RE:START – Episode 1: "The Wrong Summon"
The pain came first.
It wasn't a sharp stab or a sudden jolt. It was dull. Sinking. As if reality itself was an ocean and he was drowning in it. When Ren's eyes opened, the light was too bright to be natural. It shimmered above him in hues of gold and violet, and something deep in his bones recognized it as wrong. Not home. Not real. Not Earth.
His body was sprawled in the center of a cracked summoning circle, the ancient lines still glowing faintly beneath his skin. Carved stone, weathered by time and marred by panic, surrounded him like a sacrificial altar. Incense smoke clung to the air, but the ritual was already broken.
Whispers. They slithered around the chamber like snakes.
"He doesn't match the description."
"No aura. No spark."
"A misfire? Again?"
Ren forced his limbs to move, struggling to his knees. The hooded figures who stood in a semicircle around him took a collective step back, as if afraid he might vomit fire or explode. But nothing happened. No brilliant burst of energy. No divine markings. Just a tired teenage boy with uncombed black hair and confusion in his eyes.
A young woman stepped forward. She was different. Younger than the others, perhaps only a year older than Ren. Her blonde hair was tied back in a braid, her robes were less ceremonial, and her eyes... they looked almost sorry.
"Can you speak?" she asked gently.
Ren's throat was sandpaper. He coughed, then managed, "Where am I?"
Silence.
The others exchanged glances. The high priest—an older man with a beard carved from silver and spite—growled, "You're in the capital sanctum of Valefor. But the real question is, why are you here?"
Ren blinked. His memories were a mess. One moment he was walking home from school, earbuds in, the sky starting to rain. The next, he was here.
"I... I didn't ask to be summoned," he said.
"Of course you didn't," the high priest snapped. "Because you weren't supposed to be."
That hit Ren like a slap.
The blonde girl flinched at the cruelty and stepped in front of Ren protectively. "Enough, Elder Tarsen. He didn't bring himself here. The fault lies in the ritual."
"Your fault," another acolyte hissed.
The girl ignored it. She turned to Ren. "I'm Arin. I'm sorry for what's happened to you. This ritual was meant to summon a Champion—a Chosen One to protect our realm from collapse. But something went wrong."
Ren laughed bitterly. "So I'm a broken sword pulled from the wrong stone?"
She didn't smile. "No. Just a blade forged too early."
---
They didn't lock him in chains, but they might as well have. For the first week, Ren was watched constantly. He was fed, clothed, and confined to a stone chamber in the lower sanctum. There were no windows—only stories.
He learned the name of the continent: Nytherra.
He learned that magic was not a gift, but a curse given by the gods who abandoned the world.
He learned that the world was fractured, both politically and literally. Kingdoms teetered on the edge of war. Monsters known as "Hollows" prowled the wastelands. And every few generations, a Chosen would be summoned—a being with divine traits who would defend the world against a "Threat" yet to come.
And Ren? He was not that Chosen. He had no aura. No divine spark. Just a memory of Earth and a creeping suspicion that he'd been set up.
---
Arin was the only one who treated him like a person.
She brought books. Food that actually tasted like food. She told him stories—some real, some legends—about past Chosen. About the ancient beings called the Hokuyu who once protected the world and whose power had faded into myth.
"What's Hokuyu?" he asked once, chewing a piece of flatbread.
She hesitated. "A lost force. Like a second soul. A pressure of will. Some say it's a way to command the world with your presence. But only a few ever awaken it."
Ren made a note of it. He had nothing else—no strength, no magic. But his mind? That, at least, he still had.
---
Everything changed on the twelfth day.
The sanctum was attacked.
Not by monsters, but by men. Rebels from the southern wastes, clad in scorched iron and breathing the smoke of forgotten rituals. They believed the summoning was a threat to the balance. They believed Ren was that threat.
The temple shook with battle. Screams. Fire. Magic.
Arin burst into his chamber, breathless. "You need to move. Now."
He stood, heart pounding. "What's happening?"
"They're here for you. They think killing the wrong summon will stop the coming war."
He followed without arguing. They sprinted down a side corridor, through catacombs and forgotten shrines. But one turn too late, and they ran into a rebel blade.
Arin drew her staff. Ren saw the flicker of golden glyphs flash down the shaft. She fought, graceful and fierce, but it wasn't enough. More came.
And in that moment—cornered, defenseless, watching someone bleed for him—Ren moved.
He picked up a broken pillar shard and thought.
The enemy struck wide. Ren sidestepped into his blind spot. One shard to the temple. Another to the knee. No hesitation. Just calculations.
Three down. Two breathing. One aiming a spell.
Ren grabbed the fallen staff. He didn't know the spell words, but he knew how to swing.
He hit the mage across the throat.
When it was over, he collapsed beside Arin. Her arm was gashed, but she was alive. And she looked at him with something new in her eyes.
Not pity. Not concern.
Respect.
---
The aftermath was chaos. The sanctum blamed him for the attack. Said his presence was the catalyst. But Arin stood for him. So did one other.
A traveler named Valen.
He arrived three days after the attack. Cloaked in ash-gray robes, a sword slung across his back like a burden. He spoke with a quiet voice, but his name carried weight. People whispered it like a warning.
He looked at Ren once and said, "Not what I expected. But perhaps what we need."
Valen took him in.
Not as a warrior. Not as a mage.
But as a student.
---
Thus began Ren's real journey. Not in fire. Not in light. But in ink and bruises.
He studied tactics, geography, philosophy, pressure points, monster anatomy, ancient dialects.
He trained not to overpower his enemies, but to outmaneuver them.
"You don't need magic," Valen told him once. "You need to make those who use it doubt they can win."
Ren learned slowly. His mind adapted quickly, but his body lagged behind. Still, he endured. He found patterns in movement. Weakness in posture. He read people. He manipulated outcomes.
And all the while…
There were whispers of a strange sensation. Like pressure in his lungs during training. Like a weight in the air when his focus narrowed.
Valen noticed.
"You're feeling the Hokuyu," he said one day.
Ren looked up. "I thought I didn't have it."
Valen smirked. "You don't. Not yet. But your will does. And that's where it starts."
---
The final scene of Episode 1 isn't a battle. It's a conversation in candlelight.
Arin sits beside Ren in the old library, her wounded arm in a sling, watching him pour over a map of enemy movements.
"You know," she says, "most people in your position would be begging to go home."
Ren doesn't look up.
"Maybe I still want to. But until I can..."
He circles a location on the map.
"I might as well survive."