The mist was thick enough to choke on. Cold, heavy, and alive - it moved between the ruins like a creature that had learned how to breathe. The three figures standing at the edge of St. Kareth's shattered courtyard barely spoke; each step forward stirred ghosts from the stones.
Kairo Orin led in silence, his cloak dragging through the ash-streaked floor. Every wall here felt familiar - the cracks, the half-melted runes, even the faint echo of children's laughter that didn't belong to this age. Behind him, Reika walked quietly, scanning the shadows for movement. Taro, however, clung to his bag like it contained holy scripture.
"I'm just saying," Taro whispered, "if this place tries to eat us, I vote we turn around and pretend we never found it."
Reika gave him a look sharp enough to cut.
"You talk too much when you're scared."
"Correction," he muttered, "I talk too much because I'm scared."
Kairo barely heard them. His hand brushed the wall - and the stone pulsed faintly beneath his torch. The runes were still alive, humming with the residual magic of the Custodians.
"They rebuilt the seal," he murmured. "After everything that happened…they came back."
Reika frowned. "To what? This place is a graveyard."
"Graveyards are full of secrets," Taro said, then immediately flinched. "Wow. That sounded way cooler in my head. Ignore me."
Kairo stopped before the remnants of the Central Spire - the same tower that had collapsed years ago in the great Rift breach. Now, it was half-standing, encased in crystalline growths that shimmered faintly with Riftlight.
Inside, shadows moved. Not human ones.
Reika unsheathed one blade, lowering her voice. "Something's still here."
Kairo's gaze hardened. "Not something. Someone."
He stepped through the broken archway, and the world shifted again - just slightly. The air thickened; time slowed. And for an instant, Kairo felt himself back in hs youth - walking through pristine halls, surrounded by white-robed scholars and children who didn't yet understand what experiments they'd been chosen for.
He saw flashes - tanks filled with glowing liquid, children floating inside, their eyes open but unfocused.
He saw himself - younger, terrified, hand pressed against the glass of his own containment pod.
He saw the scientists - the Custodians - watching without emotion.
Reika's voice broke the trance. "Kairo. You're shaking."
He blinked, pulling himself back. "It's…fine. Just memories."
Taro frowned. "Memories that literally make the walls bleed are not fine, my guy."
And indeed, as Taro spoke, faint trails of golden liquid began to seep down the crystalline walls - memories taking physical form.
Then, a voice echoed through the chamber.
Cold. Metallic. Familiar.
"Subject 01: Ashborn. Confirmed alive."
The three froze.
From the far end of the hall, lights flickered on - one by one - until they revealed a row of tall containment pods.
Inside them floated humanoid figures, their forms distorted by Riftlight.
But one of the pods was already open.
From its depths stepped a figure dressed in the old Custodian robes - but their face was covered by a smooth mask of mirrored glass.
"Welcome home, Ashborn," the voice said.
Kairo's flame flared faintly at his fingertips. "Who are you?"
The figure tilted its head. "You wouldn't remember. You killed me once."
Taro blinked. "Wait - what?"
Reika's blade lifted. "That's not possible. You can't kill something twice."
The figure stepped closer, and its mask reflected Kairo's face perfectly - except the eyes were hollow.
"I was Subject 03," it said calmly. "I was your shadow. They called me the Echo."
The name struck something deep in Kairo's chest - a memory that hurt to exist.
He remembered the early experiments, when they paired subjects together - one as the source, one as the mirror. Echo had been created from his discarded energy, meant to stabilise his unstable Rift-core.
He had been a copy. A fragment.
A brother that wasn't supposed to survive.
Kairo's voice trembled. "I thought you died in the breach."
"I did," Echo replied simply. "And then I was reborn - just like you. Only I didn't get to forget."
Reika moved between them. "What do you want?"
Echo's masked gaze shifted to her.
"To end the loop. And to do that, I need him to remember what he really is."
Taro leaned close to Reika. "Okay, not to self: masked clones always want therapy, but they ask for murder instead."
"Quiet," Reika hissed.
Echo raised his hand. The crystals in the spire began to glow brighter, their hum turning into a steady, rhythmic pulse - like a heartbeat.
"All of this," he said, "the Academy, the Rift, the rebirths… it was never about salvation. It was about containment." He gestured to Kairo. "You were never meant to be free, Ashborn. You were the cage."
Before Kairo could respond, the ground split open - and from below rose more shapes, humanoid but malformed. The failed Custodian subjects, long forgotten, dragged themselves out of the earth with hollow eyes and burning veins.
Reika drew her second blade. "Kairo -!"
"I know."
The air exploded in light. Flames roared around them, but this time they weren't chaotic. They obeyed him. Kairo's golden fire carved through the first wave of twisted figures, while Reika moved with deadly precision beside him.
Taro, meanwhile, ducked behind a crystal column, muttering:
"Yeah, no, this is definitely above my pay grade."
Then, reluctantly, he hurled one of his Rift grenades into the mob. "Boom therapy!"
The explosion rocked the chamber, scattering the failed subjects into shards of light.
When the smoke cleared , Echo still stood - untouched.
"You can burn the world, Ashborn," he said quietly, "But you can't burn yourself out of the truth."
Kairo stared back, the fire dimming slightly. "Then show me."
Echo tilted his head. "Gladly."
He reached out - and the world shattered again.
The spire dissolved into light, and Kairo felt himself falling once more, but this time there was no glass ocean - only memories.
The experiments. The betrayals. The sealing.
And, at the centre of it all, a truth so vast and cruel it tore through his soul like fire.
He had not been reincarnated.
He had been restarted.
Every lifetime, every death, every cycle - the Custodians had brought him back to keep the Rift stable.
He wasn't the saviour of the world.
He was its engine.