Pitch black. A silence without weight, breath, heartbeat. Not even pain.
Then—
A voice.
Soft, womanly. Nearly melodic. Like the hush of wind in a sleep she didn't realize she was in.
"Hikari. wake up."
It wasn't urgent. It was playful. Teasing.
"Hikari. Sweetie pie. Wake up now."
Hikari body awakened before his mind, as if limbs remembered the world and the soul lingered just behind. His fingers twisted. His chest struggled to breathe. When he opened her eyes, no sky, no ceiling, no ground existed. Only vast, endless emptiness—so black it shone at the edges like crushed velvet.
And in the middle of that emptiness—
A woman. Taller, more beautiful, inhuman.
Six arms extended from her shoulders in perfect symmetry. Four were folded in thoughtful repose, each hand holding a whirling orb—each orb spinning like a tiny, self-contained universe. Two arms hung lowered, fingers slowly flexing with unnatural calm. Her hair drifted, colorless and flowing, as if gravity had forsaken it.
And her clothing—
It was sheer and translucent, layered in long veils of woven stardust. Constellations pulsed across the folds like shifting maps. It wasn't cloth so much as a tapestry of night sky made flesh.
"Finally," she said with a grin that felt far too casual for this place. "You're awake."
Hikari blinked. His lips moved, dry and slow. "…W-who are you? Where… where am I?"
The woman put a finger to her lip and cocked her head to one side. "Shhh... You'll break something if you think too hard. And trust me, it hurts when your mind shatters in here."
She flipped one of the radiating globes between her top hands, and it hummed faster, dropping spatters of starlight onto the space that pressed around them.
"Let's just say," she went on, lips curling, "I'm a cool woman. With cool portal powers. And a killer sense of style."
"A-alright," replied Hikari, confused, dazed. "Just… tell me what happened. Why am I here? Is this—" His voice trembled, "—the afterlife?"
The woman hummed or laughed, somewhere in between. "Mmhmm... yeah, it's like that. But also no. But also. yes." She lightly tapped her chin with a glowing fingertip. "Ah, how do I even explain this…"
She looked around, theatrically scanning about the emptiness, as if the explanation floated nearby.
Hikari could only watch, eyes heavy, his chest tight. Something felt… wrong. Deeply wrong. His skin didn't hum with divine light anymore. The beads light were fade. And something in her chest—something eternal—was just… missing.
"OH!" the woman suddenly gasped, snapping her fingers. "I've got it. Okay, okay. So. Your immortality? Yeah, it's gone. Like, sucked right out of you."
Hikari stiffened. "What…?"
"Ripped right out like bad wiring," the woman continued merrily. "Taken. Claimed. Eaten, maybe? Hollow Queen's weird, I don't judge."
Hikari clutched his chest, the memory flooding back in pieces. The blow. The Mask. The light seeping out of her body.
"M-my brother…"
"Yep! That's the boy!" the woman grinned. "He played player of this cause. Opened the door. Let that ancient witch whisper all her promises into his soul. Big betrayal. Very tragic."
She theatrically twirled one of the orbs, as if reliving it all was a joke. "So now… Hollow Queen's got your immortality. Mask included. That divine power you had? Gone. Swallowed up like candy."
Hikari rubbed his temple, white hair spilling around him in billowing silken strands. She spoke through a cracked voice. "I… I remember… she said…"
"Yes, yes!" the woman clapped with two hands while holding the orbs steady with the other four. "You're remembering so well! She rewrote you, sweetheart. That's the important part."
"…Rewrote?"
"Oh yes." She wagged a finger, voice lowering. "When the Queen claimed your immortality, she took more than just power. She erased the memory of it. Not just from the world—but from you. Altered your gender, And to anchor it, she changed your shape."
"Altered… my…?" Hikari's voice trailed off.
The woman leaned in, a cold smile stretching her features thin and otherworldly. "Your gender, sweetheart."
Hikari stared, expression blank.
"The world will not remember what you once were. It will only remember what you are now."
