The light that takes him is neither harsh nor gentle—it is total. One blink and Rajin Kikoshi is standing, then falling, then sitting upright with no memory of how he arrived in the wide-open world around him. There is wind. Grass. The smell of sun-baked stone and something older—earth, maybe, or time itself.
His eyes flutter once. His muscles twitch as if fighting phantoms, and then—
"I see you've awakened."
The voice floats across the hills like wind against glass—clear, calm, and carrying weight. Ethiron sits in front of him, her white hair waving in the air, her purple eyes half-lidded as though watching a story only she remembers. She reclines against an invisible force, legs crossed, and gestures at him with the casual poise of someone deeply amused.
Rajin shifts in his seat, instincts sharpened by years of battle, but here—wherever here is—he feels like a child again. Vulnerable. Seen.
"Where are we?" he asks. His voice is quieter than he means it to be, rough around the edges, still catching its breath.
"In between," Ethiron replies simply. "Where the past becomes present. Where memory is no longer yours to bury."
She raises her hand—elegant, bone-pale, lined faintly with Luminant script that pulses like a sleeping heartbeat—and draws a line through the air. The world bends.
And the trial begins.
The grass vanishes. The sky darkens, and stone replaces soil. Ethiron and Rajin stand now at the threshold of a grand estate—its gates rusted with age and sorrow. The Kikoshi household.
Rajin tenses, his breath catching in his throat.
"This is..."
"The day you were born," Ethiron says with faint amusement. "Watch."
Inside the house, screams echo. A woman's voice, strained and trembling. Then—silence. The silence that comes when breath no longer follows the final push. Footsteps rush, voices panic, a midwife sobs into her hands.
"She's gone," someone whispers from the shadows of the hallway. "Lady Aelira is gone."
"No," comes another voice, hoarse and choked. "No, no, no…"
A man stumbles into view. Kaien Kikoshi—his armor still half-worn, streaked with the blood of war and now, his wife. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, his face a mask of disbelief cracked open by grief.
In his arms, a bundle. A child.
Newborn Rajin, still silent. Still waiting to cry.
Inside, Kaien drops to his knees. His screams are not the rage of a warrior—they are the sound of a man unraveling. The baby begins to cry. Loud. Wild. Alive.
The scene fades to black.
Another wave of Ethiron's hand. The house returns, older now. The halls dimmer. The walls cracked. Time has passed.
"Welcome back," she whispers.
A young boy—seven, maybe eight—runs barefoot through the marble corridors. His eyes are bright, sharp, alert. But not joyful.
"That's me," Rajin mutters. "Always running. Always trying to be anywhere but near him."
"Ah, I suppose he wasn't the ideal father figure" Ethiron responds
The door creaks open to reveal Kaien, slumped in a chair with a bottle in hand. He doesn't look up. He hasn't for hours. Days. Years, maybe.
Sometimes he cradles Rajin and weeps. Tonight, he does neither. He just stares at the fire, dead eyes burning.
And then, another voice.
"Don't disturb him," comes the stern but calm tone of an old man. Gendo Kikoshi, broad-shouldered, hair gone silver, kneels beside the boy and places a firm hand on his shoulder. "He won't see you. But I do."
Rajin flinches at the memory. His lips part, but no sound comes.
"They all left you," Ethiron says softly. "But he stayed. Didn't he?"
Rajin nods once. "Gendo… he called me his brave little cub. He never made me feel like a curse."
Inside the scene, Gendo kneels before a grave.
Aelira Kikoshi.
He places flowers. Then rests his hand on the boy's head. "You are not a wound," he says. "You're the reason I keep breathing."
Rajin's knuckles whiten. The boy in the memory begins to cry. The man beside Ethiron does not.
"I remember this day," Rajin says, voice shaking. "He said he saw her in my eyes."
A new figure walks into view. Tall. Dark cloak. Steel-gray eyes like wet stone.
"Varek," Rajin whispers. "My godfather."
Varek stands over the boy in a courtyard. His stance is disciplined, yet his face is gentle. He hands Rajin a wooden blade.
"Do not hold it like a killer," he says. "Hold it like a promise."
They spar. It is clumsy. But earnest.
Nearby, an older woman laughs. Serika Kikoshi—the storm incarnate. Her long hair sways as she approaches, the gold tassels on her commander's coat glinting in the sun. She scoops the boy up without warning.
"You still hit like a feather!" she teases, grinning wide.
"Granny!" young Rajin yelps.
"You'll grow into a hurricane, one day."
Present-day Rajin watches with the look of a man being unmade.
"I loved her," he says. "More than anything. She made me believe I wasn't born to ruin."
"I could figure that much out, but you wouldn't be here if she were still alive, would you?" Ethiron said, an ominous smile forming on her lips.
Serika drops to a knee before the boy and ruffles his hair. "The world doesn't shape you, cub. You shape it. Never forget that."
Ethiron glances sideways. "Did you?"
Rajin's mouth opens, but no answer comes.
A storm looms on the horizon. Lightning carves the clouds into scars.
Serika dons her armor. Her blade is ancient. Her expression—calm, but not unreadable. There's fear beneath it.
"I'll go with you!" young Rajin cries. "I can help!"
"You're nine," Varek hisses behind him. "You'll die."
But Serika kneels. She stares into his eyes and sees something there. Something stubborn. Familiar.
"You stay behind me. Always," she says, and kisses his forehead.
Ethiron waves her hand a third time, and the landscape shifts. The shattered Greathive appears—ruins stretched across blackened stone, trees twisted with rot, the air crawling with Luminant distortion.
From the fog, the Black Wolf emerges.
Its form is vast—twisted, sinewy, with charcoal fur and glowing runes pulsing along its limbs. Its eyes are not eyes at all—just lightless voids where vision should be. Its howl is the sound of graves being emptied.
"What is that?" Rajin asked.
"A Ministry-born abomination," Ethiron responds.
Serika fights. She is swift, agile—her Regalia of Song Whisper harmonizing with the battle, twisting reality in her favor. Time bends. Blades strike from impossible angles. The Wolf is pushed back.
One hour passes. Then another.
Then—suddenly—her power falters. The Regalia flickers. Her song silences.
"What the-? What is happening?" Rajin says, barely audible.
"It left her... The Song knew," Ethiron responds, eyes narrowed. "It knew he was coming."
A shape appears behind the Wolf. A man, dressed in a dark coat etched with forgotten language. His face is not monstrous—but unsettlingly calm. He does not walk so much as glide, and when he speaks, the air trembles.
"I came for what is mine."
"What? Who are you?" Serika responds.
"I am ¤#/¤@"
His voice is fragmented, as though spoken through shattered glass. Serika cannot understand him.
"What are you?" she asks.
"I see, so they took my name... Was my power not enough dear brother?" the man says, as he looks up into the sky.
The man smiles. "It does not matter. They took my name. They took my power. Now they take the Regalia. How amusing."
"Regalias can't be transferred!" she snaps. "It's gone."
The man appears behind Serika.
"Fall."
And she does.
Blood stains the ruins.
Serika's blade falls from her fingers and clatters to the stone. Her body convulses once—then goes still.