A breath. Then another.
Hiroto stood alone in a world that wasn't real—and yet felt more vivid than anything he'd known.
An endless white stretched in all directions. There was no sky. No ground and No sound. Just... silence. Not a peaceful, but an oppressive Place. The kind that made your thoughts echo too loudly in your head.
And there—at the far end of that empty eternity—stood a throne. His white uniform was spotless. Regal. His back is straight, his chin high.
But his eyes—those cold, Crimson eyes—were ancient—burned-out stars behind a child's face.
"So…" the boy said, voice calm, almost like he was bored. "You're the one who crawled into my body."
Hiroto flinched, more from the tone than the words.
"I didn't exactly ask to be here."
Eris tilted his head. "And yet, here you are, Drenched in confusion like a fool."
He leaned forward slightly, a bitter smile twitching at the edge of his lips.
"To be honest, even though you are inside my body, you look very weak and pathetic."
Hiroto clenched his jaw. "You're not exactly giving off warm, heroic vibes either."
A pause.
Eris exhaled, eyes narrowing. "Was Valtren wrong… choosing you?"
The name echoed like a drop of blood in still water. Hiroto didn't respond. Couldn't.
The child leaned back on his throne, staring down with something between judgment and disappointment.
"You wear my name, my face, but you have none of my pride."
And for the first time… Hiroto felt like an intruder.
Hiroto narrowed his eyes, arms crossing over his chest. The silence between them sharpened—thin as ice, ready to break.
"I didn't ask to be reborn into your mess."
Eris didn't even blink.
"Mess?" His voice dropped, cold and flat. "Is that what you call your salvation?"
The words hit like steel dragged through frozen ash.
"If not for me," Eris continued, his tone now cutting, "your soul would've been lost—scattered in time and space, never to be seen again and wouldn't even have the chance to reincarnate ."
He leaned forward slightly on his throne of broken swords. "At least show some gratitude, will you?"
Hiroto's expression didn't change. "Gratitude? You talk like you saved me out of kindness. You didn't choose me for no reason. I don't believe you have any other intentions, and even if you do, I don't plan on taking any action, so please disregard whatever is on your mind.
That cracked something.
Eris stood. Slowly. Gracefully. The way snow falls right before a blizzard.
"Well, you are right. I do have some other intentions besides hearing you nagging, but You think this is about choice?" he said, voice trembling with fury barely caged. "You think you're here by accident?"
He stepped forward, the rusted blades of his throne creaking behind him like the groans of old ghosts.
"You don't know what it means to be erased while still alive," he said, quieter now—but heavier. "To be there… fading… while the world forgets you even existed."
His eyes—those ancient, aching eyes—burned with something too hollow to name.
"But maybe," he whispered, almost gently, "you'll understand after this."
A wind rose in the realm of white.
There was no source. No direction. But it carried weight like memories sharper than blades.
Hiroto didn't move.
Not yet.
The air cracked.
A low hum, like strings pulled too tight, filled the white void as the world began to twist. The ground—if there had ever been one—rippled like disturbed water. The sky fractured like a mirror under pressure.
Then—shards appeared.
Floating.
Hovering in the void, jagged fragments of glass spun around them, each one reflecting something… wrong. Each piece pulsed faintly, as if alive with memories too sharp to forget.
Hiroto turned slowly, eyes narrowing.
Inside one shard, a young Eris stood among his siblings in a courtyard of golden marble. One by one, the others erupted in flashes of radiant aura. Roars of celebration followed.
Eris alone stood still.
His aura never came.
In another shard, nobles in ornate robes stood at a distance, whispering among themselves.
"Defective," one sneered.
"A cursed birth," said another.
"He should never have carried the Vale name."
Another memory bloomed.
Two older brothers cornered him in the courtyard. No words. Just fists.
The child didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He bled.
But stood.
Then, another scene.
A slap—clean and sharp. His younger sister, barely six, struck him across the face with trembling hands. Her lip quivered in rage or shame—maybe both.