"I-I don't understand…"
"Oh, of course you don't," the woman said, tossing her head in a parody of a sigh. "It's too much for anyone. Your nature was divine once, and now you're… altered. Twisted into a form that serves the design of the curse."
She turned again, turning in place like a dancer, the stars in her veil streaming behind her.
"But what matters is this: the curse desires erasure of you. Because for as long as you lived, you as you were could refuse it. You were a menace. So she made you become forgotten. And provided him—you sweet, accursed brother—with the place meant for her return."
Hikari's breathing stopped. His hands trembled.
"I… I'm still me… am I?"
The woman paused.
And in that moment, she was speechless.
Then "Yes. And no. You are the song and the echo. The blade and the broken hilt. The one who was supposed to judge—and now has been judged."
Hikari bent his head.
"I couldn't stop him."
"No," said the woman. "But you may still save him."
"How?"
The woman shrugged all six shoulders.
"Good question, darling. I'll consider it."
She wandered off, humming to herself, into the void.
"Aha, yes, just let me look around… yes, yes… where did I put that one soul-thread… the orb of reincarnation… the anchor of temporal loop."
Hikari sat there, in the dark, trembling. His name, his body, his life ripped asunder.
And the strange, heavenly woman wandered the emptiness, addressing herself about fate as though it were something misplaced in her cloak pocket.
The woman fell silent, her six arms folding inward around her slowly like a flower closing. The orbs she was holding continued to spin in her hand, humming quietly, casting soft star-patterns upon the velvet black.
Then, as if remembering that she was in the middle of a conversation, she turned back to Hikari, smiling politely.
"Ah—sorry, sorry. My memory teleports off when I go on long enough," she said, tapping a finger to her brow and turning it slowly. "But I know now. Everything makes sense now. Right—yes."
The stars glimmered in her eyes like embers of a dying fire. "The Hollow Queen and I. we're not so different ourselves, really. Cursed beings, born without time, existing at the stitches of creation. We need something to ground us. Something such as."
She twirled her fingers, searching for the word.
"...revelation. Or... well. perhaps relationship with humankind. Yeah, that is wholesome." She hesitated, nodded. "Either that, or we fade away into tales. Ghosts without anyone to terrorize."
She floated back slightly, stretching in the void. The border of her stardust veil billowed, spilling motes of light which disappeared before they hit anything.
"And now. it seems the only way to get you back in the loop—to bring you back—is a little. complicated."
Hikari did not speak. His breathing was slow, his face impassive.
"I mean," the woman continued quickly, "I can't give your immortality back to you. That's. gone. She stole it. Consumed it. Mask and all."
A silence.
"And the gender thing?" She stuck out her tongue in a sheepish smile. "Yeah, no. That piece's fixed into the rewrite. Like a... cosmic patch update. Sorry, sweetheart."
Hikari said nothing, his gaze distant.
"But!" the woman burst out, whirling around on her heel, three globes revolving with her. "There is a choice."
She leaned forward, a conspiratorial look on her face. "A different way of existing. Not divine. Not holy. Something. stranger."
Hikari lifted his head, slowly.
"If you negotiate with me," the woman said, knocking on the center of her chest, "I can give you something like immortality. Not life eternal, not precisely. But each time you die—poof! You end up back here with me."
She grinned. "Not bad, right? I'm basically a personal checkpoint. With added charm."
Hikari remained silent for a moment more. The stars in her hair drifted slowly in the space between them.
"...Okay," His said at last. "But what's going on?"
The woman rose to her feet, smiling.
"But!" she warbled, wagging a finger. "Before we finalize it—you have to understand the world you grew up with? It's not like that anymore. When you return, things will not be the same. People have forgotten. You've been rewritten as something else. The rules are shifting."
Hikari nodded slowly. "I figured."
The lady spun around, her movements trailing behind her in a shower of stars. "Then the deal is. Ja-jang!"
Two of her hands stretched wide apart like unveiling some grand prize.
