The world did not breathe as Rei Kazenari crossed the threshold.
Behind him, the air warped like a heartbeat—fleshless, timeless. The feather-shaped key dissolved in his hand, scattering into stardust, as a rift tore open beneath the sky. Noira, Mireille, and Eirenne stood at the edge, watching with silent dread. Karasu's voice, usually sharp with sarcasm, now spoke in reverence.
"You enter not a place, Rei. But the sum of every unrecorded truth. Tread carefully."
Rei stepped into the Memory Palace of the Sovereigns.
The world around him twisted. Light ceased behaving as light. Time became vertical. Words were etched into air, and memories sang through bone. He stood within a spiraling archive—cathedrals woven from thought, floating amidst stars unborn.
Each "room" was a construct: events never permitted to be written. Battles erased from the annals. Emperors whose names history forgot. Spirits who defied systems and paid the price.
And in the center of it all…
A throne of chains.
---
Chamber I: The First Reversal
A projection emerged. A young man, robed in white and red, stood at the precipice of war.
"Velstra," Karasu whispered. "The first Sovereign, before the term ever existed."
Velstra faced down twelve archangels, nine demon lords, and an unaligned god. Alone. And still, he smiled.
His words rang across dimensions: "Truth does not require agreement. Only witness."
Then the vision shattered.
> [Archive Logged: Flame Precursor Theory — Confirmed. Sovereign Velstra: Identity Verified.]
---
Chamber II: The Shattered Accord
The chamber darkened. Rei stepped into a battlefield made of memories.
He saw Rias—young, terrified—sheltering her brother behind a barrier. Azazel hurling broken spears into the void. Michael bleeding silver tears. And among them all, a child born of no clan, holding a broken spirit stone in her hand.
Mireille? Rei thought.
Karasu hummed. "A fragment of her. Or the origin of what she would become."
The Sovereigns had watched this war and said nothing.
Because it was necessary.
> [Archive Logged: Original Flame Accord Collapse — Confirmed. Sovereign Inaction: Justified.]
Rei's fists clenched.
---
Chamber III: Sovereign Genesis
Here, the truth was whispered—not spoken.
The Sovereigns were not born. They were made. From failure. From codes rewritten through blood.
Icarion's form flickered in this space, still incomplete. Once a healer. Now a directive.
And then Rei saw it—his own sigil.
Etched into the walls, long before his birth.
"Impossible," he muttered.
Karasu growled. "You weren't supposed to inherit this path. But the flame… rewrote causality."
---
Rei fell to his knees. Memory was weight.
And he was drowning in it.
But then a hand touched his shoulder.
Eirenne.
She had followed him.
So had Mireille and Noira, the resonance between them too strong to be denied. The system should have rejected their entry. It didn't.
Because they weren't intruders.
They were parts of him.
Mireille helped him stand. "You don't carry this alone."
Eirenne whispered, "Let us see, too. Let us share it."
Noira smirked. "You really thought you'd get the big reveal and leave us out?"
Rei smiled weakly. "Stubborn women."
"And you love us for it," Noira added.
---
Together, they stepped into the final chamber.
A single question burned into the air:
> "Will you break the Sovereign Chain or become its next link?"
Rei looked at the throne of chains. A fragment of Ishvalen's presence lingered there—watching.
"I won't be a chain," Rei said. "And I won't be a hammer. I'll be the truth they didn't count on."
He reached toward the throne.
The system screamed.
The palace trembled.
A spiral of light devoured everything.
> [Memory Palace Access Complete. New Protocol: Flame Sovereign Designate Recognized.]
> [Warning: Incoming Entity — Icarion, Bound Sovereign Approaching.]
The time for memory was over.
War had come.