The street solidified, blurred like a movie reel smelted in mid-scene. Colors bled. Corners slashed. The air hummed with the residual heat—her warmth. Fatiba was frozen in the here and now, a ghost to herself, forced to witness what she had so desperately tried to forget.
Two months prior, under the bridge, the Labyrinth had curled open like a wound. And she—younger, darker, eyes gone glassy with something raw—was no longer Fatiba.
She was a weapon.
The boys had laughed when the first boy went missing. Laughing like Panic's cousin—too loud, too high-pitched. They had thought it was a joke. They had thought it was a nightmare. They had thought she didn't have it in her.
Until the second one popped.
No warning. No suspense. Just the twitch of her pinky, and the boy in front of her blew up like a firecracker—sudden, terrifying, final. A pop and a wisp of smoke. His friends screamed, a strangled sequence of shock and savage terror.
One of them bolted.
He didn't make two strides before her gaze snagged him.
There was no flash, no light. Just a look.
He vanished in a shockwave burst, his form atomized mid-stride.
Past-Fatiba never skipped a beat. Her footsteps were slow, measured—like she was standing still but speaking.
A girl, shaking, lurched forward, palms outstretched in quivering peace.
"Please!" she cried, her voice breaking. "We didn't mean it! We were just—joking—".
"You called me a threat," she said, her voice a flat plane, as if reading from a bill of indictment. "Let me show you how right you were."
The girl wept and fell back.
"You weren't joking when you posted those videos," Fatiba said and extended her hand.
No ritual, no hesitation—only light and smoke and nothing left but heat.
From the present moment, Fatiba gasped and retreated backward, watching herself become ugly. Her breath halted. Couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't believe.
"No," she grated. "No, no, no—no—"
And then she heard her own voice once more from that recaptured memory.
"Natalie," past-Fatiba whispered. "You knew. You always knew."
Natalie crouched on the wall, mascara smeared, lips trembling.
"Please… Fatiba. I didn't—I didn't laugh. I didn't say anything. I didn't mean—"
"You didn't stop them."
"I was scared—I was your friend!"
Past-Fatiba took a step forward, slowly and radiating.
A shimmering surrounded her hand. A violet light pulsed gently at her fingertips like coiled lightning, full of unyielding judgment.
"Please." Natalie whimpered, backing into the bricks. "Don't—don't come closer—I'm just a student—I didn't—please—no—"
"I trusted you."
The pulse flared.
A deafening BOOM.
Then silence.
An empty knock—flesh and bone striking stone, hours after the man was already dead.
Her legs buckled as she collapsed, arms plunging into the earth of the dream realm. Her breath came in twisted gasps. Her body trembled as though it might collapse inward, her cry shattering apart.
"I didn't know," she panted. "I didn't know it was this way—I thought I quit—I thought—"
"You did," someone told her next to her—smooth, amazed, too self-controlled for the devastation.
Lamb, the dragonfly, danced inches from the shoulder. His wings thumped with a cadence that vibrated the air the tiniest amount, as if the room itself was listening.
"But after blowing them the fuck up," he said, almost with admiration.
She remained silent. Her tears burned down her face.
It's stunning, really," Lamb continued, as if he were commenting on a film. "Your mantra doesn't listen for reason. It doesn't care about plans. It responds to faith. That's the key. Not what you believe—but what you believe."
He floated above her in a gentle orbit.
You thought they were evil. You thought they had it coming. So your body did the rest. Touch something—and it is a living bomb. No rituals. No waits. Just cause and effect."
Fatiba's face locked onto his, her face colorless, her eyes red-rimmed. "I killed them."
"Yes," Lamb said, flatly. "That is not the lie you have to be scared of."
She blinked.
The Labyrinth reveals what you are behind the disguise," Lamb continued. "The explosions? Those were special effects. The origin was in here." He struck a glowing limb against her heart.
"You weren't created a murderer by the Labyrinth."
"You already had the hatred in you."
And then—she saw it.
Her former self, ground blackened and ash ringing her, hair blown back, face smoldered with soot and vitality. Smoke shrouding her like a curtain. Her scarf smoldering, half-consumed through. Her eyes glowing pale violet. These are the marks on her face:
A smile.
