"Tell me, Kenzo..."
The figure leaned down, its face a flickering mosaic of human features and Remnant static. The void around them seemed to ripple with every word it spoke.
"After that night... did you really think you killed me? Do you truly believe it was them who saved you? Your heart would've stopped beating long before those two could drag your carcass back to their reality."
Kenzo's physical voice was gone, but his mind roared in the silence of the void. No way... "that night"? It can't be... is this... the Remnant that attacked us? The one I thought I erased?
The figure chuckled, a sound like glass grinding against glass. "I didn't vanish. I just traded the cold of the void for the warmth of your beating heart. You've been walking around with a ghost in your ribs and you didn't even notice the weight."
***
High above, the citizens of Alinar peered from their windows, their faces pale behind the glass. They didn't see heroes; they saw a disaster.
"Those Evo-wielders are useless!" a man shouted from a fourth-story balcony, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. "They swear to protect us, and now look! The city is being torn apart! We're the ones paying the price!"
On the ground, Sarina lay amidst the rubble, her hand still pressed to the bloody gash on her back. Every word from the man above felt like a physical strike.
"Paying the price?" she thought, her eyes blurring with tears of fury.
She looked toward the center of the alley. Kenzo lay there his frame looking small and broken against the cracked pavement. His chest wasn't moving. His eyes were dull. To any observer, he was a corpse.
The only one who has paid the price... Sarina's hand trembled as a single tear fell onto the asphalt, ...is that boy.
The silence was broken by the sound of death: The loud, jagged steps of the Weaver.
The monster was close. It stuttered through the air, appearing and disappearing as it approached Sarina's prone form. Sarina couldn't move; her energy was spent, and her body was failing. She closed her eyes, directing a final, silent thought toward the boy in the center of the wreckage.
"I'm sorry, Kenzo..."
The Weaver manifested directly in front of her. It towered over her, lifting a serrated glass limb high into the air. The tip glowed with a lethal, concentrated violet spark, ready to deliver the final blow.
Then, a roar of wind tore through the alley.
A blur of pure, blinding light passed Sarina so fast it nearly knocked the remaining breath from her lungs. Through her blurred vision, she caught one distinct detail: A long, white scarf snapping violently in the wind.
The blur didn't stop. It collided with the Weaver. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground, cracking the pavement in a spiderweb pattern. The Weaver didn't just stumble—it was launched, flying backward through the air until it smashed through the brick wall of the business building, disappearing into the dark interior of the lobby.
Sarina's breath hitched. The name left her lips like a prayer. "...Sola."
Sola stood in the center of the alley, her silhouette framed by the swirling dust of the impact. Her jet-black hair waved slowly in the cooling air. Her eyes were no longer soft; they were twin beacons of cold, absolute authority.
She stood between her student and the monster, her posture rigid and immovable. In her hands, she gripped a dual-headed Crescent Axe.
The weapon was terrifying. It wasn't glowing with the standard light of a Commander; it was wreathed in a roiling, high-density mixture of Black and Deep Blue energy. It hummed with a low vibration that made the air feel heavy, as if the gravity in the alleyway had suddenly doubled. It was the same "Distorted" aesthetic as Kenzo's energy, but refined into a weapon of pure destruction.
Sola didn't look back. She simply stared at the hole in the building where the Weaver lay buried.
"I believe this meeting is over," Sola said, her voice like cracking ice.
Sola turned her head slightly, her gaze falling upon Kenzo's broken form. She reached out with her senses, searching for even a flicker of the violent purple static he usually emitted.
Nothing. Not even a hum.
"So... that's who you went through all this trouble for," Sola said, her voice barely a whisper.
She knelt beside Sarina, her heavy Crescent Axe resting against her shoulder. With a surprisingly gentle touch, she looped Sarina's arm over her neck and helped her to her feet. The white scarf Sola wore caught the wind, brushing against Sarina's blood-stained uniform.
"Don't worry," Sola said firmly. "Naomi is on her way to get you out of here. I've got it from here."
Sarina swayed, her legs buckling, but she gripped Sola's shoulder with desperation. "No," she gasped, her eyes wide and bloodshot. "I'm still able to fight. He fought... he fought until his heart stopped. Why can't I?"
Sola looked at her, and for a fleeting second, the Commander's cold mask softened. She saw the eleven-year-old girl she had first met—the one who tried to heal the world with trembling hands.