"Let me stay in your body!" she announced happily.
Hikari blinked.
"... Excuse me...W-what?"
"Tell me about yourself, I'm interested," the woman purred, pacing around, veil billowing with her like wispy smoke. "Your soul, your judgment, your melancholy—it's so poetic. And above all—" the smile stretched from ear to ear, "...I'd like to know how you open your portal. That technique is exotic. Ancient even. You're using dimensional binding in a way that I've not seen since, like, fourfold ages."
He looked at her with a tired, lingering stare.
"You wish to live inside me… because you like my portals?"
"Yes," she shrugged all six shoulders, "that, and you're cute. A cursed, doomed saint. But yes—portals. Pact?"
She extended her lower right hand. A wave of light coursed through her palm, coalescing into a shining strand of star-tissued sigil. The pact trembled, in abeyance.
Hikari stared at it.
"I'll still be me?"
"Absolutely," the woman replied. "I won't control anything. I'll just. exist alongside. Like a roommate. A roommate who eats planets. And dont worry. Ill just stay in you while you are still mortal."
Hikari shut her eyes, then opened them again.
"...And if I say no?"
The woman's smile faltered a little. Not in anger—just sadness. Like she already knew the answer.
"Then you don't go back... Its only the way."
The silence between them hung there.
And in the middle of that darkness—without a heartbeat, without a sky—Hikari reached out.
And took her hand.
"Alright... Yes. I'll accept it, " Hikari say. He is no longer girl. Anymore... But he wonder. How he get his immortality back...
The woman's lips parted in an appreciative smile, her starry veil rippling like liquid constellations.
"Heh. there we go," she chuckled, keeping Hikari's hand a moment longer before letting it go. The covenant lingered briefly between them—a disruption of stars forming a ring that pulsed, then melted into her chest with a soft chime.
Then she turned, stepping lightly through the void with the weightlessness of a dream, her six arms folding and unfurling as she spoke, almost conversationally. "But hey, just so we're crystal—remember. you're not invincible anymore."
She stopped and turned back to him, tilting her head, voice softening just slightly. "You can die, Hikari. Painfully. Blood, bones, heartbreak. All of it's back on the table."
Hikari swallowed, eyes downcast.
"But." the woman smiled again, tapping her forehead, "I can bring you back. Here. This room? Our little meeting place between deaths. As often as you need. You'll just have to suffer a little each time." She gave a playful shrug, as if the whole concept of resurrection was merely somewhat inconvenient.
"I see," Hikari whispered.
"But now let's talk about the world," she continued, her voice suddenly full of a performer's energy again. "Oh yes, the grand reality shuffle."
Hikari blinked. "Shuffle…?"
"Oh my stars, yes." The woman laughed, one of her orbs spinning rapidly above her palm. "When Hollow Queen stole your immortality and remade your life, she didn't just remake you—the world reacted. Like, boom! Bits of what was got tossed across the continent. Yamaoka, your little piece of civilization, isn't so much a static nation anymore as a... mmm...randomized sandbox?"
She turned dramatically on one heel and gestured out into space.
"People. Places. Memories. Time. All disconnected. Like someone accidentally hit the 'new game plus' button, but didn't carry over player data."
Hikari looked at her blankly.
The woman pointed a finger, excitedly, "Okay, okay, picture this. So you've got this huge multiplayer game, right? You understand? And someone—you—people you know or people know you... just rejoined the session! but the server didn't know where to place people you know. So it's like. 'Oh! I dont remember these dude! Seems Someone new just loaded in! Uh, sure! Let's just spawn them randomly! ' say the server."
She threw her hands up. "Boom. People teleport everywhere. Family ripped apart! Cities moved! Cultures shattered! It's a really a mess! A fun mess. But a mess!"
Hikari shook his head slowly, stunned. "So… they got scattered?"
"Yes!" she waved at him. "But not Exactly. Some of them ussualy still... Uhh teleport really close?... But You're getting it! And worse, most people don't even remember things correctly anymore. Some of them think they've always lived where they currently do. Some remember things you don't. Others… don't even know you existed."
