A surge of energy shot up the bond between them like lightning. Julian's knees nearly buckled. He inhaled sharply. The deficit inside him, the hunger Nightmare-Eyes had always shared with him, the spiritual drought he'd been working against since taking on the weight of the children filled.
Filled more. Then overflowed. His aura flared, silver and violet threads weaving around his body like solar winds, a warm laugh of pleasure as he felt the heat and the fulfillment of a need his spirit desperately pleaded.
The actions came before the word itself. The duel had already ended, but the chamber didn't know it yet. Not until the energy subsided, draining gently from the Ka of Julian into the trembling bodies of the three rescued boys, one in the arena, one in the clubroom, the last in the corridors. Their eyes fluttered open, color returning to their faces, their hands unclenching as if a weight far older than the duel had been lifted.
Nightmare-Eyes, having fed, softened its posture. Shifting from predator to guardian, its aura warming into a deep, resonant glow.
Julian steadied himself, exhaled, and looked down at the defeated, flickering remnant of Jinzo's LP meter from a projection of his own duel disk.
He spoke one last time, voice calm, almost gentle. "Direct attack."
Nightmare-Eyes Restrict pulsed once (Jinzo LP 3700 -> 0).
The duel ended. And in the quiet that followed, Julian stood taller, brighter, more complete than he had since the day he arrived in this world.
Jaden stepped forward, hands behind his head, smirking.
"Well…" he said lightly. "That's one way to finish a duel."
Alexis let out a long breath. "That was… that was unreal."
Syrus nodded numbly. "Julian… you… you're kinda terrifying."
Julian looked over his shoulder with a small, soft smile. Only a hint of mischief.
"Only to the bad guys."
Nightmare-Eyes flickered beside him for a brief moment, once again as his Ka and not a projection amalgamation. Calmer now, back to its fatherly aura. The children hesitated for a second, but eventually got near it. The illusory creature didn't have the same way to show affection, but his power extended among them as a soft and warm blanket, like a steady embrace.
Their protector, their anchor. A source of warmth and trust.
Nightmare-Eyes' whisper echoed at the back of his mind.
"Well done."
He rose slowly, eyes lifting toward the path out of the broken chamber. The duel was over, but another event had just begun.
The silence after the duel wasn't gentle.
It pressed down on the arena like the backwash of a wave that had tried to swallow too much and was now dragging itself back out to sea. The floor was cracked in long spiderweb patterns. Panels in the walls hung loose, some sparking weakly. The overhead lights flickered, one after another, until they resigned themselves to a dim, uneven glow.
The energy overdrive was receding. He could feel it, like the throttle of some invisible engine being eased back. But where there'd been hollow ache and raw strain before, now there was weight. Substance. His soul felt… inhabited, in a way he never felt, even before his transmigration.
Deep inside, far beyond the reach of nerves or bone, his Ka coiled around something heavy and struggling. The essence of Jinzo: shredded, broken, but not instantly gone, slid slowly through that inner darkness, dragged into a metaphysical stomach that wasn't meant for anything human.
Nightmare-Eyes was still there, in that place, not as a towering guardian in a duel but as a long, patient shape encircling its prey. The sensation was slow and deliberate, the mental image of a great snake that had already swallowed something too large and was now settling in the grass to digest.
Weeks. Months. However long it took, Jinzo would dissolve in there. Piece by piece.
Julian's body shivered once as another tiny thread of power seeped from that digestion into his own circuits. Not enough to knock him off balance, just enough to remind him that, for the first time, his spiritual "baseline" was no longer starvation.
He could actually afford to train, now. To grow. His own soul could actually start building muscle instead of constantly cannibalizing itself just to stand up straight.
"Julian!"
The chorus of voices yanked him back to eye level.
"A-Are you okay? That was… you were glowing… and that thing just…" Syrus practically skidded across the broken tiles to reach him, hands hovering like he couldn't decide whether to grab Julian or not.
"I'm fine," Julian said, and this time when he said it, it was true.
His voice was steady. His heartbeat calm. The aftershock was there, but it was clean, like the fatigue after a hard workout instead of the tremor of a system pushed beyond its limit. Even the pain from the shock couldn't be felt.
