The fire crackled in the corner of the cell, casting flickering shadows that danced like ghosts along the stone walls. Its light barely reached past their feet, but in this place, even a flicker felt like sunrise.
The air was still. Thick with the scent of scorched iron, dried blood, and old stone. Somewhere above, distant footsteps echoed through the Keep, muffled by weight and wards. But down here, beneath Blackstone's oldest veins, silence reigned like a forgotten god.
Rei sat with his back to the wall, arms resting loosely across his knees, eyes half-lidded. His breath had slowed. The whisper of the Rift — that hungry presence stitched into the mark across his chest — had receded. Not vanished. Just watching. Just waiting.
Across from him, Kaia sat cross-legged, sharpening her twin bone knives. Not out of need. Out of ritual. Each stroke of the blade across the whetstone was measured. Controlled. It tethered her — not to the cell, but to herself. To memory. To bloodlines unspoken.
Rei watched her for a moment. Not with curiosity. Not even admiration. With relief. Because she was the only real thing in this place.
The Void had begun to show him memories that weren't dreams. Flickers of a life once lived — neon lights smeared by rain, the hum of vending machines, cheap curry buns, warm kotatsu nights and colder beds. A cracked phone screen. Silence. That kind of silence — the kind that screamed.
And now? This world. Chain and cinder. Blood and breath.
"You were shaking," Kaia said, not looking up.
Rei blinked. "Just the cold."
"Liar."
He gave a soft, breathless chuckle. "Guess I'm not very good at that."
"Good." She tested the edge of the blade with her thumb. "This place breeds liars. Best not to become one."
Her voice carried that same strange gravity — neither harsh nor warm, but deliberate. Like every word had been weighed before it left her lips. Like her tongue had learned the cost of language long before he had ever arrived.
The silence between them didn't feel empty. It felt… earned.
Rei looked down at the brand beneath his tunic — violet, jagged, alive. It hadn't burned since the Trial. But it pulsed beneath the skin. Not in pain. In presence.
"What is it?" he asked quietly.
Kaia looked up this time, the fire reflecting in her gold-ringed eyes.
"The brand?" He nodded.
She slid the blade away and leaned forward slightly, elbows on her knees. "It's not just a mark. It's a beacon. A wound between worlds. A tether."
Rei frowned. "I didn't ask for this."
"No one does."
"Then why me?"
Kaia was quiet for a long beat. Then she said:
"Because something saw you… And didn't look away."
That struck deeper than he expected. Because wasn't that all he ever wanted? To be seen. Not overlooked. Not pitied. Not forgotten.
"You said you're from somewhere else," Kaia murmured, after a moment.
Rei nodded. "Tokyo. A city. Lights so bright you forget the stars. People so close together they forget how to speak."
She tilted her head. "Is it beautiful?"
He hesitated. "Sometimes. At night, when it rains, and the streets shine like glass. When the city forgets it's alive and just breathes."
Kaia's gaze lingered on him. "You miss it."
"I miss knowing who I was."
She didn't answer immediately. Then, quietly:
"Do you know who you are now?"
He thought for a long moment. The fire popped. "I think I'm someone trying not to break."
She stood, stretching slowly. Graceful. Feral. Whole. Her movements were fluid — like snow caught in a flame, untouched but alive.
She walked to the bars and leaned slightly, her profile glowing in the firelight. She met his eyes again — and held them.
"I don't know what you are," she said, quiet. "But I've seen what you're not."
"And what's that?"
Her answer was a blade, unsheathed in truth.
"Weak."
Rei blinked. Then smiled. Not wide. Not bright. But real.
Maybe it was the warmth of the fire. Maybe the ghosts of Tokyo were fading into ash. Or maybe… it was the simple truth: someone here believed he wasn't already lost. And for now — that was enough.
The fire dimmed. Hours passed in silence. Sleep did not come.
Rei turned to her again. His voice barely a murmur.
"Do you… remember your home?"
Kaia's jaw tightened. "I remember snow. A ridge too steep to climb. Trees with bark like bone, sap like silver. And a voice — my father's — telling me never to let the old blood fall to silence."
She paused. "But I don't know if that place still exists. Or if I do, without it."
Rei leaned back against the stone. "I used to think home was a place."
"And now?"
"Now I think it's a person. Or a memory of one. Something you chase, but can't quite catch."
Kaia's ears twitched. "I've never chased anything."
"Maybe not. But something tells me you haven't stopped running either."
She stared at him, unblinking. Then turned away. "Sleep, outsider. Words won't save us."
But later — much later — when the fire was almost ash and her breath had slowed — she spoke again, voice like frost slipping under a door:
"You're wrong, though."
Rei stirred. "About what?"
"I am chasing something," she said. "I just don't know if it still remembers me."
It came in a breath. Not a vision. Not a dream. A flicker.
