---
The trees of silver breathed as they marched.
Rin sensed it in her bones—something changing. Something recalling. The heat of Elias's memory preserved still rang in her heart like a cooling ember, yet now the atmosphere was different.
Colder.
More conscious.
Reika Noctis preceded her, back straight, figure cutting. She did not speak. She hadn't since she'd smiled and informed them they were late. But Rin understood—something was different about her. This was not the Reika of the memory. This was a knife honed by silence and tempered by loss.
"You died," Rin said softly, shattering the silence. "Didn't you?"
Reika did not glance back. "Not exactly."
Kael's fingers hovered over his sword. "What does it mean?"
"It means the world above buried me," she said. "But something older than death determined that I still had work to do."
She hesitated under an enormous, wracked tree with bark that caught the light and shone like obsidian.
And there—half-buried in roots and swaddled in indigo thread—was a girl.
Or what was left of one.
She had no eyes. Her lips were stitched together. Her hands were resting over her chest as if she was still praying.
And on her forehead the mark of a Watcher unfolded like a flower.
"Who is she?" Rin asked, panting.
"Not who," Reika said. "What."
"This is a Grave Anchor. A soul selected to carry the burden of too many lost truths. When a soul cannot be erased, they are trapped. Left here."
Rin moved closer.
The girl's threads beat weakly, as if they knew her.
"She… feels like me."
Reika nodded. "Because once upon a time, she was. A piece. A lost self. One of the failed you's."
Kael's face grew darker. "They used her as a grave?"
"No, they used many," Reika said with bitterness. "That's how the cycle keeps quiet."
The girl shifted—ever so barely. Her mouth attempted to speak under the threads. Her fingers shook.
"She's awake," Rin whispered.
"And if she talks," Reika said, unsheathing her soulsteel sword, "you may not live through what she does."
Rin got in her way. "No."
Reika halted.
"She is me. Even if she is a fragment—I will not allow you to kill her."
Kael stood beside her, resolute and firm. "If we begin silencing our own echoes, we are not better than those who did that."
Reika dropped her blade, expression inscrutable.
You haven't changed," she whispered. "Still foolish. Still kind."
The grave girl's threads glowed brighter. The vines that restrained her drew back.
Then—her mouth opened.
A whisper escaped, not composed of sound but memory.
"Rin…"
It was not a voice.
It was an overlap.
The garden shimmered.
Rin stood—younger once more—before a mirror. Elias died. Reika was gone. Kael was gone. Blood on her hands. A decision in front of her.
The voice went on:
> "You chose not to forget…
…But the others did.
And for that, the world turned on you."
Rin took a step back. Kael held her.
"She's bleeding past timelines into you," Reika said. "Her soul is unstable."
But Rin moved forward again. "Let her finish."
The grave girl raised one shaking hand.
> "He remembers you…
…even in the dark.
He always did."
"Who?" Rin asked.
> "The man in the mirror.
The one who burned the sky.
The one who never stopped searching."
The light blazed.
Abruptly, the grave girl was staring through Rin.
Straight through Kael.
> "You were there, too.
Before the fire.
Before the name 'Kael' ever existed."
Kael stiffened.
"What is she saying?" he asked.
Reika's eyes went wide. "No… it can't be."
Rin spun around to him. "Kael—"
But then the grave girl screamed. The threads erupted into violet flames. The world shattered.
And suddenly, they weren't in the grove any longer.
They were plummeting.
Through sky. Through memory. Through time.
---
They fell onto stone.
A tower. Broken. Suspended in a sea of stars.
Above them—
—a presence waited.
Veiled in threads. Face concealed in gold.
And behind him…
…a thousand bound memories distorted like shattered constellations.
Reika stepped first, sword extended. Her face was pale.
"It's him."
Rin stood second, heart racing.
"Who?"
"The Watcher of the End."
Kael clenched his teeth. "The puppet master?"
Reika shook her head. "No. Worse."
She looked at Rin.
"He's the one who dismantled you the first time."
And the figure addressed—
Not in a voice.
But in her own.
> "Rin Soryu.
It's time you remembered
who you were supposed to be."