Kai's grip held firm, sweat slicking his palms, muscles locked like steel. Akari dangled above the lava, her weight pulling hard—but not harder than his resolve.
Behind them, the cavern trembled violently. Cracks raced across the obsidian floor. Columns snapped and tumbled into the molten pit below.
Ash cursed. "Maybe I shook the ground too hard earlier…"
Wenzel's voice cut through the panic. "Destroy the Gemstone—now! Kai, if you don't make it to the portal, you won't get pulled back!"
"Kai, let her go!" Marin's voice echoed. "We're out of time!"
"I don't want to!" Kai shouted back. His fingers locked tighter around Akari's wrist. I want her to live... I want her to see the sky again.
Then—
Everything vanished.
Just white.
Empty white.
Kai blinked. He was standing on nothing, surrounded by nothing—like floating in memory. And in front of him, Akari stood. Her face was blank. Her arms were lowered, no longer being pulled.
She looked at him with eyes that weren't crying anymore.
"Leave me here," she said, quiet. "I don't even have a home to go back to. I don't have a room, a family, a bed, a place. The clan I grew up in, it doesn't even exist anymore! Just let me live in peace. Let me go!"
Kai swallowed, his hands curled at his sides.
"You think I had a home either?" he said softly. "My clan was wiped out. Everyone I knew, every wall I grew up under—it's ash. I've been alone for years, with a parasite in my spine, people trying to kill me, and the only thing I had left was running. And now—now I want to stop."
Akari didn't reply. She just stood still.
"You're not broken," Kai continued. "You're not meant to disappear into this realm like a ghost no one remembers. You can live again. You can—start over."
Her shoulders trembled. "Start over where?"
"With everyone," Kai said. "Come back. Enter the school I go to, blend in, have friends. I have a group—Yona, Aria, Lani, Emil. You'd fit right in."
As he said it, the white space rippled—and a soft image shimmered before them.
Yona, grinning ear to ear with that wild energy.
Aria, quiet but warm, adjusting her glasses.
Lani, holding a laptop and half-laughing and half-serious at the same time.
Emil, smirking while pretending not to care.
They were all standing in front of Kai, all smiling.
Akari's eyes widened, her lip trembled.
Then she took a step back. "Wait… What are you saying? Are you—"
She clenched her fists, her voice cracked.
"Are you crazy?! You're not planning to sacrifice yourself, are you?!"
Her shout echoed in the void.
And Kai's eyes narrowed.
"Did you really think I didn't have a plan?" Kai said with a crooked grin, voice playful, light in the face of doom. "If that witch was one step ahead, I'm two steps ahead. Hehe."
Tomorrow… if I survive… I'll smile at everyone. I'll stop pretending I'm fine and actually be fine. I'll stop living in the shadows of my past. I'll stop dreaming of screams. I'll stop waking up to my heartbeat pounding like it's still running from the fire. I'll stop worrying.
"You have to live," he whispered to Akari, not begging but promising. "Because there is a tomorrow. And you… you deserve it more than anyone."
"Smile tomorrow," he said, voice shaking. "Don't forget it."
Akari looked at him, horrified. "Are you crazy?! Kai, we've only known each other for days, and you're—you're sacrificing yourself for me!?"
Kai shook his head, calm despite everything. "That's because you experienced something greater than I ever did. I thought I'd seen hell—when my clan died, when I couldn't sleep for months, when Sekh whispered in my ear and my own body didn't feel like mine anymore—but that was nothing. You… got your clan taken and were trapped in this realm for five whole years."
"Kai… just leave me alone..."
"Kai, just leave! Let me go!"
He blinked. They were back.
The white vanished like smoke, the lava was real again, the crumbling ceiling, ghe screams and the heat.
"Kai! Faster! Let her go!" Wenzel roared behind him, arms reaching, panic setting in.
But Kai turned his head slightly, blood dripping from his lip as he held tight to Akari.
"Wenzel," he said calmly, "I have a plan."
Wenzel froze. Even in chaos, he recognized that tone. The old Vogel tone, commanding, composed, cunning.
Kai gritted his teeth and pulled. The Queen hissed, claws digging deeper, dragging Akari back—but she was losing grip.
Then—he dropped.
Wenzel grabbed his shoulder at the last second, preventing him from fully falling. They dangled for a breathless moment.
Akari and the Queen dangled close to the lava. The heat was unbearable. Kai felt his skin blistering just from proximity.
"Let her go!" the Queen screeched. "She's mine!"
Kai didn't listen.
"Sekh," he said in his mind, give me everything you've got.
Sekh laughed, delighted. You're finally talking like a true host. Here… take it all.
