A familiar face met her the moment she stepped into the room.
Writ froze for the fraction of a heartbeat, though surprise had long since lost its edge. She had braced herself for every possibility, yet seeing him here still drew the breath tight in her chest.
Even with the one in front of her being Junior.
975910. Another Nine. A number lodged somewhere in her memory, familiar but distant. Of course it would be him. That anxious boy from Relay Nine, once so easily undone by his own nerves under her lead.
Of course they had dug back into old mistakes, testing buried sins. To see if she had remained consistent, if her report could withstand scrutiny when cross-referenced against her own teammates’. To see whether cracks might appear. To pit them against each other.
They must know how Junior had once trembled. How he had been the weak link. A First Blade, inexperienced. And yet, both he and she had managed the polished report.
She prayed it would hold. Even now. Even with her in control of the questions.
Because if it didn’t... the Accord would consume them both. Instantly. Compromised mission. Conflicting reports. Hidden fault. Reck and Fane, she couldn’t bear to imagine what might happen to them.
Caedern gave her a knowing look as he settled against the wall, brows lifting just before his stoic mask snapped shut. She noted the surveillance ward, recording everything, the faint shimmer of observation on the glass. And she wouldn’t have been surprised if the Veiled herself had been watching through it, rather than leaving it to Caustic.
There was no way to send Junior a signal. Not through glances, not through subtle shifts in posture. Every stare pressed heavily, and she felt the weight of it all.
Still, she met his gaze with the calm she had trained herself to hold. Hoping some trace of her concern might slip through without cracking the story she was bound to maintain.
Junior’s eyes wandered, hesitant. They lingered on the collar clasped around her throat, on the Judge Division robe draped across her shoulders, on Caedern’s silent figure next to them. Then they returned to her, sharp with questions he didn’t dare voice. The boy who once fumbled and babbled had gone. In his place stood someone cautious, watchful, already shaped by discipline. Yet still, unmistakably, Junior.
Good. It meant he remembered what she had drilled into him that night.
She lowered herself into the chair, the robe whispering against the wood.
Junior remained standing.
She noted the choice, tucked it away with quiet approval, and opened the thin folder on the table. The slip of information inside waited, edges crisp with purpose. She let it unfold beneath her gaze, sharp and deliberate, exactly as she expected him to be.
Leaning back, she studied him from head to toe. His stance was awkward, hands tight, breath uneven. Barely out of Treshfold, yet bearing himself as though interrogation had already aged him.
Did he deserve this?
It didn’t matter. Not now. The show had to continue.
Writ’s voice was calm, measured, “state your ID, current role, and the period you were assigned to your Division.”
Junior’s voice wavered just slightly, a hint of hesitation in the phrasing, but he spoke steadily. “ID nine-seven-five-nine-one-zero. Tactical liaison under Verdict Wings, assisting engineers with testing, improvement, and development. Recently on Glyphfire’s new tech for Verdict Wings demonstration. Operative since 2nd moon, 1224."
She wrote it down, the ink marking his words in neat precision. Clear, precise. The nervous tremor of the past was gone, though a fleeting quiver in his hands betrayed the effort it took.
Writ continued, eyes scanning him as she asked, “state your role and objective during your mission nine months ago.”
Junior shifted slightly, a microexpression of guardedness flitting across his features, “I... I was tasked to plant a seedwake pod to demolish Relay Point Nine, along with two other Verdict Wings and a Harbringer with a different objective as lead.”
“Your access to operations, mission intelligence, and target data?”
“We were given a map,” he said, a brief pause before he continued, “which we used to plan pod placement for the most effective demolition.”
“Before entering the building, any interaction with the targets or knowledge of hidden hazards inside?”
“Our briefing map marked hazards inside. The team leader... rescanned the target to confirm layout and hazards, including the memory trap on the third floor.”
Writ’s eyes narrowed slightly, “were you aware the memory trap was still active when you began planting the pod?”
Junior’s gaze flickered, subtle tightening around his eyes, a trace of something between worry and defiance, “w- we were aware. It was discussed during planning.”
His voice remained even, careful not to overexplain. Good.
“Walk me through what happened on the mission. Did anything you or the team do unintentionally cause complications?”
He paused, blinked, searching for an unspoken hint.
Writ’s expression stayed stoic. Inside, though, she was shouting at him. Don’t stall, don’t falter, answer it. Now. Even a heartbeat too long could be marked against them.
Junior shifted, then spoke, measured but with the faintest tremor of hesitation, “we... split at first. Our leader swept each floor for her own objective. Verdict Wing pairs split between the first and second floor. I went along with Re- with Four-One on the second, Four-Oh took the first. We set up a rendezvous on the third floor stair to sweep together. All four of us.”
