It had been two sleeps since the trial — or so he guessed. Time didn't pass here the way it did in places with skies. There was no sun to arc overhead, no moon to whisper in rhythms. Just torches that flickered when the air grew thin, and the low hum of stone pressing into stone. Still, something in his bones tracked the hours. A rhythm not yet forgotten. Perhaps it was instinct. Perhaps it was something deeper, something older than instinct. Something remembered.
The boy without a name had not been summoned. Not yet. Whatever test lay ahead, it waited.
But the world around him did not. Life moved.
He wandered now — not far. Just beyond the dorm halls and into the lesser tunnels. No one stopped him. A few nodded in passing. Fewer still stared too long. Most didn't care. That was comfort in its own way. No judgment. No words. Silence was the law of this place. Or maybe just a symptom of it. He wasn't sure. He barely understood the customs here, yet there was a sense in the way people walked. Cautious. Quiet. Careful. Like every footstep might wake something that shouldn't be woken.
The underground city — if it could be called that — had structure. Not by design. But necessity. The oldest tunnels became homes, worn by breath and footsteps. Water dripped from moss-veined cracks and pooled into basins no one remembered carving. Stalls rose where warmth lingered, where air didn't choke. Coins? Unused. They traded in teeth. Bones. Ash. Stones that hummed when held close. The economy of a broken world. It made more sense than gold. Gold meant nothing when monsters could hear its clink.
He passed a row of red cloth strung with bells. They chimed softly as he stepped beneath them — a warning to spirits, someone once said. Or maybe a tribute. Either way, no one touched them. Beyond it lay the lower rings. Koji had warned him. But the breeze still whispered. And the memory of the voice — Yamada Station — still echoed in his ears. Foreign. Terrifying. Familiar. It clung to his spine like frost. It wasn't just a sound. It was a scar.
His feet turned before he could stop them.
Downward.
The air thickened. Not stifling — dense. Like stepping into water. A presence. No, not a threat. A watcher. The kind that didn't move or speak. The kind that had always been. The kind that had seen too much to ever blink.
The tunnel narrowed, then widened. Columns lined the next chamber. Not carved. Grown. Their patterns spiraled like coral reefs, bone-white and brittle-looking. But they held. He stepped between them.
And stopped.
Something waited.
It sat hunched, its back to him. Long limbs. Scales that didn't shine, but shimmered dully like forgotten mirrors. Wings folded tight. A tail coiled around an altar made of teeth.
A dragon.
Not large — not majestic. Wounded. Its ribs were visible beneath the skin. Its eyes, when they turned, were clouded. But alive. Thinking.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice wasn't cruel. Not sharp. Just... tired.
He couldn't answer. Still mute. Still bound by whatever curse or wound had taken his voice before he woke in this world. He stared. Breath shallow. Mind running without direction. Why a dragon? Why here? And why did it speak like it knew him?
The dragon blinked.
"You've seen the blood," it said. "It stirred your echo. I can smell it."
The MC didn't move. Didn't nod. But the dragon understood anyway.
"I knew one like you once. Silent. Broken. Carried the scent of another sky. He didn't last. But he changed things before he vanished."
[ SYSTEM NOTE: CLASSIFIED MEMORY DETECTED ]
[ ACCESS LEVEL: SEALED ]
[ TRACE STABILIZATION IN PROGRESS... ]
A throb behind the eyes. A flicker of faces — none clear. The sound of a door sliding open. The scent of soap and iron. Something else. A distant bell. An overhead speaker crackling.
He swayed. The pressure in his skull sharpened, then dulled.
The dragon studied him.
"You will either bring ruin," it said, "or clarity."
Then, without movement, it breathed.
Smoke. Not fire. It poured from its nostrils, encircled the altar, and wove symbols into the air. The MC watched them form — not with awe, but with hunger. A part of him knew. Not what they meant. But what they offered.
Choice.
[ SYSTEM OPTION: WORDS OF RETURN (1 USE) ]
[ EFFECT: Grants Speech — Costs Unknown ]
The dragon spoke again, softer this time.
"Speech is not always a blessing. Sometimes silence is survival."
The MC didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and touched the glyphs.
They burst — not with sound, but color. Pain followed. Not from the throat — from the mind. A pressure. A ripping. Then — release.
He gasped.
Not because he had to.
But because he could.
He dropped to one knee, coughing. The sound was jagged, unused. But real.
His first word came without thought.
"Why?"
The dragon smiled. Or tried to.
"Wrong question."
The room dimmed. The dragon's eyes closed. It slumped. Breathing. Barely. Like it had given more than it could afford.
He waited. Then turned.
Upward again. Into the buzz and scrape of half-life in tunnels too old to name.
As he climbed, he whispered another word. One he hadn't meant to say.
"Train..."
Not a memory. A scar.
And somewhere, far above, in a place of clouds and gods and angels, something opened its eyes.
But below, in the breathless dark, a boy who once had no voice now had a question. A weapon. A sound. And behind his ribs, something had begun to burn.
He didn't return to the dorms. Not yet. The corridors blurred around him. Some part of him still heard the dragon's words. You've seen the blood. Echo. Not metaphor. Not prophecy. A tether. Something about that phrase gnawed at him.
In the silence of his new voice, he wandered deeper. One path split into two. Then four. He let his hand trail the wall to mark his way. The stone was warm. Breathing, almost. If he pressed his palm flat, he could feel it — a distant beat. Rhythmic. Like heart or drum. Maybe something buried deep was still alive.
He didn't want to find out. Not yet. But the question tugged harder than his fear.
He reached a cavern with no torches. Just pale lichen glowing from the ceiling like stars that had given up on the sky. Bones littered the floor — not human. Too large. Too many limbs. But old. Clean. The passage narrowed again.
Something wet moved behind the wall.
He stepped back. Waited. Breath still. Then, slowly, he passed.
Another chamber. This one held shelves — not carved, but stacked from debris. Glass bottles. Paper scrolls. Bones tied in patterns. It was a shrine. Or a study. No footsteps led here.
But one thing rested in the center: a mirror. Not silver-backed. Not whole. Just a shard, held in a frame of braided roots.
He approached. The reflection was not his own.
Not entirely.
It looked like him. But different. Standing in front of a window. Rain falling. A screen behind him — static and blue. And above it, in crimson letters:
Emergency Broadcast: Tokyo Central Line.
His knees buckled. He fell forward. But the mirror didn't break. It rippled. Then went still.
He didn't know what Tokyo was.
But something inside him did.
His breath shook.
"Who... am I?"
No answer. Just the drip of stonewater. And the faint sound of metal turning — gears — far, far below.