The rifle felt wrong in his hands. Too light. Too clean. Not his.
That was the point.
The stolen uniform fit him just well enough to pass under dim bunker lights. Grease-stained fatigues, a helmet with the enemy's crest, and a forged clearance badge that would fool anyone too tired—or too scared—to look closely.
He walked through the corridors of the enemy command base like he belonged there, boots striking in time with the other soldiers on patrol. In his pocket was the folded blueprint of their warhead launch schedule—eight missiles, one already armed. If they went live, the world he knew would turn to glass.
His route took him to the war room, where the enemy commander barked orders over the comms. The man's voice was sharp, clipped, full of the certainty of someone who thought he'd live to see his war won.
He never noticed Red step in.
One silenced shot to the base of the skull, the body caught before it hit the floor. No alarm. No sound but the hum of servers and the steady ticking of the wall clock.
Within seconds, Red planted forged orders in the commander's terminal, reassigning missile access codes to a rival commander. The room's cameras caught the fake "transfer" in perfect detail, the evidence neat as a noose.
By dawn, the enemy would believe their own had betrayed them. They'd turn on each other, stall their launch, and give the world a little more time.
He was nineteen. Flawless work at a ridiculous age.
On exfil, HQ's voice crackled in his earpiece.
"Beautifully done, Red. Two enemies neutralized, one bullet fired. You've kept their warheads cold without a single link to us."
Once, that might have filled him with pride.
Now, the sound made his teeth grind. The same voice that had praised him—mentored him—was the one that abandoned him after he stopped the final missile. The one that decided his usefulness ended the moment the war was won.
He didn't want to hear it anymore.
The static thickened in his ear, warping the voice into something unnatural. It pitched and bent until the words no longer belonged to HQ at all.
"Find the Starcaller."
The shift was wrong. Too wrong. His skin prickled. This was a sealed memory, a mission from a dead world—and something was reaching into it.
"She will lead you to the statue. Piece together the compass, and it can be done."
The bunker walls seemed to fade, replaced by shadow.
His grip on the rifle tightened. "Why me?"
"You changed the fate of your former world," she said. The voice wasn't in his ear anymore—it was inside his head, threading through thought like it had always been there. "Your soul burns brighter than any I have seen. I was hoping you could do the same for my people."
Her words dropped to a warning, cold and final.
"If the Maou King reaches the statue first, my power will fade. I will no longer speak to you, give prophecy, or guide my people."
He tried to speak, to demand answers. "Who is the Maou King—?"
The world shattered.