Jaden sauntered closer with that lazy gait of his, hands behind his head, eyes bright.
"Man…" he said, grinning. "If that's what you look like when you're done 'struggling to keep up,' I kinda wanna see what happens when you're actually warmed up. Up for a duel later?"
"Please don't encourage him." Alexis muttered distraught, though the tightness in her voice betrayed how hard she'd been holding her breath.
Mindy and Jasmine lingered a little behind, still clutching each other, eyes ricocheting between the damaged arena and Julian. Bastion, slightly dusted in powdered stone, was already scanning the cracks in the floor with narrowed eyes, lips moving faintly as he tried to quantify what had just happened in terms his brain could tolerate.
The children were the last to move.
They'd watched everything.
They'd seen Nightmare-Eyes in full war aspect—teeth bared, shadows long, aura dense enough to prickle at the edges of consciousness. The shock of it lingered in their small bodies, in the way their shoulders hunched and fingers twisted in the fabric of their oversized academy jackets.
But as soon as Julian relaxed, they did too.
Watapon came first. The tiny pink puffball just materialized midair with a soft pop, perfectly spherical and visibly shaking. Its glossy dark eyes were already brimming, lower lip wobbling in microscopic tremors. It didn't even hesitate: it launched itself straight into Julian's chest like a cotton-candy cannonball and buried its face in his shirt, exploding into full-volume sobs.
"Easy, easy buddy." Julian murmured, one hand coming up automatically to cradle the little spirit against him.
Petit Dragon came next, wobbling out of the air above with lime-green scales quivering, wings flapping too fast and not very effectively. It tried to do its usual playful dive-bomb… then caught sight of the shattered arena and aborted the maneuver halfway, banking clumsily to land on Julian's shoulder instead. It pressed close to his neck, tail coiled tight, golden eyes wide and unsettled.
Happy Lover fluttered into view just behind them, small cherubic body and fluffy white wings trembling as it hovered over Watapon. It reached out with tiny hands, gently patting the crying puffball's back, its own big eyes shining with sympathetic tears. Petit Angel and Happy Angel peeked out behind it, forming a little chorus of worried faces.
Mokey Mokey wobbled into existence on the ground near Julian's feet, white pillow-like body flopping once and then settling. It just stared for a moment—at the cracks, at the scorched marks, at where Jinzo had stood—and then toppled backward in a slow, stunned fall, little stick-arms raised helplessly toward the sky.
Winged Egg of New Life floated lower than usual, tiny wings beating unsteadily. It pressed against Julian's leg with a soft piii that quivered.
Behind half-fallen chunks of debris, Dark Plant's leaf-edges curled nervously, shy eyes peering out from a tangle of purple-green vine. Haniwa hopped into view with its blank clay face, head tilting just slightly like a punctuation mark to the chaos. Skull Servant materialized near Bastion's foot, flailing its bony arms in some panicked, exaggerated gesture before immediately tripping over a bit of broken railing and face-planting.
"Wh-whoa!" Syrus yelped, jumping as Baby Dragon skittered between his ankles with frantic little hops, wings fluttering in agitation.
It was a whole flock of spirits. Chibi-like, ridiculous, adorable, and yet none of them looked funny right now. They weren't performing. They weren't acting.
They were frightened children. Not human children, but children nonetheless.
They swarmed around Julian, orbiting him in a trembling constellation. Even the bolder ones like Petit Dragon didn't stray far from his shadow.
Julian gathered Watapon a little higher against his chest, letting its sobs soak into his shirt, and rested his other hand gently atop Happy Lover's head for a moment.
"I'm here, guys." he said quietly. "It's over."
He meant it for them. He meant it for himself.
He felt Nightmare-Eyes at the very back of his awareness, no longer a looming titan over the duel
"See?" Jaden's voice came from a few steps away, warm in that easy way of his. "Told you guys. He's fine."
"Define 'fine,'" Bastion muttered, watching as Haniwa's neutral little clay face peered up at Julian like a quiet question mark.
