Rhaziel set his cup down with a quiet clink, his violet-gray eyes shifting toward the window where the bustling crowd moved through the streets of Lyvoria Crest. The light caught in his gaze, making them seem almost glass-like—hollow and unreadable.
"That's all there is to it," he said at last, voice calm and unwavering. "Soul Severance is volatile, delicate, and dangerous. It's not something you toy with carelessly. But if properly contained... it has potential. Whether that potential is salvation or obliteration depends entirely on who controls it."
Desmond studied him for a long, heavy pause, fingers tracing the rim of his glass. "You talk about it like it's a tool... not something that shattered people from the inside out."
Rhaziel didn't flinch. "Everything powerful is dangerous until it's understood."
Desmond narrowed his eyes, but said nothing for a beat. Then he rose from his seat, brushing nonexistent dust from his coat.
"We'll see how long you can keep your truths buried, Rhaziel," he muttered, half to himself.
Rhaziel looked down at the table, as though already bored of the conversation. "Some truths aren't buried. Some are simply... forgotten."
As Desmond turned to leave the café, the ambient noise returned—chatter, footsteps, clinking silverware. Yet, for a moment, it all felt distant. He glanced back one last time.
Rhaziel hadn't moved.
Still seated, still poised. Still calculating.
And somehow, that made him all the more dangerous.
Desmond took a few leisurely steps toward the exit of the café, his boots echoing faintly against the polished floor. The murmurs of the patrons had long quieted under the weight of his presence, yet he moved as if unaware, sipping calmly from his drink. Just before pushing open the door, he halted—one hand resting lightly on the handle—and glanced over his shoulder, the edge of his marine coat catching the light.
"Oh... one last question, Rhaziel."
The words came slowly, almost lazily, but the tone underneath was far from casual. It was the kind of voice that slipped beneath the skin—silken, but barbed.
Rhaziel didn't lift his gaze right away. He merely turned a page in the open file resting before him, the faint sound of parchment brushing against skin echoing like a breath in the still air. But the tension shifted ever so slightly, as though gravity itself were waiting for his reply.
Desmond's lips curved—not smug, but sharp, calculating. "When you catch her... the Yasuda girl. The final Soul Resonator. What then, Rhaziel?" His voice darkened with curiosity, genuine now. "What will you do once she's in your hands?"
Silence. Then stillness.
Rhaziel slowly raised his violet-gray eyes, and for a moment, there was something unreadable in them—like the surface of a mirror too polished to reflect anything true.
"I will do," he said, voice composed and quiet, "exactly what must be done."
Desmond raised a brow, half-laughing under his breath, though there was no humor behind it. "That's not an answer. You know that."
"No," Rhaziel admitted, the corners of his mouth untouched by emotion, "but it is the only one that matters."
Desmond stared for another moment, as if trying to find a crack in the surface of a marble statue.
He found none.
With a brief exhale and a knowing nod, Desmond turned and exited the café, his coat fluttering slightly behind him as the door swung shut—leaving Rhaziel in silence once again.
He remained at the table, unmoving, framed by shadows and fading light. The untouched drink at his side had gone lukewarm.
His fingers returned to the documents spread before him—maps, notes, fragmented resonance diagrams—yet his mind was already elsewhere, far ahead of the others.
Waiting.
Calculating.
Not chasing Chiaki, but simply walking toward the inevitable conclusion he had foreseen long before anyone else had even realized the game had begun.
Chiaki's footsteps slowed without warning, her breath catching in her throat as a sudden pressure behind her eyes surged like a rising tide. The surrounding world—the trees, the gravel path beneath her boots, even the voices of her companions—blurred into a haze, then fractured like glass catching too much light. She reached for her temples, but it was too late. The memory had already begun to unfold, dragging her consciousness elsewhere with a force she couldn't resist.
It was not real. And yet it felt as vivid as life itself.
~
The laboratory returned. Cold. Colorless. Buzzing with sterile energy.
Subject 06 stood behind a pane of reinforced glass, arms bound tightly in soul-thread restraints that shimmered faintly under the harsh fluorescent lights. Her posture was rigid, yet her gaze—icy blue and utterly unreadable—remained fixed on the girl strapped to the operating slab across the room. That girl, identified only as Subject 09, lay motionless except for the involuntary twitch of her fingers and the faint rise and fall of her chest. Monitors above her head glitched with conflicting data, while a barely-stable resonance field flickered over her chest like an exposed heartbeat.
"Begin synchronization protocol," came the command from one of the scientists, his tone as hollow and clinical as the lifeless room itself. "Memory tether alignment, five seconds and counting."
"She's resisting again," another technician reported, fingers tapping frantically against the control panel. "Subject 09's soul anchor is destabilizing on its own. She might not survive another surge."
The lead researcher didn't even look up. "We proceed regardless. Let it fracture. We'll study how the soul breaks and what we can retrieve from the pieces."
