SAI SHINU
The throne room trembled like it was alive. Walls bent inward, pulsing with a rhythm that wasn't stone but a heartbeat. My chest tightened as the mark of the moon flickered faintly, as if it too resonated with this place. I hated that feeling—like something inside me knew this false god more than I ever could.
The creature rose from its throne, pieces of light and shadow cracking off its form, reforming like broken glass glued together by darkness. Its voice scraped against my skull.
"You crawl into my domain, broken children chasing a power that does not belong to you. Do you think yourselves worthy?"
I forced my jaw tight, not letting the fear slip onto my face. I'd lived worse illusions than this, lived my father's death again, my mother's sacrifice. A monster sitting on a throne wasn't going to crush me.
"Enough words," I said, stepping forward. My voice sounded steadier than I felt. "If you're a god, then show it."
The thing smiled, jagged teeth like shards of mirrors. And then it moved.
It didn't attack with claws or blades but with reality itself. The ground beneath me rippled and shattered, and suddenly—Yuri's voice.
"Sai! Please… don't leave me!"
I snapped my head toward the sound. She stood there, in front of me, her purple hair a waterfall around her shoulders, eyes full of terror. She reached for me—yet I knew. Deep down, I knew. This wasn't her.
I grit my teeth, chest burning. You'll not use her against me.
Still, when her hand touched my arm, the warmth was real. Too real. For a breath, my resolve cracked, my heart begging me to give in to the illusion. To believe she was safe here with me.
Then—steel clashed behind me. Jiro roared, swinging his blade through a phantom that looked like his younger self. Yosuke's metal sword scraped sparks against the ground as he drove it into the chest of a shadowy brother.
I pulled back, shaking my head. "You're not Yuri." I whispered it like a prayer. And with all the weight I could summon, I drove my blade through the illusion's chest.
Her face crumbled into smoke.
The False God laughed. "So you can kill even those you love. Good… you are closer to me than you know."
Rage ripped through me. My mark burned, the moon-shard across my chest glowing bright, almost searing. I dashed forward, faster than before, the world around me blurring. Each step rang out like thunder.
"Don't you dare compare me to you!" I shouted.
The thing raised its arm and the room shattered into fragments. I wasn't in the throne room anymore—I was back in the moment. My father, gun pressed to his chest, his last look at me frozen in time. The shot echoed, again and again, replaying like a cruel melody.
"No…" I clutched my head, shaking, the vision forcing me to my knees. My throat burned. "I lived this already. I—"
And then a hand gripped my shoulder. Warm. Steady. Yosuke.
"Stand up, Sai. Don't let him take this from you."
The vision cracked like glass struck by a hammer. My father dissolved, the blood-stained floor evaporating back into the throne room. I rose with a roar, swinging my blade. My strike cleaved through one of the god's shadowed limbs, scattering shards of darkness into the air.
It screamed, the sound both triumphant and agonized. "You resist… but the throne belongs to me!"
"No," I said, my chest mark glowing brighter than ever before, pulsing with something I didn't understand but couldn't deny. "The throne never belonged to you. It belongs to no one."
Together, we struck.
Jiro's blade carved deep across its torso. Yosuke's forged sword split its head in half, molten metal dripping down its form. And I—driven by every loss, every betrayal, every promise I'd made—drove my blade straight through its chest.
The throne shattered.
The god screamed one last time, and its body splintered into dust, vanishing with the throne itself. The whole room dissolved like smoke pulled away by wind. For a heartbeat, there was nothing—only silence.
And then the world reformed.
No throne. No god. No illusions. Just a small, square room.
In the center was a single table. On it lay a stone, faintly glowing, pulsing as though alive. The godglyph.
My chest mark flickered weakly as I stared at it, realizing with a heavy breath… all of this had been for that single stone.