Unfazed.
Unabashed.
Wide and joyous. Crooked at the edges. The kind of smile that people only wear when something inside them has broken and sanctioned.
As if the bloodshed had been so appropriately suited to her second skin.
As if the confusion had tasted sweet in her mouth.
Fatiba backed away, hand rising to her mouth, breathing short. Her whole face jerked—nerves firing off like they no longer belonged to her.
"No, no, no—"
But it was already in motion.
Her lips—today, now—began to contort. Against her will. Gradually. Inch by inch. A warped replica of that very same hideous smile. Her cheeks knotted up. The corners of her mouth drew back like strings tugged by phantom fingers. Her eyes overflowed with tears, but her face smiled.
She clawed at her own face.
Scratched deep. Peel of skin. Not metaphor—actual. She sensed the layers flake, burn, and tear. Her nails raked over exposed muscle as she shrieked, trying to tear the smile from her own mouth like it was a bug that had tunneled under the skin.
The blood flowed fast. Warm. Metal-like.
Dripped onto the floor in a fat red splotch. Her eyes dropped—and in the pool, she saw herself looking back.
But it wasn't her.
The reflection grinned wider. Eyes too bright. Smile too sharp.
And then the reflection moved.
A hand reached up from the pool of blood like it had waited. Wet fingers, trembling with laughter without a mouth. They wrapped around her collar—her soul—and pulled.
Fatiba did not scream.
There was no time.
She was pulled in.
The world spun inside out. Noise vanished. Sound murdered.
And now—
She was somewhere different.
A world of silence—
Except for the explosions.
One after the other. Distant, muffled, relentless. Purple and gold sky, flashes. Ground shaking in sudden, violent convulsions. There was no ground, no sky, just an endless horizon filled with light and power and madness.
And under it all—
Laughter.
Not from any mouth she could hear. Not from any face. But it echoed.
Wild. Violent. Guttural.
The laughter ripped through the air like a beast constructed of splinters and soot—her voice, twisted by joy fashioned from ash. Not happy. Something worse. Something unholy that once was sacred, defiled until all it could do was cackle.
Fatiba hunched closer, as if she could fold in upon herself and vanish into the hard edges of her ribs. The laughter persisted in driving home, not around her—but through her. It was not merely sound anymore—it was infestation. It was her own laughter, elongated and distorted, victorious like a monster feeding on its first true kill. Vengeance became symphonic.
"Please… Lamb!" she gasped, her voice shattering into shards. "If there is any memory remaining—any instant in this maze—please, create another test. Another rendition. Not this one. I can't—I can't do this anymore—"
"Nope," replied the Dragonfly named Lamb bluntly, as he alighted on the bridge of her nose with no sympathy whatsoever and infinite calm, like an exasperated insect weary of being polite. "But," he said, "you can find your answers through me."
She gazed at him, red-eyed, raw-throated, and in that instant, she was not a warrior or a survivor—just a girl who wanted to know why.
Lamb extended one small limb like a hand. "Come on, then."
She picked it up.
And the emptiness collapsed like a shutter falling shut.
.....
The laughter stopped.
So did time.
A wind rustled through her hair—real wind. Sunlight touched her face, warm and gold, honey-sweet with dust and cut grass. Children's laughter bubbled up in the distance, unadulterated, clanging like chimes.
She blinked.
A meadow spread out before her. Wide. Open. Light.
And under the largest tree—roots as big as legends—was Shotaro Mugyiwara.
His back against the trunk as if it were his own. Eyes shut. Silver hair glinting with sleepy refinement in the breeze. A flute on his lap—plain wood, old, no sheen.
He played.
The music wasn't blaring. Not dazzling. It felt. Felt like embracing. Felt like grief that had learned to sing at last. The notes went up and down on quiet waves, like a lullaby sung by the world itself. It wrapped around the branches, softened the grass, held the breath of everything that was around.
Children began to gather. Nobody told them to. They just felt that this was something special. Some sat on the floor in a cross-legged position. Others leaned into one another. A few wiped away tears, without even realizing why.
