The leyline sky bled gold and obsidian as Rei and his companions stood amidst the fading echoes of battle. The earth no longer trembled—but the air was thick with premonition. From the remains of Icarion's fallen construct, threads of protocol and code flickered upward like dying fireflies.
Calen—once Icarion, now restored in mind but not in full power—sat near a shrine stone, wrapped in a blanket of fire-suppressed silk. His eyes were haunted.
"You can still feel their hold?" Rei asked quietly.
Calen nodded. "Not their control. Their presence. They know I remember. And Sovereign Alpha does not allow memory to go unpunished."
Noira crouched near the edge of the newly formed crater. "Then we fight memory with truth."
Mireille frowned. "We need allies first. And fast."
---
Meanwhile — Grigori Archives, Deep Cellar 7
Azazel stared into a mirror that wasn't a mirror—it was a timeline fragment, severed from the main stream by forbidden magic.
"She's waking up," he said, voice brittle.
Shemhazai leaned in. "Which 'she'?"
Azazel answered with a single name: "Velstra's heir."
The reflection shifted. A woman clad in mourning black, holding a staff carved from the remnants of the first spirit tree. She walked among graves that no longer existed.
"She's been dreaming since the Accord fell," Azazel muttered. "And Rei's flame just rang louder than the horn of the underworld."
Shemhazai whispered, "If she remembers the Silver Court… it won't just be Sovereigns we need to worry about."
---
Rei's Camp — Temporary HQ within Spirit-Fused Grove
Rei stared into the campfire, its blue-white core pulsing with residual resonance from the clash. Around him, Eirenne adjusted their temporary wards. Mireille channeled information from remote leylines. Noira cleaned her blade, muttering about upgrading it with Sovereign remnants.
Calen sat on the other side of the fire, fingers twitching slightly.
"I should have resisted longer," he muttered.
"You endured centuries," Rei replied. "That's not weakness. That's survival."
Calen looked up. "They'll send another. Stronger. One not meant to bind, but to overwrite."
Rei nodded. "Then we overwrite first."
He opened the system menu. A new protocol pulsed at the edge:
> [Fragment Forge — Flame Sovereign Access Granted]
> [Status: Locked — Requires Origin Spirit to activate.]
Karasu's voice echoed:
"You know what that means. We have to awaken a lost spirit. One never bound to the Date System. One buried before the codes."
Mireille raised an eyebrow. "You mean a Precursor?"
Calen stiffened. "They're not just myths?"
"No," Rei said. "They were hidden. The Sovereigns buried them to write their version of history."
He stood.
"We're going to wake one up."
---
Elsewhere — Sovereign Code Assembly
Sovereign Alpha stood at the center of a black lattice cathedral floating in the meta-void. Eleven Thrones surrounded it, each occupied by a Sovereign shaped not by flesh, but by concept.
Sovereign Delta: Warden of Continuity. Sovereign Sigma: Architect of Causal Silence. Sovereign Omicron: Weaver of Erased Time.
They bowed their heads.
> "Unit Icarion compromised." "Initiating Protocol: Descent of Three."
Alpha raised its hand.
> "Send Obelion. Send Veyra. Send the Masked One."
> "Let the Flamebreaker Protocol begin."
Lightning cracked across dimensions. Three Sovereigns, unseen by any world in millennia, descended into preparation.
---
Back on Earth — Destination: Forgotten Basilica of Searis
Rei, now flanked by his team and Calen, approached the long-lost ruins of Searis—a basilica buried between shifting tectonic plates, hidden in the seams of myth.
Mireille muttered, "The leyline interference here is deliberate."
Noira glanced at the entry. "Like someone doesn't want anyone remembering what's down here."
Rei touched the stone door. It pulsed.
Inside, a sealed spirit stirred.
She was neither angel nor devil nor pure elemental. She had no name in the Date A Live system, because she predated it. Her spirit thread signature registered as:
> [Origin Class: Precursor Flame — Status: Dormant. Compatibility: 97%]
Karasu whispered, "This is what they're afraid of. Spirits that defy classification. Pure archetypes."
Rei stepped forward.
"Let's rewrite what they tried to erase."
As the door opened, a gust of raw history poured out—fragments of wars before Heaven, before Hell, before systems.
And the Precursor Spirit opened her eyes.