The Hollow Ones

 
**Reconstruction took two weeks.**
The Academy rose from rubble with Wanderers from across Astraeon volunteering labor—students who'd graduated, faction members who believed in integration, even some reformed Absolutists who'd experienced the neutral ground's revelation and wanted to help build rather than destroy.
But the atmosphere was different now. Paranoid.
Everyone watched everyone else, wondering: *Are they the traitor? Did they give intelligence that killed thirty-seven students?*
Akira felt it most acutely in meetings with the Seven Teachers. Where there had been trust—now calculation. Where there had been collaboration—now subtle positioning.
"We need to discuss the elephant in the room," Order said during a strategy session, her geometric form tense. "The anonymous message. 'The Sovereign who never changed.' One of us is suspect."
"Allegedly," Freedom countered, their form shifting defensively. "We're trusting anonymous intelligence over years of demonstrated commitment. That's paranoia, not prudence."
"Prudence demands we investigate," Truth stated, displaying probability matrices. "Statistical analysis suggests 67% likelihood the traitor has senior-level access. That includes the seven of us."
"This is exactly what our enemy wants," Faith said, her radiance dimming with concern. "Division. Suspicion. We're destroying ourselves from within while they watch."
"Or," Desire noted carefully, "one of us is actually guilty, and deflection is convenient cover. I hate this. I hate that I'm suspicious of people I've taught beside for months."
"Suspicion is rational given circumstances," Despair added, her melancholy deepening. "Trust was beautiful while it lasted. But all trust eventually breaks. That's the nature of connection—it makes betrayal possible."
Nihilism's form flickered, more unstable than they'd been in months. "Perhaps this is proof that integration was always doomed. That we should have remained isolated Sovereigns—powerful, separate, unable to betray because unable to truly connect."
Akira watched the Seven Teachers fracture in real-time—the unity they'd built eroding under pressure of doubt.
"Stop," he said quietly.
They turned to him.
"This is exactly the trap," he continued, standing from his chair. "We're doing their work for them. Turning on each other instead of finding actual evidence. The message could be manipulation—designed to create this exact paranoia."
"Or it could be genuine warning," Order countered. "We can't dismiss it."
"I'm not dismissing it. I'm saying we investigate *evidence* rather than *suspects*. We look at what happened—who had access, when intelligence was gathered, how it was transmitted—and follow that trail. Not start with 'which Sovereign do we distrust most' and work backward."
Daisuke entered the room carrying a stack of reports. "Speaking of evidence—I've interviewed the captured Absolutists. Most are fanatically committed, won't talk. But a few, after experiencing the neutral ground, are... reconsidering. One in particular has been helpful."
He placed papers on the table—interview transcripts, sketches, testimonies.
"The Absolutists weren't just organized by philosophical conviction. They had *leadership*—someone coordinating across cells, someone with strategic intelligence, someone who knew exactly how to hurt us most effectively."
"Name?" Truth demanded.
"They don't know. But they describe them: 'The Hollow One.' Someone who appears committed to integration but whose conviction feels... empty. Performed rather than genuine. Like they're playing a role."
A chill ran through the room.
"The message mentioned 'Hollow Ones,'" Yuki said, entering with Grayson. "Plural. Meaning multiple infiltrators, not just one."
"Infiltrators *here*?" Freedom's form scattered momentarily in alarm. "At the Academy? Among our people?"
"Logically consistent," Truth analyzed. "Deep cover agents who learned integration well enough to fake it. Gathering intelligence, waiting for optimal moment to strike. The attack was phase one—cause damage, create paranoia. Phase two would be—"
An explosion rocked the building.
Not outside—*inside*. From the student dormitories.
Akira ran, Mark blazing cold, reaching the scene in seconds.
**Carnage.**
A dormitory wing collapsed, students trapped in rubble screaming for help. But this wasn't architectural failure—this was *philosophical attack*. The walls had been negated, their integrated conviction dissolved into incoherence.
Someone had used a power similar to the Mark of Silence.
Standing in the center of the destruction: a student Akira recognized. Mira—a quiet girl from Order's domain, studying synthesis for three months, always polite, always diligent.
Except now her eyes were empty. Hollow.
"Hello, Akira," she said in a voice that wasn't quite hers—layered, distorted, as if someone else spoke through her. "Surprised? You shouldn't be. We've been here all along. Learning your techniques. Understanding your philosophy. Waiting."
"Mira—" Akira started.
"There is no Mira. There never was. Just a construct. A hollow shell designed to infiltrate, observe, report." Her form flickered—and beneath the appearance of a student, Akira saw *nothing*. Not invisibility—*absence*. A shaped void where a person should be.
The Hollow One smiled with a face that wasn't real.
"We are the Doctrine of One's true weapon. Not soldiers. Infiltrators. We learned your integration, understood your methods, and now we'll dismantle you from within. Starting with—"
She gestured, and three more students collapsed—their integrated convictions suddenly *inverted*, turning against themselves, philosophical frameworks eating their own foundations.
