The morning was quiet.
Too quiet.
Kazuki woke up to birds chirping, sunlight streaming in through the window, and the peaceful, gnawing suspicion that the universe was preparing to suplex him.
He was correct.
At the guild, Darin was studying a bounty board like it was a brunch menu.
"Did you know there's a reward for someone called 'The Vessel'? Sounds shady. Look—five hundred silver and a mystical dagger."
Kazuki choked on his bread. "That's me, genius."
Darin blinked. "Oh."
Then pointed. "Wait, is that you in this wanted sketch?"
Kazuki squinted.
It was… almost him. Just older. And angrier. And with a lot more horns.
Mistral hopped onto the table. "The nose is wrong, but the existential dread is spot-on."
Before Kazuki could launch into a full-blown identity crisis, the door exploded.
Three figures burst in—hooded, armored, radiating the "we don't do small talk" energy of professionals.
"Target acquired," one growled.
Another pulled out a scroll. "By order of the Crimson Hand, the Vessel must be secured. Alive, preferably."
Kazuki stood up slowly. "I have several objections to this plan—"
The third figure fired a stun rune.
The world went white.
Kazuki woke up bound, gagged, and tied to a chair made of enchanted thorns.
"Oh good," he mumbled. "The spa package."
He was in some kind of stone hideout. Probably a basement. It smelled like mildew and unpaid taxes. His system pinged weakly:
[Status: Kidnapped. Again.]
[Alignment Instability: Elevated.]
[Echo Dive Locked. You're welcome.]
Across from him sat a woman with sharp eyes and a face carved from politics.
"You don't know what you are," she said.
Kazuki wiggled in his chair. "That's fair, but not helping."
"You are The Vessel of the Broken One. We've seen your trail—shrines waking up, corruption rising. You are either the end of the cycle or the reason it repeats."
Kazuki blinked. "There it is again. That weird vibe where people talk like I'm a metaphor."
She stepped forward, pulled out a dagger glowing faintly red.
"Join us. The Crimson Hand protects your kind. We'll help you ascend before the others come for you."
Kazuki, to his credit, did consider it.
Then he remembered he once killed a goblin with a soup ladle.
That kind of energy doesn't exactly scream cult leader.
"I'd rather be broken than brainwashed," he said.
That's when the ceiling exploded.
Kaelith dropped into the room like an angry prophecy in leather armor.
She didn't say a word.
Just fired three arrows in three seconds, each one hitting a cultist in a non-lethal but very painful place.
Mistral emerged from the shadows with murder in his eyes. "Did someone try to hurt my idiotic project?"
Kazuki grinned. "Took you long enough."
Kaelith cut his bindings.
"You are banned from being alone," she growled.
"Fair."
They ran.
Outside, the cultists regrouped, bruised but alive. One of them whispered, "He's further along the Path than we thought."
Another nodded. "Too far to stop."