His right arm morphed, hardened into black chitin with pulsing tendrils and bone plating. Strength flooded his body.
With a growl, Kai yanked Akari upward with all his might, her body flying into his arms. With a twist, he reached further down, grabbed the Queen's wrist, and peeled her claws off Akari's leg, one by one.
The Queen shrieked, biting his shoulder, but he didn't flinch.
Then—he kicked Wenzel, propelling Akari upwards with all his force as Wenzel caught her mid-air.
Kai's fingers locked onto the Queen's arm as she pulled him closer to the edge.
"Let me go!" he shouted. "Save her instead! You can only save one of us now—and it's not going to be me!"
"As the last member of the Vogel Lineage, I'll take this parasite down with me! I'll end this!"
He looked up. "Follow what I say, Wenzel Oltz! You are one of the last loyal aides of our family, right?!"
Wenzel froze. For a second, the smoke and the screams faded. He wasn't just a soldier anymore. He was back in that snowy ruin, holding a boy who wouldn't stop crying.
He clenched his jaw, then gave a firm nod. "Yes, my Lord."
Then he turned and flew.
He didn't look back.
Akari reached for Kai, tears breaking loose.
"Kai!!!"
But he was already falling.
And he smiled.
I finally let her see the sky again…
Below, the lava opened its arms wide.
Above, Akari sobbed as the Rift portal swallowed her whole. The whole ruins crumbled, everything in the area destroyed.
He couldn't save both of us either way... If he tried to carry both of us and fly to the rift portal, it would take more time, and the whole area would've collapsed.
Kai screamed.
He didn't mean to. It was a scream torn from the deepest part of his lungs, raw and involuntary. The lava wrapped around his body like a molten serpent, skin blistering, flesh melting, nerves snapping apart in waves of white agony. The parasite inside him screeched too, not in pain, but in synchronization—a soundless resonance of two lives bound in destruction.
His vision warped. The last things he saw were the flickering embers licking across his chest, his limbs disappearing beneath the churning red. A crown of fire, and then nothing.
Darkness came next.
But it didn't stay.
A void without walls or direction, still and endless.
Kai floated, weightless, unmarred by flame or gravity. The pain was gone—but the memory lingered, etched into his soul like a burn scar.
Then something shifted.
A silhouette materialized in front of him.
A parasite, looming and regal in the white nothing, its many eyes dim but watching with impossible depth. It was Sekh—his companion, his curse, and something far older.
Sekh spoke with a voice that echoed through the void like a chime reverberating across time.
"Let's restart."
"Let's reset, Kai."
"I—what…?" Kai blinked. His voice barely formed. "How am I…?"
"You are the rightful heir," Sekh said, tone unreadable, tinged with strange warmth. "For centuries I waited. Hundreds of hosts have come and gone—warriors, kings, madmen—but none worthy. Until you."
Then, quietly, almost reverently:
"Charlotte… you were right…"
Kai's eyes widened. The name meant nothing to him—but something in Sekh's voice made it feel holy.
"I'm going to keep you alive," Sekh said.
"What!? How!?"
"A pact," the parasite answered. "Forged long ago. If I met another worthy host, at the moment of their death… I could exchange their life with one from the past host. One perfect host, sacrificed to give another a future."
"A host sacrificed…?"
"Yes, a host I met a long time ago."
Kai stared, stunned. His fists clenched. "Then… I'm going back…?"
"Yes."
But Kai looked down. His voice cracked. "I… I don't think I can face them. Not after what happened. I probably left them crying."
"I know," Sekh said.
There was a pause.
Then Kai whispered, "I have a plan."
"I know," Sekh repeated. This time, there was a faint smile in the words.
The void shimmered. A surreal cascade of memory began to flash like broken reflections in water—Akari's scream, the Queen's falling body, the heat of the lava, the shriek of stone collapsing. The Rift opening and the Rift closing.
Then—
A lake.
The scent of moist soil and fungal air.
Kai awoke on his back, gasping, half-submerged near the bank. The sky above was the bloom of Earth-scorched clouds. Birds—or something like birds—chittered in the trees. The world felt real again.
He looked down. His body was whole, but breathing.
"What… What happened…?"
"It's been one week," Sekh answered calmly. "Since they escaped the Rift. You've returned near the entrance."
Kai stood up, slowly, shirt sticking to his back, breath catching in his throat.
"…Alright then. Time to do my plan."
"What plan, Kai?"
He turned, smirking faintly.
"I'm creating another identity from scratch. My new name is…"
He paused.
"…Not sure yet."
Then, his eyes sharpened.
"I'm going to start from nothing. A whole reset."
A breeze whispered through the green trees.
And the boy once called Kai Alaric Vogel walked into the mist, nameless and reborn.