The courtroom was too quiet.
Not solemn—hollow. Like something sacred had already rotted through.
Judge Elias Ward sat behind the bench, spine straight, hands still. His robe draped over him like a shroud, shadowed folds pooling around the chair. The seal of justice above his head glared in golden relief—blindfolded woman, broken sword, empty scales.
He stared down at the man standing before him.
Jonas Crane.
Designer suit. Expensive watch. Smiling like he'd won a poker game.
No, not poker. Something worse.
The smile of someone who knows how to rig the table and burn the witnesses.
Elias's fingers brushed the edge of the case file. His thumb rested on the corner, where bloodstained evidence photos were tucked beneath a legal brief. He didn't open them. He didn't need to.
He had seen those eyes before.
Photographs of missing girls. The wreckage left behind.
And now here was Jonas—clean-shaven, charming, surrounded by crooked lawyers in silk ties.
"Mr. Crane," Elias said, voice cool as granite, "you stand accused of seventeen counts of criminal conspiracy, five counts of trafficking, and the orchestration of multiple violent crimes through third-party proxies."
Jonas tilted his head, almost amused.
"Due to procedural failures by law enforcement," Elias continued, "and multiple acts of evidence tampering by unknown parties, this court is compelled to—"
His jaw tightened.
Say it.
Say the words. Do it clean.
"—to dismiss all charges."
A ripple moved through the courtroom. Not gasps—something worse. Acceptance.
Reporters lowered their phones. The bailiff looked down. Someone in the back laughed.
Jonas exhaled dramatically. Patted his defense attorney on the shoulder.
"But let me be clear," Elias said, leaning forward slightly. His voice dropped into something quieter—sharper.
"You are walking out of here not because you are innocent. But because the system is too weak to contain what you are."
Jonas looked up at him. That smile cracked—just a little.
"This case is closed," Elias finished. "This court is adjourned."
He brought the gavel down.
CRACK.
And something shifted.
It was subtle. The air thinned, just for a moment. The overhead fluorescents flickered—not the weak flutter of bad wiring, but a violent, deliberate strobe. For one breathless heartbeat, the courtroom felt like a room underwater.
And then it was gone.
The sound of the gavel still echoed, but now it felt… louder than it should have. Permanent. Like it hadn't just closed a case, but opened something else.
Elias exhaled through his nose.
His right hand ached.
That night, Elias didn't go home.
He told himself it was about the file. The paperwork. The appeal.
But really, it was the noise. The phantom weight on his chest. The invisible burn crawling across his palm since he slammed that gavel.
He descended the courthouse stairs alone, long after everyone had left. The main lights were off. Security cameras turned to static as he passed. Not a single guard in sight.
Down two levels, through a locked hallway, past the records room, into the sub-basement.
It was colder here.
Not the chill of concrete—but the cold of something old. Ancient. Air that hadn't moved in decades. The walls leaked rust and silence. Rows of tall, iron lockers stretched into darkness. Each one stamped with a case number.
He stopped in front of Locker 108.
The one he wasn't supposed to know existed.
The one tied to Jonas Crane's original case.
The one that should've been destroyed years ago.
It was unlocked.
Inside, buried under mold-stained documents and shattered evidence bags, something pulsed.
A small, warped badge—bent in half, scorched black, with runes carved into the back like scars. It looked like his old courtroom badge, but melted into something else. Something organic. Something alive.
His hand reached for it.
He didn't want to touch it.
His fingers moved anyway.
When his skin made contact, the pain hit him like a gunshot.
White-hot agony seared through his palm, carving up his arm in jagged veins of fire. He dropped the badge with a scream that echoed off concrete.
The lights exploded.
Total darkness swallowed the basement.
And then… not silence.
A sound crawled in from nowhere—like wings rustling through dry parchment. A whisper pressed against his spine.
"Do you accept the Mandate?"
Elias staggered backward, heart slamming into his ribs. His skin crawled. The pain in his hand burned brighter than any fire. He clutched it, gasping.
"You are Judge by day."
"Now… be what comes after."
From the dark came footsteps—not loud, not rushed. Calm. Measured.
A figure emerged between the lockers.
It wore judicial robes, but they floated unnaturally—untouched by gravity. The face was a void of burning brands, no eyes, no mouth, only gold-stitched lines where speech should be. Smoke leaked from its sleeves. It carried something long, wrapped in parchment and soaked in blood.
The thing extended it toward Elias.
The cloth unraveled mid-air.
Inside: a sword, black and gleaming, shaped like a balanced scale—its hilt flanked by two blades. One radiant, one darker than death.
The moment Elias touched it, the pain vanished.
Something warm spread through his chest. Not comfort—authority. A voice that wasn't his, whispering in his bones.
"The first night is yours."
"Go find the guilty."