On the other side of the iron door, Miguel hadn’t been idle.

Every time Raphael had been thrown back into the corridor, he’d used the moment to pass along what was happening inside. Miguel had assembled a working picture.

"The radiation ability is manageable. But the etiquette one, that’s a problem."

He glanced back down the passage. From the moment Raphael had broken into the secured zone, alarms had been running through the nightclub above.

It wouldn’t be long before whoever was providing this place with institutional cover sent more people down here to ensure the recordings stayed where they were.

Two people against whatever that response looked like. Raphael’s actual fight was on the other side of the city.

Even if Miguel could handle the two already in the room, holding the position against a second wave was a different question.

He took out his phone. He thought about it for longer than the situation strictly allowed. Then he called the number pinned at the top of his contacts.

It rang twice before the answer came.

"Miguel? This late, what is it?"

The voice was old and gentle, the kind of careful warmth an elder used with someone much younger.

Miguel outlined the situation.

"The Hiyori Nightclub on Nightless Street. Evidence of human trafficking, enslavement of non-human peoples, forced sexual transactions. I’ve been on site and confirmed the situation.

The alarm has just been triggered, hostile reinforcements are incoming. My partner and I are outnumbered. I’m requesting support from the Archbishop, and a perimeter around the building to prevent relevant parties from exiting."

A silence on the other end. When the old man spoke again, the gentleness was still there but something more serious had settled beneath it.

"Are you certain, Miguel? Deploying Church deacons to seal a private businessman’s nightclub, this is not a minor action. If it proves to be nothing, you understand what follows?"

Miguel was quiet. He understood precisely. Church intervention in civilian criminal matters risked friction with both the mayor’s office and the local IFSA Chapter. Without solid evidence, it could escalate into a political confrontation. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The mutual non-interference compact the federations and the Church had maintained for centuries was clear: the crown’s authority was the crown’s, the divine authority was the Church’s, and the two operated in parallel without encroachment.

The exception, the only exception, was an incident sufficiently serious, and sufficiently public in its victims, that the Church could invoke its duty to protect the faithful.

If he could get the evidence.

Miguel steadied himself. The old man on the line, hearing no response, sighed.

"The deacons who come on your information will face demotion if this doesn’t hold. And you, you’ll be arrested on a specially constructed charge and removed from your position.

You worked twelve years to reach senior deacon from a common faithful. That rank is not easily come by."

Miguel thought about what he’d seen here. The women in those rooms. Janna. The bruising. The collars. Every person in the underground who had been given a designation instead of a name.

He didn’t know Raphael well. The intelligence was partial and some of it was still unclear. But he had made his decision.

"Consider it my own willfulness. Archbishop, I’ll carry the full responsibility for this action. If the Church calls for an accounting, I am the one to account for it."

Silence.

Then a long exhale.

"You are my most trusted student. If this is your judgment, then I will trust it once. Support will be on its way."

Miguel’s tension released slightly. He meant what he said next.

"Thank you. Archbishop Michelle."

---

Inside the secured room, the suited man had risen the moment Raphael was expelled, but the moment the green-haired man had nowhere to sit, the third rule had already triggered. The enforcement was already in motion.

The green-haired man moved stiffly toward the control console, each step carrying a visible reluctance against some compulsion he couldn’t override. His hand reached for the panel.

The suited man drew breath to speak, to establish a fifth rule before the door could be opened from inside, and in that instant, a familiar coldness entered him from behind.

Not again. His internal curse had nowhere to go.

Raphael, incorporeal, had come back through the wall and settled into him, clamping down on every limb and locking the jaw in its half-open position. The next rule died unspoken.

He could do nothing but watch as the green-haired man worked through the encrypted sequence, step by step, and the mechanism for the iron door was activated.

No—!

The protest stayed inside. Raphael held the body rigid and neither of them could move, the control locked in a standstill while the heavy door ground slowly upward on its tracks.

Miguel was already positioned outside, having waited through the whole sequence for exactly this moment.

His eyes moved immediately to the suited man, read the situation in under a second, and his hands were already in motion, the silver short-sword in one grip and a sheaf of inscribed parchments in the other.

He selected one, murmured over it, and the sourceless flame took it. The stored magic transferred to the blade.

He stepped into the room, moving in a measured arc, his voice dropping into something reverent:

"Great arbiter of justice, blade of righteousness, holy goddess of judgment, I ask of you the power to condemn corruption, to carry out your will, to rule over life and death."

The blade erupted with light.

Copy after copy of itself split away from the original, swords of pure light accumulating in a rapid, dense formation, arranging themselves into a ring that encompassed the entire room.

A containment that left nothing inside it with an obvious exit.

Raphael had read the timing. He was through the Shadow Jump and standing on Miguel’s shadow before the ring closed, the wraith-form already releasing.

His face was the grey-pale that came with arcane depletion taken too far.

He was coughing as he landed. He shook one capsule from Miguel’s bottle and swallowed it.

The stomach acid dissolved it. Clean, ownerless arcane energy spread through his channels, pure, directionless, exactly what a depleted system needed.

The absorption was reflexive and immediate, the way dry soil takes the first rain of the season. In moments it was gone from the capsule and part of him.

"Hh."

He steadied himself.

He looked at the room. Inside the ring of light-swords, the suited man’s expression had gone to stone and the green-haired man had gone pale. They both knew what they were inside.

Miguel looked at Raphael and gave a brief nod.

"This is mine now. Our reinforcements are almost here, but so is their backup. You need to leave before the Church’s people arrive. They’ll classify you as hostile without hesitation. You’re still a wanted man."

He paused.

"Blitz. Go bring those people back. They may not all be believers of any of the Gods. But they are lives."

Raphael nodded. He turned and walked.

At the threshold, he stopped and left one thing behind:

"I used to assume everyone in the Church was someone who couldn’t let go of their scripture long enough to see what was in front of them. But you, Miguel, you showed me what faith actually looks like. What it costs someone. Your conviction, I respect it."

Miguel turned, startled, and watched the retreating back disappear down the corridor. A quiet, involuntary laugh came out of him.

"A wanted criminal just told me he respects my faith. All right. I’ll take it."

He turned back to the suited man, and his tone changed.

"You cloaked yourself in propriety and collaborated with evil. You provided shelter for crimes. In the name of the goddess of judgment, I sentence you to death."

The ring of light-swords rang out together, a single unified note, and every blade turned inward.