The Moral Constructs moved with inhuman precision, their forms shifting between guilt and virtue as they attacked. One was made entirely of black Marks, concentrated sin given shape. Another glowed golden with weaponized Mercy. A third flickered between both, unstable and dangerous.
Jiko dodged the first strike purely on instinct, his new conscience screaming warnings about the danger. The guilt-construct's touch would force shame into him, while the virtue-construct would inflict weaponized compassion. Either would be devastating.
"Don't let them touch you!" Syla called, engaging two constructs with her own strange powers. Her shame-feeding ability seemed to confuse them, making them hesitate.
But there were too many. At least a dozen constructs emerging from the Engine's defenses, each one representing a different aspect of moral weight. Jiko counted variations: Pride, Envy, Mercy, Justice, Cruelty, Compassion. Every emotion Dr. Seo had tried to engineer into humanity, now weaponized and hunting him.
A Mercy-construct lunged, golden light trailing from its hands. Jiko remembered what he'd done to Brother Elias, how he'd reversed the Saint's virtue. Could he do it again?
He reached out, not physically but with his conscience. Felt the weaponized Mercy in the construct, sensed its structure. And pulled.
The Mercy reversed, flowing into him instead of being forced out of the construct. But this time, with his complete conscience, the sensation was different. The Mercy didn't just disappear into his void. It integrated, became part of his moral framework.
And he understood it. Felt what Mercy was supposed to be: genuine compassion, desire to ease suffering, willingness to forgive. Not the weaponized corruption the Choir used, but actual virtue.
The construct collapsed, drained of its defining characteristic. It dissolved into crystalline dust.
"How did you do that?" Syla demanded, destroying another construct with concentrated shame.
"I don't know. I just felt it and took it." Jiko focused on the guilt-construct approaching him. Could he do the same with sin?
He reached out again, this time pulling at the concentrated shame. It resisted more than virtue had, as if guilt didn't want to leave its vessel. But Jiko's conscience gave him leverage. He could feel guilt now, understand it, and that understanding let him manipulate it.
The guilt flowed into him, and his conscience immediately processed it. Murder, betrayal, cruelty—sins from the construct's composition. But filtered through his analytical framework, he could examine them without being crushed. See them as weight to be understood rather than truth to be accepted.
The construct fell apart.
"You're absorbing them," Syla said, realization dawning. "Not just rejecting or redirecting. Actually integrating their moral weight into your conscience."
"Is that bad?" Jiko asked, dodging another attack.
"I don't know. But it's definitely unprecedented." She laughed, delighted despite the danger. "You're not just conscious of conscience. You're learning to manipulate morality itself!"
They fought together, an unlikely partnership. Syla used her shame-feeding to destabilize constructs while Jiko absorbed their moral weight. The battle was brutal but efficient. Within minutes, they'd destroyed or absorbed all twelve constructs.
Silence fell in the Engine chamber. Jiko stood among the crystalline remains, breathing hard, his conscience heavy with newly integrated moral weight. He'd absorbed aspects of a dozen different virtues and sins, all compressed into his analytical framework.
It should have crushed him. That much moral weight concentrated so quickly should have crystallized him or driven him mad. But instead, he just felt... full. Heavy but functional. His conscious conscience letting him process weight that would destroy normal humans.
"Magnificent," Syla said quietly. "You just integrated more moral weight in ten minutes than most people experience in a lifetime, and you're still standing."
"It hurts," Jiko admitted. The weight was crushing, pressing down on his chest and mind. But it was bearable. "But I can function."
"For now. But hollow one, this is temporary. You keep absorbing weight like this, eventually even your unique structure will collapse." Syla moved toward the Engine. "Which brings us to why we're here. What do you want to do with it?"
Jiko approached the Empathy Engine carefully. Up close, he could see Dr. Seo's brilliance in its design. It was elegant, efficient, built to do exactly what she'd intended: make empathy universal and mandatory.
