The wind sliced through the alley like broken glass—cold, sharp, laced with ash.
Kairo stood motionless, blinking against the static in his vision. The floating system prompt dissolved into the air like breath on a mirror, leaving nothing but silence behind.
No footsteps.
No birds.
No distant voices.
Just the hum of tension, as if the world was holding its breath.
He reached for his head—slowly, mechanically—and ran a hand through his hair. Damp. Cold. Slightly longer than he expected. His body was intact, but unfamiliar. Rebuilt, not returned. Something beneath his skin thrummed in pulses, soft but rhythmic—like a countdown he couldn't hear.
There was still no memory.
Just instinct.
He staggered forward, boots scuffing against uneven stone. The alley opened onto a wider path—a crumbling street riddled with debris. The buildings leaned like they were too tired to stand. Shattered lanterns hung from bent iron poles. Vines coiled like nooses around rusted balconies.
And at the center of it all, stretching into the sky, stood a broken cathedral.
Its steeple had snapped in half. A hundred shattered stained-glass windows glowed faintly under the stormlight, refracting crimson and gold across the fog below. Symbols were etched across its surface—runes, glyphs, numbers—none of them familiar, yet all of them made him uneasy. His eyes twitched when he looked too long.
His legs moved before he told them to.
Drawn to it.
Then: footsteps.
Behind him. Slow. Bare.
He spun, cloak flaring—and found a girl standing at the edge of the alley.
She looked maybe fourteen. Starved thin. Wrapped in a shawl made of mismatched cloth and bandages. Her eyes were sunken, skin pale beneath the soot smeared across her cheeks. Her lips trembled, but she didn't speak.
Kairo didn't move.
Neither did she.
Then she whispered, voice cracking like wet paper:
"You're… not one of them."
He opened his mouth. Realized he didn't know what to say.
She flinched back.
And from behind her—shadows peeled from the walls.
Three figures emerged. Tall. Thin. Wearing masks.
White porcelain, no eyes, no mouth. Just a red line where a grin might be. Each wore the same ragged robes stitched from torn flags and bone-thread.
They didn't walk. They floated.
Kairo's heart froze.
The mask. The one from his death.
Same design. Same quiet malice.
The girl shrieked and ran. One of the masked figures tilted its head, watching her without turning. Then its gaze returned to Kairo.
Or not its gaze—its presence.
And then:
[THREAT DETECTED][INITIATING DEFENSIVE SYSTEM BOOT][SKILL GENERATED: FLARE BIND // LV.1][SKILL MODIFIER: TEMPORAL INSTABILITY DETECTED][WARNING: SKILL CREATION CORRUPTED]
His hands sparked.
A ring of symbols lit up around him—glitching, shuddering, incomplete. Fire tried to form. Threads of it danced in the air, flickering between gold and violet—but they unraveled before he could shape them.
The masked things didn't hesitate.
They lunged.
Kairo's reflexes screamed. He raised both hands, funneling energy into a barrier—
—but the spell collapsed.
The impact hit like thunder. He flew backward, slammed into the alley wall, ribs snapping on contact. His breath vanished. Pain split across his chest like a cracked plate.
One of them hovered over him, reaching down.
And then—
A pulse.
From deep inside him.
[OVERRIDE PING // REWRITE TRIGGERED][GLITCH AUTHORITY ENABLED][COMMAND: DENY INPUT]
The masked figure jerked mid-motion.
Then convulsed.
Its mask shattered—just a hairline crack—but it recoiled like he'd driven a blade through its soul.
The others hissed in a soundless frequency.
Kairo pushed himself up, spitting blood. His vision swam.
The system flickered again.
[SKILL REPLACEMENT COMPLETE][NEW SKILL: TRACE//FORCE - UNSTABLE][USAGE: 1 TIME // COST: UNKNOWN]
He didn't think.
He moved.
A step—no, a blur. Time bent around him. The world snapped into place and reloaded as he launched into the closest figure, fist-first.
Contact.Impact.Mask splinters flying like shrapnel.
The creature collapsed, body crumpling in on itself like a puppet cut from strings. Gone.
The others retreated, twisting back into the walls like spilled ink evaporating under sun.
Silence returned.
Kairo dropped to one knee, coughing so hard blood hit the ground in splashes.
His system pinged.
[GLITCH STABILIZATION IN PROGRESS][VOIDPOINT +1 EARNED]
He didn't know what that meant.
Didn't care.
The girl had vanished.
The cathedral waited.
And somewhere behind his pain, behind his fear, behind the fog of his missing life—
He felt it.
Something watching him.
Not the Witches.Not the masks.Not the system.
Something older.
Something patient.