And over to the side—Fatiba in the current moment stood. She was not of the moment. She was not even perceived by it. But she felt it like pressure at the back of her eyes.
Even now, she remembered the sting this music left behind.
The kind that didn't hurt you—only indicated anger where it had resided all along.
Then on came her younger self, face etched in irritation.
"Shotaro," she snapped.
No answer.
"Shotaro."
Nothing. He kept on playing, as though her anger was nonexistent on the same frequency as the harmony he was making.
Fatiba tried waving. Then mouthsaying. Then bumping his foot with the tip of her shoe.
Stone.
Unmoving.
Saint-like.
Finally, sanity gone, she slapped his shoulder—not hard, hard enough.
His eyes flashed open.
A moment.
Just a breath.
Light through his lashes. Wind ruffling the hem of his shirt.
Then that half-sassy, half-irked smile spread across Shotaro's mouth—
the type that proclaimed I'm alive, but I was somewhere else.
Like a dawn that didn't require a standing ovation. One that dawned because it could.
"Ouch, fuck," he growled, rubbing his shoulder with dramatic pique, but never scowling.
And with that one little curse, the spell around the field broke.
The music cut short, mid-breath, as if a lullaby broken by the world reasserting itself.
The air congealed once more—became real. Weighted with wind and breath and time.
The children blinked, as one might awaken from a dream, stretching like small beasts before they strolled off in twos, laughter rising once more—but attenuated, fragile, as if recalling something they didn't fully comprehend.
But Fatiba did not stir.
She hovered just outside the edges of the memory, her hands on her heart, her face smeared with tears that didn't hurt. Her mouth shook—not of sorrow this time, but reverence. Awe. The kind of silence that only descended when the soul knew something holy.
This wasn't a scene.
This hadn't been a flashback.
It felt like an offering.
A truth, waiting for her to run no more.
Her heart filled, cinched in close, and broke all in the same stroke.
For in that impossible moment, she loved the world—not for being, not for how it treated her, but for bringing into being one person such as he. One so unshakably still. So absurdly kind. One who did not save others with fire or with speech—but by sitting at the trunk of a tree and teaching you what peace was like when the rest of the world was not.
Then the air changed—no wind, no shudder, only a knowing. Like the dream itself let out.
A whisper flowered in Fatiba's head, gentle as unwinding silk, profound as memory:
"That is no memory that ever occurred.
That is the solution he left in this Labyrinth for you.
Shotaro tends to seed triggers in people's heads, in case they ever get lost in their own tests."
Leaves whispered over his head like aged hands sharing secrets. The tree loomed behind Shotaro, its shadow cool and wide on the lawn, its roots spilling deep like veins on the earth.
Fatiba had several feet of space between them, arms relaxing at her sides, shoulders burdened by memory.
He walked toward her slowly, warily, as one would approach a wounded animal. And then he laid his hand on her shoulder, gently.
You've despised," Shotaro declared, his voice low, dense. "And it's okay. Even I did. At one time."
Fatiba flinched. "Then why do I feel like a monster?"
He didn't answer right away. Just looked at her with those unblinking, steady red eyes—the kind which noticed but did not judge.
"Because you have power," he said. "Real power. You could incinerate stars down. You could. Whatever you touch is a bomb.".
Fatiba looked at her hands. They weren't shaking. That scared her more.
"And with power comes choices," Shotaro continued. "And with choices, comes responsibility."
She swallowed hard. "But I didn't choose to hate them."
"You didn't have to," he said. "You just… let it happen."
Silence fractured between them.
"I didn't mean to—"
"But you did," he said softly. "That's what makes it real."
Fatiba's breath hitched. "Then what do I do with it now?
He stepped back, giving her room to breathe, to stand. The air was different. Mercy was no longer the dream. Trial was.
"You own responsibility," he told her. "You carry it. But you don't become it."
Her fists were clenched. "That's easy for you to say. You're—damn it, you're you. The kid who changes lives. Everyone bets on you. You save people without even knowing.".
Shotaro smiled, a crooked and sad one. "I also fail the Labyrinth every time too."
Fatiba blinked.
He nodded. "I see through everybody else's. But never mine."
She didn't know what to say.
