***
{Outside The Projection}
"...Nah, no way."
"Did he really just—"
"God, he really did..."
A kick to the head.
That was it.
Done.
’She was a little girl, a pitiful one, and he didn’t want to treat her too roughly.’
Brother. No. What the ACTUAL Hell.
"’Not too roughly.’ HAH!"
"What the fuck’s the Ten Commandnt on about?"
"Soone get it checked out. It’s not working right!"
"Or is it because it saw it from Malik’s worldview that it described it like that?"
"Yeah, yeah. The Sultan’s head has to be wired DIFFERENT."
It seed with all of what was going on, they had forgotten just how batshit crazy Malik actually was.
"And Lady Roya... she... she REALLY thought she had a shot?"
And perhaps Roya was even crazier for attacking him, trying to sacrifice herself to kill him.
"She threw her whole soul at him."
"All for nothing!"
She must’ve known at so level that it was a lost cause beyond all lost causes, but perhaps she was just like him, going after the impossible, only that Malik could actually succeed at doing the impossible, unlike her.
"DID YOU SEE?!"
"Brother... BROTHER. He crushed a Holy Relic! Two of them!"
The hall was in chaos, now for an entirely different reason.
"How did a damn JINN crush a Holy Relic?!"
"I didn’t even know that was possible!"
A welco reason.
"She popped every single Holy Relic like she was shopping at the damn souq."
"Hah! Didn’t matter. Not even one scratch on him."
From the young to the old, everyone was loud.
"I swear, she must’ve had worms in her brain. WHO told her that it was going to work?!"
"No, no, forget that. Did you see that tap? He found her Aetheric Vein in a mont!"
And they were all having... fun.
"Not just that, the boom ca after nearly a second. He outran sound by a SECOND!"
"You all do realize... he didn’t even try, right?"
At her expense.
"Truth. Look at how he stood there—’She’ll be useful.’ LIKE WHAT?!"
"Useful my ass. He planned out her everything, brother."
"Heh, look at her camp."
"Oh damn, yeah."
Mostly everyone turned towards Roya’s camp.
Her people were packing her up, carrying her limp body out of the hall in a palanquin.
Their heads were down, not even looking anyone in the eye.
No one stopped them; no one cared to.
One would think so folks would feel bad for her.
Right?
Yeah.
No.
"Too bad she’s knocked out right now; I really wanted to see her reaction to how she got fucked up back then."
"She might just ignore it and focus on how he called her useful, heh."
"I an... she tried, I’ll give her that. Went all out, but yeah, it never would’ve worked. Not against him. He’s just too careful."
"Crazy thing is, you know she believed. You saw her face, right? ’This ti it’ll work.’ Yeah... NO. No, it won’t."
"And now? Look at her. Whole spine’s probably still vibrating from that kick."
"Ehh... ’didn’t want to treat her too roughly’..."
Everyone was dead silent for a second, then—
"BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Huda, Layla, Safira, and Azeem would’ve liked to join the others in clowning her, but they knew that Noor would snap the mont they did; she was barely holding herself back as is, and they didn’t want Sinbad to put them six feet under for no reason, so they held themselves back and only sneered at her.
Whether Roya would get back from her mind being broken or not didn’t matter to them, not anymore.
She was no leader of theirs.
So her camp did right by taking her out of the hall.
They could take as long as they liked; she would NOT be missed!
***
{Inside The Projection}
By midnight, the fighting had crept inward.
What began in the streets was now at the very heart of Nourzadah.
Screams echoed between the marble halls. Broken blades and spells collided in the air like rain and thunder. Students ran. Guards turned on each other. Doors were barred and windows shattered.
And in the midst of it, Malik calmly walked.
He opened door after door, checking the dormitories.
It wasn’t for soldiers or nobles.
For students.
Soon, he was to fight the king.
He didn’t want them involved. They’d die in monts.
Despite it all, that part of him lingered, bigger than ever.
A pillar of faith that hadn’t rotted away.
But not everyone shared his vision.
"You!"
A voice roared from above the stairwell.
"Y-YOU!"
A figure ca down like a teor, flas clinging to their fists, rage blooming in their eyes.
"You VILLAIN!"
Ah.
"GODDAMNED MONSTER!"
It’s him... Zafar.
"YOU DID THIS!"
Of course.
"I-I believed in you!"
...Just as planned.
***
{Outside The Main Projection}
Oh no.
The second Zafar showed up in the projection, yelling like so tragic hero from an unfinished poem, the whole damn hall nearly facepald themselves to death, sothing quite usual with every Zafar appearance.
If Roya wasn’t knocked out, she’d have done it too.
They didn’t even try to hide their annoyance.
A few of them just dropped their heads into their hands. Even Sinbad tilted his head like he was questioning why this boy existed. Because, of course—of course—Zafar would be the one to try and stop Malik.
...Of course, he’d act the part of a hero.
Call him a villain.
Of course.
Like, what else would he do? Stand still and think? Hah. No.
The guy saw a burning kingdom, walls lting, people screaming, spells flying, and sohow his takeaway was:
"Yeah, I should attack my professor, who I have no chance against."
...Really?
And yet... and honestly, as much as they all wanted to clown on him, they couldn’t ignore the tiny pit that ford in their chests, because annoyingly deep down, Zafar wasn’t completely wrong.
If they ignored his childish obsession with justice, they could easily see where he was coming from.
From where the layman stood, and from the way those in the projection saw it, Malik did look like the villain here.
He was tearing through the kingdom. Killing guards, soldiers, and Jinns, all without saying why. No big speech was given: "I’m doing this to save the kingdom." No, "this is for justice" or "vengeance."
Nothing.
So really... how was Zafar supposed to know the difference?
To him, Malik was THE monster, the one who wrecked his little bubble, bringing chaos into what otherwise was the epito of manufactured peace.
This wasn’t just about who was right or wrong anymore.
It was about what they’d seen... what they’d believed.
Malik could’ve assassinated the king.
Clean, simple, and fast.
Well, as fast as a battle with a strong Jinn could be.
But no. He didn’t just want to end a tyrant. He wanted to destroy the whole contraption. He wanted to overthrow it. Control it. Like the king did with Nasir Al-Sultan.
But was it really just an eye-for-an-eye kind of thing, or was there more to it?
They didn’t know.
Malik didn’t bother revealing that truth to the past Roya.
Either way, seeing this now, it beca clear to them that Zafar’s obsession with Malik being a villain was pretty valid and believable.
There wasn’t a misunderstanding, just a lack of context.
And that was on purpose. It was—wait...
"Is that why?"
***
{In A Bright World}
"So that’s why..."
A single sentence.
But it hung heavy upon him.
Upon the once hero, Zafar, who now ignored the approaching black.
By now, everyone knew that Malik wanted the world against him.
So it was natural to think that was why Malik never said anything.
Why he let his students call him a villain.
Indeed, this too, was all on purpose.
He let all this happen.
Let people believe he was a devil.
Let Zafar scream at him like this.
Let Roya fight him.
Let Noor hate him.
Let his na turn to rot in history.
Because he needed them to.
Because it was all part of the plan.
A plan, oh, he so wanted to know.
Zafar smiled while staring at the projection.
In hindsight, it was so obvious, but back then?
He could’ve never imagined this to be the truth.
...Or at least, a truth.
A reason.
Because Zafar was only a variable in Malik’s plans, a thread of many, not a whole rope.
And Malik wanted to make sure that this variable would hate him.
So he did what he did best, making himself out to be the villain.
Making Zafar out to be the hero.
It worked.
Oh, it fucking worked.
"...Goddammit."
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