The air in the Coronet Highlands felt sharp and cold. I was ten years old, and the world had narrowed down to the sound of my own frantic breathing and the supersonic death whistle of the wind behind me.
I didn't have to look back to know the Alpha Garchomp was there. Every few seconds, a jagged fin would slice through a stone pillar as if it were parchment, sending a rain of shrapnel across my back.
I scrambled through a crevice, the rough granite scraping the skin from my shoulders, but the whistle only grew louder. I reached the edge of a sheer drop—a dead end. A wall of ashen rock and swirling mist. I spun around, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
The dragon landed with a weight that made the entire mountain groan, shattering the earth beneath it. Its glowing red eyes fixed on me with a terrifying, primal hunger.
Then, the air began to crack.
A jagged, violet rift tore open the space between us. It was a calamity that inhaled the very light around it. Getting consumed by it would likely lead to a painful death.
But I didn't hesitate—not that the gods left me much of a choice. The small, flickering possibility of survival, was a gamble, but compared to the certainty of being painfully ripped apart in the Alpha Garchomp's claws, the abyss was a risk I was willing to take.
The dragon let out a shriek that rattled my soul, its wings snapping shut as it transitioned from a glide into a ground-shattering dash. It didn't care about the violet lightning; it only saw the prey that had dared to lead it this far. Me.
We both moved at once.
The Garchomp was a blur of blue scales and jagged fins. I threw myself forward, my feet skidding on the gravel of the Highlands. It was a race toward the singularity at the center of the rift.
In the final second, the world went motionless. I could see the individual serrations on the dragon's teeth. Its maw was inches from the back of my neck when I finally reached my goal.
The jaws snapped shut on empty air as the rift swallowed me.
I hit the mud inside the violet dome, the scent of ozone and death thick in my lungs. I didn't scramble. I didn't run. Because there, ten steps away, was the only thing inside this world.
A blade.
It was buried deep in the mud, a katana of a design I had never seen in the clans. It didn't pulse with light or hum with the power of the gods; it was just plain, its steel a dull, honest grey and its hilt wrapped in tattered blue cloth. It looked like a discarded tool, forgotten by time.
I stood up slowly, my legs trembling, and began to walk. The white lightning of the distortion flashed around me, but my eyes never left that sword. It felt... familiar. Like a faded memory I had forgotten long ago.
I reached the sword and stopped. My hand hovered over the blue cloth. Slowly, deliberately, I closed my fingers around it.
The world went silent.
The blue eye on the crossguard opened, blinking once with a heavy, soul-deep recognition. The Honedge didn't struggle. It didn't drain my lifeforce. It simply awakened, its spectral hum vibrating through my bones as if it had been waiting for this exact second for thousands of years.