Strade was talking about reform. About compassion. About reaching troubled children before the system gave up on them.
He used fancy words like "hope" and "restoration" with eyes that looked handcrafted to shine on camera.
But Hidesuke couldn't hear the words anymore.
Because something inside him was cracking.
That face.
That damn face.
Suddenly the room dimmed in Hidesuke's vision, the colors bleeding to black. Memory peeled itself open like burnt pages curled at the edges.
Darkness pressed in. The air went stale. He felt his ribs shudder, remembering the raw taste of blood in his mouth.
The glitch from earlier—the visual mask that had once obscured his attacker's identity—shattered in slow motion.
It was him.
Strade Paleon.
The same man who was now smiling into millions of living rooms, answering questions about justice and future generations—had once stood over him in an underground lab, lips twisted in a sadistic smirk and fists dripping with blood.
With his blood.
Each strike had rung out like the cracking of frozen stone.
The tears had come despite himself. The screams had been swallowed when he realized there was no one left to hear them.
And now this predator was being celebrated on television…
Something shifted in Hidesuke's chest, a tectonic groan beneath his ribs.
He trembled.
Rage flickered, slow but growing.
And then he heard it, clear as a bell splitting fog.
[ ! ] User Synchronization Complete — Designation: Final Judge
[ ! ] Commence Observer Protocol
[ ! ] This Body Now Bears Witness To Sin
His spiraling emotions faltered for a second. 'Wait, it's that voice again.'
That mechanical voice had returned, the same neutral yet chilling cadence he'd spent hours thinking about.
Now it echoed with purpose.
He felt sick as more memories surged forward, this time with clarity sharper than any blade.
An underground laboratory.
Concrete walls slick with condensation. Flickering lights that cast fractured shadows on dozens of narrow beds.
Half-dressed children lay strapped down. Some laid completely still. Others twitched faintly, blinking with empty eyes.
Files downloaded into his mind in flashes. Terminal logs labeled with terms like neural override, obedience protocol, integration threshold.
He remembered breaking into the system. He remembered trying to warn someone.
And then—
Strade's bone-chilling voice, echoing in the corridor:
"So you think you're a hero now because you sniffed out my secret?"
Hidesuke recalled the next moment. Strade had stepped from the shadows, cold and smiling. His fists glowed with gold-tinted kinetic force.
The first punch shattered his jaw.
The second collapsed his ribs.
Each blow delivered under the influence of Hypnoskin: an ability of Strade that dulled resistance and turned fear into paralysis.
Strade's voice echoed with venom. "You believe the people want truth?! Who will ever believe a background-tier stray over the golden boy of tomorrow?! Answer me, Black Thorn!"
The torture had been merciless. Malicious.
And when it was done—when Hidesuke could barely lift a finger—the last thing he remembered was the cold metal under his cheek and the sound of children weeping in sterile silence.
Then the memory shifted again.
He saw the experiments.
Children with limbs severed clean. Organs exposed. Faces blank with broken trust.
Strade had argued—blood on his gloves—that physical trauma enhanced obedience.
Hidesuke watched D-class youths reduced to husks, their lifeless eyes glazed over. A child stared at him through cracked lips, whispering a name he could never forget.
Now, here in this room, that monster smiled on screen.
Hidesuke breathed deeply, too slowly. Rage and memory tangled like vines in his chest.
No one in the room noticed. The patients only cheered Strade's studio smile as he waved goodbye. They believed in him. They cheered him on.
From across the room, a voice gushed.
"Ahhhh, that's Strade for you!"
Another girl whispered, "Did you see his outfit update? I want the new one. My merch is arriving next week!"
A third patient leaned toward the screen, her voice dreamy. "He's so good-looking~ And his smile?? I literally love him so much."
Hidesuke's lip curled, disbelief roiling in his chest.
He felt like vomiting.
He watched their admiration. Their loyalty. Their blind belief. He wanted to scream. And that said a lot because he hadn't felt like this in the longest time.
How dare they cheer him on.
How dare the world make monsters into saints and saints into irrelevant footnotes.
He had seen justice like this before. The so-called "guardians of justice" from his past life.
The fucked up police.
He hadn't been rich enough to hire private investigators. Those were luxuries reserved for families with clout, people with names that carried weight.
He had relied on the system—on badges and sworn duty—because that was all he could afford.
He would never forget their faces.
The way some of them barely looked up when he walked into the station.
The way others smiled too easily, as if his grief made them uncomfortable and their discomfort was more pressing than his pain.
They cracked jokes, sometimes. Small ones. About "running away" or "taking the money and vanishing."
Maybe they thought they were helping lighten the mood. Maybe they thought that if they acted casual, it would somehow undo the way his voice kept cracking with each follow-up.
But they didn't help.
They never helped.
Every visit, every unanswered question, every shrugged shoulder carved a deeper scar into his trust.
All the belief he had poured into their hands, all the hope he had painstakingly preserved through sleepless nights and prayer-tight fists—it had amounted to nothing.
They never avenged his family.
They never cared like he did.
And now, looking at Strade's smiling face on a widescreen display, worshipped by millions, adored without question…
It was all too clear.
Trash transcended worlds.
No matter the realm—modern Earth or digital Arc Zenith—corruption wore polished shoes and a polished smile.
Real justice was flawed because the ones who claimed to protect it walked without consequence.
They had no leash. No reminder that they too could bleed. That they too could be judged.
What justice needed… was a voice.
Not one that whispered at a podium or posed for photo ops.
But one that could rise above applause. One that wouldn't take breaks depending on the occasion. One that struck like a bell carved from fury and lit with fire.
A voice that would not be silenced.
The world couldn't keep choosing wrong. Couldn't keep calling wolves shepherds. Couldn't keep giving monsters masks and calling it salvation.
If only he could send them all to hell...
Somehow. Someway.
His fists clenched hard enough that his nails bit into his palm.
But still, he didn't move.
And as the FVS file quietly ticked to 100%, a faint crimson pulse shimmered across the corner of his vision.
No one in the room noticed.
But ੮Һ૯ע did.
Far above the reach of flesh and system alike, the Eclipse Tribunal awakened.
Their voices murmured—not to him—but because of him. Through ruins of silence, in the folds of sin's echo, they watched.
The First Voice mourned:
"So long has this world clapped for wolves…
and called it ceremony.
So long have we waited for one who remembers what pain is meant to feel like."
The Second Voice spoke plainly:
"He is ideal. Guilt has shaped him, but not drowned him.
Loss has hollowed him, but not dulled him.
He adapts faster than predicted. Even in the face of horror, he catalogues."
The Third Voice accused:
"They will name him traitor. They will call his fire rebellion.
But every flame he carries... we lit first.
Let him speak our sentence."
The FVS panel glowed once, a slow pulse like the deep breath before the plunge.
And then, silence.
Hidesuke sat frozen, seething beneath his stillness. His eyes locked on the image of Strade, still smiling, still adored.
But beneath that silence, something had already begun to stir.
And when it rose, the world would be forced to listen. Because the Final Judge had opened his eyes.
Woe unto all sinners parading as heroes. Soon, they would lie in their beds of thorns.