Yuji did not wake.
There was no breath of dawn, no sigh of relief.
Just a sudden pull—
A ripple through reality,
Like a string yanked from a tapestry already frayed at the edges.
He was thrown—not gently—into another version of existence.
A world that looked like Flame Land Academy…
Yet felt like it had never been real.
The halls stretched longer than memory.
Ceilings blinked. Floors shifted.
Time fractured into fragments that blinked in and out of cohesion.
Yuji stood at the center of the corridor.
He turned left—
The hallway curved back upon itself.
He turned right—
The floor tilted, gravity defied reason.
Above him?
Doors. Hanging from ceilings like broken teeth.
His heart beat once.
Then again.
Then… not at all.
Only the Eternal Ring on his hand pulsed,
Dragging his wrist downward as if something inside was clawing to get out.
> "Where… is this?"
No echo replied.
Only laughter. Not loud. Not cruel.
Just distant enough to feel familiar.
He took a step.
The torches lit themselves.
The stone walls bled whispers: "Why did she leave you?"
"Why didn't you die?"
"You don't belong here… you never did."
He clenched his jaw.
The loop had ended, but something worse had begun.
He wasn't dreaming.
He was being studied.
He reached for the wind within him—
For the freedom it once offered.
His hand rose…
But nothing came.
Only the sharp chill of silence filled his palm.
He tried again—this time, reaching for the darkness,
That ancient power beneath his skin,
The shadow that always answered.
> Nothing.
A flicker. A cough. Then emptiness.
He fell to his knees.
The Ring sparked—
A blue glow mixed with a black tremble, as if two souls were at war inside.
> "Come on… come on…"
He punched the wall.
It bled.
Not stone—flesh.
The hallway screamed.
The light bent.
Suddenly, Aika stood there—arms open, voice calm:
> "Yuji… you're safe now."
His eyes widened.
His heart leapt.
But her smile cracked.
Literally.
Her face fractured like glass,
Splitting into mirrored shards that spun in the air—
Each shard bearing a different version of her face.
Some smiling.
Some crying.
Some dead.
Then she vanished.
As if she had never been born in this place.
Yuji stood, staggering back.
His breathing grew loud, rapid, human.
> "None of this is real."
But his Ring still burned.
> "Or worse… all of this is too real."
He kept walking.
Walls grew tighter.
Classrooms opened to reveal no desks, just reflections of himself, chained and whispering.
He passed one room.
Inside: Ryen.
Another: Aika.
Another: Yuji himself, younger, staring out with eyes that no longer believed in heroes.
He closed his eyes.
Spoke to himself like a prayer:
> "This isn't the real timeline. This isn't my flame. I will find her. I will find the truth."
And still the Eternal Ring pulsed heavier,
As though the souls inside were rejecting this reality alongside him.
In the deepest corridor, the ceiling opened to show a black sun.
The sky screamed colors that had never been named.
The floor turned to water,
And beneath it… hands reached upward, silently asking:
> "Do you remember who you are?"
Yuji clenched his fists.
He couldn't fight.
He couldn't fly.
He couldn't bend wind or shadow.
But he could feel.
He could remember.
And memory—
Real, painful, burning memory—was stronger than any illusion.
His voice, low and furious:
> "You think you've won, Mina?"
"This isn't your world. Not mine either. But I'll burn through every fake version of me until I find her."
The hallway trembled,
Walls cracking like thin ice under truth.
Yuji pressed on.
Even without his powers, without answers—
He would claw through time itself.
Because somewhere beyond this maze of mirrors and blood,
Aika was waiting.
And this time, he wouldn't fail.
---
The silence was the first thing Aika noticed.
No footsteps behind her.
No shadows shifting into a familiar face.
No voice calling her name in that broken, beautiful way only the fake Yuji ever did.
For days—
or was it weeks?—
she had fought versions of him,
each more twisted than the last.
Some smiled too much.
Some bled from the eyes.
Some called her "the mistake."
But now... nothing.
Just silence.