"Listen," he continued, voice dropping to something very much like confession. "There will always be war. There will always be hatred. Don't let anyone trick you with fairytales. There isn't a 'war to end all wars.' Unless it kills every single living thing."
He folded his arms. "And that's not peace. That's just quiet."
Fatiba chewed on her lip. "Then what's the purpose?"
He looked at her. Steady. Clear. Honest.
"Make a god," he told her. "And do things that he would reward you with paradise for."
She frowned. "But that's not the way it works."
"No," he agreed. "But you still live as if it does."
The wind swirled louder now, as if in assent.
"You're always gonna have those moments when you'd like to rip someone's throat out," he stated, his voice lighting up with open brutality. "Hell, I do. Every day. There are moments when I want to use my authority to toss someone in space just because they're a nuisance."
Fatiba laughed hard. It sounded more like crying.
"But I don't," he said to her. "I tap their shoulder. I tell them to shut the fuck up. I walk away."
She looked at him as if he was lying.
"And when the need arises," he went on, "I defend them. And yeah—sometimes I batter them."
"But they don't get to control what I do with my power."
He stepped closer again, close enough so she could feel the warmth of his verity.
"I choose love."
Fatiba looked at him. Truly looked. Past the laughter.
She cupped the hijab in her hands—folded, warm, woven with the smell of dust and time. The material had once been armor. Then shame. Then silence. Now, it was something else.
She gazed at it and saw the hands of her uncle folding it on her childhood bed. She recalled Amaya's bruised fists raised to defend her. She saw Ikol bleeding, wings flapping limp, speaking riddles in reality. She recalled Shotaro—just sitting under that tree, music in his breathing, mercy in his quietness.
And in the fabric between all those memories, she saw the girl that they thought she could be.
"Thank you," she breathed, the words thin but true. "I needed that."
And with careful intent, she set the hijab on her head—not to conceal the scar, but to sanctify it. She was different, perhaps, but she was a human being who could decide on love.
The Labyrinth didn't scream or splatter or shake under her. It just moved.
Because the trial was never really about remembering the past. It was about standing before it.
Literally.
.
The moment hung taut and quivering. Trial-Fatiba stood half-strike, hand aloft, violet mantra burning in her palm. The cluster of students huddled in stiff confusion. Natalie's lips were trembling. The scent of fear clung to the alley.
And then—someone grabbed Trial-Fatiba's wrist.
She spun around, ready to kill.
"What the—who are you?"
The girl grasping her hand grinned. The same face. Same frame. Same exhausted flame. But firmer. Steadier. Real.
"Hello, Fatiba Darvish," she said coolly, roughly playfully. "Today's been pretty explosive, huh?"
Trial-Fatiba's eyes contracted. "You resemble me."
"I also smell like you," the true Fatiba added, smiling softly. "That cursed cinderberry perfume we both adore."
She faced the paralyzed teens in the alley—her harassers, her would-be killers, her peers.
Her voice went soft. "I love you, Nats. You fought back for me. And you," she told the others, "I love you too. Not because you deserved it. But because I am human."
Trial-Fatiba snarled a hard laugh. "Love? You have no shame. They called you slurs. They laughed. They wanted to see you broken.
"They're children," actual Fatiba replied. "They don't even know who they are yet. They resented what was different—not the individual. And if they outgrow it, then that's wonderful. If they don't? That's on them."
Trial-Fatiba's face set in a furious smile. Her hand shook once more. The mantra welled up.
"They deserve it."
Real Fatiba acted quickly—grabbing her own arm, lightly but firmly. "They're not deciding what we do with our power. You are. We are. You don't have to be Lady Boom Boom. You don't have to bear that name."
Trial-Fatiba trembled with anger. "Natalie betrayed us. You know she did."
"I thought she was our friend too," said the real one. "But people put on masks. Often they don't even notice it. That doesn't make them wicked. It just makes them human."
Trial-Fatiba's eyes sparkled, torn between anger and breakdown.
"They laughed," she repeated, voice softer now.
"They did," Fatiba conceded. "And I resented them for that."
Silence hung between them like a storm on the verge of breaking.
