The enemy's direct line to her heart.
The thought was a blade of ice, severing the last thread of hope Aiko possessed. She fell back from the binding, not physically, but psychically, scrambling away from the golden cord as if it were a venomous snake.
Her eyes flew open. The chamber was the same. The two women were the same. But the air was thick with a new, unspeakable truth.
"Aiko? Child, what did you see?" Izanami's voice was sharp with concern.
Aiko couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe. She looked at Zara, at the dormant parasite the Reaper carried, a single drop of poison. Then she thought of Kael.
He wasn't just carrying a drop. He was the wellspring. The source. The corruption was woven into the fabric of his soul.
"It's him," Aiko whispered, the words tasting like ash. "It wasn't me. It wasn't my broadcast."
She looked at Zara, her eyes filled with a terrible, hollow apology. "It wasn't your tracker either."
"The binding," Aiko choked out, pressing a hand to her chest, to the scar that was now a mark of betrayal. "The connection itself. It's tapped. The Architect has a hook in it."
"But it's more than that," she continued, her voice breaking. "It's not just listening. The corruption… it's in him. It's a part of him. A seed of darkness, buried deep in his soul."
Silence. A profound, horrified silence that was heavier than any judgment from the Council.
Zara's face, which had been a mask of grim acceptance about her own contamination, now crumbled into disbelief. "No," the Reaper breathed. "Not Kael. Impossible." "He is the most disciplined, honorable warrior I have ever known. He would rather burn than be compromised."
"He doesn't know," Aiko said, the words tearing at her throat. "It's dormant. Sleeping. He has no idea it's there." "He's fighting for a Heaven that's already fallen, and he doesn't even know the enemy is already inside his own soul."
The sheer, tragic irony of it was a masterpiece of cruelty. Kael, the loyal soldier, the paragon of order, was a Trojan horse. And his love for her was the rope that would pull him through the gates.
"This changes everything," Zara said, her voice a low, dangerous hum. She was no longer a victim. She was a captain of a fallen legion, assessing a catastrophic security breach. "If he is compromised, then the binding is a weapon pointed directly at your head. Every piece of information we gain, every plan we make… the Architect could be hearing it through him."
"We have to cut it," Zara declared, her voice hard as steel. "Now." "We have to sever the binding."
"No!" The word was ripped from Aiko, a raw, primal sound of defiance. The thought of cutting that cord, of severing her only connection to him, was a physical agony. It was the only proof he was still alive.
"It is the only logical move," Zara argued, her tactical mind overriding any sentiment. "He is a security risk. The connection is a liability we cannot afford."
"He is a person!" Aiko screamed, tears of rage blurring her vision. "He is out there, fighting and dying for us, and you want to cut him off? Leave him to die alone in the dark?"
"He may already be lost to us," Zara said, her voice cold, but her eyes held a flicker of pain. She was mourning a comrade who was not yet dead.
"He is not lost!" Aiko shot back. She closed her eyes, focusing on the tainted, beautiful, golden thread. She could feel him. His exhaustion. His pain. And beneath it all, his fierce, unwavering love for her. It was still there. Pure. Untainted by the darkness that slept within him.
But as she focused, she felt something else. A flicker of confusion from his side of the connection. A cold spot in his memory.
A thought, not her own, but his, echoed through the binding, faint and distorted. "…the 7th Legion… why don't I remember the order?…""…hours… sometimes days… where I can't remember what I did… where I was…"
Aiko's eyes snapped open, wide with a new horror. "He has gaps," she whispered. "In his memory."
Zara and Izanami looked at her.
"He's losing time," Aiko explained, her voice trembling. "He knows something is wrong, but he can't figure out what. He thinks it's battle fatigue. The stress of the war." "But it's not. It's the corruption. It's making him forget."
The hook from the outline landed. I don't remember. It wasn't a confession. It was a symptom, broadcast across the dimensions.
"It's using his blind spots," Izanami said, her ancient voice filled with a grim understanding. "The Architect is not controlling him directly. That would be too crude. Kael's will is too strong. He would fight it."
