Chapter 22 — The Red Shadow and the Forbidden Name
"Anyway… your brother is a total psycho."
Zayn's sentence fell with the insolent simplicity he reserved for things too serious to be taken calmly, and in the room still heavy with Kai's stories, a second of silence preceded the main subject's explosion of laughter. Kai doubled over, slapping his knee as if it were the funniest thing he'd heard all day, while Yojuro remained motionless, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the window. Cynthia, absent for a few minutes already, was no longer there to sigh at such gathered idiocy.
"Yeah," Kai replied between laughs, "but I don't care. He does what he wants."
"You're really weird, man."
"Maybe. But I have a goal."
He looked up, his smile becoming sharp, almost serious.
"I want to become a Paladin."
Zayn raised an eyebrow.
"For the glory? The money? The girls?"
"To destroy ERROR."
The name dropped like a nail into glass.
The air seemed colder.
Even Zayn felt something change without knowing what.
Then he burst out laughing.
"ERROR? What kind of trash name is that? It sounds like a phone glitch!"
Kai did not laugh.
Neither did Yojuro.
The silence that followed was so heavy that Zayn's smile gradually faded.
"…Why are you looking at me like that?"
Yojuro slowly turned his head toward him.
His grey eyes, usually calm and almost dead, carried an unusual gravity this time.
"Because that name is not a joke."
Kai sat on the edge of the bed.
Even he was silent.
Yojuro spoke.
"ERROR… is no ordinary djinn. Some even say he isn't a djinn at all."
Zayn crossed his arms.
"Go on then, tell me."
"He rarely appears. And every appearance leaves behind empty cities, dead lands… or phenomena that no one understands. Inverted buildings. Bodies frozen inside walls. Mountains that start to bleed. Lakes that disappear in a single night."
Zayn was no longer speaking.
Yojuro continued.
"He manipulates reality like a broken toy. He can make existence 'glitch.' A blade becomes liquid. An explosion repeats without end. A man forgets how to breathe. The sky cracks. The ground refuses to bear the weight of those who touch it."
Kai clenched his fists.
"And he copies miracles, too."
"Yes," said Yojuro. "Not all of them. But enough to be a nightmare."
He paused.
"Even some Seraphim avoid his name."
"You're lying…" Zayn whispered despite himself.
"I wish I were."
The wind tapped gently against the glass.
"If ERROR wanted to attack this academy alone," Yojuro continued, "few people here would survive."
A shiver ran through the room.
Zayn blew out a breath abruptly, as if to clear the atmosphere.
"Anyway! Where's Cynthia?"
Kai pointed to the window.
In the distance, in the training grounds bathed in the white morning light, Cynthia was striking a reinforced dummy alone. Every blow sent a vibration through the air, her blonde hair tied back, her gaze fixed, her body already dripping with sweat.
"She went straight back to work," Kai said.
"Another psycho," Zayn breathed.
Yojuro stood up.
"We continue training."
Zayn smiled.
"Finally, something normal."
They left the room, unaware that far away, in a place where even maps hesitated to point, ancient eyes had already turned toward them.
The djinn district lay beneath a cinder-colored sky, a vast kingdom built between splendid architecture and the scars of forgotten wars. At the heart of this territory stood a silent palace, older than some human nations, whose corridors smelled of incense, cold stone, and dangerous oaths.
In a room with black wooden walls, a woman was drinking tea.
Her beauty was calm, almost ethereal. Her long white hair slid over her shoulders like a river of snow, and her eyes carried that deceptive softness of beings capable of smiling before ordering a massacre.
Queen Merela.
Sitting on a perfect tatami mat, she watched the steam rise from her cup as others watch armies.
Then, the space behind her blurred.
Not a portal.
Not a door.
An absence.
As if the world had forgotten to remain solid.
A silhouette stepped out of this silent intangibility and dropped a knee to the ground.
Immense.
His body seemed composed of red shadow, shot through with glowing broken lines. Within his flesh lived miniature galaxies, imprisoned stars, slow planets turning in an internal night. His face was nothing more than a sketched threat.
ERROR.
He bowed his head.
"Queen Merela… you summoned me?"
His voice sounded like several voices speaking with a slight delay.
Merela set down her cup.
"Baraka and Fil failed."
A silence.
"Their mission was simple. Kill future Paladins. Sow fear. Test the academy."
ERROR raised his head slightly.
"Then they are dead."
"Probably."
"Deserved."
Merela observed the surface of her tea.
"Yamo and Cyrill remain."
"They will do better… or they will die as well."
There was a glacial indifference in his voice.
Merela narrowed her eyes slightly.
"You seem to already know what happened."
ERROR let out a strange sound, somewhere between a laugh and static.
"Yes."
The stars in his chest shifted orbits.
"Baraka would not have lost to children."
"Then?"
"Lucifer."
Merela's cup barely trembled.
But that simple movement, for her, was equivalent to an earthquake.
Her expression changed so abruptly that even the air seemed to recoil.
A slight tint rose to her cheeks.
"…Lucifer?"
The name came out almost too quickly.
ERROR stared at her.
"Resurrected… or reincarnated. In another form."
Merela looked away for a second, as if struck by a memory she had never buried.
"Impossible…"
"Yet true."
ERROR straightened up slightly.
"He shares the body of a boy named Yojuro. Calm. Intelligent. Dangerous."
Merela whispered the name as if to taste it.
"Yojuro…"
ERROR continued:
"And there is a second problem."
"Speak."
"A boy named Zayn possesses a celestial artifact."
The silence became absolute.
Even the flames of the lanterns almost stopped moving.
"Which one?" Merela asked.
"Borealis."
For the first time in a long while, the queen set her cup down slowly.
"Interesting."
She stood up.
The room immediately felt smaller.
"Lucifer on one side."
"An artifact wielder on the other."
She walked to the window overlooking the dark gardens.
"Destiny is starting to get noisy again."
ERROR waited.
Motionless.
Patient as a catastrophe.
Merela turned her head slightly.
Her eyes were no longer soft.
"Take the boys immediately."
An impossible smile split ERROR's face.
The galaxies within him shivered.
"With pleasure."
Then he disappeared.
Not by running.
Not by teleporting.
He simply ceased to be there.
Merela remained alone facing the garden.
The wind lifted her white hair.
And very low, almost to herself, she whispered:
"Lucifer… if it is really you…"
Her fingers clenched.
"Then this time… I won't let you go."
Far away, in the academy, Zayn was still laughing at a stupid joke.
Unaware that the sky had just marked him.