The Absolutists

 
**The attack came at dawn, three months after the graduation ceremony.**
Akira was in his office, reviewing curriculum proposals, when reality *cracked*—not metaphorically, but audibly. The sound of conviction so absolute it refused to coexist with anything else.
He ran to the window.
**The Academy was under siege.**
Figures in pure white armor—more refined than Order's soldiers, more fanatical—surrounded the complex. But these weren't from Order's domain. Their armor bore a symbol Akira had never seen: a perfect circle with nothing inside it. **Absolute Zero.** The philosophical position of *complete erasure*.
"Students to the inner sanctum!" Daisuke's voice echoed through the halls, amplified by conviction. "Teachers, defensive positions!"
Akira grabbed his shadow-coat and ran, the Mark pulsing with sudden urgency. In the courtyard, chaos erupted—students scrambling for safety while the Seven Teachers manifested their powers.
Order created geometric barriers, trying to shield the buildings.
Freedom scattered students through unpredictable escape routes.
But the white-armored figures moved with terrifying coordination, their conviction unified into single purpose: **destroy integration before it spreads further**.
Kaida appeared beside Akira, her Blade of Sorrow drawn.
"Absolutists," she said grimly. "Wanderers who reject the Sovereigns' transformation. They believe philosophical purity requires eliminating all synthesis. They call themselves the **Doctrine of One**."
"How many?"
"Hundreds. Maybe thousands across Astraeon. They've been organizing in secret for months, waiting for the right moment to strike."
An explosion rocked the eastern tower—students' screams cut short as the structure collapsed into rubble.
Akira felt his heart seize. *People just died. Under my protection. In my Academy.*
The Mark blazed with cold fury.
"I need to stop them," he said, moving toward the barrier.
Kaida grabbed his arm. "You can't negate all of them. There are too many, and they're *expecting* you. They've studied the Mark, prepared counters. This is coordinated assassination, Akira. They're here to kill you specifically."
"Then I'll give them what they came for."
He shook off her grip and ran toward the breach in Order's barrier.
---
**The battlefield was philosophy made war.**
Absolutists attacked with single-minded conviction—their belief that *only one truth could exist* manifested as weapons that erased competing realities. Where they struck, integration dissolved. Buildings that held contradictions collapsed. Students who'd learned synthesis screamed as their carefully balanced worldviews shattered.
Akira reached the front line where Yuki fought desperately, her flame-mark blazing as she tried to hold back a squad of white-armored attackers.
"They're *negating* integration!" she shouted. "Anyone who's learned synthesis—they target them first! They're killing the philosophy by killing its practitioners!"
One Absolutist broke through, blade aimed at a cowering student.
Akira released the Mark.
**Silence.**
The Absolutist's conviction—their absolute certainty in singular truth—*flickered*. Just for a moment. But a moment was enough.
Yuki's flame consumed them.
The student ran, sobbing, toward the inner sanctum.
But the Mark's use cost Akira immediately—a memory dissolved. His first day teaching at the Academy, gone. The feeling of purpose when he'd accepted the Sovereigns' proposal, erased.
"There!" An Absolutist commander pointed at him. "The Silence bearer! All units converge!"
Twenty soldiers turned as one, their conviction unifying into single assault vector.
Akira prepared to negate again—
Order appeared between them, geometric shields manifesting.
"Retreat!" she commanded, her voice carrying absolute authority even without divine power. "Fall back to the inner sanctum! We can't hold the outer rings!"
"We can't abandon the students still out here!" Akira protested.
"We must! They're targeting synthesis—the inner sanctum is pure neutral ground, no integration to attack! Anyone still outside..." Order's expression cracked with uncharacteristic emotion. "Anyone still outside is already lost."
As if to punctuate her words, another tower fell—Truth's crystalline teaching hall shattering into fragments. Through the dust, Akira saw bodies. Students who'd been learning epistemology. Now just casualties of philosophical warfare.
*This is my fault,* he thought. *I built something beautiful and made it a target.*
The Mark pulsed, feeding on his guilt, ready to consume more memory if he'd let it.
"MOVE!" Grayson appeared, all four arms shepherding students toward the central courtyard. "Inner sanctum, NOW!"
They retreated in chaos—teachers covering students, the Seven Teachers using their considerable power to create barriers, buy seconds, save who they could.
But the Absolutists were relentless. Organized. *Prepared*.
They'd studied the Academy's layout. Knew its weaknesses. Targeted its integrated architecture with precision that suggested inside knowledge.
*Someone betrayed us,* Akira realized with sick certainty. *Someone who knew exactly how to hurt us most.*
---
**The inner sanctum was designed as perfect neutral ground—space where no philosophy dominated, where all existed in pure potential.**
Two hundred students huddled inside, along with maybe fifty teachers and staff. Outside, the sounds of destruction continued—the Academy being systematically dismantled by those who believed integration was heresy.
The Seven Teachers stood at the sanctum's entrance, maintaining the barrier.
"How long can you hold?" Daisuke asked, his Sword of Questions drawn but useless—you couldn't question conviction this absolute.