But Eris didn't flinch.
His expression didn't twist.
Hiroto stepped closer, squinting at the frozen shard.
Behind his expression was that of a killer waiting for prey to let his guard down.
"…Is that a child's face?"
"No," came Eris's voice from behind—quiet but edged in bitterness.
"That was never despair."
He stepped beside Hiroto, staring at his past like it belonged to someone else.
"That was groundwork."
Hiroto turned toward him slowly. "…You planned this far back?"
Eris's lips twitched—not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.
"You don't survive in that house by crying. You survive by becoming useful… or invisible."
Another shard hovered before them.
Eris sat alone in the dark. Candles flickering low. His hand scratched ink onto paper. Complex aura diagrams. Calculations. Hypotheticals. A child's fingers—skilled beyond reason.
"While they beat me, I studied," Eris whispered. "While they cursed me, I watched them."
"I was weak, but I never Gave up."
"No." His voice grew colder. "I was never allowed to be."
Hiroto exhaled. The images faded, drifting like snowflakes dissolving in light.
He looked down at his own hands—Eris's hands.
The silence returned. Heavy again. But not empty.
"…Just what kind of hell did you live in?" Hiroto asked, his voice low. Honest.
Eris didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Because some hells didn't need flames.
It's just a family.
Eris exhaled.
Then he raised his hand.
The air cracked—not loudly, but with finality, like the closing of a book soaked in blood. The white void around them shifted once more, but this time, it didn't shatter into clean glass memories. This time, it spiraled, warped, and pulsed like a living wound forced open.
Hiroto braced himself as the realm darkened, no longer colorless but suffocating—tainted by something older than rage.
Pain.
Eris Age 10.
The world snapped into shape—an open courtyard beneath a crimson sky.
Eris, barely more than a boy, faced his two Younger brothers. Sweat rolled down his temple. His small hands trembled slightly as he gripped a wooden practice sword—splintered, worn down, clearly unfit for any real duel.
Across from him, his brothers carried steel. Not dulled blades. Real swords.
"You said you wanted to prove yourself, didn't you?" one of them sneered.
The second smirked. "Let's see if you're anything more than the family pet."
They lunged.
Eris blocked once—twice—before his practice sword snapped. The crack echoed across the courtyard.
He staggered back, now defenseless. One of the blades sliced across his arm, shallow but vivid.
A servant watching from the shadows chuckled. Laughed.
The memory froze.
Then shattered.
Age 15.
The Grand Hall of House Vale stood tall, unfeeling. The chandeliers glowed above like distant stars—witnesses who did nothing but watch.
At the center stood Eris, blood on his sleeve, bruises hidden beneath a too-stiff collar.
Before him, the Grand Duke—his father—stood in ceremonial armor. Cold. Regal. Unmoved.
"Eris Vale," he spoke, his voice smooth as polished stone. "You are hereby exiled from this house."
Eris didn't blink.
"You've brought us nothing but shame. You have nothing to do with the Vale Family from Now On
A pause. Then—
"Be gone."
The guards didn't even hesitate. They didn't need to.
Eris walked out alone. Not because he accepted it. But because begging would've been beneath even the corpse of his pride.
Age 20.
The world shifted—again.
Wilder now. Untamed. Trees with rotting leaves. Skies the color of dried blood.
Eris sat slumped beneath a crumbling rock outcrop. His clothes were torn—his body—thinner than it should've been. Every rib is visible.
He coughed. Then laughed.
Laughed.
It wasn't the laugh of a madman. Not entirely. It was the laugh of a man who had nothing left to lose.
His fingers gripped a stick. His blood had stained the bark. He had drawn sigils in the dirt over and over, never getting it right.
And then—
Light.
A flicker. A spark.
The earth trembled faintly beneath his fingertips.
His magic awakened.
Age 25.
Taverns buzzed with silence when his name was whispered.
Eris turned into a mercenary.