Alexis was still staring. Not at the spirits, but at Julian. Not with fear. Not exactly.
With… recalibration. Like someone updating a mental file in real time.
Syrus rubbed the back of his neck as Petit Dragon shifted from Julian's shoulder to perch on his head, gripping his hair a bit too tightly.
"C-could we maybe, um, relocate all of this emotional processing to a room that isn't statistically likely to collapse?" he asked, voice trembling.
Julian glanced up at the cracked ceiling. Another dusting of grit flaked down around a hanging light fixture.
"Fair point." he said.
He shifted Watapon slightly, and the little spirit clung harder, making a sound somewhere between a squeak and a sob.
"You're coming too." Julian murmured. "All of you."
Happy Lover fluttered closer. Mokey Mokey rolled itself upright again with a dopey, determined wobble. Winged Egg drifted nearer, bumping his leg like a nervous chick.
They began to move as a cluster, threading carefully between the worst of the damage, the Duel Spirits keeping close enough that Julian almost felt like he was wading through a cloud of trembling color.
They were halfway to the main ramp when Alexis froze.
"Wait." she said sharply. "Torrey."
Everything in Julian tightened just enough to remind him he was still in a human body.
He'd been so focused on the immediate aftermath: the spirits, the overdrive ebbing, the group… he hadn't actually swept the full arena again.
He turned. There, near one of the deeper impact sites, lay a crumpled blue form. Torrey.
His Obelisk jacket was scorched along one sleeve, the fabric discolored in jagged, branching patterns that led up his arm and across his chest. His hair stuck up in strange directions, some strands singed. His fingers twitched faintly against the broken tile, not with purposeful movement but with the residual spasms of muscles that had carried too much current for too long.
Julian passed Watapon back into Jaden's arms.
"Hold him," he said softly.
"Gotcha." Jaden replied, adjusting the puffball as it latched onto his shirt instead, sniffling.
Julian crossed the distance to Torrey quickly but carefully, fragments of glass and stone crunching under his shoes. Happy Lover and Petit Dragon trailed after him, the latter doing nervous loops in the air.
He knelt beside Torrey, bracing one knee against the cracked floor, and hovered a hand just above the boy's chest. The rise and fall was shallow but present. Up close, Julian could feel, not with fingers, but with that other sense, the ragged edge of Torrey's aura. It was like looking at a filament bulb still glowing faintly after the power's been cut: burned, but not broken.
"Come on." Julian murmured. "You did the hard part already. Just keep breathing."
He didn't touch the burns. He didn't need to. The sympathetic ache in his own limbs, even if in a lesser degree, answered enough of his questions. Torrey had stood against Jinzo with a body that was never meant to. Not for long. Not at that voltage.
"Is he going to be okay?" Jasmine asked quietly, hugging herself.
Julian didn't look up, but his voice was steady.
"He's alive." he said. "And whatever this thing took from him, we already pushed most of it back. His muscles are going to hate him, but… yeah. He has a chance to get back to normal."
"Eventually." Bastion added, crouching nearby and adjusting his glasses. "There will almost certainly be residual nerve sensitivity, maybe some involuntary spasms. But the fact that he survived that level of shock at all is… frankly remarkable."
"Julian." Alexis said. "We need to call someone. He needs a stretcher, not just encouragement."
"I know, but I don't know if he's in the state to be carried. We'll probably need a stretcher." Julian replied.
He straightened, looking toward the exit. Alexis had already turned and started running. She was almost at the top of the stairwell when the sound of fast-approaching footsteps met her halfway.
Two instructors led the group. A sharp-eyed woman with dark hair pinned back in a neat twist, a stack of files clutched tight against her chest, and a tall man with a slender build and a rolled-up campus map tucked under one arm. Both wore faculty blazers over their shirts. Behind them trailed a nurse assistant pushing a collapsible stretcher and two security officers.
"Miss Rhodes." the woman said, recognizing her instantly. "We received word about a system malfunction in this arena. Are there injured students?"