A clean answer, careful enough. But that near-slip tightened something in her chest. Reck. Nicknames not permitted in this room, not in any official record. Shadows without title were only numbers here. She stiffened, resisting the urge to nod.
He was performing well. She considered testing him, risking a thread of trust, to see if he could handle one of their questions. Not the Accord’s, but the ones she’d slipped in when they doctored the report together. Ones he should recognize, if he remembered that far. She decided it was worth it.
“Rendezvous on the third floor. Did anyone enter first?”
Junior tilted his head, shifting subtly, masking his instinctive reaction with careful posture, “our leader and Four-Oh arrived first at the stair. They waited for Four-One and me. We- we walked together.”
She lowered her gaze briefly, pen moving across the page as she recorded both the question and his answer, neat strokes sealing it into the report.
“Did anyone hesitate?”
Recognition sparked in his eyes, quickly dimmed, “no. We did as we were trained. No one hesitated.”
He remembered. He was sharper than she expected.
“Did any of you trigger the memory trap?”
No tremor. No stutter. Just the question they agreed.
“The memory trap activated during planting. We didn’t- we didn’t know what triggered it. Possibly by an occupant in the hidden room,” he said, voice careful, slightly slowed as if weighing each word.
Writ’s face remained neutral. He knew how to play it right.
“Did you confirm for an occupant before deploying the pod?”
Junior exhaled softly, voice deliberate, “there was no sign of an occupant. We... didn’t notice anyone. The layout map didn’t show any hidden room. It looked and felt like a normal wall. Nobody noticed it.”
She felt a subtle triumph, tempered immediately. Both of them had survived this far.
“Did the memory trap take all of you?”
“Yes. All of us,” he said, a faint edge of tension beneath his calm.
"Memory trap is known to severs conscious presence. How did your team got out from it?"
"Our leader... managed to break the trap first, then she started to disarm it. I broke the trap after her, then helped to disarm it."
“How did you manage to break from the memory trap?”
“I don’t... retain what happened while caught. But I remember a window appeared, so I used it. The details... I don’t remember.”
Writ tilted her head slightly, still holding her expression, “when you woke up from the trap, what went through your mind?”
He exhaled slowly, then spoke, careful, “I noticed our leader had gathered our unconscious bodies near her, three of us. Possibly for easier monitoring. I noticed the last pod had already exploded. Bigger effects than what’d been simulated. Possibly because of the impact when it’s-” he trailed off as Writ’s steady stare reminded him to keep it concise.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
He blinked, long and deliberate, then muttered, “...I apologize. I- I got carried away with the technical hypothesis because I was involved in the development.”
“Continue,” Writ prompted softly, lifting the folder just enough to flip the page.
Junior cleared his throat, shifting on his seat, “there’s another body outside the trap’s perimeter. Unknown. Not moving, assumed dead.” A short pause followed, his eyes flicking to hers for a heartbeat, “Our leader was disarming the memory trap. Having been involved with glyph tech development, I believed I could help. She let me, tested me, guided me. We disarmed it together.”
Writ kept her face taut, noting the faint tremor in his hands that betrayed lingering nerves. She wondered why he couldn’t have been this reliable during Relay Nine. None of the chaos in the past nine months would have occurred if he had. No compromised mission. No correction cycle. No ruin. No tests.
“Did you get involved in eliminating the attacker?” she asked, voice flat, methodical.
“I didn’t. The attacker was... already taken care of the moment I broke the loop,” he said, precise, careful.
“Did you confirm the attacker’s identity, or its team?”
“I didn’t. I- I only guarded from further attack until Four-Oh and Four-One awoke,” he paused briefly, brow knitting as if weighing whether he’d said enough.
“Do you know what’s inside the hidden room?”
“All I know is a relay node. I didn’t... personally check it,” he admitted, fingers curling lightly.
“Explain your decision when the relay transmitted.”
“I wasn’t there. I didn’t make any decisions,” he said quietly, eyes flicking toward the folder for reassurance.
Writ’s gaze followed him, calm but heavy, “did you observe your team leader when she destroyed the relay?”
“I didn’t. I stayed... in the other room,” he said, a subtle hitch in his voice.
“Did a thought cross your mind that your leader might be hiding something from the rest of you?”
Junior’s lips pressed together, his gaze fixed on the floor for a fraction before returning, “even if she does... it’s because she’d calculate the risk, whether she needed to share intel with us. She had more experience than us.”
She marked it down without pause
Writ frowned slightly at the next question, the one written in a different ink. It still looked too ominous, “did you trust your team leader?”
Junior paused, shifted slightly, and ran a hand over his thigh before answering, “I... trusted her experience to make decisions related to the mission on our behalf.”