As if the timeline itself had grown tired of pretending.
Aika stood still beneath the cracked red sky, breathing slow and shallow, hand gripping the hilt of her dull blade.
She hadn't used her Wind in a while—because here, it only scattered like dust.
And her body was bruised in too many places to count.
But her heart... still burned.
> "He's not coming back," she whispered.
"Not the real one. Not the fake one either."
She stepped forward.
The earth beneath her felt wrong—soft and shallow, like it didn't want to be walked on.
Like this world itself resented her for surviving this long.
Then she saw it.
A stone formation that didn't belong.
Half-swallowed by vines and broken gears, it peeked through the illusion like a memory refusing to die.
A trap?
Maybe.
But Aika had no other path.
She brushed the moss aside—revealing a metallic hatch buried in the dirt.
Old symbols were etched around its rim: rebellion glyphs. Forgotten sigils from before the timelines were spliced and shattered.
She hesitated.
Then opened it.
Dust breathed out like a ghost.
The ladder creaked.
And the air inside smelled of rusted machines and lost hope.
> "This place… isn't fake."
She descended slowly, light flickering behind her like it couldn't decide if it wanted her to see.
Below, the bunker opened like a wound in the world—
Cables like veins.
Screens cracked but flickering.
Tables covered in maps, broken weapons, and strange glowing stones that pulsed in sync with her breath.
It was empty.
But not lifeless.
Somewhere, someone had once fought back.
She found a lantern. It sparked blue, responding to her presence.
A file appeared on the nearest terminal. Static buzzed, then a distorted voice:
> "If you're hearing this… you've survived what others couldn't.
You are not alone. You were never meant to be."
Aika sat down—slowly, painfully.
Her arms trembled as she reached for the old tech.
Each screen held fractured messages—
Fragments from someone who understood.
> "They're stealing timelines.
Erasing elemental roots.
Everything is being rewritten."
She leaned forward, jaw clenched.
Wind curled faintly at her fingertips, just a whisper of it—like a forgotten friend knocking on a locked door.
Her thoughts spun.
Yuji... Where are you now?
Was Ryen still alive?
Would the real world even remember her if she vanished here?
She remembered Mina's eyes—
Beautiful. Brilliant.
And yet cold with belief—belief that what she was doing was justified.
That stealing power across timelines and caging elemental truth was for the greater good.
> "How many lives… did I let her ruin?"
The guilt pressed on her ribs like chains.
But within the silence—
something shifted.
On the far wall, beneath layers of broken data, she found a panel still active.
It blinked once. Then glowed.
An encrypted message appeared. Short. Faint.
Just three lines:
> "Still watching.
You're close.
The lies can burn."
No name. No face.
But in her heart, she knew.
Either Eylzion… or someone like him.
Someone who still fought behind the curtain.
Aika stood.
The pain in her muscles screamed.
But she didn't sit back down.
She looked around this forgotten haven—this graveyard of resistance—
and made it a forge.
She taped her wounds.
Cleaned her blade.
Drank bitter liquid from rusted bottles that tasted like survival.
And began training again—slow, precise, deliberate.
Every movement a defiance.
She summoned wind again. It came this time. Weakly.
But it came.
> "You're not gone," she told it.
"You're just waiting for the right time."
She thought of the timelines.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—looping, folding, breaking.
Versions of herself that died in silence.
Versions of Yuji who never got to become what he was meant to be.
Aika gritted her teeth.
> "Mina wants to erase everything," she muttered.
"She wants power without balance. Order without soul. But elements aren't meant to be owned. They're meant to live."
A blast of wind surged from her hands.
Not powerful. But pure.
She smiled.
And for the first time in what felt like eternity—
hope didn't feel like a lie.
> "You hear me, timeline? I'm not some thread you get to cut."
"I will burn the lies away."
Outside, the cracked red sky trembled—
And far beyond the illusory veil, reality stirred.
Aika had lit a flame no clone could mimic.
And this time, she would not be erased.
---
He walked with no destination.
