Jalen's vision steadied by degrees, the last gold shimmer of the Soul Tree fading from his skin. Birdsong. The smell of damp earth. Leaves whispering above him.
Reality.
He blinked — not at the forest, but at the two figures staring down at him like they were deciding whether to hug him or kick him.
Kuromi's arms were crossed, jaw tight enough to crack stone. Vexa was perched on her heels beside him, grin bright enough to qualify as a threat.
Jalen's voice scraped out. "...How long was I out?"
Kuromi answered without blinking."Long enough for Vexa to try to loot your pockets."
Vexa gasped, offended. "I was checking for injuries! And also loose coins."
Jalen pushed himself upright, the ground groaning softly under his palms. He felt different.
Lighter?
Heavier?
Sharper?
Something in him had been put back together — not perfectly, but deliberately.
Kuromi's eyes narrowed at the faint glow still leaking from his fingertips."What happened to you?"
Jalen looked down at his hand like it belonged to someone else. "I… climbed something."
Vexa perked up.
"A tree?"
Kuromi elbowed her.
"A mountain?"
Vexa tried again.
Another elbow.
Vexa hissed. "Ow, okay, okay—"
Jalen didn't answer. Not because he refused — he simply didn't have the words yet.
Kuromi stepped closer, lowering her voice."We felt your aura from miles away. Then the forest cracked open, and you dropped out of the sky. That's not normal."
"Nothing in my life has been normal," Jalen muttered.
Kuromi didn't smile. "That's not what I asked."
The faint glow around his hand flickered, pulsing once — a quiet reminder of the Soul Tree's crown. Of the old man's warning. Of what waited in the West.
Jalen closed his fist, extinguishing the light. "We don't have time for the full story," he said. "But I know where we're going."
Vexa clapped her hands. "Finally! Someone with a plan."
Kuromi folded her arms again. "And where is that?"
Jalen stood, the forest bending subtly around the rise of his aura — not in fear, not in reverence. In recognition.
"West," he said—his voice steadier, heavier, more certain than it had been in years.
"To find the others."
Kuromi exchanged a look with Vexa, then back at him.
"And after that?" she asked.
Jalen didn't hesitate.
"Kullen."
The forest went quiet, as if the trees themselves disliked the name.
Vexa's smile vanished. Kuromi's hand drifted to her weapon.
Jalen stared at the horizon through the leaves.
"Let's move."
They left the clearing before the sun had climbed fully above the treeline. The forest around them was young, green in a way Jalen hadn't seen in years — not vibrant, not lush, but new, like the world was trying to heal faster than people could break it.
Birds flitted through the branches overhead.
Every so often, one would go abruptly silent as they passed.
Kuromi walked ahead, every step deliberate, ears tuned to the underbrush.
Vexa drifted from side to side, touching leaves, flicking rocks, acting like she wasn't constantly scanning for threats. Jalen walked in the middle.
He felt trees bend subtly as he moved past them.
Ferns brushing lightly against his leg, as if checking him.
The wind stirred a moment earlier when he inhaled — echoing his rhythm.
Small things.
Silent things.
But things that hadn't happened in three years.
Jalen kept them to himself.
A narrow stream cut across their path, bright enough to reflect the sky. They crossed on stones slick with moss. Vexa almost slipped — Jalen caught her wrist without looking, as if the world warned him a second before it happened.
The two women shared a glance behind his back.
Kuromi adjusted her grip on her blade.
Vexa muttered something under her breath.
The forest changed as they went deeper. Birdsong died out, the trees grew farther apart, and the wind warmed, carrying dust instead of pollen.
From somewhere impossible to pinpoint, a low tremor rolled beneath their feet — faint, distant, like something massive moving far underground.
Jalen stopped walking.
The tremor passed.
He didn't move for a moment, listening with something deeper than his ears.
Kuromi looked back.
Vexa cocked her head.
The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable, but charged — like three people thinking entirely different things but headed to the same place anyway.
A break in the trees revealed a valley below them, rolling out westward. Grass rippled in long patterns, the wind tracing sigils that wouldn't hold their shape.
Vexa hopped up onto a fallen log and shaded her eyes.
Kuromi crouched beside Jalen, studying the horizon as though she expected it to glare back.
"How long have you two been out here?"
Vexa glanced over her shoulder. Kuromi didn't look at him, but her answer came steady.
"We've been here since the cosmic river thing split all of us apart… so—three years."
