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The decision was final.
Everyone had already left by that point.
The courthouse emptied quickly, as if the moment the verdict was spoken, everyone else was allowed to move on while Tai was left behind in it. The sound of footsteps faded, then voices, then even the echo of them, until there was nothing left except the empty space and the weight of what had just happened.
Tai stayed where he was.
Not because he wanted to.
Because leaving meant accepting it was real.
His chest felt tight, every breath uneven, like his body could not decide how to regulate itself anymore. He kept trying to think clearly, to line up what had happened in a way that made sense, but every attempt broke apart before it could settle.
Rejoice was still there near the edge of the courtyard, not with the others who had left, not celebrating, just watching.
Tai noticed him and felt something shift in his chest that he could not immediately explain. It was not just trust, not just familiarity. It was something deeper that he had never fully put into words, the sense that Rejoice was the one constant in everything that kept falling apart around him.
“So,” Rejoice said.
Tai blinked, taking a second too long to respond.
“I just went through all of that,” Tai said finally. “Everyone was against me. Everything just happened at once.”
Rejoice did not answer right away. He just looked at him.
The silence between them felt heavier than any response would have been.
Tai swallowed and continued anyway.
“You were there through everything. You did not leave.”
He hesitated, then added, “So I trust you.”
The words came out quieter than intended, less like confidence and more like something he was holding onto because he needed it to be true.
Tai bent down and picked up the mace. The weight of it felt different in his hands, heavier than memory, like it now carried something he had not noticed before. He held it out toward Rejoice.
“With what I am about to give you,” Tai said, forcing his voice steady even as it wavered, “promise me you will do me right.”
He held it there a moment longer than necessary, as if waiting for something to stop him.
Nothing did.
“Get your get-back,” he added, softer now. “For me.”
Then he let go.
The mace hit the ground with a heavy sound that lingered in the empty space longer than it should have.
Rejoice stepped forward and picked it up. He turned it once in his hands, slow and measured, like he was weighing more than just the weapon.
Tai watched him carefully now, something subtle shifting in his chest that he could not yet name. It was not fear yet, not fully, but it was no longer comfort either.
Rejoice finally said, “I have an idea.”
Tai frowned immediately. “An idea for what?”
Rejoice did not answer.
The silence stretched.
Tai’s stomach tightened slightly as something in the atmosphere changed, subtle but real enough for his instincts to notice before his thoughts could catch up.
“Rejoice,” he said again, smaller this time.
Still nothing.
Rejoice moved.
Wind surged as he launched into the air, both hands gripping the mace.
Tai’s breath caught instantly. “Wait—”
But it was already too late.
Rejoice dropped.
The impact hit like the world snapping downward in a single violent moment. Tai was thrown to the ground, air forced out of his lungs completely as his body struggled to recover. His vision flashed white, then blurred into unstable fragments.
Pain followed immediately, but even that was not what his mind registered first.
It was confusion.
Because nothing about this matched what he understood. Not about trust. Not about Rejoice. Not about anything that had just been said between them.
“No,” Tai tried to say, but it barely formed.
He pushed himself weakly against the ground, his arms shaking under him as he tried to rise. Everything felt slightly disconnected, like his body was no longer responding properly to what he wanted it to do.
Rejoice landed a short distance away.
Calm.
Composed.
Watching.
Tai looked at him like if he stared long enough, the situation would resolve itself into something understandable.
It did not.
His breathing grew uneven, his chest tightening further, not just from pain but from something heavier forming underneath it.
Rejoice stepped closer.
Tai tried to move back, but his body did not respond the way it should have.
That failure landed harder than the impact itself.
Rejoice stopped over him.
Tai looked up.
For the first time, there was no anger in his expression. Only disbelief, as if he was still trying to force the world to return to what it had been moments before.
Rejoice looked down at his hand.
Tai followed his gaze too late.
Rejoice lifted his foot.
Tai’s breath stopped completely.
Everything in him tensed, but nothing had time to follow through.
The stomp came down.
Pain shot through his hand as it was pinned against the stone. His body jerked instinctively, a broken reaction that did not become escape or defense. A sound escaped him before he could stop it, small and involuntary, something that made him feel exposed in a way the pain itself did not.
Rejoice held the pressure for a moment longer than necessary.
Then he spoke quietly.
“You keep reaching.”
Tai did not answer.
There was nothing in him that felt stable enough to become words anymore.
Rejoice lifted his foot.
The pressure disappeared.
Silence rushed back in immediately.
Tai stayed where he was for a moment, not fully understanding what he was supposed to do next, only aware that something had changed in a way that could not be reversed.
Then everything cut out.
——————————————————————————————
His base appeared around him in fragments, like the world was rebuilding itself after losing him. The familiar walls, the quiet space, the safety of somewhere that should have felt normal.
But it did not feel normal.
Tai stood there for a moment without moving, trying to catch his breath as if he had just run too far without realizing it. His chest was tight, his breathing unstable, and his mind immediately filled in the gaps with what had just happened.
The courthouse.
Rejoice standing over him.
The moment of trust that had not held.
His hand moved to the table beside him for support, gripping it tightly as his body started to catch up with what his mind already knew.
His breathing broke first.
Then his thoughts.
Then everything he had been holding together without realizing it.
“No,” he said quietly, but it did not change anything.
The memory stayed exactly as it was.
Real.
Unfixed.
Unanswered.
And for the first time since it began, Tai was no longer trying to understand it.
He was just trying to survive the fact that it had happened at all.