For a heartbeat, he wasn't in Blackstone.
He stood in the middle of a narrow alley, rain falling soft and steady. Neon lights bled across slick pavement. The door of a Lawson convenience store chimed behind him — that familiar electronic bing. Curry bread. Vending machines. The hum of Tokyo's midnight heart.
Rei blinked—And the world shattered.
Back. Chains. Stone. The weight of exhaustion pressing into his spine like a curse.
He gasped as if surfacing from deep water, chest heaving. Sweat clung to his skin. His hands trembled.
Kaia stood beside him in the dim-lit cell, one brow raised. Silent. Watching.
They had survived the trial. But that flicker? That wasn't memory. It was something waking up.
Later — when the guards shoved moldy bread and stale water through the grate — Kaia finally broke the silence.
"You screamed."
Rei looked up, voice hoarse. "When?"
"In your sleep. You said… 'Lawson.' Then 'Why now?'"
A short laugh escaped him — hollow, cracked.
"Lawson's a place. A store back home. Cheap snacks. Warm lights. I used to go there… when I still had a home."
Kaia tilted her head slightly, ears flicking. "You remember it."
"Yeah," he murmured. "It's like… I'm standing in two worlds. One foot in each. And I don't know which one is real anymore."
She didn't reply. But her golden eyes lingered. Softened. Just for a moment.
Below Blackstone, in the bowels of the keep, Overseer Malrec watched the scene unfold in silence — projected through a scrying crystal suspended in runes of void-ink.
"He's remembering," Malrec whispered, more to himself than to the figure beside him.
The one beside him wore robes of bone-white. Face unseen. Voice like paper dragged over flame.
"Good," the figure said. "The Riftbound must remember who he was… before we break who he is."
Rain again. Asphalt. Neon. A crumpled plastic bag in his grip.
The memory didn't unfold — it snapped, sudden and violent, like a glitch in the world's code.
One breath, and he was curled in the cinders of Blackstone.
The next — Tokyo. Not the skyline. The corners. The quiet places. Cracked sidewalks. Glowing vending machines. Curry steam drifting from alley kitchens.
He stood under a Lawson sign, the hum of halogen above him, hand clutching a bag of onigiri, canned coffee… and the same curry bun he always bought.
His hands were clean. Pale. Unscarred. Unbranded.
"Watanabe-san?"
He turned. A co-worker. Her name was… Sayaka? No — Misaki?
He couldn't remember. She smiled gently.
"You okay? You spaced out."
"Yeah," he heard himself say. "Just tired."
But the voice felt distant. Hollow. Not his.
He looked across the street — saw his reflection in a shuttered storefront window. Rain-soaked hoodie. Messy hair. Empty eyes. Not a weapon. Not a Riftborn. Just Rei.
Then — the burn. Violet. Violent. Alive.
He staggered. The bag fell. The world twisted — buildings warping, colors bleeding into stars, Tokyo melting into ash —
He screamed.
He awoke gasping. Not in Tokyo. In chains. In Blackstone.
Kaia crouched beside him, one hand gripping her blade, the other resting against his forehead.
"You left," she said quietly.
"What…?"
"You weren't here. Not really."
He tried to sit up, chest tight, breath ragged. "I remembered… Home. Who I was."
Her ears twitched. "And?" she asked. "Who were you?"
He hesitated. "…No one."
Long silence.
Then — unexpectedly — her voice softened. "You're not 'no one,' Kaia said. "Not anymore."
She stood — tall, defiant, still bleeding — but her words lingered, quiet as snowfall. "Next time you vanish like that… come back faster."
"I'll try."
He blinked. The firelight behind her caught in her hair — silver strands glowing like frost in a forge. Her golden eyes narrowed, not in warning, but in something else. Her figure, framed in shadow, felt grounded — elemental. Strong, but not unkind.
He looked away — not out of shame. But because he'd remembered something. Something human.
"You're staring," she said flatly.
He coughed. "Sorry."
She flicked dust from her leggings with a sharp motion. "You've got enough shadows to fight, outsider. Try not to add me to them."
But as she turned away, he caught it. A flicker — not of memory. Of something else. A smile. Small. Real. Gone before it could grow.
Below Blackstone, the figure in bone-white robes whispered: "It begins."
Malrec licked dry lips. "Do we accelerate the schedule?"
"No," came the reply. "Let him remember in pieces. Let him fracture slowly."
The crystal dimmed. The shadows pulsed. And something vast began to stir.
He gasped — but there was no breath. No chamber.
He stood beneath a sky of shattered glass — stars bleeding violet, constellations twisting into unspoken runes. Ground wasn't ground, but memory. A city half-remembered beneath his feet: wet pavement, vending machines, the smell of fried curry and cold wind through rusted vents.
Tokyo. And not.