Jalen stayed quiet; he was so consumed in his grief for those three years that he never considered that his friends might've gone through the same thing.
"Let's keep moving."
As they begin descending into the valley, the sky darkened slightly — not with clouds, but with movement. A flock of birds wheeled overhead, flying east at a speed that made their wings blur.
Kuromi kept her eyes ahead, her expression harder than her voice.
"We were terrified," she admitted. "Of what happened to you. To everyone. But we believed we'd regroup eventually. We'd go home together."
Her words thinned, softer, almost swallowed by the forest.
"…Though I hoped it'd be Lucio who found me."
A faint blush colored her cheeks.
Jalen barked out a laugh — the first real one he'd felt in years.
"Kuromi… Kuromi of the High Honor Guard of Everlock — are you actually blushing? I never thought I'd see the day."
Kuromi stiffened, muttering something about "focus" and "idiots," but the red in her cheeks didn't fade.
Jalen turned to Vexa next. She was pretending not to eavesdrop badly.
He reached over, pulled her close, and kissed her — brief, grounded, grateful.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," he said quietly. "I was… lost. But thank you for being strong."
Vexa shoved him away with both hands — laughing and crying at the same time.
"You absolute ass," she said, wiping her eyes. "That was so corny — even for us."
Then her voice dipped, softer.
"But the feeling's mutual. We'll talk later… after all of this."
Jalen nodded, and the three of them kept walking — the silence now warmer, steadier, held by long-lost familiarity finally finding its shape again.
The forest thinned long before the sound reached them — a distant, pulsing roar that vibrated through the soil more than it cut through the air. At first, it was just a low hum beneath their footsteps. Then louder. Then impossible to ignore.
Vexa's ears perked.
Kuromi slowed her pace.
Jalen felt the air shift; moisture gathered on his skin before they even saw the water.
The trees parted all at once.
And the world opened.
A massive cliff face stretched across the horizon like the spine of the earth itself — split open by a waterfall that plummeted in a thunderous white curtain. Mist exploded upward in cold sheets, turning the sunlight into prismatic halos that drifted across the air like newborn spirits.
Below, a basin the size of a lake churned in endless, swirling blues and greens. Moss-covered stones broke the surface like ancient islands. Vines hung from the cliff like the hair of giants. The whole place pulsed with life — vibrant, untouched, reverent.
Vexa spun with her arms open wide.
"Holy shit," she breathed. "I want to live here."
Kuromi's lips parted, but for once she didn't hide her awe.
The wind off the fall washed over them, cool and alive. The grass around their feet shimmered faintly, bending toward Jalen without actually touching him.
He didn't miss it.
Neither did they.
They stopped at the cliff's edge, the three of them framed by mist and sound and green growing things.
A long, quiet settled — not silence, but a pause the world seemed to make for them.
Then Kuromi broke it.
She didn't turn toward him.
But her voice held a weight she didn't often let show.
"Jalen… what's been going on with you?"
Jalen stared at the waterfall, watching its endless fall crash into the basin below — a cycle of destruction and creation, over and over, forever.
Kuromi and Vexa waited.
The mist clung to him.
The world held its breath.
"It was nothing more than destruction and then creation." His voice grew soft.
"I buried the part of myself that couldn't save anyone," he continued. "I buried it with Rhea. And for a long time, I convinced myself that was the right thing to do."
His hand curled slowly at his side.
"I lived small. I called it peace. But it wasn't."
A pause.
"It was avoidance."
Kuromi didn't interrupt.
Neither did Vexa.
Jalen exhaled.
"I thought my responsibility ended with getting you home," he said.
"That everything that happened after was… someone else's problem."
He finally turned from the falls to face them.
"I was wrong."
The wind shifted across the valley, flattening the grass in long, rippling lines.
"I don't decide who deserves saving anymore," Jalen said.
"No thrones. No sides. No gods pretending they're judges."
The faint glow stirred under his skin — not flaring, not demanding attention. Just present.
"If something takes choice away," he went on,
"If it cages people and calls it order — I stop it."
Kuromi's jaw tightened.
"And if stopping it means standing alone?" Vexa asked quietly.
Jalen met her gaze.
"Then I stand alone."
Kuromi exhaled once.
"Sounds exhausting."
Jalen smiled faintly.
"Freedom usually is."
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Jalen stepped away from the cliff, turning his back on the falls, on the place of rebirth and reflection.
"Come on," he said. "We've got a long way to walk."