"Yes." Alexis said, stepping aside and gesturing down the stairs. "One in the arena, unconscious, Torrey. Grant and Fuller weren't here when we arrived, but they're missing from the Obelisk dorm. As they're in the same club, we think…"
"They've been located already." the man cut in gently. "Grant in one of the club rooms, Fuller in a corridor. Both were unconscious but stable enough to transport. They're in the infirmary now."
Alexis blinked, relief flickering across her face, then nodded.
"Good." she said. "There's still Torrey."
"Lead the way," the nurse said briskly.
The group descended into the ruined arena, the nurse veering directly toward Torrey with her kit while the two instructors took in the damage with widening eyes.
Ms. Whitaker, the English teacher. Julian placed the name now, looking as the woman glanced at the fractured floor, the dangling light fixtures, the charred marks along the walls.
"This doesn't look like a simple power surge." she murmured.
Mr. Tanaka's gaze went to the ceiling, then to the blank monitors mounted high on one side of the arena. One of them still displayed a frozen frame of the arena. Probably would show Jinzo, if, of course, he wasn't ethereal and unable to grasp on a camera lens..
"Recording stopped partway through." he said. "No audiovisual data from the moment the systems spiked."
The nurse was already kneeling beside Torrey, checking his pulse, pupils, breathing. She snapped instructions to one of the security officers to stabilize his head as they rolled him onto the stretcher.
"Respiration and heartbeat are present." she said, tone all business. "He's responsive to pain but not conscious. Better to move him now."
Watapon sobbed louder at the sight, muffling its cries into Jaden's chest. Happy Lover pressed its small hands together like it was praying. Dark Plant's vines recoiled further behind a broken barrier; only its glowing eyes peeked out.
Ms. Whitaker's gaze finally landed on Julian and the others.
"All of you." she said, voice firm but not harsh. "What exactly did you see?"
Julian let the question hang in the air for a heartbeat.
He could feel Jaden slightly behind him and to the side, quiet but steady. Alexis, Bastion, Syrus, Mindy, Jasmine… all lined up in varying degrees of shaken.
"Heard the lights blow." Julian said at last. "Got curious about what happened, came to the noise. The systems went crazy. By the time we made it down here, he was already on the floor."
That was true. It just didn't include everything. Jaden nodded, supporting the narrative without missing a beat.
"Yeah." he said. "There was this huge flicker, dust, alarms, the usual 'this place is about to explode' vibe. We ran in, saw the arena fried and Torrey out cold. Never saw the other two."
Bastion raised a hand, more out of habit than need.
"If the overload initiated in this arena," he added, "and propagated backward through the lines, it could absolutely result in localized blackouts in nearby rooms and corridors."
Ms. Whitaker's eyes flicked between them, weighing. Between their words and the very un-electrical sensations still clinging to the air like old smoke. Finally, she exhaled.
"We'll have the engineers tear this system apart." she said. "Inside out. Top to bottom. Until they tell me exactly what failed and why."
She turned slightly, voice carrying across the arena.
"For now, all of you remain available for questioning. Chancellor Sheppard will want to speak with you once the injured are stabilized."
Mr. Tanaka gave them a small nod, his gaze softer even as his voice stayed professional.
"You did the right thing by coming in after him." he said. "Whatever happened here, you didn't run away."
Julian inclined his head faintly.
They watched as Torrey was lifted onto the stretcher, straps tightened gently around him, and then carried up the stairs. Fuller and Grant were already gone somewhere above, wrapped in a narrative of "found unconscious in strange places during an electrical incident."
They would wake up exhausted, empty, not fully understanding why.
Julian hoped that ignorance would be kinder than the truth.
The spirits parted to let the stretcher pass, a little halo of shaken Duel Monsters looking on as the humans did their work. Once the group of adults disappeared out of sight, the arena fell quiet again.
Ms. Whitaker gestured toward the exit.
"Come on." she said. "We shouldn't linger in a place with compromised infrastructure. Chancellor Sheppard is waiting."
The administrative office they were led into wasn't grand.
It was mid-sized, lined with bookshelves and framed documents. A large window looked out over the ocean; the sky beyond was sliding slowly toward late afternoon, streaked with gold and soft blues.
