CHAPTER 20: THE LINE HE SHOULDN’T CROSS
- Jun 19
- 2 min read
The control room lights flickered once—then went dark.
The teacher inside turned, confused, just as a shadow rose behind him. A blade pressed against his throat. There was no warning, no struggle. The cut was precise. His body slid down against the console, blood spreading quietly across the floor.
A hand tapped an earpiece.
Elsewhere, doors opened where they shouldn’t.
Teachers who blocked corridors were taken down quickly. Some never made a sound. Others barely had time to understand what was happening. Students were stopped at weapon point, herded back into halls, or locked inside rooms with a single command: stay.
Fear moved faster than footsteps.
Hari felt it before he saw it.
A group of students rushed past him, faces pale, eyes wide. No one stopped to explain. Bells rang in distant sections of the temple, sharp and wrong.
“What’s going on?” someone shouted.
No answer came.
Across the courtyard, Katsuro Shinji walked alone.
He wasn’t running. He wasn’t shouting. His pace was steady, deliberate, as if the chaos unfolding around him did not apply to him. He turned away from the main halls and headed toward the older sections of the temple.
Hari watched him.
The image from earlier returned uninvited—Shinji kneeling beside a body, blood on his finger, his face unreadable.
Why was he so calm?
Shinji reached a side corridor marked with warning seals. A restricted path. One students were never allowed to enter.
He stepped forward anyway.
The barrier reacted—not violently, not loudly. It parted just enough to let him through, then sealed itself again behind him.
Hari’s breath caught.
He hesitated only a moment before moving.
He kept to the shadows, every step careful, heart pounding loud enough that he was sure it could be heard. The corridor felt different—older, heavier, like the air itself resisted his presence.
Ahead, Shinji slowed.
Hari froze.
For a terrifying second, he thought he’d been discovered. His muscles locked, his mind racing through excuses that wouldn’t matter.
Shinji didn’t turn.
He stood there, motionless, as if listening to something beyond hearing.
Then he moved again—deeper into the restricted area.
Hari swallowed hard and followed.
He didn’t know where this path led.
He didn’t know what he would find.
He only knew that turning back now would leave him with questions he might never escape.
And somewhere behind him, the Shaolin Temple was no longer safe.
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