The sky had changed.
Not drastically, not in color or shape—but in feeling. Every time I looked up since the dream, it felt like it was watching me back. Quiet. Cold. Waiting.
Elira noticed too.
Her usual silence had been replaced with sideways glances and longer stares, like she was trying to catch me slipping into that "other" version of myself again.
I couldn't blame her.
In the two days since I remembered what I'd done—since I saw myself leave someone behind to die—my thoughts had become a battlefield. Guilt, confusion, denial, and something sharp beneath it all.
Not anger.
Not shame.
Conviction.
I had been given a second chance. Not a clean one. Not a perfect reset. But a chance.
And I wasn't going to run again.
"Your pulse has stabilized," Rhys said, stepping back from the small device he'd attached to my wrist. "Voidbrand synchronization is up to 63%. That's… worrying."
I arched a brow. "Worrying because I'm becoming something dangerous?"
He gave me a look. "Worrying because we don't know what you're becoming. There's no record of a Riftborn ever synchronizing this quickly. Or fully."
I didn't respond.
Because I already knew what it meant.
I wasn't just someone who fell through the cracks of reality.
I was someone who had torn them open.
Rhys shut the monitor with a sigh. "Elira's waiting for you in the lower atrium. She said you'd want to see this yourself."
The lower atrium was a domed hall of glass and rune-laced marble, the center of the outpost's Riftwatch systems. From here, you could monitor Rift activity across every region of the outer zones. The space buzzed softly with magical current, threads of light running across its inner core like veins.
Elira stood by the main viewing crystal.
She didn't say anything as I approached. Just turned, nodded once, and activated the display.
A map projected into the air—hazy lines forming mountains, plains, dead zones, and—
"There," she said, pointing.
A Rift had opened. Not a small one. Wide, unstable, glowing in red—a color I hadn't seen before.
And around it, spreading like rot, was a blackened forest.
"The Hollow Glade," she said.
I flinched.
That name—it triggered something. A whisper.
That was where I made the vow.
Where I left her.
"Elira," I said quietly, "that place… it's where I broke my promise."
She didn't react right away.
But after a long moment, she asked, "Is she still alive?"
"I don't know."
Another pause.
Then: "Do you want her to be?"
That question hurt.
I didn't have an answer—not because I didn't care, but because I did. Too much.
I was terrified to hope.
"If she is," I said finally, voice rough, "then I owe her everything."
Elira's eyes softened, just for a breath. "Then it's time you started paying that debt."
Preparations took the rest of the day.
Not because we were slow, but because the Hollow Glade wasn't just dangerous—it was taboo. A place marked as unrecoverable by the Riftwatch. Any mission there was considered suicidal unless you had Rift-immune clearance or a death wish.
I had both.
We traveled light—just the three of us.
Elira, Rhys, and me.
We left before dawn, slipping past the outer barriers on wind-blessed hover gliders, each carved with warding runes and reinforced with nullmetal.
The farther we went, the more the world began to tilt.
Trees twisted the wrong direction. Water ran upward in arcs. Birds flew in slow motion, then vanished like smoke. The air smelled like rust and old rain.
And then we saw it.
The Hollow Glade.
It was more than a forest.
It was a scar.
Burned, blackened trees curled into one another like they were trying to hide from the sky. The ground was covered in gray ash that stuck to your boots like regret. Every step sounded too loud, like the world didn't want us there.
Rhys checked the readings on his scanner. "Void density off the charts. This place shouldn't exist anymore."
Elira's grip tightened on her spear. "Yet it does."
I walked ahead.
I knew this place. My body remembered paths my mind had forgotten. My fingers reached out and brushed against a charred tree—and a wave of pain slammed into my chest.
A flash.
The girl.
Her body covered in cuts, her hand holding mine, her eyes wild with terror.
"Go, Kaito! If you stay, it'll consume you too!"
"No," I had whispered.
But then I had.
I had left.
I dropped to one knee, chest heaving.
"She's here," I whispered. "A part of her… it never left."
Elira placed a hand on my shoulder. Not guiding. Not pushing. Just there.
We moved deeper.
The ash grew thicker. The air thinned. And soon, we reached the center.
Where the Rift burned red, vertical, and angry.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
A figure stood in front of it.
I stopped breathing.
She turned.
Same hair.
Same eyes.
Same voice when she spoke my name.
"Kaito."
But something was wrong.
Her eyes were too bright. Her skin shimmered with Rift energy. And when she smiled—it wasn't quite human.
"I waited," she said softly, stepping forward. "I waited so long."
I stumbled forward, reaching out. "I—I didn't remember. I forgot everything, I didn't mean to—"
She raised a hand—and I froze.
Not from magic.
From grief.
Because I saw it now.
She wasn't whole.
She was a fragment.
A memory wrapped in Riftlight. Sustained by the very scar I had left her in.
"You promised," she said. "You promised we'd face it together."
Tears welled in my eyes. "And I broke that promise."
She stepped closer, placing her hand against my chest.
"But you came back."
I nodded, silent, aching.
Then she smiled—a true smile.
And her form began to fade.
"No," I gasped. "No, don't—"
"You kept your vow," she whispered. "Even if it came late."
Light poured from her, into the Voidbrand.
And in that moment—
The Rift closed.
No violence.
No collapse.
Just a quiet goodbye.
I collapsed to the ground, chest hollow, tears flowing freely.
Rhys approached slowly, scanning the space. "The Rift is gone. Just... gone."
Elira helped me to my feet.
I looked up at the sky.
It didn't watch me anymore.
It welcomed me.
Because for the first time since I was rewritten—
I had remembered what it meant to be whole.