The single lamp in the cold interrogation room cast stark shadows across Aren's face. The tanium restraints immobilized his arms on the table; they were heavy and precise.
Across from him sat two interrogators: one young and visibly strained, the other older, his posture composed and unreadable.
"Did you kill your father and the guests?" Emily slammed her fist onto the table. "Your DNA was all over the residence."
It is on the floor. On the furniture. On the bodies."
Aren glanced at the crime scene photographs laid out before him. His expression barely shifted. A faint, bored smile touched his lips, as if he were listening to a poorly structured argument.
"Of course, my DNA is there," he said.
Emily's breath hitched—anticipation flickering across her face.
"The soldiers who apprehended me were not careful," Aren continued, his tone even. He tilted his head slightly, indicating his torso. "They pierced me repeatedly."
"With my blood contaminating the scene," he added, shrugging, "DNA presence seems inevitable."
"You little—"
"That's enough, Emily."
Howard's voice was calm but final. Emily stiffened, lips pressed tight, her glare never leaving Aren.
"He isn't wrong," Howard said. "The Aegis unit used excessive force. Their actions compromised the scene."
Aren inclined his head once, acknowledging the statement without interest.
"However," Howard continued, "physical evidence is not the foundation of this case. We have an eyewitness. Her testimony places you at the center of the crime."
"And if that witness is mistaken?" Aren asked.
Howard met his gaze without hesitation. "The witness's reliability is not in question."
A muscle in Aren's brow twitched.
"Madam Eli Bryne," Howard said.
The name settled heavily.
Aren remembered her clearly—bright orange hair, sharp blue eyes, presence sharpened by authority. Eli Bryne was an anomaly: a Saint whose power had not faded when the next generation awakened.
The Bryne lineage had followed a single rule for centuries. Power passed forward; it never lingered. Until her.
Her existence broke the doctrine. Her word carried a weight that eclipsed evidence.
So that's it, Aren thought. If she speaks, the verdict follows.
He said nothing. The interrogation that followed changed nothing. Each session felt procedural, performed for appearances. Eventually, silence earned him a return to confinement.
Later, he met the attorney assigned to him.
Ryan Eckart wore a tailored black suit, immaculate and expensive. His features were sharp, his expression professionally empty.
"Mr. Rayne," Ryan said, opening a thin file. "Your position is untenable. Evidence, testimony, and public sentiment have already decided this case. A confession is your only viable option."
"And if I confess," Aren asked, voice flat, "what do I gain?"
Ryan didn't hesitate. "Not freedom. Leniency. Possibly improved conditions. Even within IMFA."
Aren studied him. This man had not come to defend him. He had come to close the file.
"Evidence. Testimony. Pressure," Aren repeated quietly. "Yet everything hinges on a single witness."
"A witness whose status nullifies contradiction."
Aren leaned back, the restraints pulling tight. "She was unconscious when the killings began."
Ryan folded his hands on the table. "The court will not examine that detail."
"Then what will it examine?"
"Authority," Ryan replied. "And precedent. Her word outweighs your denial."
He gathered his files.
"You are not being tried to determine the truth, Mr. Rayne. You are being processed."
Ryan looked at him with an expression so chilling it felt as if he were trying to hammer a merciless reality straight into Aren's skull. Aren measured the weight of those words, then let a slow, dangerous smile pull at the corners of his mouth.
"Interesting," he said. "A state-assigned attorney declaring me guilty in our very first meeting… You're quite efficient, Mr. Eckart."
"With the evidence laid out so clearly, is there any need for a performance?" Ryan countered, his voice flat.
"Are you referring to evidence that points to me only through the lens of convenience?"
"If you're so innocent," Ryan shot back, leaning in, "then why did you dismantle the soldiers of Avalon and Aegis? Innocent people don't leave elite units in pieces."
The air between them crackled.
Mirroring Ryan's posture, Aren placed his cuffed arms on the table and leaned forward. Their eyes locked—a silent, fierce battle of nerves. Neither man blinked. Neither man yielded.
"You mean the hysterical woman who pointed a finger at me," Aren whispered, his tone dripping with mockery, "and the idiots who opened fire before asking a single question? I didn't start a fight; I survived an execution."
A heavy silence followed. Finally, Ryan exhaled and slumped back into his chair, the tension momentarily breaking.
"You have a real talent for making things difficult," the lawyer muttered.
In that moment, Aren reached a cold realization. Through the endless loop of interrogations and the scripted pressure to confess, he saw their true objective: they weren't looking for a trial. They were looking for an excuse to bury him in IMFA.
If he had escaped the mansion, he could have vanished into the shadows until the storm passed. But now, the walls were closing in.
IMFA was inevitable. Since awakening in this world, in this body, he had traded one cage for another. He hadn't even seen the sun properly, and already his future was being reduced to a blank void.
Yet, something didn't add up. Why the obsession with IMFA? There was always Bone City—a lawless exile for the society's outcasts.
Most criminals of his standing were tossed there to rot. But for him, the path had been paved toward the world's most high-security hellscape from the very beginning.
The suspicion sharpened in his mind like a blade.
"If you can't avoid the storm," he murmured to himself, "you walk straight into it."
Some time later, the cell door clanged open, the harsh sound jolting him from his thoughts. The guard gave a sharp signal.
Aren rose, loosening his stiff muscles as the tanium cuffs snapped around his wrists.
The moment the metal touched his skin, the flow of Aether through his veins was severed.