"Before there were gods, there was the Lie. And before there was the Lie, there was the One Who Remembered."
---
The silence was not just thick—it was sentient.
It lingered like a judgment passed down through time, like a wound older than memory still bleeding beneath the skin of the world.
Aarav stood motionless, every breath ragged. The chamber's light had dimmed to a dusky twilight, the vines above curling in a slow, rhythmic dance, as if breathing in the raw power awakening between them. The Root-Child—barefoot, skin of bark and ash, eyes like melted galaxies—stood across from him, grinning.
But it wasn't mockery.
It was recognition.
"You remember," the Root-Child said, cocking its head. "Don't you?"
Aarav tried to speak.
His lips parted.
But the words were not human.
What came out was a whisper made of root-speak—a language the bones remembered, but the tongue refused to hold.
The Root-Child stepped forward. "Say it again."
Aarav's knees buckled. Not from pain, but weight. A weight that pressed down on his soul like a dying star.
Because he remembered.
---
"I said get him out of there!" Anita's voice cracked through the fog.
Her hands blazed, etched with silver fire, and her Divine Mark spiraled outward—an unfurling lotus, burning in midair. With a cry, she released a protective ward that smashed into the Root-Child like a meteor.
But it absorbed the light.
No recoil. No scream.
Only a laugh.
"Oh, that's adorable," the Root-Child whispered. "You still believe the Tree gives you power. How quaint."
Anita's eyes flared. "He's not yours."
The vines twisted.
So did the world.
---
Reality bent in on itself.
Not shattered—rewound.
Anita's ward exploded backward, its light reversing into her hands like a river running upstream. Aarav and the Root-Child vanished in a spiral of thorns, leaving her alone in the chamber as a wind screamed through her Mark.
And then—
They were somewhere else.
---
Aarav stood on a battlefield.
No. Not stood.
Returned.
The skies were painted crimson-black, clouds weeping lightning. Mountains floated above the ground like suspended deities, and below, legions gathered—armored titans, celestial serpents, beasts born of flame and vengeance.
In the center of it all was the Ashvattha Tree, towering, sacred.
Whole.
Its branches scraped the edge of the stratosphere, and its roots bled light into the ground. It was unbroken, unburnt.
It was the World-Binder.
And beneath its glow… stood Aarav.
Except it wasn't him.
It was the version of him that existed before betrayal. Gold-clad, crowned in lightning. A living god.
Anita appeared beside him, gasping. "What is this? A vision?"
"No," the Root-Child whispered from behind her. "This is history."
---
Aarav's heart thudded like a war drum. The version of him—Past-Aarav—turned, smiling with a serenity that was both divine and damning.
"You came back," he said, voice like wind over ruins. "Just in time to remember what you did."
Then came the crack.
A fissure in the sky.
Reality convulsed.
And they were thrown again—this time deeper into memory.
---
A chamber of stone and soul.
Seven thrones. Seven gods.
Each glowing with the marks of their domains—Time, Flame, Void, Judgment, Dream, Flesh, and Memory.
They stood in a circle around the Ashvattha, now shackled, its leaves dull, its roots bound in runes that screamed. At the center, Aarav stood again.
But this was worse.
His eyes were empty.
His voice a command.
And in his hand, he held the Chain of Seven Echoes—a weapon forged from the souls of betrayed divinities. With a flick, he slammed the chain into the Tree's roots.
"You swore to protect it," Dream whispered.
"You were the First Guardian," said Judgment.
"You were chosen," cried Flesh.
Aarav—his past self—spoke only one line.
> "It has lied long enough."
He raised the chain a final time.
And severed the first root.
---
The Tree didn't scream in sound. It screamed in remembrance.
And the world broke.
History forked. Civilizations were undone before they ever existed. Stars aged and died in an instant. The First Betrayal echoed through time, not as a sin…
…but as a seed.
---
Aarav collapsed.
Back in the present. In the chamber. Breathing as if his lungs were too old for this body.
The Root-Child crouched beside him. "Now you see. It was never about power. Never about victory."
"It was about truth."
Aarav gritted his teeth, but tears flowed. He remembered the faces of those he had forgotten—the other Guardians. The gods who had loved him. The Tree's first bloom, when it had whispered his name and offered him eternity.
He remembered refusing that gift.
"You weren't corrupted," the Root-Child said gently. "You were the first to awaken."
---
Anita knelt beside him. "Aarav—look at me. You're not him anymore. You've changed. We'll fight it."
But Aarav shook his head.
"No. We don't fight it."
He looked at his arms.
The Mark had changed—grown into a sigil that bled roots and flames and wings. His skin glowed with runes that flickered in and out of time. His veins sang. His bones thrummed.
He wasn't being possessed.
He was being restored.
> "I am the memory the Tree buried."
"I am the truth the gods silenced."
"I am the first who fell—and the only one who rose."
---
Far above, in the tournament arena, alarms sounded. Sacred bells tolled with no wind to strike them. Across the sanctums, gods stirred in their slumber.
The High Keeper opened her eyes from meditation and whispered, "He's awakened."
Across the sky, the divine assassins of the Keepers—known as the Ravennas—began their descent.
---
Back in the chamber, the vines parted.
A final memory unfolded.
Aarav as a child.
Kneeling beside the infant Ashvattha.
It reached toward him.
And he had smiled.
The last moment of innocence.
Now gone.
Forever.
---
He rose, eyes glowing with power no longer borrowed.
The Root-Child bowed.
"You remember. That is enough."
Aarav turned to Anita. "If they come for me… don't stop them."
Anita's eyes narrowed. "I won't. I'll stand beside you."
He almost smiled.
> "Then let the gods bring their fury."
"Let the Keepers send their knives."
"Let the Tree weep again."
> "Because I am no longer lost."
"I am no longer broken."
"I am what they fear most—a memory that fights back."
---