Energy pulsed between the girls, and a low screech filled the chamber, one that wasn't sound so much as it was pressure—like the walls themselves were being peeled back by some invisible force. Subject 09 arched against her restraints, her mouth opening in a silent scream, her pupils dilating until only the whites of her eyes remained. On the other side of the glass, Subject 06 trembled faintly, a flicker of something—pain, memory, recognition—passing across her otherwise vacant expression.
"Feedback loop forming," one voice warned. "We're creating an unstable soul echo between them. If this continues—"
"If it breaks, we document it," the lead scientist said coldly. "This is the only way to test regeneration after full severance. Press forward."
Light erupted across the room in a burst of white, drowning every corner in painful brilliance. For one second, everything went silent—violently so, like a scream that never reached the surface.
~
Chiaki's body jolted forward as the memory released her, the aftermath crashing into her like a storm surge. Her knees gave way before she could regain control, and a sharp gasp tore from her lips as she clutched her skull, her fingers trembling against the sides of her head. It felt like her mind was tearing along invisible seams, a pressure deep inside her skull that no scream could relieve.
"Chiaki!" Yuka was the first to reach her, immediately steadying her by the shoulders.
Temoshí and Fioren rushed to her side, concern etched across their faces, but Chiaki shook her head hastily, eyes wide with pain. "I'm fine," she whispered, her voice fragile and distant. "It's nothing... just a headache."
But they knew better than to press her. The silence that followed was filled with unspoken questions no one dared voice.
The path that extended beyond the southern ridge of Lyvoria Crest stretched endlessly through a forest worn thin by time and travel. Uneven stones marked the trail's edge, and the wind wove between crooked tree branches like a whisper echoing from the past. None of them spoke much as they walked. The atmosphere felt too heavy, too fragile to break.
At last, the trees parted, revealing an open hillside blanketed in the faded gray of a long-forgotten graveyard. It wasn't grand or ceremonial—just dozens upon dozens of weatherworn markers nestled into the earth, standing at uneven angles like weary sentinels. Most were unadorned, some were cracked, and many bore no names at all—only crude symbols or faint initials slowly eroding with time.
Temoshí stepped ahead and knelt before one such grave, brushing aside loose dirt with his hand. Half of the engraving had worn away, but just visible was a familiar symbol: a circle enclosing an open flame.
"That's the mark of a Resonator," Yuka murmured, her voice barely louder than the wind.
The quiet that followed wasn't hollow. It was full—heavy with presence, as if the very earth carried the grief of those who had once lived, fought, and died for reasons long buried.
Chiaki walked among the graves slowly, her clothes held close to her chest. There was no need for anyone to speak. The silence spoke enough.
At the graveyard's far edge, she stopped in front of a stone set apart from the others. It was smooth, featureless—no dates, no symbols. Just one word, etched in delicate letters almost too faint to read:
Link.
She stared at it without blinking, her breath trembling ever so slightly. No tears fell. Not yet. But her throat ached, and her chest grew tight with unspoken sorrow.
Temoshí came to her side, silent as ever, and rested a hand gently on her shoulder.
They had seen many roads.
But this one—the one that led forward—was paved with the ghosts of the past.
"These are... Resonators. Links..." Yuka's voice faltered as her gaze swept across the sea of graves. "But why are they buried here, at Lyvoria Crest? That doesn't make sense. The Spirit Flower Agency—everyone there—they were all killed. The island was consumed by fire. That's what we were told. So why—why would anyone bring all these bodies here?" Her eyes lowered to the stone at her feet. "Who would even do that?"
Silence settled around them like a thick fog.
Chiaki didn't answer. Her breathing had turned shallow, each inhale strained as something heavy began pressing down on her chest. She stood frozen, arms at her sides, fists clenched as though she needed to grip the air itself just to stay standing. The wind stirred her dark hair, brushing it across her face—but she didn't flinch. Her eyes were fixed on something far beyond the rows of graves. Past the stones. Past the world around them.
She could feel it—the storm breaking loose in her mind.
Memories she had buried were clawing back up. Faces from her visions. Screams muted by static. The sterile hum of machines tearing apart what once was whole. She had seen death in those visions—not just endings, but the methodical unraveling of humanity itself. And now, she stood at the place where the aftermath was hidden away.
Her knees trembled.
"I... I don't understand..." she whispered, the words barely escaping her lips. "This shouldn't be here. None of this should exist."
Fioren stepped forward, but hesitated.
Temoshí didn't. He moved beside her without a word, placing a hand gently on her arm—not to anchor her, but simply to remind her she wasn't alone. Even then, her legs wavered, and she pressed a hand over her chest, as if trying to hold together whatever was breaking inside.
"It's like everything we believed... it's all been twisted," she said, voice shaking with every word. "They lied. Someone lied. These people weren't just lost—they were brought here. Hidden."
Something welled inside her. Not quite sorrow—something more jagged, more suffocating. The moment where memory and truth collided. Where the past refused to stay buried, and the present offered no escape.
Her gaze dropped once more to the stone before her—marked only with Link. As if even in death, their names had been stripped away.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, Chiaki felt herself teetering at the edge. One breath away from breaking.
To be continued...