He no longer bore his family's colors. He bore scars, numbers, and bounty marks burned into his cloak.
Men who once mocked him wouldn't meet his gaze.
Mercenaries feared him. Respected by killers.
Age 30.
It was raining.
The world blurred around him—alleys soaked in shadow.
He was supposed to meet a contact. Another mission. Another coin.
Instead—
A blade slipped between his ribs.
Silent. Precise. Merciless.
Eris gasped. Blood filled his mouth before he could cry out. He staggered, slamming against the wall.
A figure stood before him—hooded, faceless.
And then, beneath the collapsing breath of his life, a glow.
His body lit up—not in magic, but something worse.
A sigil—faint but unmistakable—ignited in his chest.
A seal.
A second erasure.
Not death.
Worse than death.
He collapsed, vision dimming, watching that cursed light devour his essence.
And then—
Nothing.
The memory faded like smoke in the wind.
Eris stood still now in the white realm, his shoulders stiff. His eyes were not glowing with fury—just dim. Hollow.
"I clawed my way back to power," he said softly as if recounting a dream he still didn't believe.
"Built me from dust. Earned fear. Built a name out of spite."
Then, his hands curled.
"Only to be silenced again."
The words echoed not just in the air—but in Hiroto's chest.
He stood there, unmoving, watching the broken spiral of a life not his—but now somehow was.
Eris looked at him then. Looked.
"So tell me, 'Hiroto,'" he said, almost spitting the name. "What will you do with my body?"
.
The throne of broken swords no longer groaned. It stood still—quiet.
Eris stepped down from it. Slowly. There is no arrogance in his stride now. No fury.
Only silence.
The white realm pulsed faintly around them, like the final breath of something ancient.
Eris stopped just in front of Hiroto. His eyes no longer burned—but they still held weight.
"I'm tired," he said. "Of fighting ghosts. Of clawing at shadows."
He extended a hand. Pale. Small. But steady.
"Find the one who sealed my aura. Who murdered me? Tear them to shreds," he whispered. "Make them feel everything I felt."
Hiroto looked at the hand. Then at the boy.
"You're trusting a stranger."
"No." Eris gave the faintest smile. "I'm trusting the man who now carries the same pain as I did ."
"Didn't you also go through something similar
His voice dipped.
A long pause.
Hiroto stared at the hand… then took a breath.
"Fine, I get what you are saying, and I will do it. But I won't make promises I can't keep," he said, voice low but steady. "But I will make sure that anyone who looked down on you—"
He squeezed Eris's hand. "Will regret ever breathing."
Their fingers locked.
The pact was made.
The world trembled.
Cracks raced across the realm like lightning. The white space fractured—every shard pulsing with warmth, memory, and light.
Eris Vale said the Last words, "Thank you."
And then—
Explosion.
A silent flash.
Back to his Room
The white void was gone.
Silence returned—but this time, it wasn't empty.
It was real.
In the soft stillness of a velvet-draped chamber, the body of Eris Vale stirred. No tremors. No panic. No confusion.
Just breath. Steady. Deep.
Hiroto slowly opened his eyes.
Not wide with fear—but sharpened with purpose.
The boy who once panicked in this body… no longer existed.
He inhaled—and felt it. The weight of a name not his, yet now entirely his own.
He exhaled—and released something older than fear.
Regret.
His gaze drifted to the ornate ceiling above. Golden patterns shimmered faintly in the morning light, but his thoughts were far darker.
He sat up slowly. No wasted movement. Just the quiet stillness of someone who had already made a vow.
Then, to no one—but meant for someone—he spoke:
"Eris Vale is dead."
His voice didn't waver.
"But he gave me something greater… a second chance."
He looked toward the window, sunlight breaking gently across his face.
"I won't waste it.
And I won't let them sleep easy."
A pause. Then—
"Whoever made him suffer…
I'll find them.
And I'll end them."
Thus began the quiet vengeance of Hiroto Kurogane—reborn as Eris Vale.
To Be Continued...