"But hate is a flame that burns us before it ever reaches them," Fatiba said. "We were created to do more than bear it."
The purple light was fading.
Real Fatiba moved closer, hand still locked around the shaking wrist of her double. Her voice wasn't harsh—it was weary, rough with compassion.
"You're part of me," she said, as hard as earth. "But you don't get to drive anymore."
Trial-Fatiba's arms fell. Her body slumped, all that fury seeping out of her like a tire cut at the heart. Then the truth escaped—not in anger, but in sorrow.
"I'm so alone," she cried. The words were strangled. "Nobody's there when I stand. Nobody. And when I thought somebody cared, she—"
She didn't get to finish. Because she felt arms around her neck.
Natalie.
Tears flowed down her face, snot and panic and love all merging together. "Stop, Fatiba. Please. Punch me. Kick me. I don't care. But not break like this. Please—it's my fault."
And then—somehow—they were holding her.
Trial-Fatiba fell into her arms like the burden of a decade finally broke her bones.
And the actual Fatiba knelt beside them both.
Smiling through tears.
Steady. Still.
"See?" she whispered. "You're not alone."
She laid a hand on the shoulder of her other self, softly.
"There are individuals wagering on you. Grandfather Abbas. Uncle Ahmed. Amaya Wagakure. Ikol. Mugyiwara Shotaro."
Her fingers closed around, not restraint—but comfort.
"And most of all… Fatiba Darvish."
The earth trembled. The air flamed.
And a pillar of fiery light burst from the three—blazing upward, shattering the dream-mist of the Labyrinth like a challenge.
A ripple spread through existence. A silence. A shift.
.....
Above him, drifting like twilight made flesh, the dragonfly Lamb fluttered his wings.
"Congratulations, Fatiba Darvish," he told her, proud voice barely above a whisper—like a father at commencement. "You survived the trial."
.....
In the physical Labyrinth, behind the nightmares that had crawled through the street, the monsters started to recede.
One by one, like bad dreams losing their hold on morning.
Ikol—once again in crow shape—finally relaxed and let his wings sag.
She fucking did it," he grumbled, half in shock, half on the brink of collapse.
Amaya remained leaned against the alley wall, blood oozing from her chakra-seared fingers. But her shattered lips curled into a smile as she tapped her comms weakly.
"Shotaro," she croaked, "you asshole… she did it…"
....
High above the ruined skyline of Mushashi no Yamato City, smoke streamed like dragon breath from the body of the nightmare beast at Shotaro's feet. Its corpse—once a titan storm of teeth and blight—now dissolved to ash that drifted on the wind like abandoned fear.
Shotaro remained impassive. Katana still holstered. No stance. No show. Just eyes directed east—cool, red, sure.
"She did it," he whispered. Not to anyone. To the world alone.
Hiroki staggered along with him, gasping, shirt stuck to his back with sweat. "Wait—what? That's it? It's over?"
A shuffle behind an overturned train car. Sayaka appeared, tugging dazed Tatsumi by the wrist. Their hair was clogged with soot. Both were shaking, dusted in disbelief.
"Hold up," Hiroki snapped. "You knew a Labyrinth was open the whole time?!"
Shotaro swiped a smudge of blood from his wrist with the force of removing lint from a sleeve. "Yeah. The instant it cracked reality."
"AND YOU DIDN'T SAY SHIT?!" Hiroki burst out. "ANIKI?!"
Shotaro shrugged one shoulder. Scarcely even a shrug.
"I wanted Fatiba to decide for herself."
But the moment lingered only a second longer before a shriek screamed through the air—no human voice, but the scream of something wrong.
Something gigantic.
The clouds tore apart like paper, and from them there hung a new terror: a three-headed nightmare dragon, every face snarling, every neck as wide as a temple column. Its body loomed above skyscrapers—half-flesh, half-thought, all malice.
"ACCCCC!!" Sayaka and Tatsumi screamed as they fled back behind the train crash.
Hiroki tumbled too, screaming, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"
Shotaro's eyes gleamed—not with fear. But joy.
His smile twitched up.
This," he muttered, "is where the party starts."
