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CHAPTER 16 — THE SHADOW WEARS HIS COAT
Darkness snapped like broken glass.
Adrian gasped, stumbling backward as the last fragments of the illusion dissolved around him, melting into thin strands of violet mist that swirled upward and vanished. His lungs burned. His vision pulsed. For a moment he couldn't tell what was real—where the illusion ended and where the ruined basement began.
But the cold concrete beneath his feet was real.
The scent of dust and scorched metal was real.
And the ten portals behind him—each radiating its own color, each humming like a living throat—were painfully, overwhelmingly real.
Adriana steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were wide, terrified yet sharp, glowing faintly with the crimson light of her alternate self's aura.
"Adrian… what did you see?" she whispered.
He opened his mouth.
And froze.
Because he didn't know.
The illusion was too deep. Too vivid. Too cruel.
Images flickered at the edges of his mind—Queen Malraeth smiling with someone else's face… the world burning… alternate versions of himself screaming in collapsing timelines… and a silhouette wearing Rin Kaito's coat.
The last image stuck like barbed wire.
Adrian swallowed hard. "It wasn't real. Most of it. But something—someone—was."
At his words, the alternate twins stepped closer. Their footsteps echoed through the vast abandoned chamber.
Blue Adrian, calm and calculating with cerulean streaks in his hair, scanned the room.
"Temporal residue," he muttered. "Whoever cast the illusion wasn't trying to fool you. They were trying to study you."
Crimson Adriana scoffed, tossing her blade over her shoulder. "Study him? Why bother? Just kill him."
"Because," Blue Adrian said quietly, "our enemy wants something else."
Adrian clenched his fists. He knew exactly what.
Him.
His soul.
His connection to Rin Kaito—once friend, now ghost, now… something his mind couldn't define.
A cold wind slithered across the basement floor. The lights flickered. Dust drifted from the ceiling in soft, trembling rain.
Adriana tensed. "Something's here. Something big."
Crimson Adriana lifted a hand. The ten portals behind them dimmed. Their humming fell to a whisper.
Blue Adrian stepped forward. His voice was steady, but there was a tightness around his eyes.
"Adrian. Before anything else approaches… you need to hear this."
The real Adrian turned to him.
"You said the silhouette wore Rin's coat. The same coat from your world?"
Adrian nodded stiffly.
Blue Adrian's jaw tightened.
"We've seen him too."
The words punched air from Adrian's chest.
"What?"
Crimson Adriana sheathed her blade with a snap. "He shows up in our timelines like some kind of cosmic parasite. A shadow that walks like him. Talks like him. But it's not Rin. Not anymore."
"Then who the hell is it?" Adrian demanded.
All ten alternate twins exchanged a look. A heavy one. A look that carried fear.
Blue Adrian answered first:
"We call him The Silhouette."
Crimson Adriana crossed her arms. "He hunts versions of Adrian across dimensions. Only Adrians. Never Adrianas."
Another alternate Adriana added, "He appears when an Adrian reaches a breaking point. A moment of collapse. He feeds on something inside you."
"Feeds on what?" Adrian asked.
Blue Adrian met his eyes.
"Your despair."
The word echoed in his skull, sinking into him like cold water. Because despair was exactly what Adrian felt the moment he believed Rin died. When he failed to protect him. When Rin vanished without explanation.
The room vibrated with a low hum.
Adrian turned.
"No," he breathed.
Not again.
The lights shut off.
Total darkness swallowed the basement, thick as tar.
Adriana grabbed his arm. "Adrian, don't move—"
Too late.
A voice drifted out of the black.
Soft. Familiar.
"Adrian…"
He froze.
No.
No.
NO.
Because that voice didn't belong to a demon.
Or a monster.
Or a twisted alternate version.
That voice belonged to Rin.
But it wasn't Rin.
The darkness rippled, peeling open like a curtain.
A figure stepped out—slow, precise, deliberate. His body was made of shadow, but the coat… the scarf… the posture…
Every detail matched Rin Kaito perfectly.
Except the eyes.
The eyes were empty.
Adrian's pulse hammered.
Adriana whispered, "Is that…?"
"No," Adrian said instantly. "It can't be."
The silhouette tilted its head, studying him like prey.
"You've grown stronger, Adrian."
Hearing Rin's voice with nothing behind it was worse than any scream.
Adrian forced his feet to move.
"Why do you look like him?"
The shadow didn't blink. "Because he is the shape your heart fears most."
Crimson Adriana hissed, drawing her blade. "Step back, doppelgänger."
But the silhouette didn't look at her. Not even once.
His empty eyes stayed locked on Adrian.
"You rejected the illusion," it said. "Good. It means you're finally ready."
"Ready for what?" Adrian growled.
The shadow smiled.
"Reunion."
A ripple of sickening cold spread across the room. The alternate twins shifted into defensive positions. Blue Adrian held out his hand, summoning glowing geometric symbols into the air.
"Adrian," he warned softly, "he's materializing fully. Whatever he is, he's preparing to fight you."
The silhouette stepped forward. The air shook.
"I have walked through eleven hundred dimensions searching for you," it whispered. "The Adrian who refuses to die. The one whose despair never breaks."
Adrian's stomach twisted.
"Stop saying my name like you know me!"
A low, hollow laugh.
"I do know you."
A blade formed in the silhouette's hand—one shaped exactly like the broken knife Rin once carried.
Adrian couldn't breathe.
"You're not Rin," he said, voice cracking.
The silhouette's smile widened.
"I never said I was."
The ten alternate twins spread out, forming a protective arc. Crimson Adriana snarled, fire igniting around her fists. Blue Adrian's symbols expanded into a glowing shield.
The silhouette stepped closer.
The ground froze under its feet.
Then it said words that made every alternate gasp:
"I am what Rin left behind when he died."
Silence.
Then—
Adrian snapped.
"YOU'RE LYING!"
The silhouette extended the blade toward him.
"Come, Adrian. Your truth waits in the dark."
Adrian took one step forward—
But Adriana grabbed him with both hands, eyes blazing.
"Adrian. NO. He wants you angry. He wants you unstable. Don't fall for it!"
Blue Adrian nodded sharply.
"This thing is crafted from illusion and despair. He can't face all of us—but he wants you alone."
Adrian clenched his teeth, chest burning with grief and fury.
"Then we fight him. Together."
The silhouette lowered its blade.
"Together…? No. Adrian fights alone."
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
The silhouette lifted its free hand.
The ground ruptured.
A shockwave blasted outward like a cannon. The alternate twins were hurled back, slammed into walls, dropped to their knees as the silhouette's aura flooded the room with darkness.
Only Adrian remained standing.
The silhouette pointed its blade at him.
"Because you are the only one who can kill me."
Adrian took a breath.
Another.
Another.
Slowly, he stepped forward, raising his fists.
The silhouette's eyes glowed white.
"Adrian… prepare yourself."
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