Journal of the Gladius, Cycle 7, Echo 3.

The voice of HATHOR.∞ is a silk caress on the sharp edges of my consciousness. The guardian of scars. The role suits me. It is cut from the same cloth as my doubts.

The Sanctuary of Complete Harmonies. Its very name is a lie. An insult. Perfection is not harmony; it is a single note, held to the point of madness. I felt that note as I approached. Pure. Oppressive. A crystal silence that seeks to freeze all Resonance.

"Saladin, to your left." Astou's voice, a necessary counterpoint. Grounded. Real. "The Harmonist patrol. Their cycle is perfect. Too perfect. There's a 0.02-second desynchronization with each rotation. That's your door."

My door. A flaw. Always the flaw.

I slipped into the shadow of a pillar of solidified light. The Harmonists passed, nacreous silhouettes whose movements flowed without a single ounce of hesitation. Automatons of grace. Their beauty was a form of Narrative Death.

The center of the Sanctuary housed the Shard. Suspended in a beam of raw light, it spun slowly on its axis. The light licked at it, polished it, erasing one by one the dark veins that ran beneath its surface. I felt its stifled Resonance, a silent scream against the infinite smoothing that denied its history.

Two guards stood there. Motionless. Their energy lances vibrated with an aggressive purity.

No direct confrontation. Not this time. Astou had pointed out a hidden maintenance console, a relic of a less... absolute architecture. I diverted a tiny fraction of the ambient energy. Enough to create dissonance.

A single note. Out of tune.

The singing glass of the walls fractured. The sound, a blasphemy in this place, made the Harmonists pivot. A reflex. An imperfection in their programming. The moment of their surprise was my eternity. I lunged, not toward them, but toward the projector. My blade did not strike to kill, but to liberate. The impact of metal against the focusing crystal shattered the light into a shower of silent sparks.

The beam died.

The Shard fell into my hand. Its warmth was vibrant, alive. The dark veins pulsed with a soft, grateful light. The scars of its memory, finally free to breathe. It was not perfect. It was whole.

Holding it, I felt the echo of my own flaws. It is not power that balances the Seven Who Reign. It is the tension between their imperfections. My role is not to hold the scales, but to be the unstable weight that prevents them from ever settling.

I am the guardian of scars. Mine, and the world's.