"Instead, it waits for him to be exhausted. Distracted. Lost in his own guilt," she continued. "And then it puts him to sleep. It uses his body as a puppet to gather information, to sow chaos. And when it is done, it erases the memory, leaving only a vague sense of confusion and fatigue."
The insidious genius of it was staggering. The Architect wasn't fighting Kael's strength. It was exploiting his greatest weakness: his capacity for guilt. His belief that he was never doing enough.
"So he's not a traitor," Aiko breathed, a wave of fierce, protective relief washing over her. "He's a prisoner in his own body."
"He is a compromised asset," Zara corrected, her voice hard, but the edge of condemnation was gone. "And he is a danger to himself and to us." "The binding remains a threat. Aiko, we have to consider…"
"No," Aiko said again, but this time her voice was not hysterical. It was cold, hard, and absolute. "You are a soldier, Zara. You think in terms of assets and liabilities." "But I am a Guardian. I think in terms of balance and healing."
She looked at her grandmother. "You said the Grimoire speaks of arts to cloak the binding. To mask the signal."
Izanami nodded slowly. "It does. But the ritual is perilous. It requires a level of control you do not yet possess. And it requires a direct, unfiltered connection to the binding. You would be exposing yourself completely to the tapped line."
"I don't care," Aiko said. "We have to try." "We are not cutting him off. We are not abandoning him." "We are going to save him."
It was an insane declaration. A girl who could barely control her own power, planning a rescue mission for a Reaper's soul from across the dimensions.
Zara looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "Save him? How? We can't even get to him!"
"We don't have to," Aiko said, the plan forming in her mind, born of desperation and a love that refused to be logical. "If the binding is a conduit, it works both ways." "I'm not just a beacon. I'm a receiver. And I'm a sender."
She looked at Zara, her eyes blazing with a wild, impossible idea. "You said I need to learn finesse. Control. To become the eye of the storm." "So let's do it. Let's use the connection. Let's go on the offensive."
"What are you talking about?" Zara asked, bewildered.
"I'm going to enter his dreams," Aiko declared.
The statement was so audacious, so utterly insane, that even Zara was speechless for a moment.
"You're going to what?" the Reaper finally managed.
"The Architect is using his dreams, his subconscious, to manipulate him," Aiko explained, the plan becoming clearer, more solid. "That's its battlefield. So that's where I'm going to fight it." "I will enter his mind through the binding. I will find the corruption. And I will help him fight it from the inside."
"That is the most reckless, suicidal plan I have ever heard," Zara stated flatly. "You have no training in psychic warfare. You would be a lamb walking into a wolf's den. The Architect would devour your consciousness."
"Not if I'm not alone," Aiko said, turning her gaze to her grandmother. "You will be my anchor, Izanami. You will hold the wards. You will guide me through the ritual from the Grimoire."
Then she looked at Zara. "And you… you will be my shield." "You will stand guard. In the physical world, and in my mind. You will be my bodyguard against whatever psychic horrors the Architect throws at me."
She was asking them to stake everything on her. On her untamed power. On her unstable connection. On her love.
Zara stared at her, a war waging in her silver eyes. The soldier saw the risk. The flawed logic. The insane odds. But the captain, the one who had watched her legion die, saw something else. A chance. A desperate, impossible, glorious chance to fight back.
"Fine," Zara said with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire war. "Fine. We'll try your insane, emotional, human plan." Her lips curved into a grim, wolfish smile. "But if you get us all killed, I will find a way to haunt you in whatever afterlife comes next."
Aiko returned the smile. It was the first genuine smile she had felt in what seemed like a lifetime. It was the smile of a girl who had finally found her purpose. Not as a victim. Not as a weapon. But as a warrior.
"Get the book, Grandma," Aiko said, her voice ringing with a newfound power. "Class is in session."
The Architect wanted a war for her soul. She was about to give it one. And she was not going to fight it on her own turf. She was going to take the fight to him.