Because the forest gave none.
It simply… floated.
Drifting endlessly in a sea of muted green and weightless silence, the trees swayed in directions they shouldn't—roots coiled above, branches sank beneath.
Leaves shimmered like glass, and light bent around him as if reality couldn't decide what angle it belonged to.
Ryen Sylvan stood in the middle of a dream that refused to end.
His body ached, not from wounds but from disconnection.
Here, gravity was a suggestion.
Time whispered in reverse.
> "Still here," he murmured.
"Still… me."
He touched the trunk of a floating tree—it pulsed, alive.
Not wood. Not bark. Something older.
He stepped forward again, bare feet brushing mist-thick moss.
Each footfall felt like stepping into someone else's memory.
Days ago—
or moments, who could tell?—
he'd landed here during the collapse.
Not quite flame world, not quite original.
This forest was a fracture between layers.
A limbo that breathed.
> "This is where forgotten paths rot," he'd once said aloud, expecting no answer.
And yet, something had heard.
A voice.
Faint. Familiar.
Soft as dust brushing parchment.
> "You're not supposed to be here."
At first, he thought it was his mind.
Then he recognized the tone—dry, ancient, patient.
> "Xioner…?"
Silence again.
But the leaves rustled differently now—coded movement.
Ryen followed the trail, hands brushing through glowing pollen that shimmered with glyphs.
The trees grew denser, not in space, but in thought.
They pressed in with questions.
> What are you searching for?
Who do you trust?
Do you remember who you were before the storm?
He ignored them.
He had to.
If he listened too long, he'd forget why he wanted to leave.
Eventually, he found it—
A broken circle of ancient runes, inscribed in stone and overgrown with red moss.
The same markings he'd once seen in the Hall of Origins.
This was not coincidence.
He knelt.
Fingers traced each line, each arc.
They pulsed faintly under his touch, syncing to his breathing, his heartbeat, his pain.
> "These aren't just runes," he whispered.
"They're coordinates… instructions."
Behind him, the air split.
Not with sound—but intent.
He didn't look.
He knew.
Assassins.
Three of them.
No faces.
No names.
Only purpose: erase the anomaly before it learned too much.
Ryen stood slowly, calmly, like he'd rehearsed this moment in a dream.
> "You're late," he muttered.
They lunged.
One from the shadow of a branch that wasn't there.
One from the light.
One from his blind spot.
Ryen moved.
No fire. No lightning.
Just grace sharpened by necessity.
His blade whistled once—clean.
The first attacker vanished into black mist.
The second reached for his throat—he twisted, elbow shattering jaw.
The third stabbed through the air—he let it pass, then broke their wrist with a single pivot.
The forest reacted.
Each kill caused the trees to glow brighter.
More runes emerged beneath the moss.
The assassins weren't guardians.
They were triggers.
> "You wanted me to fight," he said to the runes. "So I could see the path."
Wind rushed through the leaves.
A sigh. A warning. Or applause.
The runes rearranged.
The circle trembled.
Then it opened—
a gate of light and root and memory.
Behind it: a swirling portal not made of energy, but possibility.
It didn't hum like the others.
It waited.
Ryen stepped closer.
But not through.
Not yet.
> "Xioner," he said aloud. "If you're truly watching, if you're not just memory—tell me. Am I still… part of the story?"
A faint glow formed to his left.
A symbol.
Three interlocked diamonds—the mark of the Sylvan lineage.
It pulsed once, then dissolved.
Answer enough.
Ryen closed his eyes.
He saw flashes—
Aika in a bunker, forging resolve.
Yuji, lost in timelines, hunted by illusions.
And a force gathering beyond Mina.
Something older. Deeper.
> "We're being pushed into position," he said quietly.
"Like pieces in someone else's game."
But pieces can still break the board.
He stepped through the gate.
The forest sighed behind him—branches folding in, reality snapping like a page turned in a sacred book.
And just like that—
hope flickered.
Not loud.
Not final.
But enough.
---
END OF CHAPTER 33