The 77th Cosmic Detonation had just erupted above the horizon of reality.
Frey Leion—last of the once-aware—stood alone amid the lingering vestiges of narrative collisions that had obliterated twenty-four parallel worlds. Around him, remnants of existence drifted down like cinders: systems, gods, causal laws, even memory itself… all immolated within the pyre of time unmoored from direction.
And before him stood a wall—imperceptibly thin, yet unbreachable.
Transparent. Silent. Excruciating.
"…Enough…"
The voice was not an echo, nor a cry. It was something far past despair—resonating from marrow and fragments of hope too weary to be interred.
Falsina Sceleris—the final iteration of every contradiction—the Outerus God of Madness.
She was now but a morass of undying darkness: perennially slain, endlessly melting, rising only to fall into deeper voids. Her divinity unraveled, epoch upon epoch of existence, madness, and godhood deteriorating into motes of time's dust. The consequence of enforcing absolute temporal traversal against the grain of all being… was erosion. And there was no halting it.
"Falsina…" Frey rasped, his voice like a rusted razor blade slicing through breath.
His crimson eyes reflected the waning azure of a star long ceased its rotation. His body was ravaged, armor in tatters—artifacts and sanctified gear bestowed by Falsina [God of Good] were shattered, reduced to ash and dried blood.
All that remained…
Was a delicate necklace—crafted from moonstone, threaded with faded vermillion silk. A gift from Falsina Drea Elpyz, the only Falsina who had ever loved him without restraint, from the world Frey once called home, before its collapse.
And with that alone… he charged the wall—not with power, but with resolve.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
A thousandfold.
There was no explosion. No epic crescendo. Only the dull thud of flesh against the narrative veil of the Prologue, compelling reality to disgorge him from a tale already concluded.
Until at last—
White light flared.
The cosmos stilled.
And Frey… fell.
KRRAAKK!
The sound was not of detonation.
It was a crack—of something brittle, ancient, and sacred.
The fracture between end and origin.
When consciousness returned, he trembled—and the world had… changed.
No, not changed.
Rewound.
A narrow alley. The stench of rot. Mounds of plastic refuse and rusted scrap. Wastewater dripped from the walls of derelict buildings on the verge of collapse.
The sky bore an ominous hue—greenish-orange. The sun had not yet risen. This was not a realm of gods.
This was no stage for heroes.
This was Faush 1.0.
Frey dragged himself upright, limbs frail as if replaced by tattered cloth. His breath hitched. His stomach… groaned.
Author: (archaic term for a skeletal figure)
How long had it been since he last ate? A week? A month?
Centuries?
"Heh…" He chuckled bitterly.
"Welcome to the beginning, Frey Leion."
Yet something within him still pulsed.
[Failed Reverse]
Status: Active
Activation Condition: Unfulfilled
Narrative Recursion: 0 of 1
The cursed skill—still dormant, still his sole contingency.
He clutched his abdomen, knees buckling toward a pile of rusted tins…
When suddenly—
"Uaaa… Aaa…"
A child's cry.
Faint.
Hoarse.
Yet it struck directly into his heart—like an arrow loosed from some forsaken yesterday, never meant to resurface.
It came from beyond the shredded cartons and refuse bags.
With trembling knees, Frey peeled aside the cardboard…
What he discovered shattered even the fractured world he now inhabited.
An infant.
Swaddled in a ragged blanket. Sparse hair glimmering faintly—dark crimson laced with gold beneath the strands. A hue he could never forget.
The child's eyes were barely open. Her skin, pallid. Her body, shivering.
No name.
No letter.
No trace of kin.
But for Frey, this was no mere child.
"Falsina…" he whispered, barely audible.
"You have no name. No wounds. You… are not yet the monster."
Tears—warm, alien—trickled down his face for the first time in epochs. His hands shook as he reached for her cheek, afraid. Not of her.
But of himself.
Afraid… of failing again.
Afraid… that true love cannot grow absent agony.
"…Do I deserve to be here?"
"Could you… ever love me again, if our fate were not veiled in tragedy?"
The sky lightened.
A single ray of sunlight slipped through the ruins, touching the child's face. Her cries waned.
Frey lifted her, cradling her with all the tenderness of one bearing the fragile future of an entire cosmos in threadbare arms.
"If the world does not scar you… perhaps you'll become someone who can truly be happy."
"And if I have but one more chance… I'll make you smile. Even if you never know my name."
"This is not our old story, Falsina."
"This is the genesis of something new. And this time… you will remain human."
"True love doesn't need a prophecy."
"It only asks… for one more chance."
To be continued.