RE:START – Prologue: "The Ashes of the Rightful Flame"
The sky cracked open like a shattered mirror, and from its wound poured not light—but questions. They rained down in silence. No trumpets. No guiding voice. No warm hand.
Just the sudden terror of not belonging.
Ren's eyes blinked open as if waking from a drowning. Cold air stabbed into his lungs. His body, scraped and bruised from impact, lay tangled in the remnants of a summoning circle drawn in panic rather than purpose. The stones beneath him pulsed faintly, as though regretting their own use.
Around him stood strangers in robes, faces twisted in expressions neither welcoming nor hostile. Just... wrong.
"…Who are you?" one whispered. Another, a blonde with soft eyes, looked away. "He's not the one we meant to summon."
They had spoken it aloud.
The wrong one.
Ren tried to rise, but his arms failed him. His head swam—not just from pain, but from the heavy truth sinking in. He wasn't special. He wasn't even meant to be here.
He wasn't chosen.
But the world didn't care. The gears had turned. The sky had ripped. And so, his RE:START had begun.
---
Somewhere else…
A woman with a wolf's gaze watched the stars flicker strangely. Her fingers trembled not from fear, but recognition.
"A new fracture…" she murmured, brushing her silver hair behind a scarred ear. "Another one slipped through."
Behind her, the shrine of forgotten names echoed in silence. Her tail, twitching once, stilled.
"They'll kill him," she said simply. "Or he'll become one of us."
---
And farther still…
On a throne carved from bone, surrounded by chained gods and burning maps, a man whose very breath warped gravity smiled without joy.
"He's arrived," he said, tasting the future on his tongue like a curse.
An advisor beside him, blindfolded and half-machine, tilted her head. "The wrong flame?"
"No," he replied, voice like broken glass. "The rightful one. Just... too soon."