***
{Outside The Projection}
"...It all came full circle, huh?"
A voice in the crowd said it first—softly—but it echoed, rippling through the hall.
They remembered it like it was just a breath ago. Like they had blinked and time hadn't passed at all.
That first moment.
That first reveal. When the truth began.
Back when they learned Malik—the one in chains, the supposed Butcher, the Once Stranger, the Cursed King... Sultan—was once just a beggar boy, a Misunderstood "Villain." A fatherless child, scraping by with nothing but bones, bruises, and a wooden stick that looked like it had been chewed up by the streets themselves. Beaten, cracked, barely holding together. But he held onto it, even if it barely carried his weight.
They remembered.
That stick was this very cane before them…
By God, it was that same cane…
The realization made hearts drop.
Just what had he gone through in the time they hadn't seen him for this cane to have gotten like... that?
