The atmosphere in the room suddenly dropped as Rei and Keene locked eyes. Intense and serious as memories of the incident went over to the black haired male's head, remembering every single detail and how everything went down.
"We all know he's innocent! Why is this on his trial?!" Rinka shouted, still struggling to get out of the chains as whenever she tried her best to shake it off; it still clung to her like a second skin.
Keon knew the fact of how it went down when he visited the unconscious male upon hearing the incident from the headmaster themselves, especially when he was called for an assist in writing the report since it would be hard to make a report base of the traumatised victims of the incident.
Jinwoo, on the other hand, was confused with the voluntary manslaughter since he had allowed Rei to exterminate the suspects during the internship since it was an extermination mission.
Sylvie was having a dilemma with why Rei is involved in such allegations of involuntary manslaughter of the incident since she was involved in it herself. She could remember how frightening and terrifying it was to deal with that situation especially with her prowess being weakened while also losing it later on.
"Damnit! Isn't this an unfair case? Why is it being brought up?!" The orange brown haired girl thought to herself, she could tell by Rei's expression that the latter was in pain.
Rinka knew a lot of people who used a mask since she herself used to do it a lot especially with her weird fascinations and hobbies of liking to collect any sort of weapons except for guns and bows.
Hiding the pain and shame if anyone finds out about it especially with her dad to which she feared until being caught in the act. Instead of seeing disappointment, the latter was proud and introduced her to physical combat to which she loves doing most of her time.
The way she saw herself in Rei during the aftermath of the incident reminded her of her own empty husk of a shell that forced themselves to do things to hold on to life without feeling disappointment in themselves.
Rinka gritted her teeth, angry at how she couldn't break out of the chains while letting all of this happen to Rei who's forced to relive the trauma again. "Damnit… If only Eunji was here…" The orange brown haired girl grumbled to herself, frustrated and angry as she clenched her fist tightly especially when she couldn't even use her own prowess.
...…
Eunji was feeling more impatient as time passed by, she had no idea what was happening inside as she wondered what she could do for now. "I can try breaking it from the outside but it would consume a lot of spiritual energy depending on the durability of it…" She thought to herself before checking how strong it was by placing her hand, "And this thing is clearly powerful… so there's no fact that it would take a lot of my own reverses in order to break it."
The strawberry blonde thought to herself, wondering what else she could without escalating the worse case scenario with either Neon, Hari or Tengen; maybe anyone like them to arrive just to take care of the situation with no remorse and to pretend that everything happened fast when they themselves are the reason why it had to become like this.
"Just hold on a little longer." Eunji muttered to herself before mediating, entering her focused state to try and draw every spiritual energy that she had in her to try rivaling the barrier while still having enough reserves for what comes next.
...…
Keene was arguing with the celestial, he knew the truth due to the innate technique that he had just gained prior to the stress and re-awakening moments ago.
'Scale' – His innate technique that used to be only to balance his stats are now increased to adjust his weakness by judging one's heavy sins and wrongdoings where he can scale his overall stats for fair play.
'Submission' – An innate technique that appears in a form of a file after the person who has entered the trial will have every detail of their memory embedded into the envelope as 'evidence' after the summoned being has finished its preparation to start the judgement.
'Confiscation' – An innate technique that could only work if his territory is summoned. Once the verdict is reached after the trial, the person who is found guilty by the summons will have their innate technique and spiritual energy taken away for a temporary duration.
'Execution' – The most fatal and deadly innate technique that he inherited from the newly reawakened prowess. Just like its name threshold, it only activates if the verdict has submitted the death penalty. It appears to be in the form of a blade similar to Excalibur but it is in a bright light rather than being divine and majestic looking. Once the blade manages to cut whoever is found guilty and has received the death penalty, instant death is immediate.
The male was arguing back and forth with the celestial, especially with the evidence that they both have received through their mental link. An innate passive ability that came from the newly reawakened prowess, the ability to see through every memory in every detail especially with the emotions, actions and thought process within it.
Keene was trying his best to try deactivating his technique but didn't want to stop since he wanted to expose the rest of the corrupted people in the room especially when Rei had interrupted him from executing Malcolm.
"Judge! We need to reassess this! We have to cancel this trial! I am not fighting a victim! You and I both know it!" Keene exclaimed as the summoned entity gritted its teeth, eyes still sewed out before responding back.
"I am no fool to stop this. We both know the trial should continue until we reach the final verdict. It's a fair judgement of righteousness." It stated as Keene wanted to fight back but the atmosphere went cold once they felt Rei's presence drawing out to call everyone in the room.
...…
Rei had kept it to himself ever since the incident happened. The guilt had always crept up to him whenever he wasn't focused and overworked. The ghost of Haruki, Hinata and Erika always lingered around him as he knew they were just hallucinations of his own guilt.
However, he couldn't just brush it off, especially with the bonds that he made with them. The laughter that he shared with them especially with Sylvie. It was those moments that he felt like he had somewhere to belong to rather than the moments where he felt chained because of his abuse and trauma.
"You know I could just take control right?" Keith said throughout their mental link, "No. Let me do this. I have to." Rei said outloud which confused those who were about to shout and argue to stop this madness.
"Yeah. I did it." Rei said as the silence went loud, only nervously gulping or gasping.
"Rei! It's not your fault!" Keon said as he struggled with all his might to get out of the chains.
Rei looked sad as he took a deep breath, recollecting himself as he could feel so many emotions and feelings that he bottled up for so long coming out of the shell that he built-up. Anger, Depression, Rage, Happiness, Humiliation and Pain.
"I did it. I'm not trying to deny it."
Most of the people in the room stared at him in shock, internally having a dialogue to themselves if it was just Rei having too much guilt and pressure built up for a long time especially with the deaths of those trio to him.
"Nor trying to defend myself."
Rei stated as he stared directly at Keene's eyes, red orbs meeting violet orbs.
"I could've stopped at killing those people during the extermination missions yet I continued to. So, that's why I am guilty. For both voluntary and involuntary manslaughter."
The silence was loud as everyone was tense. Sylvie having an internal breakdown to herself about whether Rei was just tired of fighting everyday to not break or doing his best to end everything.
Keene was about to speak before suddenly clenching his head tightly, grunting in pain as the normal flames on the scale had turned into golden yellow.
The golden yellow eyes of the celestial opened as tears of gold went down its face, the stitches broken and torn as they became enraged.
"Guilty!"
"Guilty!"
"Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"
"GUILTY!"
The entity shouted at the top of its lungs which paralyzed everyone except for Rei and Keene.
"CONFISCATION!"
Rei felt a part of him being stripped away although he smiled after trying the plan that Keith had offered to him.
"DEATH PENALTY!"
Keene suddenly felt the heavy weight onto his right hand, the blade that he had used against the people that he had killed a while ago. He could feel the whispers, demands and screams from the blade.
"Evil!"
"Kill!"
"Punish!"
"Execute Evil!"
Keene felt immense guilt, not being able to hold on to himself due to the insanity of the voices for him to execute Rei. "I-I'm sorry…" He apologised, as he drew his blade down to Rei to cut him down.
"No."
They were all surprised with his response as his eyes and aura glowed its usual bright red. "I'm sorry." He said before shadows formed as he managed to parry Keene's sword with his dual sickles.
...…
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