The wind was too quiet.
Not the peaceful kind—but the kind that whispered just before something shattered.
Rin stood at the edge of the silver grove, the garden behind her slowly dissolving into ash and memory. Kael's hand lingered on her shoulder, grounding her even as the weight of the last vision clawed at her heart.
Reika's voice still echoed—gentle but heavy.
"Not all things can be unbroken, Rin."
The sky above flickered—briefly revealing constellations that didn't belong to their world. Soul-maps, Reika had called them. Paths only Anchors and Watchers could read. And something was tearing them apart.
Rin's voice was a whisper. "Did we change something?"
Kael nodded slowly, eyes scanning the horizon. "Yeah. And now the threads are snapping back."
A low chime rang out—soft but wrong, like a note played on a broken instrument.
Behind them, Reika stepped into the light, her soulsteel blade sheathed at her back. She didn't look surprised. Just tired.
"We don't have much time," she said. "Mikado's presence is thinning. That means he's coming back."
Kael's jaw tensed. "The void let him go?"
"No," Reika said. "He's tearing his way out."
Rin turned to face her. "Then we face him. Together."
Reika's expression faltered just slightly—enough to betray the flicker of something fragile. "You say that like it's simple. Like the three of us walking in as we are will be enough."
Kael stepped forward. "If we can reach Daizen first—"
"Daizen is already awake," Reika interrupted. "Just not whole. And if we don't get to him before the void does…" She trailed off.
Rin's heart skipped. "He'll become the next Anchor."
"No." Reika looked straight at her. "You will."
The silence was instant.
Kael's hand fell away from Rin's shoulder as if the words physically burned him.
Rin blinked. "What?"
Reika stepped closer, her voice low. "The soul-thread that binds Daizen is connected to you now. You unlocked it when you passed the mirror. The Watcher called it 'the burden of remembrance.' If he falls, you inherit it."
Kael looked like he'd been struck. "You mean she becomes tethered?"
"Worse," Reika whispered. "She becomes the core."
Rin's breath hitched.
All of it—the lost time, the memories, the pain she carried—it had been pulling her here. Not to solve the past.
To replace it.
Kael's voice trembled with restrained fury. "There has to be a way to sever it. Break the thread."
"There is," Reika said, eyes meeting Rin's. "But it'll cost something even deeper than your soul."
Rin swallowed. "What is it?"
Reika didn't answer. She turned away.
Behind her, the air shimmered. A sigil lit up—ancient, violet, and pulsing with raw soul energy.
"Follow it," she said. "It will take you to the Vault. That's where Daizen is being held."
"And you?" Rin asked.
Reika hesitated. "There's someone I need to find first. Elias left something behind. A piece of him I couldn't reach before."
Rin took a step forward. "Reika—"
But Reika just smiled faintly. "He wouldn't want me to leave it behind."
Then she was gone—folded into the light like a memory that had chosen to leave before it could hurt again.
Kael turned to Rin.
His voice was quiet, raw. "You should've told me. About the Watcher. About the thread."
Rin looked down. "I didn't know what it meant."
"You should've told me anyway."
"I didn't want to make it real."
The ache in her voice undid something in him.
Kael exhaled slowly, walked to her, and took her hands into his.
"I won't let them take you," he said. "Not the void. Not the past. Not the gods."
Rin met his eyes, tears threatening. "And if I am the price?"
"Then I'll become the lie that saves you."
She wanted to kiss him.
Not out of love, or passion—but out of need. Out of all the versions of herself that had suffered in silence. All the times she'd been alone.
But she didn't.
Because she knew there'd be a time.
A moment when it wouldn't be about survival—but about choice.
And that moment hadn't come yet.
---
The path to the Vault opened like a wound across the world. A fracture of dark glass and echoing footsteps. The chime returned—louder now. Hungrier.
The air thickened. The soul-thread around Rin's wrist pulsed faintly—leading the way.
Behind them, the light of the garden faded.
Ahead, the world began to break.
And beneath it all, a voice whispered in a language only the broken could understand—
"Anchor her. Or lose her."