Hikari drew back. "That sounds… horrifying."
"Yes, indeed. You know? Many people suffer this. And... The child... Well it is how the reality work," the woman replied, rolling one of the star orbs between her palms. "Reality likes fixing itself up in a hurry if there's a gap. It's sloppy. Like weaving a tapestry quickly and attempting to pretend it wasn't on fire five minutes ago."
There was a moment of silence between them briefly until she sat up again, her voice shifting with a teasing tone.
"Oh—and before you start whining about not being cute anymore—" she said, smiling, "let me just say, I was pleasantly surprised. Really."
Hikari blinked in surprise. "W-what?"
"When I discovered your gender was rescripted," the woman said, crossing her arms and floating in a slow arc around him, "I was worried you'd turn into one of those sorts—you know, those whining, annoying, mixed-up little twerps that cry every time they scratch a knee or hear the word 'responsibility'."
"I… what?"
"But nope! You are the exception!" she said, tapping her chin as she examined him carefully. "You still look like you. Graceful. Mysterious. Moody. I love it. Though…"
She leaned in closer, examining him with narrowed eyes and a playfully raised eyebrow. "If someone with a good knowledge of human mana anatomy actually examined you… "
She made a swirling motion with her hand. "Let's just say they'd notice."
Hikari's face went a bit red, and he took half a step backward.
"I don't think so... I think... I think I still sound and look girly... And i think... Its... Weird." he muttered.
"Oh, I'm not saying it's bad," the woman said, waving her hand. "You've got the same grace. But you're in this weird in-between. You're still shaped like the girl you were, for the most part. But technically..." she waved her hand. "You're a boy. Mostly. Too"
Hikari sighed, rubbing the back of his head. His white hair was longer than he remembered—light and wild, tumbling over his eyes like snow. He did not feel so changed. But the words clung to him.
"Then… what am I to be now?" he whispered.
The woman drifted to a stop, folding her arms again.
"Well, that's the question, isn't it?"
Another moment passed.
Then she smiled.
"...Wanna be a trap?"
"No," Hikari said quickly, firmly. He shook his head, setting his jaw.
"I'm tired," he said, voice low. "Tired of using someone else's path. Rinne's. Father's. Even the world's."
He looked up, eyes clear despite the storm in his chest.
"I'll just be Hikari. And i dont know what next Hikari will be."
Hikari's breath slowed.
His hand tightened at his side, not in anger, but the way one holds the edges of something fragile—a paper-thin truth that would tear if he attempted to voice it aloud.
He didn't respond right away. The silence surrounding him appeared to grow. The woman, for once, waited. No riddles. No teasing.
Then finally, his voice—gentle, broken, but firm.
"...I don't want to play the role they carved out for me."
His eyes remained lowered, gaze lost in the velvet black beneath his feet, where there were no stars. His image was not reflected. He wasn't sure it ever had been.
"I tried to be what they needed. The select. The guardian. The voice of judgment. I tried to follow Father's path, to fight like him. I tried to talk like Rinne, to think that if I asked enough, I'd find an answer that justified anything."
His throat tightened, but the words didn't stop.
"And when that didn't work, I tried to disappear in the spaces between them—simply by being silent, being small, being obedient. As if shrinking would protect what was left."
He looked up, meeting her eyes. And this time his voice didn't break.
"I was a reflection. Of him. Of them. Of who the world told me I was supposed to be."
A silence.
"But now… I don't care if the world doesn't remember my name. I don't care if it doesn't remember what I used to be."
He took a breath, a deep breath—like surfacing from water after drowning.
"I don't want to walk in anyone else's shadow. Not a brother. Not a father. Not a god."
The stars in the woman's veil began to move again, slow and bright.
"I only want to be Hikari. Whatever that is. However it changes."
He clenched his fists. His body trembled, not in fear—but under the weight of finally, finally speaking it aloud.