“Did you feel responsible for your teammates’ safety, or just the mission’s success?”
He weighed the question, eyes narrowing slightly, “to a certain point... yes. I try to ensure their safety if possible. But I... I won’t hesitate to cut them out if I have to choose between the success of the mission or their safety.”
Writ’s chest tightened. How had the fumbling boy grown so fast in nine months? She couldn’t reconcile the careful, measured man in front of her with the nervous recruit she had known.
“Were you aware of the protocols for handling unknown threats, civilian exposure, and maintaining operational discretion?”
“I’m aware. Eliminate every eyewitness. But apparently the situation that time... wasn’t exactly possible to implement. Considering all of us were knocked out,” he admitted, voice low, a tiny tremor betraying lingering discomfort.
“During the disarming of the trap and the protection of unconscious teammates, how did you decide priorities?”
Junior’s hands flexed slightly, “we’d planted all pods. Two hours had already passed for us to disarm the conduit so we could leave the perimeter safely. I... I didn’t know how long we’d been out before our leader started disarming. The attacker’s trail was already cold by then,” he swallowed, then continued, voice careful, deliberate, “if the attacker was calling for backup, I was ready to activate all the pods’ network to take them with us. But... considering there wasn’t any immediate threat, I... I waited for our teammates to recover normally.”
Writ’s eyes lingered on him, quiet but intense, “would you say your judgment was influenced by fear, curiosity, or pressure from teammates?”
Junior exhaled slowly, hands tightening just slightly, “maybe... more by my fear, since I’m still inexperienced, and... by concern for my teammates, who happened to be seniors helping me get used to how Verdict Wings operate. But... I’m aware the mission took precedence, and I- I’m willing to prioritize it for the best output.”
“Are you confident your judgment can be trusted?”
“I- I can’t really answer that objectively. But... I’ll always try to make the best judgment with what I’m given,” he admitted, a shadow of hesitation in his voice.
Her pen scratched lightly across the page.
“If you had received conflicting instructions mid-mission, how far would you have gone before deciding which to follow?”
Junior opened his mouth, then closed it again, taking more time than before, fingers fidgeting slightly. Writ blinked once, forcing herself to resist the urge to protest.
“I would judge it myself, according to the situation. Which one would... benefit the mission more,” he said finally, careful but hesitant.
“Why the hesitation?”
His long pause invited the question. His lips twitched, almost involuntarily, “because... I only learned recently that it should go that way. I- I wasn’t exactly confident enough to pull that back then in the mission.”
Writ felt the faintest wince at the admission of weakness, but let it pass.
“Tell me honestly. Was there a moment you wanted to ignore orders, just to see what would happen?”
Junior shook his head lightly, “not really. I’m already used to following orders, and they’re... non-negotiable.”
Now that was new.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not enough for him to notice. The thought pressed sharp behind her composure. Junior was a Nine. He’d entered Treshfold at nine years old, carried traces of his old life longer than most. Hesitation in their voices, stray softness in their reactions, reflexes shaped by a world not built on orders and protocols. It usually took years to grind those edges down. Even then, it never had that clean finish.
But he spoke without a tremor, with a certainty more suited to someone broken in early, someone long past the stage of resisting. Too clean. Too rigid.
How was that possible already?
Her mind weighed the question, held it like a knife’s edge. Either he was an exception, a Nine who had burned away his softness faster than any she had known, or something else had shaped him.
It didn’t matter now. Not here. Not when she had to stay within script. She knew this would be their last crossing, their last exchange before silence claimed him again. So she moved on.
Her hand shifted against the folder, a subtle press of thumb against the edge of the page. Not that it mattered. Not that she would ever get an answer here. This wasn’t the place to pull at that thread, and the list gave her no room for it.
She pushed it aside, her voice flat again, “are you aware of the consequences for a compromised mission or failure?”
“I’m aware. I’m willing to accept any consequences you deem necessary.”
“If placed in a similar high-risk mission again, with unknown variables and compromised information, how confident are you that you would follow protocol exactly?”
“I’m confident I can follow protocol as much as the situation allows me. I’ve also learned that... I might have to improvise, because the environment might be... slightly different on the field,” he admitted, a faint hesitation still lingering.
Writ stared at the last question, catching the shift in ink and style. Another different handwriting, hurried, as if scrawled at the last possible moment, “could your team have fabricated the report together? To protect someone?”
Junior met her gaze head-on. No hesitation. No flicker. His voice carried even and unhurried, “No. We reported what actually happened. As we should.”
She let out a breath she was holding, slow enough not to show. His voice, his pauses, even the faint tremor in his hands, all matched the script they’d rehearsed. For now, it was enough.
The file closed beneath her palm with a soft snap, her movements measured to buy a few seconds more, “that will be all for now.”
