The air within the Colosseum carried the taste of iron and ash—old blood ground into sand and memories too heavy to bury. Otoku stepped forward, boots brushing across charred bone fragments, their edges dulled by time but never forgotten.
Above him, the masked congregation watched in unnerving silence. High Inquisitors—cloaked in silk and shadow—sat like specters in their jade masks, their veiled eyes hunting for cracks in his soul. For signs of void-touched rebellion.
Otoku stepped into the center, where judgment weighed heavier than gravity. Noctis moved silently at his heel, a quiet guardian of obsidian and breath.
The arena's last torch sputtered at the boundary of the silent circle. Opposite Otoku, the shadows coalesced—forming not a beast, but a boy. Familiar. Broken. Rynar. A face from a life that still haunted the edges of Otoku's mind.
Twisted by anguish, Rynar's eyes bore into him.
"You left me to die," he said, voice hoarse with betrayal. In his grip, a phantom blade carved the air like a scream unshed.
Otoku's fingers hovered near his dagger.
"I tried," he murmured. The weight of guilt wrapped around his chest like chains, cold and unrelenting. He took a breath—slow, deliberate—and met Rynar's gaze without flinching.
"But regret won't bring him back."
With a flick of his wrist, void-light shimmered, unraveling from his palm like liquid night. It spread beneath Rynar's feet, forming a silken weave of light and shadow. The illusion faltered, blade shattering into smoke and memory. A collective breath slipped from the veiled audience.
Otoku did not relax.
The ground pulsed.
Suddenly, stone melted, folding into a different place, a different torment. The scent of burning parchment rushed in as the Colosseum became the burning library—the very one Elara had lost herself in. Flames roared, alive and frenzied, licking the shelves as the heat brushed his skin with terrifying familiarity.
Elara stood in the fire, hair a crown of flame, eyes wide with sorrow.
"You coward," she said. Her voice cracked under the weight of betrayal. "You chose to hide."
The blaze danced in her tears. The memory cut deeper than any blade.
Otoku froze, heart twisting. Then—warmth.
Noctis pressed against his leg, purring softly, anchoring him.
"I never did," Otoku said. Quiet. Firm.
He raised the Codex, and from its pages, a single incantation spilled. The inferno bent, tamed by his will, swirling into embers before dying in a hush of ash. The light softened. Elara's figure dimmed.
Her lips trembled.
"Why?"
Otoku stepped forward, voice barely more than a breath.
"Because some truths," he whispered, "are forged in mercy, not flame."
She faded.
But the vision did not end.
The sand beneath him rippled, and then—silence. Deep and endless.
A final figure emerged in the half-light. A woman, kneeling, her form flickering like a memory refusing to vanish. Her presence brought no fear. Only ache.
Lirael.
His mother.
Blood-veins glowed faintly beneath her pale skin as she raised her hand. Her voice came like wind through hollow halls.
"My son," she said, eyes filled with knowing grief. "Break the loop."
Then the world shattered.
The arena walls crumbled into stardust and wind. Noctis growled low beside him as Otoku fell backward—out of memory, out of trial—onto damp, moonlit grass beyond the Colosseum's edge.
He lay there, chest rising, heart pounding not from fear, but clarity.
The past no longer chained him.
There was only the path forward.
And for the first time in countless loops… it was his to forge.