SAI SHINU
I closed the door behind me, dropped my bag, and the System chimed. A new notification blinked at the edge of the screen: NEW ABILITY ACQUIRED — Crimson Rift. My heart stuttered.
"How is that even possible?" I muttered.
The other Sai—my companion, my echo—was already on the sofa, watching me with those empty, knowing eyes. "I don't know," he said slowly. "It's… something I've never seen in either of my lives."
"Either of your lives?" I echoed, sitting hard on the bed. The words landed wrong in my chest. "What do you mean, two lives?"
He didn't smile. "One thing at a time. I'll tell you everything — but you have to be ready to accept the consequences."
"Consequences?" I snapped, the old fear crawling up my spine. Images of the forest, that cold figure—those nights flashed through my head.
"How do you know about that?" I asked, bewildered.
"Shut up and listen," he said, a sharpness in his voice I hadn't heard before.
He drew in a breath and began.
I don't remember when it started. One moment I woke in an unfamiliar room and there was a woman beside me — beautiful, kind, someone I didn't know but who felt like home.
Days bled into each other. We believed we were alone in that wide, empty universe — nothing existed but us. Then, one day, a voice rang out. It was thunderous and old. It made us terrified and curious at the same time.
The voice told us it was the lord of that universe. It told us there was a son somewhere, and that we would be put to a test when the time came. We had no idea what "the time" meant.
The "challenge" was always the same: survive hunger. Apples would hang from trees everywhere — tempting, plentiful — but one in each grove was cursed. Eat the wrong one and everything broke. We avoided them, always wary.
Then everything collapsed. Darkness swallowed the world. I was a speck—lost in nothingness. Time didn't pass. I wandered and could not move forward.
And then I saw you.
I don't know how long I watched; I only know I did not die. I tethered myself to you — to your heart — and in doing so I rode whatever thread pulled you back into your body. Your consciousness returned; I came with it. I became something that could not be named—part echo, part soul.
Since then, I've been here. I watched. I learned. Good things, bad things — I watched them all for three years.
He stopped. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the System notification still pulsing on the screen.
"I told you this might wake memories," he said softly. "If you feel something… don't be afraid. It's only pieces of what we both went through."
I looked at him — at the man who claimed to be me and not-me. The weight of his words pressed inward, strange and terrible and somehow… comforting.
"I…" I began, then let the sentence die. Outside, the night pressed against the window. Inside, the new ability glowed faintly on my HUD, a promise and a warning both.
"I'm ready," I said finally — though my voice shook. "Tell me everything."