Only then did she lift her eyes to Caedern.
He hadn’t broken his rhythm. Rose smoothly, drifted closer, too close, but with that same deliberate idleness, turning his head lazily each time his gaze passed between her and Junior. Then, in the same steady cadence, “as per directive. One off-record question. Interrogator first. After you’re done, this session is dismissed.”
The words came in a single breath, then he turned away, walking to the door without a backward glance.
Silence pressed in after he left. Writ remained seated, Junior still standing before her, waiting.
Her thoughts spun. She had prepared for the interrogation, for surviving Caedern’s oversight. Not this. She’d forgotten the off-record allowance, the moment left deliberately unguarded.
A dozen questions clawed at her, too sharp, too dangerous. How had he changed this much? What had carved away the fumbling boy she remembered, replacing him with someone steady, composed, almost dependable? Had he been thrown into correction? Broken and remade? Why was obedience already settled so deep in him when he’d been a Nine? What filled the years before Treshfold claimed him?
Too many questions. None she could voice. Not here, not with every eye still certain to be turned on her. They would mark it. They would mark her. Attachment, suspicion, compromise.
So she smothered the urge, drew in a long breath, and let it out in the smallest sigh. Then she chose the one question that would slip by unnoticed. The one safe enough to sound cold, detached.
“So,” she said at last, voice leveled, “your nerves don’t bother you anymore now?”
He answered without hesitation, steady and precise, “no. Thanks to the guidance of my seniors.”
On the surface, it was flawless. Exactly what the Accord wanted to hear. Discipline, gratitude, acknowledgment of hierarchy. Safe words.
But she heard the undercurrent anyway. Seniors. Plural. The shadow of his glance carried her name in it. He didn’t need to say more.
The thought pressed against her chest, sharp, unwelcome. Attachment like that could get him cut open if the wrong ears suspected it. And yet, she knew it wasn’t false. His nerves had steadied because someone had made him believe he could survive, and she had been part of that.
She forced the weight aside, smoothed it flat in her mind. What mattered wasn’t what he meant, it was that his phrasing left nothing for the Accord to carve into.
She gave a curt nod, nothing more. The exchange ended there, at least on the surface.
But Junior didn’t let the silence sit for long.
“I haven’t crossed paths with Four-Oh and Four-One since the split. I assume they were reassigned? Have you heard anything about them?”
The words landed sharper than they seemed. Four-Oh and Four-One. Reck and Fane. He spoke as if idly curious, as if it were nothing more than a passing note for the report. But beneath the casual phrasing was an angle, a weight she couldn’t ignore.
He already knew something, or at least suspected. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked. A question like that, directed at her, was useless. He would’ve guessed the Accord wouldn’t tell her anything, just as they wouldn’t tell him. Which meant he wasn’t really asking. He was signaling. Testing.
Her pulse tightened, but only for an instant. If he was hinting, then the implication was obvious. They hadn’t been erased. Still alive, somewhere beyond her sight. It should not have mattered. They weren’t her concern anymore.
And yet, her hand stilled a fraction too long over the page.
Because they were the reason she hadn’t run after Relay Nine. The reason she’d abandoned her hidden stashes and hoards, the carefully prepared escape routes that should have carried her away from the Accord. She couldn’t do it then. Not when she knew what would wait for Reck, Fane, and Junior if she vanished and left them behind.
So she’d made her choice. Prepared them for what came next, then stood with them to face it. Trading her freedom for their mercy. That was how the collar found its way back onto her throat, how her caches slipped beyond her reach.
Only because, deep down, she’d clung to one impossible hope. That someday, someone might return the favor. A fool’s wish, and she knew it.
She snapped herself back into rhythm before anyone could notice, flattening her voice into the cold cadence she always used, “I don’t. Don’t feel the need to ask.”
The words were safe, dismissive, precisely what would they expect from her. And Junior didn’t press. She knew he wouldn’t. He understood the meaning buried under her refusal, the reason she had to put distance between herself and the question.
His expression shifted. Faint, sad. Whether it was for her answer, or for the mask she was forced to wear, she couldn’t tell.
Still, the echo lingered. A reminder that some threads hadn’t been cut as cleanly as the Accord wanted her to believe.
“You’re dismissed,” Writ said.
Junior inclined his head, a small bow. Then turned and walked to the door without hesitation.
She opened the file again, feigning neat strokes of ink across the page, though her focus was elsewhere. Fixed on the sound of his footsteps receding. Counting each one as if it might stretch the distance a little slower.
A small goodbye. To Junior. To the questions that would never be answered.
The latch clicked, the door shutting with a muted finality.
He was gone. No longer in sight. Taking with him the regret of chances she would never have, of answers she would never reach.