It just hadn't worked the way she'd hoped.
"Can it be shut down?" he asked.
"Probably. But doing so might end the Severance entirely. Return the world to how it was before, when memories and morality were abstract." Syla touched the machine gently. "Everything you've experienced, everything you've become, would be invalidated. Moral weight would become metaphor again instead of reality."
"Would that be so bad?"
"For some, liberation. For others, catastrophe. The entire Dominion economy is built on moral weight being tangible. Shut down the Engine, and the Choir Sanctum loses its power base. The Iron Testimony collapses. The merchant guilds fail. Chaos, at minimum. Societal collapse, more likely."
Jiko thought about the deserters, freed from guilt through his intervention. About the prisoners at the Penance Halls, given life through redistributed weight. About everyone who'd suffered under the current system.
"But people would stop suffering from weaponized morality," he said.
"And start suffering from all the things that made pre-Severance life terrible. War, exploitation, cruelty without consequence." Syla sat on the chamber floor. "There's no good option, hollow one. The world was broken before the Severance and broken differently after it. Choosing which type of broken is better is impossible."
"Then what do I do?"
"Whatever you want. Study the Engine, understand it, make an informed choice. Or leave it running and walk away. Or destroy it and let chaos reign." Syla looked at him with her too-large eyes. "You're the only person in eighty years who's reached this chamber with the capacity to interact with the Engine meaningfully. The choice is yours alone."
Jiko placed his hand on the Engine's surface. It was warm, humming with constant activity. And the moment he touched it, information flooded into his mind.
Dr. Seo's final program. Her intentions, her hopes, her desperate belief that forcing empathy would save humanity. The Engine was doing exactly what she'd designed it to do: processing human emotional and moral data, trying to create universal compassion.
But it had been corrupted. Not by malice, but by humanity itself. People had found ways to weaponize the Engine's effects, to exploit the tangibility of morality for power and control. The Choir Sanctum using virtue as currency. The Iron Testimony turning guilt into weapons. The merchant guilds treating memories and morality as commodities.
The Engine wasn't evil. It was just a tool being misused.
"I understand it now," Jiko said quietly. "Dr. Seo created something beautiful. But humanity broke it by being human. We took her gift and made it a weapon."
"That's what humans do," Syla said. "Break beautiful things."
"Then maybe we need to fix it. Not destroy the Engine, but fix what we've done to its effects." Jiko looked at Syla. "What if there was a way to preserve the Severance's benefits—extractable memories, visible morality—but remove the weaponization? Make it impossible to exploit moral weight for power?"
"That would require reprogramming the Engine. Changing its fundamental operations." Syla stood. "And I don't think anyone alive understands it well enough to do that safely."
"No. But I might be able to learn." Jiko felt his conscience and analytical mind working together, his unique structure giving him insights neither pure emotion nor pure logic could provide. "My conscious conscience lets me see morality as both weight and data. I can feel guilt but analyze it. Experience virtue but question it. That's exactly what's needed to understand the Engine."
"You want to reprogram reality itself?" Syla laughed. "Ambitious. Insane. Probably impossible. I love it."
"Will you help?"
"Why would I? I'm an Echo of shame. The current system feeds me beautifully. Why would I want it changed?"
"Because you're lonely," Jiko said, his empathy reading her clearly now. "Because the system that created you also isolated you. Because you want connection but the weaponized morality makes genuine connection impossible. Fix the system, and maybe you could have what you wanted from me. Not possession, but partnership."
Syla stared at him, her cracked face showing something like surprise. "You're reading me. Seeing through the manipulation to what I actually want."
"My conscience makes me see others' suffering. Even when they're trying to hide it." Jiko extended his hand. "Help me fix this. Not for me, but for everyone who's suffered under weaponized morality. Including you."
For a long moment, Syla didn't move. Then, slowly, she took his hand.