"I don't care if I don't fit into the categories they have for me. I don't care what they call me out there—boy, girl, mistake, lost cause."
"I will make my own shape."
He lifted his head, breath torn, eyes burning like new flame.
"I will become myself."
"And I will rewrite the judgment."
The void was still for some time. No stars shone. No veil trembled.
Then—
The woman smiled.
A real one. Not playful. Not amused.
Just… proud.
The woman clapped her hands—three of them, to be precise—and a cascade of starlight burst around her like celebratory confetti. The orbs in her upper palms pulsed in sync, as though pleased with the final answer, and her veil swirled in a gravity-defying arc, twinkling brighter than before.
"Alright then!" she declared with theatrical flourish. "Hikari, you've chosen to be yourself! What a deal! A divine reclamation of selfhood! Ten out of ten! Absolutely breathtaking character development!"
She spun once in the void, laughing to herself, before leaning in toward him with a mischievous grin.
"So then," she say, eyes glimmering like twin nebulae, "should I just call you my boy now?"
Hikari blinked, then gave the smallest, faintest shrug. His shoulders barely moved, but it said more than words.
"…Call me whatever you want," he murmured, tone light but tired. "But I am Hikari."
The name lingered. No longer a title passed down by judgment or blood, but a flame he now held himself.
The woman smiled warmly at that—genuinely, this time—and gave a nod, her many arms folding across her chest like the close of a ceremony.
"Well then, Hikari," she said, stepping backward, the stars behind her beginning to ripple with slow awakening. "It's time."
He looked up. The void had started to breathe again. Light—real light—glimmered in distant patterns, forming shapes he couldn't yet recognize. A feeling stirred in his gut. A pull. A summons.
The woman extended her lower hand toward him.
"Get ready to awaken."
But, he seems. So gloomy. And sad
The woman watched him quietly.
Her smile faltered, just slightly, when she caught the way Hikari's eyes drifted downward again. The firm resolve that had shone in his words just moments ago now seemed distant, like a candle guttering against the cold. His posture drooped—not defeated, but heavy. Grief was a quiet weight, and even after all the vows and choices… it clung to him.
"Hey, hey…" she said, more gently now.
And then she stepped forward—not drifting, not theatrics—and placed his hand in hers.
It was warm. Warmly surprising.
"Hikari," she breathed, her other hand folding over his knuckles, "don't look at me like that. You did something massive—you chose you. You yanked yourself out of the shadow of everything you were told to be, and became. That's not nothing."
She tightened her grip on his hand. "You're not broken."
His eyes darted up to hers. "I don't feel whole."
"Well of course you don't," she snapped, and out came a harsh little laugh. "You just lost your soul to a death witch, lost your body, your immortality, and found yourself waking up in the mind-bending soup of the void. You're allowed to look pathetic."
Another smile, this one a little wider. "But hey. Imagine it like… building a new world. Yours. New. No expectations. No chains. Yeah, no faces you know, either, but… at least."
She crept in a little closer, her head cocked to the side so that her face was level with his.
"At least you have me."
Hikari blinked. "...You?
The woman smiled. "Duh. Just play like I'm your fabulous cosmic auntie. I possess baked void-cookies. I'm a master of sarcastic advice. I'll be whispering in your ear like a completely supportive shoulder demon."
She stroked his head again, this time more softly—soothing. "You're not alone, even when you think you are."
She looked at him.
"And just for future reference, my name is Lyra. L-y-r-a. Lyra! Warden of the Void of Nihility but you, sweetheart, can just call me your favorite cosmic auntie~ Star-touched, dimension-woven, owner of too many limbs to count. If anything gets all screwy with your new life—and trust me, it probably will—just yell. I'll come."
Hikari paused, and then slowly nodded. "...If I shout, will you just. think to me? Or..."
"Will I jump dramatically out of a wall like some very trendy curse?" she grinned.
He smiled, nodding half-way.
"You'll find out," she whispered, voice dipped in stars and secrets.
