The campfire crackled quietly in the distance, casting long shadows across the forest floor. Squad Umbra had made a temporary halt inside the dead woods of Valemire—territory abandoned after a past Bist infestation. The air felt thick, like the trees themselves were listening, breathing.
Kaizen sat against a tree, his pulse still uneasy after the last mission. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it—Ayaka's bloodied hands, the shifting eyes of Nerovar within that black mist, and...the squad member they had left behind.
"Something's off," whispered Yurei, glancing over his shoulder. "This forest isn't dead... it's sleeping."
Kaizen's eyes narrowed. "Then we shouldn't wake it."
Suddenly, a sharp scream tore through the silence.
Squad Umbra jumped to their feet, weapons drawn.
It was Riko.
They followed the sound to find her convulsing on the ground, veins glowing faintly with a sickening green hue. Her skin rippled like something was crawling underneath.
"Don't touch her!" Kaizen ordered. "It's a trap—something's inside her."
Captain Veyra stepped forward, brows furrowed. "No… something is trying to speak through her."
Riko's eyes rolled back, and her mouth opened—yet the voice that came out wasn't hers. It was deeper, ancient.
"The Shard King must bleed. He was never meant to rise. He was forged in lies."
Ayaka gripped Kaizen's arm, her face pale. "That… wasn't a Bist. That was something else. Something older."
Suddenly, Riko's body slumped, unconscious.
Kaizen knelt beside her, his hand trembling as he felt her pulse. "Alive… but something was trying to use her as a conduit. For what, I don't know."
The squad stood in shaken silence, the weight of the voice still hanging in the air.
Then—Kaizen's head jolted with pain.
A flash—an image—Nerovar, standing in a broken cathedral, surrounded by chained Veinborns crying out in silence.
Another flash—Kaizen, burning cities beneath his own hands, not as a savior, but a god of ruin.
And then nothing.
He gasped, clutching his chest. Ayaka held him steady. "What did you see?"
"…Myself," he whispered. "But not… me. A version I'm terrified of becoming."
—
That night, no one slept. The forest breathed around them. Even the wind avoided this place.
Veyra spoke into the quiet, her voice calm but firm. "From now on, we rotate night watch every two hours. No one stays alone."
Kaizen nodded, but in his heart he knew—whatever whispered through Riko, it had only just begun. The shard inside him trembled as if reacting to the voice.
"Blood remembers," the voice had said.
And Kaizen was starting to believe… that someone—or something—was remembering him.