The wind had stilled.No birds. No snow.
Only silence — like the world was waiting.
Rei leaned against the ruin's crumbling wall, his breath shallow, one hand pressed to the cut beneath his ribs. His blade — still warm from the clash — lay beside him, its edges dulled and notched. The violet mark across his chest pulsed softly beneath the tear in his tunic, not with pain… but with rhythm. Like a second heartbeat, or a song just under hearing.
Kaia knelt across from him, her silver-white hair loose, wind-stirred. Her gaze lingered on the fading footprints where Valek had vanished — not fear in her golden eyes, but something colder.
Calculation. Worry.
"…You should be dead," she said finally, voice low.
Rei exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding. "He didn't want to kill me."
"No," Kaia said. "He wanted to see what you are."
Rei didn't answer. He looked down at his hands. Calloused, scraped, bloodied. Not the hands of a gamer. Not anymore.
That fight…
It had awakened something.
He hadn't known how to fight — not in this body, not in this world. But the reflexes were there. Step-slide-strike. Parry, duck, roll. Things he'd memorized from games, hours spent in fictional arenas with controllers in hand, all came back in flashes of instinct.
But this wasn't fiction.
This was blood. Heat. Pain that didn't fade with a respawn.
He touched the mark again. It thrummed, soft but eager.
Hungry.
"What is he?" Rei asked.
Kaia didn't answer right away. She pulled a flask from her satchel and tossed it to him. "Drink. It'll warm the gut."
Rei took a swig. Bitter roots. Fennel and something else. It burned going down.
Kaia finally sat beside him, back against the same broken wall.
"He's not Order anymore," she said. "But he used to be. Sanctum breed. You can smell the doctrine on him. But something… twisted."
Rei looked toward the sky — still gray, still cold. "He said the Rift didn't choose me."
Kaia glanced over. "It didn't choose him either."
Silence again.
Not awkward.Just heavy.
"…In your world," she said, voice softer now, "did shadows follow you like this?"
Rei blinked. Thought. "No. Nothing ever wanted me like this. I mean… I played games where monsters chased you, where destinies were thrust onto you. But it was always fake. Easy to turn off. Reset. Walk away."
He looked at his blade. Still faintly humming.
"This is different," he whispered. "This world is real. This pain… is real."
Kaia watched him carefully.
"And do you know why you're here?"
Rei shook his head.
"I woke up in a summoning circle. Collar on my neck. No memory. Just… fragments. And this mark." He looked at her. "I don't know if I'm supposed to save something. Or end something. Or if I'm just some cosmic joke."
Kaia didn't respond at first. Instead, she reached into the inner fold of her coat and drew out something small — weathered, darkened by years of touch. A token of carved wood, shaped into a crescent moon split by a single fang.
She held it between her fingers, the firelight catching its edge.
"My brother made this," she said. "Before the Wild Wars took him."
Rei glanced at it. The mark was simple, but careful — not a trinket, but a vow.
"You were young?" he asked.
She nodded once. "Six winters. He was the eldest of our den. Strong. Always the first to step between us and danger, even before he could wield a blade."
Her golden eyes stayed on the flame, not him. The words came slow — not because she couldn't remember, but because she remembered too well.
"He left to fight for the Grove. For our people. They called it duty. Honor. Said the Wild Wars would shape legends."
She turned the token in her hand. The fang cut through the crescent like a scar.
"He never came back."
A silence. Then:
"No songs were sung. No name returned. Just a pile of weapons at the edge of the Grove — and his wasn't among them."
Rei said nothing.
Kaia exhaled, soft but steady.
"They say the frost keeps memories better than men do. I don't know if that's true. But I still remember his voice in the morning mist. The way he tied his boots. The way he howled at the first snow like it was a lover coming home."
She closed her fist around the token.
"I keep this because I remember. And if the mountains ever forget him… I won't."
Rei said nothing.
Kaia's gaze was distant, but not lost. "I'm still here. And so are you. That means something."
A gust stirred the trees. The ruin creaked faintly.
Kaia tucked the token away. "I don't know why you were Riftborn. But I know this: you don't have to face it alone."
Rei looked at her. "You believe that?"
"I want to," she said simply. "So I will."
And that was enough.