The silence beneath the HQ was unnatural. It wasn't the kind that comforted—it was the kind that waited.
Kaizen walked slowly, his boots scraping against ancient stone. Dust thickened the air, and the torches lining the wall flickered as though nervous. The passage ahead wasn't part of any known map. This was below even the restricted archives—below the known foundations of the HQ.
Ayaka followed closely behind him, her hand gripping her blade, eyes darting around every corner. The path they followed hadn't revealed itself in daylight. It had come to Kaizen in a dream: a door with a shard embedded in it, veins of black energy crawling from it like cracks in reality.
"Kaizen," Ayaka whispered, "are you sure about this?"
He didn't answer. He just kept walking.
Something in him knew the way.
---
A sudden chill swam across his spine.
They turned a corner. The torchlight bent unnaturally.
A second shadow moved across the wall.
Kaizen froze.
Ayaka's breath hitched. "That shadow… it's not ours."
The shadow slithered, smooth and slow like a predator stalking its prey. It mimicked their every move but with just enough delay to be… wrong.
Kaizen stepped forward. The shadow stepped back. Not as a reflection, but as a response.
Ayaka raised her blade. "That's not a Bist… is it?"
"No," Kaizen muttered, eyes narrowing. "It's something older."
They reached a wide chamber where the stone had changed—black tiles lined the walls, pulsing faintly with veins of obsidian. In the center stood an enormous door—twelve feet tall—marked with crimson runes that shimmered like burning coal.
Etched above it were ancient words neither of them recognized. But Kaizen felt them burn into his thoughts like they were meant only for him:
"He who bleeds black shall unseal the Whispering Core."
Kaizen touched the door.
It was ice.
Then heat.
Then something more: a memory that wasn't his.
His hand jerked back.
---
Elsewhere in the HQ – Outer Surveillance Ring
Lieutenant Ferron sat reviewing sensor logs when the alarms went dead.
The monitors all turned black.
Then one by one, each screen showed the same face.
Not a face, exactly—just a mask made of bone and shadow. Eyes hidden. Mouth sewn shut with black wire. Behind it, whispers echoed.
A single word appeared:
"REMEMBER."
Ferron reached for his comm…
—and vanished.
Only a faint trail of smoke and a pulsing shard of obsidian remained.
---
Back underground…
The shadow leapt.
Kaizen barely had time to react as it surged across the chamber, stabbing into his skin like a thousand burning needles. Ayaka screamed, trying to pull it off him, but it had already become a part of him.
His veins went black.
The markings on the door flared.
And then—
—the door opened.
Inside was nothing.
Just… blackness.
But Kaizen stepped in.
He wasn't walking—he was falling.
Ayaka reached to stop him, but the door slammed shut, trapping him inside the void.
---
Kaizen fell through shadows for what felt like eternity.
He heard whispers, screams, laughter. He saw visions of war, death, and betrayal. He saw himself not as a boy, not even as a man, but as a being born of shards, eyes like black stars.
He stood on a battlefield where the sky bled.
And facing him was a figure in silver armor, a horned crown atop its head—its face eerily familiar.
Kaizen stepped forward.
The figure raised a hand—
—and Kaizen knew.
It was him.
A different version.
A possible future.
The crowned one spoke: "You think you were born to fight this war?"
Kaizen's lips parted, breath stolen.
"You are the war."
The world shook.
Kaizen screamed.
---
Back in the real world…
Ayaka stood before the sealed door, banging on it, shouting his name.
No answer.
Until—
Black veins spread across the stone.
And the door began to crack.
---
Far away, in the Shard Sanctum…
Nerovar sat before a wall of ancient mirrors.
Each mirror reflected a different version of Kaizen—one where he was a tyrant, another a savior, a third… a monster.
Nerovar traced a finger across the glass.
"He's awakening. But not completely."
Behind him, a chained creature whimpered in the dark.
"Fifty more chapters…
And I will remind him who he truly is."
Nerovar smiled.
"And when he sees me, he won't fight… he'll follow."