The forest was wrong.
Not just eerie or silent—wrong, in the way a smile on a corpse feels wrong, or how a lullaby sounds when sung backward. Thick red mist clung to the trees like rot, casting everything in a perpetual dusk. The leaves whispered in a language he didn't understand, yet somehow remembered.
Oryzzell—no, Yuuji Kazehaya—staggered to his feet, the scent of rust and damp earth choking his lungs. His fingers trembled as he touched his chest. The armor was gone. No wounds. No blood. Just a loose white uniform shirt, black pants, and the faint hum of something alien beneath his skin.
He glanced to his left.
It was there again.
Aeon Severance.
The blade that severed truth and time lay partially embedded in the soil, as if waiting for him. It looked... smaller, now. Not weak—no, the pressure radiating from it made the trees wilt—but like it had been reformed to match this new body. This new life.
He hesitated. Then grasped the hilt.
The instant his skin met the black-and-white metal, visions assaulted him.
> —flames devouring a kingdom—
—his comrades turning their blades on him—
—Valia's lips trembling before she said, "Forgive me."—
—the blade weeping as it severed the world—
He yanked his hand back, breath ragged.
This wasn't reincarnation.
It was punishment.
> "Sever the world. Begin again."
That whisper—it wasn't the blade, not really. It was something deeper. Something beneath the blade. A presence... ancient, broken, watching.
He looked at the sword again.
"Why are you here?" he murmured. "Why... am I here?"
There was no answer.
Just the wind through red leaves.
---
Elsewhere...
In the capital city of Val'Sherek, far beyond the crimson woods, a prophecy fractured.
A tower of priests chanted in unison as the great Mirror of Fates rippled. The high oracle gasped, dropping to her knees as blood poured from her nose.
"The Blade... It has returned," she whispered.
Gasps echoed across the chamber. One priest clutched a talisman, trembling.
"But the Severance was sealed—how—?"
The oracle clutched her chest. Her voice came out barely above a rasp.
"Time has unraveled. The Requiem has begun. The Hero walks once more... reborn in flesh, but still stained by the blade."
---
Back in the forest...
Yuuji—Oryzzell—moved cautiously, Aeon Severance now strapped across his back with a strip of cloth torn from his own shirt. It pulsed softly, in rhythm with his heartbeat.
He had no memories of this world beyond the sword's whispers. No map. No allies. Not even the context of his supposed "reincarnation." Only the looming feeling that someone—or something—was watching.
He paused. Listened.
A twig snapped.
His body moved before his thoughts could catch up. He twisted left, just in time to avoid a jagged arrow that buried itself in the tree behind him.
A trio of figures stepped from the mist—faces hidden behind bone masks, armor made of stitched skin and blackwood bark.
Forest Wraiths.
Hunters of the crimson woods. Merciless. Silent.
One stepped forward, holding a hooked blade. Its voice was little more than a hiss.
"You do not belong here, Severed One."
Oryzzell's breath caught. "You know what I am?"
"We smell the rot on you. The ruin. You carry the end."
Another arrow was loosed. This time, he caught it midair.
His body reacted with perfect, inhuman precision. His soul—the soul of a war-born hero—had not dulled.
The Forest Wraiths moved as one, blades flashing in the dim light.
Oryzzell drew Aeon Severance.
For a moment, the world flickered.
Sound vanished.
Light twisted.
Then—
SHHHNNNGG!
With a single swing, time itself trembled. The lead Wraith's body unraveled—not cut, not pierced, but severed from existence. It vanished with a sound like cracking glass.
The other two froze.
Then ran.
Cowards.
Oryzzell panted, staring at the spot where the Wraith had once stood. The sword trembled in his grip, hungry.
"Just one swing," he whispered. "And already..."
He dropped to one knee. His hands shook. Not from pain—from memory.
This power had destroyed everything once.
Would it do so again?
His jaw clenched.
No.
This time, he would forge a different path.
Even if the blade cried for blood.
Even if the world feared his return.
Even if he walked alone.