CHAPTER 11.5: THE WEIGHT OF EDEN
The six Observers rarely gathered in one room outside of official council sessions.
And when they did, there was never light.
Only a circle of shadows, deep beneath the Spire, where Eden's heartbeat could not be heard and the weight of their guilt could not be ignored.
Tonight, they sat together. Not in judgment. Not in power. But as what they truly were.
Sinners.
The air was still.
Genna Vrae spoke first, as she always did.
"Shinomiya," she said, her voice like tempered steel striking an anvil. "Do you think he knows yet?"
Nobody answered at once.
Sera Velorian's lips curved faintly, her translucent fingers drumming against her throne's arm. "If he did," she murmured, "he wouldn't smile so much."
Callus Greaven chuckled dryly, a sound like broken gears. "That's the thing about him," he said. "The more he knows about something, the more he laughs. Even when there's nothing funny left."
Yulan Ishtar's eyes glimmered faintly in the dark, her voice no more than a breath. "He already suspects. That's why he toys with us. Why he pretends the board is his.... like kind of joke."
They fell silent again.
Zero said nothing.
He rarely did, unless he chose to.
And the sixth sat in their corner, unseen. Always listening. Always watching.
...
For a long time, nobody moved.
Then Sera spoke again.
"I dreamt last night of the day it began," she said softly. "The sky splitting. The oceans boiling. Do you remember the screams?"
Genna scowled. "Of course I do," she growled. "They're all I hear when I close my eyes."
Callus nodded to himself, staring down at his hands. "We deserved it," he muttered. "The judgment."
Yulan tilted her head slightly. "And yet here we are. Alive. Watching the world we murdered rebuild itself brick by brick."
It was Zero who finally broke the silence, his voice quiet, even, dangerous.
"We made a choice," he said. "We chose to live."
Nobody dared contradict him.
Because it was true.
...
THE ORIGINAL SIN
Once, they had been men and women.
Scientists. Priests. Generals. Visionaries.
Believers.
They had sought the throne of Heaven, and in their arrogance, they had almost grasped it.
It was Sera who cracked the code of divine anicent text, unlocking what was never meant to be touched.
Callus who designed the gates through which the angels were supposed to return.
Yulan who bound their essence into flesh.
Genna who marshaled the armies to enforce their claim on Earth as a promised inheritance.
And Zero… who saw the pattern, and dared to call it destiny.
But what came through the gates was not salvation.
It was judgment.
The Akuma.
Hellspawns, clawing and screaming from the wound in the sky, bringing ruin to everything they touched. They were not merely demons. They were the consequence. The mirror of humanity's pride, forged from ash and fire.
Every city burned within a month.
The seas turned black.
Billions died.
And when the dust settled, six of them remained... not by virtue of bravery, but by the deal they struck.
A pact. A contract. A whispered bargain with something even darker than the Akuma.
A whisper from above , that was thought out to be a sign of forgiveness from above.. didn't just give them the power to survive. It gave them the lie.
And the lie was this:
That they had fought the Akuma.
That they had won.
That they had saved what was left of humanity.
So Eden was born.
A refugee camp built in the ruins, polished into a gleaming city through generations of propaganda and stolen technology.
And the six became the "protectors."
The "heroes."
And what we know them as now, The "Observers."
The elders of Eden.
Even as the fires of Hell burned quietly beneath their feet.
...
THE FOOL THEY FOUND
But to hold the lie together, they needed more than power.
More than faith.
More than propaganda.
They needed a genius.
And that's when they found him.
Paku Shinomiya.
A man that they already broke by their own sins, who was desperate enough to believe anything that sounded like hope.
They came to him as saviors. As his old former acquaintances.
They told him they knew where his son was... that they could bring him back.
When they were the ones who were responsible for his disappearance.
They dangled his son in front of him like a key on a chain, promising him that every weapon he built, every invention he created, brought the day closer when his child would return.
And Shinomiya choosed to believe in them.
Or maybe he didn't.
Maybe he just chose to play along.
But he built them everything they needed.
The weapons.
The barriers.
The clone programs.
The lattice interface that allowed humanity to fight back.
The hero they paraded... Luther ... molded from Shinomiya's own genius and guilt.
Everything Eden had, it owed to him.
And everything he did, he did because he thought his son might still be alive.
That was the brilliance of it.
And the cruelty.
...
THE GAME NOW
Genna clenched her fists, flame creeping up her wrists as her anger boiled over.
"I can't stand the way he grins at us," she spat. "Like he knows something we don't."
Callus chuckled. "Maybe he does," he said.
Sera's voice was softer. "Maybe he just stopped caring whether we burn."
Yulan smiled faintly. "Or maybe he's already planning how to kill us. Piece by piece.... i mean look at where it landed Naomi being."
For a moment, all six of them sat in silence.
And then, for the first time in centuries, the sixth spoke.
A voice like broken glass and midnight oil, rasping from the shadows.
"When the fool stops laughing," the sixth said, "you'll know the end has come."
And then silence again.
...
THE DIVINE JUDGMENT
They remembered the first night the Akuma crawled through the gates.
They remembered the taste of sulfur and iron in the air, the skies split by wings of black flame, the sound of humanity begging for mercy as the hellspawn devoured everything.
The Akuma had not come to conquer.
They had come to judge.
Not one of them doubted it anymore.
Because every time they closed their eyes, they still saw the same thing...
the reflection of themselves in the glass,
wearing crowns they did not deserve,
dripping with blood that would never wash away.
And when they woke, they still heard the whisper from above:
You signed. You chose. You live. Now play your part... now smile like the heroes you are.
And so they did.
...
THE QUESTION
At last, Genna stood.
She turned to Zero the man who remained calm, calculating and seemed to know everything... the man that couldn't careless on what is happening as he knew the ending, her eyes burning.
"How much longer do we keep lying to him?" she demanded.
Zero's eyes opened slowly, two pale shards of nothing.
"As long as it takes," he said simply.
Sera's laughter was soft and cruel.
Callus murmured something that might have been prayer.
Yulan only smiled, and the sixth faded back into the dark.
...
Above them, in his lab, Shinomiya sat cross-legged on his workbench, with his vacation sunglasses in the artificial light.
A cigarette smoldered between his fingers.
And as he stared at the hologram of his son's name, floating faintly before him, he smiled.
Because deep down, Paku Shinomiya already knew.
And he was waiting.
...
END OF CHAPTER 11.5: THE WEIGHT OF EDEN