"You're going to regret this," she said. "Trying to change the world always ends badly. But I suppose I've been alive for eighty years. Might as well try something new."
They spent hours studying the Engine, Jiko's analytical mind mapping its processes while his conscience interpreted the moral implications. Syla provided context about how Echoes experienced the Severance's effects, filling in gaps in his understanding.
The Engine was staggeringly complex. It processed billions of emotional and moral data points every second, trying to create the universal empathy Dr. Seo had envisioned. But its programming had fundamental flaws. It made morality tangible without teaching people how to use that tangibility responsibly. It assumed humans would naturally choose compassion if they could feel others' pain.
Dr. Seo had been brilliant but naive.
"Can it be fixed?" Syla asked.
"Maybe. But it would take time. Months, possibly years of careful reprogramming. And it would require understanding I don't have yet." Jiko stepped back from the Engine. "I need to learn more. About pre-Severance programming, about moral philosophy, about how the current system actually functions beyond my limited experience."
"So we leave the Engine running?"
"For now. But we take information with us. Study it. Plan carefully." Jiko looked at the machine that had broken the world. "Dr. Seo rushed. She activated the Engine without fully understanding the consequences. I won't make that mistake."
"Wise. Boring, but wise." Syla gestured at the chamber's exit. "Your friends are waiting. We should return before they panic."
They made their way back through the Threshold, Syla guiding him through the reality-layers more easily now that he'd proven himself. Emerging on the other side, they found the Cartographer, Ven, and Marik waiting anxiously in the stable zone.
"Jiko!" Ven ran to him, embracing him fiercely. "You were gone for hours. We thought—"
"I'm fine. Better than fine." He hugged her back, feeling the warmth of connection through his conscience. "I reached the Engine. Understood it. And I know what I need to do."
The Cartographer approached carefully. "Which is?"
"Fix it. Not destroy it, but reprogram it to remove the exploitation. Make morality tangible without making it weaponizable." Jiko looked at his mentor. "But I'll need help. Your knowledge of the Severance's mechanics, Ven's understanding of information networks, Marik's experience with the carrier system. Everyone working together."
"That's impossible," Marik said. "You're talking about changing the fundamental rules of reality."
"Yes. But Dr. Seo did it once with the Empathy Engine. We can do it again with enough time and understanding." Jiko felt his conscience weighing the decision, his analytical mind calculating odds. Both agreed it was worth attempting. "It won't be easy. It might not work. But trying to fix the system is better than accepting its flaws."
"Or destroying it and hoping for the best," the Cartographer added. He was studying Jiko with that calculating expression. "You've changed. Again. Not just the conscience, but how you carry yourself. More certain."
"I absorbed moral weight from the Engine's constructs. Integrated virtue and sin into my conscience directly. It gave me insights into how morality actually works, not just theories." Jiko felt the weight pressing down but manageable. "And it taught me that weight isn't truth. It's just weight. Heavy but bearable if you understand it correctly."
"That's the conscious conscience talking," Syla said. "The ability to feel morality but see it as phenomenon rather than law. It's your greatest strength."
"It's also what makes you dangerous," a new voice said.
Everyone spun. Standing at the edge of the stable zone was a man Jiko had never seen but somehow recognized from descriptions and reputation. Covered in thousands of black Marks layered so thick they formed patterns. Armor made from guilt itself. Eyes that had seen too much suffering.
General Korrin. Leader of the Iron Testimony. The man who'd built an empire on weaponized shame.
"How did you find us?" the Cartographer demanded.
"I've been tracking you since the Penance Halls. Followed at a distance, watching, learning." Korrin approached slowly, his guilt-armor clinking with each step. "And when you entered the Wound, I followed. Because I needed to see what the blank would do when he reached the Engine."
"Why?" Jiko asked.