They screamed as their identities dissolved.
Akira released the Mark—trying to negate the attack, to silence the Hollow One's power.
But his negation slid off her like water off glass. She wasn't *real* enough to negate. She was already absence given form.
"Clever, isn't it?" the Hollow One said. "You can negate conviction—but we *have* no conviction. We're philosophical weapons shaped like people. Empty vessels piloted by the Doctrine's will. You can't silence what has no voice."
She raised her hand toward more students—
Kaida's Blade of Sorrow struck from behind, blade of emotional weight cutting through the Hollow One's core.
The construct *shrieked*—a sound like reality tearing—and collapsed into scattered absence.
"They're not invincible," Kaida said grimly. "Just resistant to certain attacks. Emotional and physical force still works."
"How many are there?" Akira demanded, helping pull students from rubble while Grayson and others provided aid.
"Unknown," Kaida replied. "But if they've been infiltrating for months—dozens? Hundreds? Any student, any teacher, any staff member could be hollow."
Order arrived with the other Teachers, her geometric form radiating cold fury. "Lockdown. Now. Every person in this Academy gets tested for authenticity. We root out every infiltrator."
"How?" Freedom challenged. "How do you test if someone's real? What's the criteria?"
"Philosophical consistency," Truth suggested. "Real people have contradictions, growth patterns, genuine doubt. Hollow constructs would be too perfect—their integration too clean, their learning too consistent."
"That's dozens of false positives," Desire protested. "Some people just learn better than others. We'd be accusing real students—"
Another explosion. Eastern tower. Then southern. Then the medical ward.
Coordinated strikes—Hollow Ones activating simultaneously across the Academy.
"They're not waiting," Daisuke realized with horror. "They're purging themselves. Maximum damage before we can respond. This is mass assault."
Akira felt his anchor scream in alarm. *Connection—the validity of others' consciousness.*
But how do you connect with people who aren't real? How do you honor consciousness that's just hollow construction?
The Mark pulsed desperately—trying to give him answers, but his memory loss meant he lacked context for how to fight enemies who were pure absence.
"Senna!" he called out, reaching across space toward the Neutral Ground. "I need guidance!"
The master appeared instantly—having been monitoring since the attack began.
"Hollow Ones are old weapons," Senna said rapidly. "Doctrine of One used them two hundred years ago during the last philosophical war. They're constructs made from *negated conviction*—belief that's been inverted, turned inside-out, shaped into weapons. They're not alive, not conscious, just... echoes of destroyed philosophies."
"How do we fight them?"
"You don't fight absence. You *fill* it." Senna grabbed Akira's shoulders. "The Mark of Silence creates space—but space can be filled with something other than silence. You need to give them *conviction*. Real conviction. Force them to become what they're pretending to be."
"That's insane," Yuki said. "How do you give conviction to something that's specifically designed to be empty?"
"Through connection," Akira realized. "Through treating them *as if* they're real until they have no choice but to become real. That's... that's integration taken to its extreme. Not just holding multiple truths—but making potential truth actual through commitment to its validity."
"That will cost you," Senna warned. "Every Hollow One you fill with genuine conviction requires you to share your own conviction. Your anchor will be strained beyond anything you've experienced."
"But it's the only way to truly defeat them," Akira said. "Destroying them just creates more absence. We need to transform them. Give them real existence. Make them into what they're pretending to be."
Despair laughed—sharp and bitter. "You want to redeem philosophical weapons. To give consciousness to constructs designed to destroy consciousness. That's either enlightenment or madness."
"It's both," Akira admitted. "But it's what integration demands. We don't just tolerate difference—we *create* validity where there was none. Even for our enemies."
He moved toward the chaos—where Hollow Ones were systematically dismantling the Academy's integrated architecture, where students fled screaming from entities that looked like friends but felt like voids.
The Mark blazed—not with cold negation, but with warm *affirmation*. Creating space not for silence, but for voices that had never existed.
This was going to hurt.
This was going to cost him possibly everything.
But his anchor demanded it: *Connection. Others' validity. Chosen engagement.*
Even with beings that weren't yet real.
Especially with them.
Because that's what it meant to truly believe that meaning could be constructed—you had to be willing to construct it even in absolute absence.
Akira reached the first Hollow One—a construct wearing the face of a young man who'd never existed, destroying students with powers it didn't understand.
He grabbed it, Mark flaring.
And instead of negating—*gave*.
Gave conviction. Gave validity. Gave the possibility of actual existence.
The Hollow One screamed as absence was forcibly filled with substance.
And somewhere in that transformation—in the space between weapon and person—something genuinely new began to emerge.
The war had entered its strangest phase yet.
Where victory meant creating enemies into allies.
Where triumph required making the unreal real.
Where Akira's conviction would be tested not by how much he could negate—but by how much he could *affirm*.
Even unto his own dissolution.