"Sarina," Sola said, her voice dropping into a stern, protective tone. "You're barely able to stand. Throwing yourself at that thing now isn't a battle—it's a death wish. I'm not going to lose you today."
Sarina looked devastated. The grief and the injustice of the last hour finally boiled over. Through the tiny shred of energy she had left, she grabbed Sola's hand, her fingers digging into the Commander's glove.
"Why did they send him here, Sola?!" Sarina screamed, her voice echoing off the cold glass of the skyscrapers. "Why are the other Commanders allowing them to toy with him? He lost his home, he lost his family, and now they took his life just for a calibration test! Why, Sola?! Answer me!"
Sola didn't answer. She couldn't. She simply tightened her grip on Sarina's waist, her eyes shifting back to the dark hole in the building where the Weaver was beginning to stir.
***
Kenzo stared at his reflection in the dark, mirror-like floor. The silence of the void was different now—it felt heavy with the weight of realization.
"So you're—you were a Remnant," Kenzo said slowly. He looked at his own hands, which were whole and clean in this space. "I guess that means you're forever a part of me."
The figure, still looking out into the infinite blackness, let out a short, glitched breath. "My... you sound like you're taking this well. Humans would likely scream when they realize they're sharing a soul with a monster."
Kenzo stood up, his frame mirroring the figure's height. "You look somewhat human. You sound human. But why attack us? That night at the restaurant... you almost killed all of us. Why the violence?"
In an instant flash—a move so fast it defied the laws of space—the figure appeared directly in front of Kenzo. It grabbed his collar, hoisting him up. The Remnant's face was inches from his, the multi-faceted eyes pulsing with a frantic, agonized light.
"I didn't have a choice!" the figure roared, its voice a terrifying blend of a man's scream and digital static. "I was unable to think! My world died, Kenzo! My reality was eaten by the void, and I died right along with it!"
The figure's grip tightened, its hands trembling with a rage born of pure trauma.
"Escaping into your body... it wasn't an invasion," it said, its face flickering into a clear, human image for a split second—a young man with terrified eyes. "It was my only way to stop the hunger. It was my only way of becoming normal again."
Kenzo looked into those eyes and didn't see a monster.
The figure's grip on his collar tight enough to cut off his breath—even in the dreamscape. He looked into the flickering, distorted face of the creature that had haunted him since that first night.
"You lost your home, and so did I," Kenzo rasped, his eyes fixed on the pulsing purple light of the figure's gaze. "But tell me... why continue living? Why go through the agony of saving me just to use my body as a vessel? Why not just let go?"
The figure's fingers loosened. It let go of Kenzo, allowing him to drop back onto the cold, mirror-like floor. The figure turned away
"Because, Kenzo... I am selfish," the figure confessed. Its voice was no longer a roar; it was a tired whisper. "The thought of death is something that has always horrified me. I am very selfish. I would rather drag you down with me—keep you alive just to keep myself anchored—than face the end. It is the only human emotion left in me. The only human feature that still remains."
The figure turned and Kenzo saw the void around them beginning to fray. The edges of the darkness were turning into jagged, white static.
"And you are dying, Kenzo," the figure stated coldly. "Your heart has stopped. The blood is cooling in your veins. Soon, this void will collapse, and we will both be erased from the existence."
Kenzo stared at his reflection in the floor.
"I understand," Kenzo said quietly.
The figure paused, its head tilting in genuine confusion. The glitching static across its face slowed for a second. "You... understand?"
"I'm selfish too," Kenzo said, slowly standing up. He wiped the phantom dust from his shoulder. "But I'm selfish for different reasons. I want to be alive to help others. I want to be alive to save what's left of my home."
Kenzo stepped toward the figure, his voice rising, thick with emotion. "And I don't want to die either! Not like this! Not lying in some dirty alley while the people who sent me there watch from their high towers! There is someone out there... someone who's waiting for me. Someone who's crying for me right now."
As Kenzo spoke, the figure began to change. The jagged glass textures and the multi-faceted eyes of a Remnant began to melt away, replaced by the soft, solid features of a young man. He looked like Kenzo's mirror image, worn down by a lifetime of loss.
The monster was gone. Only the man remained.
"I see," the man said, a faint, smile touching its lips. The void around them shook with a thunderous vibration—the sound of the Weaver's next attack in the physical world. "Then, how about we come to a deal, Kenzo?"
The man held out his hand. It wasn't glowing with a threat anymore; it was pulsing with the raw, untapped potential of Distortion.
"I give you my 'Hunger.' You give me your 'Will.'"