"Because you're the most dangerous thing in the Dominions." Korrin stopped a few paces away. "You're not just blank anymore. You're something new. Someone who can feel moral weight but isn't controlled by it. Who can manipulate guilt and virtue like tools. Who could, theoretically, dismantle the entire system we've built."
"Is that a threat?" Marik asked, hand moving to his weapon.
"It's an observation." Korrin looked at Jiko. "I've built the Iron Testimony on the principle that guilt matters. That moral weight should define us, shape us, control us. But you've proven that's wrong. Guilt is just weight. Heavy but not sacred. Important but not absolute."
"You're saying I've invalidated your entire philosophy," Jiko said.
"Yes. And I'm fascinated by it." Korrin smiled, and it was genuine. "I've spent twenty years believing guilt was divine punishment for sin. That bearing weight was penance, that suffering made us righteous. But watching you, seeing how you process morality... I think I've been wrong."
The admission hung in the air. A general who'd built an empire on guilt admitting his foundational belief might be flawed.
"What do you want?" the Cartographer asked suspiciously.
"To talk. To learn. To understand what the blank has become." Korrin sat down on the crystallized ground, removing his helmet. Beneath it, his face was younger than expected, maybe forty, with eyes that carried ancient weariness. "I won't harm you. I just want to talk to someone who experiences morality differently than I do. Maybe learn something that makes my burden lighter."
Jiko felt his empathy responding to Korrin's suffering. The general was drowning in guilt, thousands of Marks accumulated over decades of enforcing brutal order. He'd believed the weight was necessary, was righteous. But now he questioned everything.
"You're in pain," Jiko said.
"Constantly. For twenty years, I've carried the sins of my soldiers to spare them the burden. Thousands of Marks, all pressing down on me every moment." Korrin looked at his blackened hands. "I thought suffering was proof of righteousness. That bearing weight made me worthy. But you don't suffer, and you're more moral than I am."
"I do suffer now," Jiko corrected. "I have a complete conscience. I feel guilt for my choices. But I also see that guilt as weight to be analyzed, not absolute truth. It informs my decisions without controlling them."
"How? How do you maintain that separation?"
"Practice. And unique structure. I was blank for twenty-seven years, learned to analyze morality objectively. Then I grew a conscience on top of that analysis. So now I feel and think simultaneously. It's not easy, but it's functional."
Korrin was quiet for a long time. Then: "Could you teach me?"
Everyone stared.
"You want to learn from him?" Ven asked, incredulous. "You're the head of the Iron Testimony. The organization hunting him."
"I am. And I'm tired." Korrin looked at each of them. "I'm tired of carrying weight. Tired of believing suffering is virtue. Tired of enforcing a system I'm beginning to think is fundamentally broken." He turned to Jiko. "You've found a way to bear moral weight without being crushed. I want to learn that. Even if it means questioning everything I've built."
Jiko felt his conscience weighing the decision. Korrin was dangerous, powerful, potentially treacherous. But he was also genuine in his suffering and his desire to change.
More importantly, having the Iron Testimony's general as an ally would make fixing the system vastly easier.
"I'll teach you," Jiko said. "But not here. We need to leave the Wound, regroup, plan properly. Then I'll show you how conscious conscience works."
"Thank you." Korrin stood and bowed, a gesture of respect that seemed to cost him pride. "I'll follow your lead."
Syla laughed. "Well, this is unexpected. The hollow one collecting broken generals now? What's next, the Ascendant Voice joining your little revolution?"
"One step at a time," Jiko said. He felt the weight of new responsibility settling onto his conscience. Teaching Korrin. Fixing the Engine. Changing the world.
It was terrifying. And exactly what he'd chosen.
They left the Wound together, a strange alliance of former enemies and unlikely friends. Behind them, the Empathy Engine continued its work, processing morality and waiting for the day Jiko would return to reprogram it.
The revolution hadn't started yet. But its pieces were assembling.
And Jiko, the blank who'd grown a conscience, stood at its center. Ready or not.