The silence beneath the Abandoned District was unlike anything Jiro had ever felt — heavy, ancient, and alive. Each step he took sent echoes rippling through the cavern, the faint blue light of his watch flickering against walls etched with strange, spiraling runes. The deeper he went, the warmer the air became, vibrating faintly as though the earth itself was breathing.
His boots crunched against shattered crystal dust scattered across the stone.
The mark on his chest pulsed again — harder this time. It wasn't pain, not exactly, but something deeper, like a pull in his very soul.
At the end of the tunnel, the cavern opened into a vast chamber.
The air shimmered faintly with drifting motes of light — fragments of dormant Essentia. And at the very center lay something half-buried in glowing rock.
An egg.
Its shell was black with streaks of deep cerulean, veins of light crawling beneath its surface like trapped lightning. The aura it gave off was overwhelming — ancient, pure, yet unstable, like it had been waiting for centuries for something… or someone.
Jiro took a step forward — then another.
Every instinct screamed for him to stop, to turn back, but the pull in his chest grew stronger until it felt like his heartbeat had aligned with the pulse inside the egg.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He stopped only when the blue veins on his arm began glowing faintly, the same hue as the egg.
Then, before he could react — the egg cracked.
A faint hum filled the chamber.
The fragments didn't fall; they dissolved into light, flowing toward him in a slow, graceful spiral. His eyes widened as the energy sank into his skin, piercing through him like molten fire.
"Wh–What's happening—!?"
The energy struck deep into his abdomen. The pain was sharp but fleeting — replaced by a burning warmth that flooded his entire body. The mark on his chest expanded downward, forming a faint egg-shaped sigil across his stomach, glowing with intricate patterns of blue and white light.
His breath caught.
It wasn't just energy — it was life itself.
For a moment, he felt everything: the whispers of the cave, the pulse of the Essentia in the air, the faint rhythm of existence itself moving through him.
Then the light faded, leaving him on his knees, trembling, his hand pressed against the faintly glowing mark.
"What… was that…?" he whispered, voice shaking.
Far above, in the academy's control room, Darius stood before a series of floating data screens.
Jiro's vitals had spiked beyond human limits, the readings warping into static. His monitor blinked red — [Error: Unregistered Core Type Detected.]
"Error?" Darius muttered, narrowing his eyes. "So… the Fluxion core theory wasn't wrong after all."
He turned off the alert, his face unreadable.
No rescue order was sent.
Deep in the cavern, Jiro leaned back against the stone wall, his breathing steadying. He could still feel something faint — a presence — sleeping within the mark on his stomach.
And in the silence of the cave, he didn't see the faint ripple of energy that spread outward from him, vanishing into the ruins like a beacon.
Above ground, somewhere in the ruined district, several students' watches blinked at once —
"Unknown Energy Surge Detected — Location: South Cavern."
And in the heart of the chaos, Darius only whispered one sentence under his breath.
"So it begins again."
—