Aron's voice began to layer over itself, echoing from the infinite aisles. "You know what hurts the most, Zekai?"
Zekai's throat felt entirely dry, as if filled with sand.
"What?"
Aron looked directly into his eyes, his gaze locking onto his soul. "I was happy before I met you."
Everything stopped. For a moment, even the act of breathing became difficult. The sentence carried more destructive force than any physical anomaly. Zekai stared silently, completely paralyzed.
Zekai stared silently at the figure, his mind numbing.
Aron kept speaking, his voice bleeding out all residual warmth. "My life wasn't perfect. But it was mine. I had a job. I had real friends. I had a normal future."
His voice grew progressively colder.
"Then you arrived."
The lights above suddenly shattered.
CRACK!
Shards of glass exploded across the floor like frozen rain. The convenience store plunged into near-total darkness. The endless shelves bent sideways at impossible angles. The ceiling twisted like a spiral. Reality itself was visibly collapsing around them.
"You brought me here," Aron hissed, his form blurring. "You brought me into this living nightmare. You brought me to that godforsaken palace. You brought me straight to my death."
The figure took one step forward. Another. Another. Until it stopped directly in front of Zekai's chest.
"I died, Zekai."
Zekai's breathing stopped completely.
"I died again," the voice rasped.
A heavy, suffocating pause.
"And again."
Another step closing the final shred of distance.
"And again."
The white linoleum floor beneath their boots liquefied, turning into a pitch-black abyss.
"And again."
Thick, dark blood began to well up from beneath Aron's feet, spreading like a tide.
"And again."
The mocking smile vanished from the boy's face, replaced by a raw, jagged mask of pure agony. "I screamed for help until my lungs failed. I was terrified. I was entirely alone in the dark." His voice cracked, splintering into multiple discordant tones.
"And where exactly were you?"
Silence rushed back into the void. Zekai slowly lowered his head, his gaze dropping to the black liquid at his feet.
"…"
"Where were you?!" the Aron screamed.
"..."
"WHERE WERE YOU?!"
The entire illusion of the convenience store violently exploded.
BOOM!
The walls vanished into grey ash. The darkness swallowed the infinite shelves whole, leaving absolute nothingness behind. Only Aron remained, standing in the void directly in front of him. He was completely covered in deep, weeping lacerations, his garments torn, his frame broken and tired. Dead, unblinking eyes stared directly into Zekai's soul.
"You weren't there to stop the blade," the words came out as a ragged whisper from the dark.
"You abandoned me to the fate."
Zekai slowly closed his eyes, accepting the weight of the shadow. "…Yeah."
For the first time since this hell began, he didn't defend himself. He didn't offer an analytical argument. He didn't deny the failure.
"...Yeah," his voice sounded entirely hollow, stripped of all authority. "I did."
The broken figure of Aron stared at him for a long beat. Then, it slowly reached into the folds of its bloodied clothes. A jagged steel knife materialized in its grip.
Zekai didn't move an inch. He didn't raise his hands to defend himself.
The blade pierced his shoulder.
THUD.
A sharp, burning pain shot through his nervous system, but his face remained a flat, emotionless mask. He didn't flinch. He didn't react.
Aron pulled the weapon out with a wet water.
Stab. The blade drove into his ribs.
Stab. It ripped through his forearm.
Stab. It buried itself deep into his side.
Again. And again. And again.
Zekai never once raised a hand to fight back. He stood like a monument of stone as his own crimson blood began to drip steadily onto the black floor, mixing with the dark abyss below.
"I deserve every bit of that," Zekai murmured, his voice steady despite the trauma.
Stab.
"I'm sorry."
Stab.
"You're entirely right."
Stab.
Every burning accusation, every agonizing wound to his flesh—he accepted the entire ledger without resistance.
Until—Aron suddenly stopped.
The tip of the jagged knife hovered a mere inch from Zekai's exposed throat, the metal trembling. The distorted illusion of Aron smiled a horrific, wide smile, the white teeth gleaming in the dark.
Then, it spoke the final line of the fate. "I wish I had never met you, Zekai."
Silence. Absolute, terrifying silence reclaimed the void.
I wish I never met you...
I wish I never met you...
The words echoed through the chambers of his mind. Again. And again. And again. Over and over, the sentence repeated itself, threatening to dissolve his sanity.
But as the echo reached its peak, something deep inside Zekai's core violently cracked.
It wasn't a fracture born of paralyzing sadness. It wasn't a breakdown caused by overbearing guilt. It was a sharp, sudden realization of absolute wrongness.
A single, pristine memory surfaced through the mud of the illusion.
He saw a Aron. A man who was bleeding from a hollow wound in his chest, his body breaking down, yet standing stubbornly against the towering mass of the King Knight.
A man who had entered the jaws of death again. And again. And again.
The real Aron had looked back at him through the blood and the ash, smiled a genuine smile, and said: "I'll stay."
The real Aron had looked at his own trembling hands and declared: "I'll protect you."
The real Aron had never once blamed him for the nightmare. The real Aron had actively chosen to stand by his side, even when he had every logical reason to run away.
Zekai slowly opened his eyes. The icy crimson light returned to his pupils with a vengeance.
✦ End of Chapter 21 — Even If I Break ✦