When Takeshi opened his eyes, the sky above him was wrong.
It bent.It blinked.It looked alive.
He stood in a desert that shouldn't have been cold, under stars that moved like fish swimming through black water.
Nehvarra again.It called him back without asking.
Footsteps behind him.
He turned—and saw nothing.But he felt something watching.Waiting.
A voice whispered, not out loud, but in his bones:
"Walk too far from yourself… and you might not return."
Takeshi shivered.
Then—crunch.Real footsteps this time.Lyra.
"You're early," she said.
"I didn't set an alarm."
She gave him a small smile. "Nehvarra wakes who it wants."
He glanced around. "This place changes."
"Nehvarra listens," she said. "To what's hidden in you."
Takeshi frowned. "So what... it mirrors me?"
Lyra looked at him for a long second.
"No. You mirror it."
She led him across the glass sand.
In the distance, floating ruins hovered above the horizon—upside-down towers held in the air by chains of light.A lake poured upward like a waterfall in reverse.None of it made sense.
But it felt right.
Like he'd seen it in a dream once… and forgotten.
Lyra explained as they walked:
"There are layers here. You're in the Outlands. Barely scratching the surface."
"The deeper you go, the stranger things get."
"And the stronger the Drifts become."
He asked, "How many layers?"
She hesitated.
"Some say seven. Some say none. Truth is—this world doesn't follow maps."
They passed a tree that had no leaves—just hundreds of masks hanging from its branches.
Each mask whispered when the wind passed.
Takeshi paused.
"Are those... people?"
Lyra didn't answer.Which was already an answer.
Suddenly—
A crack through the sky.
A shape descended from the clouds above—massive wings, a body made of bone and shadow.
A name burned into his mind:
"The Hollow Seraph."
His knees buckled.
Lyra grabbed his arm. "Don't look too long. Some things notice when you understand them."
Then—
Ring ring.
The school bell.
Takeshi gasped—eyes wide, face on his desk.
Back in class.
Back in his world.
His pencil had snapped in his hand.
Riku looked over. "Dude. What the hell."
Takeshi glanced around. The teacher was still droning on.
Only one person was looking at him:
Asami.
She didn't smile. Didn't speak.
Just met his eyes—and slowly, subtly, she tapped her finger on her desk.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Like she was counting something.
Or… reminding him.
That night, Takeshi sat on his bed.
Window open. Wind quiet.
He touched his chest where the Drift mark burned in Nehvarra.
He couldn't see it here.But he could feel it.
He whispered into the dark:
"I don't think I'm dreaming anymore."
End of Chapter 5.