Chancellor Sheppard sat behind the desk, hands folded, expression more worn than stern.
He didn't look like a man about to reprimand anyone.
He looked like someone who had just had the ground shift under his feet and was trying to find stable footing again.
"Sit down, please." he said.
They did. Julian took the center (as he was the one that came with the cover story and the one that dueled Jinzo), Jaden just off his right shoulder, Alexis on his left, Syrus, Bastion, Mindy, and Jasmine filling the remaining chairs and seats on a sofa nearby.
Sheppard took a breath, his gaze sweeping across the group.
"I've just returned from the infirmary;" he said. "Grant and Fuller woke up a few minutes ago. They're disoriented and extremely fatigued, but the doctors see no lasting physical damage. Torrey is still unconscious but stable. The medical staff is optimistic with careful monitoring and follow-up."
Some of the tension in Alexis' shoulders drained away at that.
"That's… good." she said softly.
"It is." Sheppard agreed. "But the rest of this situation is… far from simple."
He tapped a finger against the surface of his desk.
"The arena's internal systems show signs of a severe overload." he continued. "We have technicians going over every line and junction as we speak. The recording equipment cut out midway through a routine feed. After that, there is nothing. No image. No sound. Just a blackout of data."
His eyes moved from Bastion to Julian to Jaden.
"The only narrative we have is yours."
Julian held his gaze without flinching.
"The systems must have failed." Julian said. "Lights, electricity, everything. By the time we got there, Torrey was already down. I just heard from Grant and Fuller from Alexis, that knew there were together.."
"Grant confirms waking up in the club room." Sheppard replied. "Fuller remembers collapsing in a corridor. Neither of them remember anything between that and opening their eyes in the infirmary."
He let that statement settle.
"That kind of amnesia…" he said. "Can be caused by trauma. Or overexertion. Or any number of things that fall under normal medical explanations."
"But you don't believe this was just 'normal,' do you, sir?" Bastion asked quietly.
Sheppard's mouth tightened.
"I believe…" he said slowly. "That I don't have enough information to say anything definitive. And until I do, what I choose to believe matters far less than what I can safely say."
His gaze softened a fraction.
"You are not in trouble." he added. "Let me be perfectly clear about that. By every account, you acted quickly and kept a bad situation from becoming much worse. You helped your fellow students. That is… exactly what we hope for in this academy."
He tapped a key on the console embedded into his desk. A soft chime sounded from each of their DuelPads as the device in question pinged.
"At the same time…" he went on. "As I already told Mr. Ashford, I am responsible not only for your safety as individuals, but for the stability of this institution. Incidents like this… attract attention. Uncomfortable questions. Sensational stories from people who don't understand what we do here, and don't care to."
He gestured toward their DuelPads.
"Five thousand Duel Points." he said. "Each of you. Credited now. Officially, it's a commendation for quick thinking and bravery in assisting your fellow students during a facility malfunction."
Syrus fumbled for his DuelPad, eyes widening.
"Five thousand?"
Bastion's brows rose. "That's… quite a sum."
"For most of you, that's several months' allowance." Sheppard said. "I am aware. Consider it my way of expressing gratitude in a language this school… understands."
The room fell quiet. Julian watched him. Sheppard didn't look like a man trying to buy silence with a bribe. He looked like someone juggling too many truths at once and needing at least one to behave.
"I am not ordering you never to speak of this." the Chancellor said. "I wouldn't insult you by pretending I could control every word you say in the dorms." His tone gained a faint, weary humor. "Teenagers will talk. I am not naïve."
His expression turned serious again.
"But I am asking that you be… discreet. That you do not embellish. That you do not turn this into a ghost story for laughs or a horror tale to scare the first-years. We will investigate the arena thoroughly. We will ensure it is safe, or we will close it. The boys who were hurt will receive whatever medical care they need."
He spread his hands slightly. "What I want to avoid is panic. Headlines. Reporters camped at the docks asking if my academy is electrocuting children in experimental dueling rings. We are an elite institution with a reputation that can be damaged by rumor far more easily than by fact."
Jaden scratched his cheek.
