The light of the Spirit Throne still echoed in Rei's body as they moved through the veil between dimensions. Noira walked in silence beside him, her dark hair swaying like the edge of dusk, while Eirenne held back slightly, watching the ripples in reality that shimmered from the Spirit Protocols Rei had just unlocked.
They had barely left the Silver Court behind, and already the world shifted.
The sky over Kuoh was no longer familiar.
It had been bent.
From the dimensional fault above Japan, pale lightning streaked downward like divine cracks. A maelstrom formed slowly, too measured for nature, too precise for chaos. Rei felt it in his soul. Not just energy, but memory. Someone was invoking an echo—an ancient call lost even to the gods.
Karasu stirred. "This is not a coincidence. Someone is awakening an echo of the First Spirit War."
Rei stopped walking. The fragments inside him flared, reacting not with warning, but with familiarity. As though they knew this resonance intimately.
Mireille appeared behind them in a gust of displaced wind, the Codex clutched in her arms. "I read about this. In the era before Heaven's factions, there was a weapon. Not made by spirits, but of them."
Eirenne muttered, her tone edged with concern, "A Spirit Engine."
Noira's expression twisted. "Those were myths. Forbidden tech lost in the First Collapse. You're saying someone rebuilt it?"
Rei didn't answer. His eyes had already narrowed toward the center of the disturbance.
---
Kuoh Academy Grounds — Midnight
A group had gathered beneath the protective barriers, anchored by magic circles drawn in old Norse runes. Sona Shitori stood with her arms folded tightly, her glasses reflecting the crimson glow from the broken sky. Tsubaki stood to her side, visibly tense.
Beside them, Azazel adjusted the synthetic core embedded in his arm. His wings flickered with tension.
"It's not Rei himself," Azazel muttered. "But it's reacting to him."
Sona turned to him. "He told me the fragments react to emotion, not control. So if something is echoing the war, then..."
"Someone's using the same system." Azazel completed the thought grimly. "But without his anchor. Which means this could tear through dimensions."
Suddenly, the ground cracked.
From the rift, a figure emerged. Cloaked in a veil of time itself—his armor jagged, covered in spectral flame. Not a spirit. Not a devil. Not even a god. Something older.
Something fragmented.
Azazel's face paled.
"A Warden of the Old Flame... That's impossible. They were erased."
But the figure raised a hand, and from the shattered sky descended fragments of memory. Thousands of them, like shards of glass, containing battles, screams, names of the fallen.
"Rei," Azazel muttered, activating his comm, "You need to get here now. Someone's calling the dead back."
---
Underground Passageways, Spirit System Synchronization Core
The moment Rei received the signal, the fragments inside his chest activated. The spirit glyphs around his spine glowed, feeding into the now fully formed core connected to Velstra, Eirenne, and Noira.
Karasu's voice was grim. "You must fight this echo not with your strength, but your memory. This is not a being of flesh—it's the embodiment of the unresolved."
Mireille raised her voice, urgent. "If you don't anchor yourself, Rei, you could be consumed by the past it calls."
Rei stepped forward.
"Then I'll resolve it."
The world blurred.
---
Kuoh's Spiritual Battlefield
As Rei arrived, time froze.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Each raindrop paused midair, the lightning suspended like a sculpture of war. Rei walked forward into a memory crafted from countless deaths, the landscape forming into broken towers and scorched skies.
The Warden of the Old Flame turned.
His face was obscured, but his voice was clear. "You hold fragments not meant for you."
Rei didn't flinch. "I carry what your era failed to protect."
The Warden raised his hand, forming a blade made of compressed history—the cries of spirits and the howls of forgotten gods etched along its edge.
Rei summoned Velstra.
The Spirit of Mourning Wind took form beside him, her eyes focused.
"Then let history be rewritten."
The battle began.
---
Steel and spirit clashed in a silence deeper than death. Every strike between Rei and the Warden sent echoes through reality. Trees aged a thousand years, and shadows reversed their flow. Time was bending around their clash.
Velstra sent waves of wind to disrupt the Warden's control, but he answered with firestorms of past battles, nearly overwhelming her.
Eirenne and Noira arrived seconds later, joining the fray. Noira held back the dimensional bleed with barriers made from her own soul, while Eirenne sent piercing light into the Warden's fractures.
But he endured.
Because he wasn't alive.
He was memory.
And memory does not die until it is resolved.
---
Rei dropped his sword.
The others gasped.
"I see you now," Rei whispered. "You were the last of the Silver Court's vanguard. You lost everything."
The Warden paused.
"You failed your oath. And now you remain only to remind the world that power alone cannot protect anyone."
The Warden lowered his blade slightly.
Rei stepped closer. "Let me carry it. Not as a weapon. But as a vow."
A moment passed.
Then the Warden faded.
> [Spirit Integration Complete: Memory of the First Warden Assimilated. Fragment Resonance at 71%. New Protocol Unlocked: Absolute Recall.]
Karasu's voice returned, softer. *"He trusted you. That's why he passed on."
Azazel landed nearby. "That... wasn't just a battle. That was a damn treaty."
Rei exhaled. "A wound closed. But we haven't even reached the heart yet."
Sona stepped forward. "Then we move faster. Whatever you're becoming, Rei, the factions are watching. And some won't stay neutral for long."
Rei turned to the stars. For a moment, they aligned into a familiar symbol—an eye wrapped in flame.
It was not destiny.
It was design.