Light shattered the corridor. For a heartbeat, everything dissolved into static — sound, breath, form. Then came the aftermath: a ringing void where only the Pulse still moved
Eren gasped. The world reassembled around him in fragments — Kael's silhouette outlined in flickering white, Lyra crouched beside a sparking console, the air thick with burning ozone.
Draven stood untouched in the chaos. His golden eyes glowed like molten sunfire, his voice calm, too calm.
"Still resisting instinct, Eren? I thought the Pulse would've taught you better by now."
Kael's arm moved, fast — a streak of gray flame slicing through the haze. But Draven barely shifted, his hand brushing the attack aside with a ripple of distortion. Energy cracked and folded inward, like reality had flinched.
Eren's head spun. "Stop—both of you!"
Draven's gaze snapped to him. "He didn't tell you, did he? What it cost to pull you from the storm?"
Kael's jaw locked. "Don't."
But Draven only smiled, stepping closer. "The Pulse doesn't forget, Eren. It just buries the truth until someone brave—or foolish—tries to dig it up."
Lightning surged beneath Eren's skin. He felt the Pulse react — not in anger, but in recognition. "What truth?"
Draven's voice softened. "That you weren't found. You were made."
The words struck harder than any blast. Eren staggered back, heat crawling up his throat. "That's a lie."
Kael's silence was a weapon in itself.
Draven's gaze flicked toward him. "Then tell him, Kael. Tell him what you turned him into."
Lyra raised her weapon, eyes blazing. "You talk too much for someone about to be erased."
Draven smirked. "You can't erase what the city keeps alive." He turned his attention back to Eren, voice low, coaxing. "You're the mirror's child. The last remnant of the Observer's code. You weren't born in this world—you were remembered by it."
Eren's breath trembled. Memories—no, flashes—hit him: a woman at the edge of a tower, her hand outstretched; a golden light fracturing like glass; a heartbeat that wasn't his own.
"Stop!" His voice cracked as the Pulse beneath his skin burst outward, shattering the nearby walls into glass dust.
Draven watched the chaos unfold with something close to reverence. "There it is," he whispered. "The Pulse that binds and breaks."
Kael stepped in front of Eren, arm braced, his glow bright enough to blind. "Get away from him."
Draven tilted his head, that smile twisting into something darker. "Protect him all you want, Kael. You can't guard him from the truth forever. When he remembers what he truly is, he'll come to me. He'll need me."
Kael's response was a strike — silent, clean, unrestrained. Their energies collided in a blinding storm that tore the floor apart.
Eren fell back, the noise fading into a roar of blood and static. He reached out, voice raw. "Kael—"
But before he could touch him, something unseen pulled him backward — a force not of Draven or Kael, but the Pulse itself.
He was falling through light. Through memories that weren't his own.
The vision burned through him.
The tower from his dreams. The Observer's face — soft, resolute, filled with sorrow.
"You were never meant to wake," she whispered. "But the city forgot how to dream without you."
A flash — Kael's younger voice, raw, desperate: Please. Just let him live.
A metallic answer from the dark: Then you'll carry the cost.
The vision collapsed.
Eren landed hard against cold stone, the taste of iron on his tongue. The tunnel above him was gone — replaced by a cavern of shattered glass and humming wires. He was alone.
Or so he thought.
A faint echo drifted through the air — a voice, distant yet familiar. "You shouldn't have seen that."
Kael stepped out of the haze, his coat torn, his expression unreadable.
Eren's throat tightened. "Was it true?"
Kael didn't move closer. "You saw what the Pulse wanted you to see."
"That's not an answer."
Silence. Then—
"Yes," Kael said softly. "You weren't born like the others. You're what's left of what she created — a memory made flesh."
Eren's heartbeat faltered. "And you knew?"
"I was the one who found you. Who gave you a name." His voice trembled, barely audible. "You were nothing but light and static. I couldn't let you fade."
Eren's vision blurred. "So you built me. You built a lie."
Kael's eyes met his. There was no defense in them. Only guilt. "No, Eren. I built a chance."
The Pulse hummed between them — not angry, not calm, but alive.
Eren turned away, his reflection flickering across the cracked glass floor. "Then what am I now?"
Kael's hand hovered near his shoulder, hesitant. "You're the only one who can decide that."
A sound echoed from above — metallic footsteps, slow and deliberate.
Draven's voice floated through the chamber, smooth and sharp all at once.
"You can't run from your origin, Eren. You can only rewrite it."
Eren clenched his fists, lightning crawling over his skin. "Then maybe it's time I do."
The ground shuddered as the Pulse flared again — brighter, deeper, almost furious. And for the first time, Eren didn't resist it.
Kael's eyes widened as the light engulfed them both.
Draven smiled from the shadows.
"Good," he murmured. "Now the game begins."