"So… stick to what we know." he summarized. "The power went crazy, the arena broke, three guys got hurt, we helped."
"Yes." Sheppard said. "Exactly that. No more, no less."
Alexis traded a look with Julian, something unspoken passing between them.
"And if…" she began slowly. "We find out later that it wasn't just… power?"
Sheppard was quiet for a beat.
"Then…" he said, "I hope you'll come to me with what you learn. And I hope I'll be wise enough to listen."
It wasn't a dismissal. It wasn't full acceptance, either. It was the most honest answer he could give from behind that desk.
"Until then, you're free to return to your dorms. Rest. Take this seriously, but don't let it swallow you. There will be classes tomorrow. Life here doesn't stop." he said.
When the Chancellor shifted the conversation toward public optics, something in his tone changed. Subtly, so subtly that anyone else might have missed it. But Julian felt it like a breeze cutting in the opposite direction of the wind.
Sheppard wasn't just worried. He was cautious. Measured, too measured.
His phrasing… Choose your words carefully; stick to what you know; avoid unnecessary panic. Felt rehearsed, but not in a bureaucratic way. More like someone following rules he wasn't allowed to explain.
Julian's eyes narrowed just slightly. Did Sheppard… know?
Not what really happened, not the anatomy of Nightmare-Eyes, or the texture of spiritual hunger, or the slow digestion of a rogue Duel Monster's essence inside one's Ka. No one on the faculty would use that language.
But something. Something older. Something administrative. Something buried under layers of "this school has seen strange things before" and "we have protocols for certain… incidents."
Julian replayed a single sentence in his mind: "Then…I hope you'll come to me with what you learn. And I hope I'll be wise enough to listen."
People who didn't believe in the supernatural didn't phrase things like that.
They said "If there's another malfunction." Or "If another student gets hurt." Or "If the equipment fails again."
Sheppard had chosen this. 'Something like this.' A category, not an accident. A phenomenon.
Julian glanced sideways at the others. Alexis was staring at the floor, but her brow was furrowed: calculating, unsettled. The kind of expression someone wears when a puzzle piece fits somewhere it shouldn't.
Bastion's eyes were darting in micro-movements, replaying Sheppard's statements against the known physics of electrical systems, and finding too many inconsistencies to swallow cleanly.
Even Jaden, who never overthought anything, had been… quiet.
Not worried or confused, just watchful.
Julian looked back toward the closed door, the muffled sound of papers shifting inside the office.
Either Sheppard was only now brushing against the edges of a world he didn't want to acknowledge… Or he already knew more than he was allowed to say.
Both possibilities were dangerous in different ways. Julian folded that thought into the quiet of his mind as they stood to leave the administration building.
"Thank you, sir." Julian said.
Sheppard's gaze lingered on him for half a second longer than the others.
"This school has seen its share of unusual students." he said quietly. "Some of them end up being exactly what it needed."
He didn't wait for a reply. He simply nodded once and turned his attention to the reports already piling on his desk.
They stepped out into the hallway, the door closing softly behind them.
For a few moments, no one said anything.
The corridor felt oddly empty after the layered pressures of the arena and the office. Outside, the sky was edging toward dusk, the air cooler, the sea breeze threading through the campus.
They walked. Past classrooms, past lounge areas, down a set of stairs and out into one of the garden paths that overlooked the ocean.
The spirits followed at a distance now, shadows in the corners of their perception. Watapon had finally cried itself out and now rode drowsily in the crook of Julian's arm. Petit Dragon zipped lazy circles over the path, wings no longer buzzing with panic, just restlessness.
Syrus toyed with his DuelPad.
"Five thousand DP." he said again, still sounding like he didn't quite believe it. "I mean, I'm not complaining, it's almost half a year of money for us Slifers but…"
"But it feels like hush money." Jasmine said bluntly.
Mindy elbowed her, but didn't disagree.
"It feels like a thank-you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and somehow making it work out." Bastion said diplomatically. "And like a very strong hint that we shouldn't start spreading the word that Duel Spirits are frying people in the basements."
Syrus flinched. "C-can you not say that part out loud?"
