Sora pressed her palm against a wall of black stone—cool and dry like old bone.
The surface shimmered faintly.
Symbols began to glow.
Not randomly.
Paths. Marks. Directions.
From the King's Trail.
Her breath caught.
She had walked this trail once.
She remembered—
—the execution stones.
—the spiral of sacrifice.
—the symbol of the empty throne.
But this was supposed to be gone. Finished.
She whispered:
"You were erased…"
And the wall answered, not in sound, but in symbols rearranging—guiding her.
Elsewhere in the maze, Matthew turned a corner and found a burned torch sconce nailed into the steel.
Oddly medieval.
Wrong era.
Wrong place.
Then something clicked.
"No card… but there's memory here."
"It's using what we've already survived."
A maze of echoes.
Not randomized.
Not system-built.
Custom. Handcrafted. Targeted.
Back with Sora—
She touched a series of matching glyphs in a pattern she remembered from a trial on the King's Trail.
A door opened.
Inside: another memory. Not hers.
A throne room in flames.
A crown shattered.
The word "USURPER" written in blood.
A woman's voice whispering:
"You were supposed to die there."
Sora flinched.
"Someone's folding old code into new games."
"Someone who knows us."
She turned the corner and ran into the boy with the rabbit—silent and watching.
His eyes glowed faintly.
He tilted his head.
"You saw the Trail?"
"She left it for you. She said you'd recognize it."
"That's how she keeps score."
Sora's blood went cold.
"Who?"
The boy blinked.
"The one who didn't get to be King."
"The one who made this maze."
In the final page:
Sora touches the rabbit.
It shows her a flickering image—
Of Rin standing over a throne, unsure, sword bloodied.
Of Matthew screaming at a burning gate.
And of Sora herself, standing alone at the end of the King's Trail…
…but the crown in the image isn't empty.
It's cracked—and held by someone just out of frame.
Watching.
Always watching.