The world tilted.
Kaia's voice blurred.
The cold dissolved from Rei's skin — not from healing, not from fire. But because his body simply stopped feeling. A gentle void closed around his vision, like dusk curling over snowfields. He heard his breath hitch once.
Then—
Black.
And after black…Neon.
He stood barefoot on the balcony of a cramped apartment in Ōmori, the city's hum stretching out like an old lullaby beneath him. Streetlights blinked against the early dawn. His laundry swayed beside him on rusted rails — socks, one hoodie, faded jeans — the usual. Down below, convenience store signs flickered tired kanji, and somewhere far off, a train groaned through the morning.
Tokyo.
Not a dream. Not memory.
Both.
The cold steel of the katana in his hand felt so real.
But it was just a plastic controller.
He looked down.
His fingers, younger here, tapped across the keys of an old arcade-style RPG on his handheld. Sprites danced across the screen. His party moved through frost caverns. The boss was coming — a swordsman with a mirrored mask and a strange mark across his chest. The screen glitched as he parried an attack.
"Muscle memory," he muttered, smiling. "Gotcha."
The scent of microwaved curry filled the air from the room behind him.
He could hear his younger self whispering strategies out loud. He'd always talk to the screen when alone. Make plans no one would hear. Fantasies only pixels would reward.
"Dodge left. Hit high. Counter."
Again and again.
That rhythm —It had come back to him.
On the ridge. Against Valek.
He blinked.
For a moment, the game glitched. The screen went dark. His reflection shimmered there.
But it wasn't the city anymore. It was the mirrored mask.
And his own violet eyes staring back.
You're listening to it now, Valek had said.
The mark.
The rhythm.
The Void.
He stepped back. But there was no balcony. No Tokyo skyline.
Only the pull.
That terrifying, breathless pull in the center of his chest, like something vast was watching through the crack in the cosmos — not above, but inside him. A hunger not born of cruelty, but of nature. Like gravity. Like winter.
"Why me?" he whispered.
But the silence had no answer.
He reached out — unsure if to touch the glass, or push it away — but the vision rippled. Snow swept in.
And Kaia's voice cut through.
"Rei."
He opened his eyes.
Slow.
The cold was back, biting against his skin. The ruin loomed around him like a half-fallen tomb. Above, branches swayed, black against a pale gray sky. His breath came shallow, and his limbs ached with more than fatigue. The wound beneath his ribs throbbed in time with the mark on his chest.
Kaia sat beside him, her face close, golden eyes narrowed in concern.
"You blacked out," she said. "Mark flared. You stopped breathing."
Rei licked his lips. "I was… home."
Kaia raised an eyebrow.
"In a memory," he clarified, voice raw. "Tokyo. My apartment. I was playing a game — fighting a swordsman in frost… I felt like that again. Not like me. But like… a blade someone else already used."
Kaia studied him. "You were remembering?"
"No," he whispered. "I think I was becoming."
He sat up slowly, one hand pressing into the icy stone.
Kaia didn't speak.
So he continued, eyes distant. "There was a rhythm. In the fight. With Valek. It wasn't mine. Or maybe it was — buried under years of controllers and fantasy. But it moved me. Like I knew how to fight, not because I was trained, but because I always wanted to be. I spent my whole life dreaming about being in a world like this."
He looked at her now. "But dreaming isn't the same as surviving."
Kaia smirked faintly. "No. It never is."
Silence again.
But this time, it felt warmer.
Rei's gaze drifted to the treetops, where wind moved soft through the branches.
"The games always had answers," he said. "Clear quests. Skill trees. Good and evil. Here, I have a mark and a body that isn't mine — a blade that changes when I bleed, and people like Valek trying to test if I should exist."
Kaia nodded slowly. "You're not in a story anymore."
Rei turned to her. "Aren't I?"
Her lips twitched — not quite a smile. "If you are… then you'd better choose what kind of story it'll be. Before someone else writes it for you."
He laughed once. Short. Bitter.
Then the cold bit again.
The snow had begun falling softly around them.And far beyond the trees… something watched.
But in that moment, Rei's shoulders squared.
Not with certainty.
But with resolve.
He reached for the blade beside him. It didn't hum this time — not yet — but it still felt heavier. Not like a weapon.
Like a promise.
Kaia stood, brushing snow from her coat. "Come on, Riftborn. Before something bigger than your destiny finds us."
"Perhaps the mountains of Druvadir holds the answers you seek."
Rei rose beside her, pain crackling through his ribs. But he stood anyway.
And with her at his side, he stepped into the trees.
Toward Druvadir.
Toward the First Seal.
Toward the answers… or the end.