He exhaled softly, the last of his defenses slipping away. A silence passed between them—not cold, not void, but full. Like the moment between thunder and rain.
And then she paused.
Her eyes shifted, just slightly. Gentle, but assessing. She tilted her head.
"...You're lovely, you know," she said, with no flirtation at all. Just fact. "Even rewritten. Even reshaped. You still look like you. But now… you feel more real."
Hikari flushed, and he turned his head away.
"But if anybody down there's got eagle eyes," she said, raising an eyebrow in a mischievous manner, "they might see some. Mana anatomical irregularities. Gender's a weird thing when gods monkey around."
Hikari made a face. "Please don't—
"Thus?" she interrupted, spinning one of her night-sky orbs dramatically to change the subject, "Am I going to address you boy now? Or maybe a... trap?~"
He deadpanned at her.
"Thats two time now you say that. Are you really asking me to be a trap?"
Hikari sigh.
"No. I am tired of pretending. Tired of roles. I am not their sword, nor their judge, nor their vessel."
He stood up, very slowly, craning his head back.
"I'm just Hikari."
The words were a whisper.
But they resonated like an oath.
Lyra's smile widened farther. She nodded, once.
"Hihihi... Alright. You are my muffin... Then, Hikari," she said, stepping back as the space around them began to hum, "it's time."
She raised one of the orbs, and it began to spin wildly, stars tumbling inside like galaxies in creation. The vacuum around them wavered, light distorting as the shape of another world took form.
"You'll be reborn in a place you don't know. A world that doesn't know you. Everything is lost. Nothing is certain."
Her voice was gentler now, a whisper wrapped in warmth.
"But don't be afraid. You'll find your way. And I'll be with you."
The light grew stronger, slowly erasing the black.
Hikari's fingers gripped hers. She didn't let them go—not until the very end.
"Don't worry…" Lyra said, her voice distant, but wrapped around him like a lullaby. "I'll stay with you, darling."
And with that—
The void unraveled.
The stars spun out.
And Hikari fell.
Not downward, but forward.
Into life.
The world returned in pieces—sight first.
The splashing of waves on wood. The wailing of distant gulls. The groaning of rigging flexing over sea wind.
Then touch—cold boards beneath his back, warm air caressing over his wet flesh, the tiny tenderness of salt adhering to his lashes and lips.
Then the voice.
Sharp. Stern. With a light, crisp lilt—crisp, almost aristocratic, like someone who's used to giving orders over tea poured from porcelain.
"Hey! Kid! For Pete's sake, get up. This isn't a bloody pleasure cruise."
A hand closed around his shoulder—firm, gloved ones—and shook him with a little force.
Hikari recoiled. His body was tense for a blow, not for rescue.
His eyes crept open, eyes floating in vision and light and saltwater blur—before focusing on the face hovering above him.
A woman. Mid-twenty, maybe older, sharply-featured, but placid with the confidence of someone who never let the ocean take her back. Her hair was a vibrant, fire-engine red, drawn back into a high, practical queue, although soft pale blue highlights flowed through the wisps of bangs framing her face. Her eyes were a bright, sea-blue, squinted in something between worry and irritation.
She wore a double-chested, deep red coat with gold braid, shoulder epaulets and brass buttons shining in the sunlight. A crisp white dress shirt, buttoned up tight, underneath. Tucked into a high-waisted, crimson, pleated skirt. White gloves, black stockings, and heeled boots made her look like a royal navy officer—a pirate disguising herself as one.
Undoubtedly military. Undoubtedly look like from, other country. And undoubtedly unimpressed.
"How in the devil are you still alive after bobbing half-dead out there in the middle of the bloody ocean?" she barked, voice cutting. "Not even a barrel to cling to. Just you, the ghost that some sailor carved from driftwood."
Hikari tried to sit up, but clenched his teeth. His chest ached. His arms trembled. And worst, the noise that came out of him—when he tried to speak—wasn't exactly what he wanted.
"...Where... am I."
The woman blinked, surprise flashing across her face.