"Relax." Jaden said. "No one's around to hear it."
They reached a bend in the path where the trees opened enough to give them a clear view of the water. The sky there was painted in streaks of orange and pink, the sun halfway down, light glittering off the distant waves.
There, Alexis stopped walking.
"Julian."
Her voice wasn't sharp. It wasn't angry. It was steady.
The others halted behind her, forming a loose semicircle on the path: Bastion with hands clasped behind his back, Syrus fidgeting with the edge of his jacket, Mindy and Jasmine close together, Jaden slightly behind Julian's shoulder, present, observant.
Alexis folded her arms. Not defensively, but to hold herself upright.
"We need an explanation." she said.
No accusation. No hostility. Just the plain, carved truth of someone who had watched the world bend without being told why.
Julian turned fully toward them.
The wind slid past, tugging lightly at his coat. Watapon, curled sleepily in the crook of his arm, let out a soft hiccup of a sigh. Petit Dragon landed on a nearby railing, tail twitching.
The request hit him with a quiet force. An explanation. The words settled under his ribs like a weight he'd been expecting but not ready to shoulder. How much could he tell them? How much should he?
There were things about the Reject Well, about Nightmare-Eyes, about the spiritual lattice of this island that even speaking aloud felt dangerous, things he shouldn't know. Fragile truths balanced on fault lines.
Telling them everything risked pulling them into a world they hadn't chosen. Telling them nothing risked losing their trust. And Atticus… Atticus was the point where those two worlds touched, the place where Julian's burden and Alexis' unanswered grief converged.
He looked at each of them, remembered the fear in their faces, the determination in their postures, the readiness to fight against the unknown.
He knew what this island held. Even without the divergence caused by his presence, the academy was a magnet for danger: parasites of darkness, spirits twisted by isolation, entities sealed beneath the school with seals that cracked far too easily. In the anime, the first semester alone nearly killed them all.
He looked at his friends once more. At Alexis' steady demand for truth, Bastion's analytical tension, Syrus' fragile courage, Jaden's quiet readiness… and wondered which path condemned them more: staying ignorant, or knowing just enough to walk straight into the fire with their eyes open.
If they understood the supernatural undercurrent of the island, would they be safer? More prepared? Or would knowledge itself become a blade with two edges, cutting them as they tried to wield it?
Julian obviously didn't have the luxury of ignorance anymore. He'd lost that the moment he stepped into this world. But dragging the others into that same clarity, into the same danger, even if in a partial manner compared to his own, felt like a choice he wasn't sure he had the right to make. Yet if he didn't start now, when would he? And how many more Torrey-like tragedies would they face because he hesitated?
Little by little, he felt the edges of his hesitation dissolve. They deserved honesty. At least about some things, the ones he could already tell. If he didn't start now, he never would.
Julian's voice, when it came, was quiet.
"You're right."
He let the words settle. He didn't look away. "I owe you an explanation. A real one."
Alexis inhaled once, slow and shallow. Julian continued, his tone measured, like someone choosing keys to unlock a door no one could close again.
"There's something I haven't told you. Something that I've been holding back recently until I could be sure how to tell you."
He glanced briefly at Jaden. Not for permission, but acknowledgment. Jaden offered the faintest nod. Julian looked back at Alexis.
"I told you." he said, "that I had a lead."
Her brows knit. Even Jaden was astonished, not understanding his words.
"A lead about… what?"
Julian held her gaze with quiet gravity. "About your brother."
Alexis froze. The air shifted, thickened, tightened around her.
"My…" Her voice broke. She steadied it. "Julian, I… I was asking about this. About what happened today." Her throat bobbed. Her eyes shone not with tears, but with the beginning of realization that she didn't yet understand. "What does Atticus have to do with—with this?"
Julian drew a slow breath. The kind one takes before stepping across a threshold.
His next word came soft, but it echoed through all of them. Syrus stiffened, Bastion's breath caught, Alexis went still. Mindy took a half-step forward without realizing it, shoulders tense with protective instinct, while Jasmine's eyes narrowed, her mind already turning over implications she didn't yet have language for.
"Everything."