He sat in the dark.
The fires in the courtyard had long burned out. Blackstone lay quiet now — save for the groan of fractured walls and the faint crackle of spent magic fading into ash.
Rei stared at his hands.
Not shaking. Not twitching.
Just still.
Too still.
The blade lay beside him — dulled at the edge, caked in rust that wasn't only rust.
He hadn't cleaned it.
He hadn't moved in hours.
He didn't need to.
Not yet.
Not while the others regrouped. Not while the world gave him this one moment to breathe.
But the stillness didn't quiet his thoughts.
They spun. Spiraled.
It wasn't just the fight.
Not the killing.
Not the whispers.
It was how natural it had felt.
The way his body moved — not remembered, not learned, but reclaimed.
Like slipping into armor he didn't know fit.
Like instincts carved beneath the skin.
And the memory…
Tokyo.
Neon lights on rain-slicked streets. Vending machines humming.
Cup noodles. Cracked screens. Endless nights.
A world where he mattered — even if only behind a monitor.
Where he was in control.
Where dying meant restarting.
But he hadn't imagined the fantasy would take him.
Or that it would use him like this.
Kaia perched on the edge of a crumbled wall, golden eyes gleaming in the fractured moonlight.
She hadn't spoken. Hadn't moved.
But she hadn't left.
She felt it — the storm in him.
The kind that didn't rage.
The kind that waited.
Coiled. Quiet. Feral.
"You remembered something," she said at last.
Rei looked up, startled by her voice.
"…I think so."
"You said a name."
"…My name?"
Kaia tilted her head. Silver hair caught the moon like a blade.
"Maybe."
"Rei," he said slowly. "Rei Watanabe."
He frowned.
She repeated it under her breath. "Rei. Wa-ta-na-be."
It didn't sound foreign.
It didn't feel like home, either.
Just… familiar.
Like a song you forgot you loved.
"Where did you come from?" Kaia asked.
He hesitated.
"I don't think I'm from Elaris."
She'd known. But hearing it aloud made it real.
Solid. Heavy.
"You remember your world?"
"Fragments. Machines. Towers of steel. Cities that never sleep. Everything fast. Bright. Loud."
He paused. Looked back at his hands.
"And then… I think I died."
Kaia's tail flicked once, low and sharp.
"How?"
"I don't know," he said.
Swallowed hard.
"I was just… going to buy dinner."
Silence.
"…That's how your people die?"
"Sometimes."
Kaia looked away.
She tried to imagine it — a world of wirefire and noise, where spirits didn't sing through trees, where people died between painted lines and blinking lights.
She couldn't.
"You're not just Riftborn," she said softly. "You're something else."
Rei met her gaze.
"Am I a threat?"
She didn't answer at first.
Then, without blinking:
"No.
But someone wants you to be."
**
Far beneath a sunken ruin—
Below the bleeding stones and the whispering void—
Something stirred.
A twitch.
Then stillness.
Eyes like dying stars flickered in the dark.
Dim. Then brighter. Then burning.
And in the silence between heartbeats,
A voice, no longer bound by flesh, whispered:
"He remembers."
Dust fell like ash from the ceiling.
Old wards trembled — not from age, but from recognition.
From the heart of the ruin, beyond shattered altars and collapsed pillars,
It waited.
Not dead.
Not dreaming.
Chained in a throne of obsidian and bone,
Crowned by twisted horns that scraped the ceiling,
Its presence alone turned the air heavy, thick with judgment.
It did not move.
It watched.
And as the Seal began to stir, so too did the forgotten guardian,
A relic of the First Rift war… awakening at last.