"Well, I'll be damned," she swore. "You've got a singing voice as soft as a merchant's daughter. Thought I raised up a boy, not a canary."
Hikari turned his head, his face burning with shame.
His throat tightened.
He was no longer a girl.
He knew that. Lyra had informed him. The Hollow Queen had taken his immortality away, reshaped his body, twisted the world's memory of him—and left him like this.
Not fully one thing. Not fully another. Just… Hikari. In-between.
He just had to get used to being called boy now. Until—if—he ever got his immortality back.
The woman straightened, brushing dust off her coat.
"Well, at least you're breathing. I'm Captain Rorin Marlowe—known around these waters as Red Gale." She smirked, tapping the edge of her coat. "You can guess why."
Hikari gazed up weakly. Her red hair glimmered in the light, matching the vivid scarlet of her coat and stockings.
"...Your name?" she asked.
He paused.
His chest still hurt. His soul still felt. loose, like something unmoored.
But he could talk.
"...Hikari."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Well now, that's a dainty little name," she said, crossing her arms. "Even more dainty than your voice."
He didn't answer. Just flinched again.
She glanced down at his soaked clothes—robes stained and clinging, patterned with faded symbols, distinctly Eastern. Her expression shifted, slightly less cold.
"Nipponara, aren't you? From the North."
He nodded slowly.
"Y-yeah...I'm from… Yamaoka town."
Rorin looked him over again. "Thought so. The robes gave it away. What's left of them, anyway."
Her words cut sharp, but her eyes lingered—studying him more intently now, as if trying to read the wound beneath the flesh.
Hikari touch his chest. As he slowly muter "Lyra..."
And then—
A voice.
Silken, familiar, rippling through his skull like the susurration of a warm breeze.
"Hmmhmm? What is it darling?"
Lyra really still with him.
"What did I tell you?" Lyra breathed, soft, satisfied. "You're alright, sweetheart. I always by your side..."
Hkkari slowly exhaled.
"Lyra? Who you call kid?" Rorin ask.
"No... Nothing..."
He didn't answer too quiet. And Not aloud.
But something in his chest quieted—for an instant.
He was alive.
And Lyra still stood by his side.
Well atleast. He got someone. Not alone.
Now. he simply had to figure out what happened next.
As the ship rocked gently beneath him, Hikari's fingers absently brushed over the beads still looped at his neck—faintly glowing, cool against his skin. They'd survived, somehow. The same judgment beads that once marked him as divine arbiter. Kanshisha. Chosen.
He looked down at them, then glanced up at Captain Rorin.
She hadn't reacted.
Not even a flicker of recognition.
Not when she pulled him aboard. Not when she stared him down. Not even now, as the beads glinted softly in the midday sun.
Not fear. Not awe. Not reverence.
Nothing.
"…Do you know what these are?" he asked, voice quiet.
Rorin glanced at the beads, then shrugged. "Decorative talismans, I assume? Northern prayer charms?" She narrowed her eyes. "You're not some cursed monk, are you?"
He looked away.
"…No just... Just wondering..."
She left him with a curt nod and turned toward the helm, barking an order at the sailors across the deck.
Hikari sat there a moment longer.
He held the beads in his hand. Let them dangle.
Then, beneath his breath, he asked—
"…Have they really forgotten who Kanshisha is?"
Lyra's voice coiled gently into his mind, as casual as always, but tinged with something faintly bitter.
"Yes, darling. The world doesn't remember what it erased." Lyra say softly. "But I believe you, I know you can wrote thay back. Darling..."
Hikari. Somehow feel surge of relief hearing her couragement. He must. And he will. Wrote what has already loss. He will.
Silence settled around him.
And for the first time, Hikari truly understood:
He hadn't just lost immortality.
He'd been removed.
From history. From meaning.
From everything.
Even his gender.
They really want him to lost. But fortunately. There is Lyra. Who like his portal when he use his judgment power back then.
And he was alone.
Except for her.
Except for Lyra.
Hikari know. She always be with him.