The silence of the cell was a weight pressing down on Kairo.
No crowd.
No chains biting into his flesh.
Only the drip of water and the steady thrum of his own heart, slow and stubborn.
His body was still broken, every muscle a knot of pain. Yet in that stillness, his mind roamed — through the echoes of the Threads, through Gloxkir's blood still staining his fists, through the gaze of Baalvrix burning into his back like a brand.
The iron door creaked again.
Kairo didn't need to look to know who it was.
Igron.
He stepped inside with the same deliberate quiet as before, his cloak dragging faintly across the stone. This time, he didn't lean against the wall. He sat opposite Kairo, his expression unreadable.
"You'll face them soon," Igron said, his voice low. "Ninety-nine demons. Not one after the other. All at once."
Kairo's crimson eyes opened, narrow slits of fire in the dark. He didn't reply. He didn't need to.
Igron continued, his tone sharp but not cruel.
"Strength won't be enough. Rage won't be enough. You'll drown before you kill ten. Unless…"
He leaned forward, his gaze cutting.
"Unless you master the Judgement Dance."
The words cut through the silence like steel.
Kairo's fingers twitched. He remembered the form — a technique half-buried in his body, half-awakened in moments of desperation. Movements that blurred into instinct, strikes that carried more than muscle, but rhythm. Flow. Precision.
He had never mastered it. It was always incomplete, always restrained.
"You'll need it," Igron said, his voice almost a whisper now. "Every step. Every breath. The Dance is the only way you'll weave through them and live."
Kairo's gaze lingered on him. His voice came rough, but steady.
"Why tell me this?"
For the first time, Igron smiled — faint, bitter, but not mocking.
"Because I've seen what happens to those who enter that pit without it."
He stood, pulling the door open, letting the torchlight frame his shadow. He didn't look back as he left, but his words hung heavy in the cell.
"Learn the Dance, Kairo. Or the ninety-nine will tear you apart."
The door shut. Darkness swallowed him again.
And in that silence, Kairo's fists clenched, his mind already moving through the forgotten rhythm — a dance meant for judgement, and for survival.