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Chapter 2 - The Betrayal

Rain hammered the courtyard stones in relentless sheets, drumming against shattered tiles and ancient flagstones slick with moss. Every gust of wind carried the storm's chill through the broken arches, tugging at Jin's soaked cloak as he emerged from the Vault.

He staggered, one hand pressed flat against the iron door, as though the cold surface could anchor him to reality. The echo of the Sovereign Circuit still thrummed in his bones—an electric pulse that refused to fade. His heart felt too large for his chest, beating in a rhythm he couldn't control.

[Integration: 15%.]

Even the silent voice in his skull felt like an intrusion.

Lightning cracked overhead, illuminating the courtyard in a strobe of white. For an instant, Jin glimpsed the ruin his ancestors had left behind: cracked pillars half-swallowed by weeds, walls eroded to jagged teeth, the long-dead banners fluttering in tatters against the storm.

He took a slow, ragged breath. Each inhale seemed to sharpen the world around him. He could taste the iron tang of lightning in the air, feel the damp grit of stone beneath his boots. Even the patterns of falling rain had an unnatural clarity—like the Circuit had flayed away some barrier between perception and reality.

He was no longer the same man who had stepped into the Vault.

He wasn't sure he ever could be again.

Move.

The instinct rose through the haze. He had to reach the old passage beneath the west wing, where no one would dare follow him. There, hidden behind collapsed masonry, he could finish the integration in safety.

His foot had barely touched the threshold of the courtyard when a flicker of movement stopped him cold.

A tall figure waited in the rain's periphery, motionless beneath the skeletal archway. The lanterns on either side had guttered out hours ago, but lightning revealed the outline in stark relief—a silhouette he knew as intimately as his own reflection.

Renji.

Even without seeing the face, he felt the same leaden weight sink into his gut.

His brother stepped into the light, rain sluicing from the dark folds of his robe. Renji's hair clung to his high brow, the perfect sculpted features set in a mask of disdain.

"You always were predictable," Renji said softly. His voice cut through the rain like a blade. "The bastard child, scrabbling for scraps of power. Father said you would never amount to anything. Yet here you are, proving him almost wrong."

Jin's pulse thundered. Lightning arced silently behind Renji's shoulders, backlighting him in silver.

"You followed me," Jin managed. His voice felt distant, as though he were hearing it through water.

"I didn't have to," Renji replied. "You announced yourself the moment the Vault woke. The wards flared across half the estate."

Jin swallowed, fighting to keep his expression neutral. The rain hid the tremor in his limbs, but he couldn't mask the raw edge in his breathing.

He shifted his weight, subtle, testing the new awareness coiled in his muscles. The Circuit pulsed in time with his heart, a soft chorus of whispered signals he didn't yet understand.

Renji watched him with that same detached scrutiny.

"Do you have any idea what you've unleashed?" he asked, almost conversational. "The Sovereign Circuit was sealed for a reason. It is a relic of madness—of excess. Our ancestors burned entire provinces to fuel their ambitions."

"And yet here you are," Jin said hoarsely, "ready to take it for yourself."

A humorless smile ghosted across Renji's mouth. "Better that it belongs to me than to you."

The wind lifted the edges of Renji's cloak. Jin glimpsed the slender wooden haft strapped to his back—the family blade, Heaven's Seam. Its lacquered scabbard gleamed with sigils that had tasted the blood of a hundred rivals.

Jin had trained alongside that weapon. He had bled under it.

He knew exactly how fast Renji could draw.

"You will surrender the Circuit," Renji said, voice lowering. "Or I will cut it from your corpse."

Jin shifted again, angling his shoulders. Every instinct screamed at him to run. But a deeper voice—the one seeded by the Circuit—rose to meet it, cold and unflinching.

No more running.

The rain seemed to slow, droplets lingering in the air like suspended glass. He felt the storm's energy pooling around them—an invisible ocean of potential.

"I won't yield," Jin said quietly.

Renji's smile vanished. "Then die."

In one motion, he drew Heaven's Seam. Steel whispered free of lacquered wood, and the courtyard erupted in motion.

Renji moved like falling lightning—one instant five paces away, the next almost upon him. Jin's body reacted without conscious thought. His left hand swept up, palm out. The Circuit's fire ignited in his veins, racing through his arm and out his fingertips.

A bolt of lightning leapt from his hand—pure, searing light that collided with Renji's blade in a burst of blue sparks.

The shockwave drove them apart.

Jin staggered, the smell of ozone filling his lungs. The impact had numbed his arm to the elbow. Across the courtyard, Renji landed in a crouch, the tip of his sword digging a furrow in the wet stone. Smoke curled from the scorched edges of his sleeve.

For an instant, his eyes widened—pure, genuine shock.

"You…you've already bonded with it."

Jin felt the Circuit pulse in agreement.

[Integration: 19%.]

Renji's expression hardened into something colder than contempt.

"I see." He rose to his full height. "Then there is no point in restraint."

He lifted his free hand, fingers curling in a complex mudra. The air contracted, collapsing inward around his palm. Jin recognized the technique—Silken Bind, an Arashi signature art. Invisible threads of force lashed through the air, seeking flesh.

He dove sideways. One filament grazed his shoulder, slicing fabric and skin in a single cold stroke. Pain flared, but the Circuit surged to meet it—flooding the wound with a crackling energy that sealed torn vessels in an instant.

He landed in a crouch, breath ragged.

Renji advanced in measured steps. Heaven's Seam glimmered with a soft blue aura.

"You're an animal wearing a crown," he said, voice low. "And you will be put down."

Jin's hands closed into fists. The rain had become part of him now—every droplet an extension of his awareness. He could feel the potential in each charged particle, the latent promise of violence.

I will not kneel.

The thought rose, clear as lightning.

He drew that promise into his core, letting it build until it felt as though his ribs might shatter. Then he unleashed it.

Lightning erupted from every pore in a searing corona. The courtyard vanished in a sphere of incandescent white.

Renji raised his blade, but too late. The discharge struck him square in the chest, lifting him off his feet. He slammed into a pillar with bone-jarring force and crumpled to the ground.

Smoke rose from his robes.

Jin staggered forward, shoulders heaving. He felt raw, hollowed out. But he was still standing.

Renji lay motionless. For a moment, Jin thought he'd killed him. But then his brother drew a ragged, wheezing breath.

Jin exhaled shakily.

"You will crawl back to them," he said, voice hoarse. "Tell them what I've done."

Renji did not respond.

"So be it."

He turned, feeling the Circuit's pulse guiding each step. As he disappeare

d into the rain-lashed darkness, he knew his life was already measured in borrowed hours.

But he would use every one of them.

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