"Hours, maybe," Freedom replied, their form flickering with strain. "They can't breach neutral ground easily—it resists singular conviction. But eventually, they'll overwhelm us through sheer force."
"Then we evacuate," Order stated. "Create portal to Fragment City proper. Get students to safety."
"They've surrounded the entire complex," Truth reported, data streaming through his crystalline form. "Exit vectors are compromised. Portal would emerge in hostile territory."
"Then we fight," Desire said, their beautiful form hardening with determination. "We're the Seven Teachers—former Sovereigns. Surely we can defeat mortal Wanderers, however organized."
"Not without civilian casualties," Despair noted quietly. "Any large-scale philosophical battle in this space—with students present—the collateral damage would be catastrophic. We'd be killing who we're trying to save."
Nihilism faded into fuller presence than ever before—their recent growth toward existence reversing under pressure.
"Perhaps," they said with terrible calm, "this is inevitable. Integration was beautiful dream. But dreams end. Maybe we end here, having tried something noble and failed spectacularly."
"NO." 
Akira's voice cut through the despair.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"We don't surrender. We don't accept defeat because it's *philosophically consistent with nihilism*." He moved to the center of the sanctum, feeling the Mark pulse with cold determination. "We fight. Smart. Together. Using everything we've learned about integration."
"Against absolute conviction?" Faith asked gently. "How do we fight those who refuse to acknowledge our validity?"
"By showing them they're wrong." Akira looked at each Teacher, each friend, seeing the fear and determination mixed. "They believe only one truth can exist. We prove multiple truths are stronger. They attack integration—we demonstrate integration's power."
"That's suicide," Kaida said. "You can't negate hundreds of Absolutists. The memory cost alone would erase you completely."
"Not if I do it differently." Akira touched his Mark, remembering Senna's teaching. "The Mark doesn't just negate—it creates *space* between conviction and reality. What if I used it not to erase their conviction, but to create space where multiple convictions can exist?"
Order calculated rapidly. "That's... theoretically possible. But the scale required—you'd need to expand the neutral ground to encompass the entire battlefield. That's orders of magnitude more complex than simple negation."
"And it would cost you everything," Daisuke said quietly. "Every memory. Every piece of identity. You'd become pure function—the Mark operating without a self to guide it."
"Unless," Senna's voice said from nowhere and everywhere, "he anchors himself in something beyond memory."
The master appeared in the sanctum's center—having crossed from the Neutral Ground itself.
"I felt the attack," Senna explained. "Came to help. And I see what you're planning, Akira. It's brilliant. Dangerous. Possibly fatal. But brilliant."
"Will it work?" Akira asked.
"If you remember your anchor. Connection—the validity of others' consciousness. That's not memory. It's deeper than memory. It's *value*. Values persist when experiences fade." Senna placed a hand on Akira's Mark. "I can help stabilize you during the process. Keep your anchor clear while the rest dissolves. But Akira—if we do this, you won't be the same person after. You'll have your anchor, your practice, your present awareness. But your past? All of it, gone."
Yuki grabbed his shoulder. "There has to be another way. We can fight conventionally, take the casualties—"
"Unacceptable," Akira said firmly. "I won't sacrifice students to preserve my memories. That would violate my anchor—I'd be prioritizing my own continuity over others' existence. That's the opposite of connection."
"Then we do it together," Daisuke said, moving beside him. "I can't use the Mark, but I can support the philosophical framework. My questions can create doubt in their absolutism, weaken their singular conviction."
"I'll provide chaotic interference," Yuki added. "Make their coordinated assault less coordinated."
"I'll feed conviction to the barrier while you work," Grayson said. "Keep the sanctum stable."
The Seven Teachers looked at each other, then nodded as one.
"We'll channel our philosophies through you," Order said. "Give you perspectives to work with. You'll negate their singularity by offering multiplicity they can't dismiss."
"This is insane," Kaida observed. "You're trying to convert attackers mid-battle through philosophical demonstration while erasing yourself in the process."
"Yes," Akira agreed. "Insane. Also necessary. Also consistent with everything I've taught. That wisdom requires sacrifice. That integration costs something. That holding contradictions is worth the price."
He moved to the sanctum's entrance, feeling the barrier's edge—the line between neutral ground and battlefield.
The Absolutists had stopped their assault, regrouping for final push. Their commander stepped forward, voice amplified by conviction:
"Surrender the Silence bearer! Surrender the heretical Teachers! Renounce integration and return to philosophical purity! Or we raze this entire complex and everyone in it!"
Akira stepped through the barrier.
Alone.
Facing hundreds of soldiers whose singular conviction gave them unified power beyond anything he'd fought before.
The Mark blazed on his arm—complex spiral pulsing with anticipation.
Behind him, his friends and the Teachers prepared to support however they could.
Before him, an army dedicated to destroying everything he'd built.
"No," Akira said simply, his voice carrying through conviction rather than volume. "We don't surrender. We don't renounce. We demonstrate."
He released the Mark's full power—not as negation, but as *expansion*.
Reality around him began to shift.
The neutral ground started spreading.
And the war for Astraeon's soul truly began.
---