The sky was no longer a sky.
It had torn open like skin split by an unseen blade — not cleanly, not simply — but in jagged, violent folds that revealed nothingness beneath. Not night. Not shadow.
Nothing.
And from that nothing, it came through.
The first thing to emerge was a sound — not one the ears could hear, but one the bones could feel. Like a choir of extinct stars humming a hymn of annihilation. The air trembled. Gravity flinched.
And then the figure stepped out.
It wasn't tall. It wasn't monstrous. It wasn't anything Rafael had expected.
It looked… like a child.
Maybe nine. Maybe less.
Barefoot. Pale. Wrapped in tattered silk stitched from darkness and threads of dying light. Its eyes were solid black, like holes punched through the illusion of reality. No whites. No pupils. Just void.
But every step it took wilted the world.
Ash curled away. Metal rusted. Stone wept.
The artifact in Rafael's chest flared like it was screaming.
Kiryuu Aoi's posture tightened — for the first time in her career, she looked… unsure.
Elira was frozen. Not by fear, but by some unseen force — as if the mere presence of the child halted motion, rewrote physics.
It stopped ten meters away.
Then it spoke — not aloud, but into them.
Not words. Not language.
Truth.
And the truth was unbearable.
Rafael staggered back, clutching his head. A wave of memories that weren't his flooded through him — civilizations burned before fire existed, planets dying with songs in their cores, a scream across dimensions that had never been heard before… but had always existed.
He fell to one knee.
"Rafael!" Elira shouted, breaking free of the paralysis, running to him.
Kiryuu didn't move. Her face was stone. Her breath visible. Her hand hovering near her sidearm — not to use it, but to remind herself she still had it.
The child turned its head toward her.
She flinched.
Then it spoke again — this time in a voice.
Not a whisper. Not a scream.
Just one word:
"Chosen."
Kiryuu narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me?"
The child raised a hand.
And the earth beneath her exploded.
Not from force — from rejection. Reality recoiled from her presence.
She vanished beneath rubble.
Elira gasped. "Aoi—!"
But before she could reach, Rafael stood — fully upright now, his body steaming from the artifact's overload.
"No," he said. "Don't."
Elira looked at him, panic in her eyes. "She's buried—"
"She's not dead."
Because something deeper had awakened.
From beneath the collapsed earth, the temperature plummeted.
Frost bloomed like veins across broken stones.
Then — silence shattered.
BOOM.
An eruption of ice cracked the ruin open, and from it emerged Kiryuu Aoi, her coat torn, one glove gone, hair glowing with raw kinetic chill. Her eyes — no longer gray — but pale blue flame.
She rose like a queen dethroned and immediately re-coronated.
Her voice was no longer calm.
"I don't accept your premise," she said to the child.
The child tilted its head.
"You are not the board," she continued. "You are not even the game."
She raised one hand.
And the world blinked.
The rift faltered.
For a moment — just a moment — the child hesitated.
And Rafael saw it. That tiny pause. That flicker.
Fear.
Not because Kiryuu could destroy it.
But because she didn't follow its rules.
Like Rafael.
Like him.
He stepped forward, standing beside her.
"I don't know what this thing is," he muttered.
Kiryuu glanced at him.
"It's not a thing," she said. "It's a signal. A walking echo. A test."
"A test for what?"
Her eyes met his. "To see if this world still fights back."
Elira moved up beside them. "Then let's make sure it regrets asking."
The three of them stood — not allies, not enemies, but united by necessity.
The child — or whatever it truly was — raised both hands.
The sky began to bleed.
Elsewhere
A chamber in orbit — blacker than night, hidden between satellite ghosts — stirred.
Inside, a man with no face stood before a mirrored wall.
Dozens of names scrolled across the glass in ancient language.
Three of them glowed:
Rafael Ralfs KashtanovKiryuu AoiElira Sorrell
The man tilted his head. Then tapped a sigil.
Somewhere on Earth, a second rift began to open.
This time… not a child.
This time… a predator.
Back on the surface
The first child-echo opened its mouth. A scream of collapsing stars poured forth.
Rafael threw up a barrier, the artifact howling.
Elira activated her blade, blue fire licking her arms.
Kiryuu whispered a command in a language that had never existed — and the ground froze solid for half a kilometer.
The battle began.
And the world watched — silently, trembling — as three impossible souls defied the end.
Not to save it.
But to change it.