Because despite all his stoicism, Shotaro Mugyiwara possessed a secret:
He enjoyed fighting something he couldn't one-tap.
He didn't think it, and he didn't say it, but deep in his heart, his bloodlust curled like a viper waiting to uncoil.
But then—
The sky tore.
A light comet hurtled from on high, crashing into the pavement with the force of a god in free fall. Concrete shattered. Cars overturned. A crater flowered like a battlefield scar.
At the epicenter—
Fatiba Darvish.
Hijab waving like a banner, eyes indigo and bright, boots rooted in fissured stone.
"Damn," Shotaro grumbled, his tone a strange blend of irritation and wonder.
Hiroki dragged himself out of debris, agape. "The Muslim girl from school can fly now?!!"
Shotaro looked to the side. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
Fatiba gazed at him, still panting from blow. Then she said it—aloud and clear:
"I want to join the Red-Eyed Ronins."
He blinked. "Why?"
She smiled.
Not smug. Not melodramatic. Just filled. Human.
"Because I am human," she said, "and I choose love."
There was a silence.
Then Shotaro slowly facepalmed. "Holy shit," he breathed, awareness crashing like a truck. "You really did it.
But behind that hand, a sneer began to flower. Evil. Arrogant.
He straightened up. Ruby-red eyes flashing.
"Okay then," he said, turning around to confront the horror dragon whose bellow shattered windows throughout the city. "Your first assignment as our newest member in this dumb delinquent crew…"
He held up a hand.
From over the horizon, Tokioni Muramasa—his living katana—came shrieking out of the air like a curse called forth.
"…let's wreck that."
The sword crashed into his hand with a sonic boom.
And Shotaro grinned like it was the first day of school.
The instant the dragon recoiled—its three giant heads howling like a damned choir—Fatiba acted.
No pause. No prelude. Just action.
She launched herself forward like a missile cut from certainty, fist bunched back, eyes fixed.
And then—
Impact.
Her punch landed dead center on the beast's chest, and the moment it did, a pulse radiated out from her knuckles—purple, soundless, glimmering like heat.
And then the dragon exploded.
No slower struggle. No heroic thrashing.
Only a burst of light and a pressure wave that shattered the clouds overhead.
Globs of nightmare fell in glittering embers, disintegrating before they touched the earth.
The crater shook with the aftershock.
Silence descended.
Hiroki's jaw was somewhere near his ankles. Tatsumi gasped so hard she hiccupped. Sayaka's eyes were locked in a permanent blink.
Even the wind seemed too stunned to move.
But Shotaro?
He didn't flinch.
He just stood there, arms crossed, gaze calm.
"So," he said, nodding slightly, "you really can turn anything into a bomb."
Fatiba brushed ash from her knuckles, eyes still glowing faintly. "Yeah," she said, breath steady.
"Good," he said. "That'll spice up Tuesdays."
Hiroki was still blinking. "Wait… hold on. Back up. She one-tapped that thing?!"
Shotaro nodded. "Mhm."
"With her fist?!"
"Yep."
"And she blew it up?!"
Fatiba shrugged, half-smiling. "That's what I do."
Hiroki pointed between them, voice rising with every word. "And she's joining the Ronins?!"
"Just did," Shotaro said.
"Finally," Hiroki sighed. "We got females in the gang. All-boys lineup was starting to make us look like an incel book club—no offense, Aniki."
Shotaro didn't respond. Just blinked once. Slowly.
"But hold up," Hiroki said, eyes narrowing as a spark of very bad idea lit behind them. "You're a Muslim, right?"
Fatiba nodded, amused. "Right."
"And your superpower is, what again?" he asked, voice loaded.
She tilted her head. "Exploding things."
Shotaro visibly tensed. His hands hovered near his sword, ready to shut this down.
Hiroki grinned like a man tap dancing over a minefield. "Well, well, well—"
Before the sentence could finish, a micro-blast went off beneath Hiroki's feet, launching him skyward in a comical flip. He landed thirty feet away, smoking slightly.
Everyone just stared.
Fatiba turned back to Shotaro, deadpan. "Was that too much?"
He shook his head, not even attempting to conceal the smirk this time. "Nope. That was perfect."