When night fell over Ukyo, it did not bring the usual reprieve of dreams. For Shinji, the world didn't fade into black; it shattered into silver.
He felt his soul being pulled upward, unmoored from the gravity of his battered body. The courtyard, the palace, and the continent of Gonaya shrank until they were merely speckles of dust in a vast, indigo sea. He was drifting toward the moon, but it was not the cold, dead rock seen from the earth. As he drew closer, the celestial body shimmered with an atmosphere of iridescent mist.
This was Lunaris.
Shinji landed softly on a surface that felt like powdered diamonds. The air was silent, save for the hum of ancient magic. Standing before him were two figures who seemed carved from the moonlight itself.
The man was tall, his hair a cascade of starlight, wearing robes that flowed like liquid mercury. This was Conrad Ikaris Tsukishima, the Lunar Elf King. Beside him stood a woman whose beauty was timeless, her eyes holding the depth of a thousand years of wisdom: Marianishiwa Agatha.
"Shinji," the woman whispered. Her voice sounded like a melody he had forgotten but always known. "My brave, broken grandson."
Shinji's breath hitched. "Grandmother? Grandfather?"
"We are the echoes of your blood," Conrad said, his voice a resonant baritone. "We have watched you from the tides of time, waiting for the moment you were empty enough to be filled with the truth."
Marianishiwa stepped forward, her hand brushing Shinji's cheek. Her touch was cold yet infinitely comforting. "You wonder why you are the 'Lonely.' You wonder why the world has taken everything from you. To understand your end, Shinji, you must understand your beginning."
With a wave of her hand, the lunar mist swirled, forming images of the past—vivid, painful, and beautiful.
THE LEGEND OF KLARK CITY
"Your father," Marianishiwa began, "was a man who defined the word 'Legend.' Shin Ichikawa Saitou."
The mist revealed a man in a tattered captain's cloak, leading the 55th Sorcerers Unit. He moved with a ferocity that made the earth tremble. Shinji watched as his father took down beasts that would haunt nightmares: the deceptive Humble Jack, the mountain-sized Thagalhag, and the terrifying Shirogakure, a beast of a 10.5 Manatude.
"He was a human who fought like a god," Marianishiwa said. "And beside him was your mother, Rei Agatha Tsukishima. She was our pride—the Chief of Wizards and Medics. She didn't just heal wounds; she mended souls. Thousands of warriors lived to see another sunrise because of her light."
The scene shifted. The colors turned gray and suffocating.
"It decade and half ago. The Calamity Reaper Maiju arose from the Gabriela Trench, a force of nature hungry for the mana of Limana. You were still in your mother's belly. And in the belly of her dearest friend, Hoshina Natsuga Kamikaze, grew another life—Kuraido."
Shinji saw his father and a man with golden-fire eyes—Albert Endfire Tenryu—standing before a council of shadowed figures.
"The government of Limana knew the danger," Conrad added, his face darkening. "The mothers were weeks away from birth. Your father and Albert protested. They begged to be allowed to stay, to protect their wives in their most vulnerable hour. But the Council... they were cowards. They threatened to strip them of their citizenship, to exile them into the wastes where two pregnant women would surely perish. They forced their hands."
The mist exploded into a scene of carnage. Klark City was burning. The fathers, Shin and Albert, stood back-to-back against a sea of Maiju, while the Calamity Reaper loomed like a skyscraper made of scythes.
Beneath a crumbling archway, Rei and Hoshina lay on blood-stained silks, the agony of battle clashing with the agony of childbirth.
THE FINAL LULLABY
The battle was a symphony of desperation. Shin watched as his father's blade shattered against the Reaper's hide, and Albert's solar flames flickered out as he shielded the archway with his own body.
"They were dying," Marianishiwa whispered, tears glinting in her eyes. "But they were not defeated."
In the mist, the two mothers held their newborn sons—tiny, crying sparks of life in a world of shadow. Rei looked down at infant Shinji, her face pale, her strength fading as she poured her last remaining mana into a teleportation circle.
The image grew clear, and the sound of the mothers' voices filled the lunar air. It was a message recorded in the very fabric of Shinji's soul.
Hoshina (to infant Kuraido): "My little star... the world is going to be so cold without us. You will feel the heat of the sun and the chill of the moon, and you will think you are alone. But you are the bridge, Kuraido. Be kind to the boy who travels with you. Protect each other... because you are the only family we could give you. Live... please, just live."
Then, Rei looked directly into the "eyes" of the future Shinji. She was crying, her blood mingling with the tears on the infant's forehead.
Rei (to infant Shinji): "My sweet, sweet Shinji... I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we have to leave you in a world that hasn't learned how to love. You were born in the middle of a war, but you are not a weapon. You are my heart. When you feel empty, remember that I gave you my last breath so yours could continue. You don't need magic to be a hero. You just need to be the person who stands up when everyone else is kneeling. We will be the wind on your face and the shadow at your back. We love you... more than the stars love the night. Goodbye, my little moon."
The teleportation circle flared. The babies vanished, sent to the outskirts of Teivac.
Shinji watched as the four of them—Shin, Rei, Albert, and Hoshina—joined hands one last time. They didn't flee. They charged. They detonated their very souls in a final, cataclysmic sacrifice that leveled Klark City and took the Calamity Reaper with them.
THE AWAKENING: THE ONE AND NO ONE
Shinji was sobbing, his knees hitting the silver dust of Lunaris. The weight of twenty years of unknown love was crushing him.
"They didn't just save you, Shinji," Marianishiwa said, kneeling beside him. "Your mother knew the world would try to steal your power. She knew the Pact of Obsidian would come. So, she hid a gift within the 'Zero' space of your soul. A final ward. A final act of love."
She placed her hand over Shinji's heart.
"You feel like a void because you are meant to be the end of all monsters. You cannot fight the Maiju as a human, for humans are fragile. But you will not fight them as a monster, for monsters have no soul."
A pulse of violet-silver light erupted from Shinji's chest. For a fleeting second, a vision of an armored figure appeared—a hybrid of celestial grace and primal ferocity, pulsing with a "Black-Light" aura that didn't illuminate the dark, but erased it.
"You are the Arc Angel, Shinji. The one who is no one. The void that breathes."
Marianishiwa leaned forward and pulled him into a final, warm embrace. "The morning comes, my grandson. Wake up. Not as the boy who lost everything, but as the man who was given everything by those who had nothing left."
"Grandmother... wait!"
"We are always here," she whispered, her form dissolving into starlight. "In the pulse of your blood. In the silence of the moon. Now, wake up... and save them."
THE AWAKENING
Shinji's eyes snapped open.
The sun was rising over Ukyo, casting long, golden fingers across his bed. His face was soaked—not with the cold sweat of a nightmare, but with the warm, heavy tears of a son who had finally gone home.
He sat up, his breath hitched in his chest. For the first time since Vaderius had stolen his Arcane, the "emptiness" didn't feel like a hole. It felt like a reservoir. It felt like a promise.
He looked out the window toward the southeastern horizon, where the Rumbling was approaching. He could almost feel the presence of Kuraido in the medical wing, their fates intertwined by a blood-soaked archway in a city of ash.
Shinji stood up, his movements fluid, his spirit no longer jagged.
"I heard you, Mother," he whispered into the morning air. "I'm not kneeling anymore."
Deep within his soul, where the mana used to be, something violet and silver began to hum.
[TO BE CONTINUED]