Everything turned white.
Not the kind of white you see when blinded by the sun, or the kind that burns behind your eyelids after a lightning strike. This white was emptiness. Not light. Not color. Just the absence of anything else.
Arata floated.
He didn't feel his limbs.
He didn't breathe.
He didn't even think—until the voice returned.
> "What do you remember?"
It wasn't spoken aloud. It arrived directly in his mind, rippling like water disturbed by a single drop.
Arata opened his eyes, or maybe just became aware that they were open. A horizon of white stretched out in every direction. No floor. No sky. Just stillness. Then a ripple formed before him, like a wrinkle in the fabric of space itself. A figure stepped forward.
Female.
His age.
Silver hair. Piercing violet eyes. She wore robes that shimmered like starlight, and when she stepped, the void shifted beneath her feet like it feared her.
"Arata Kurogane," she said calmly.
His breath caught. "Who—"
"I am called Shirogane. One of the original Bound." She didn't smile. "You weren't supposed to survive the fold."
He blinked. His chest still ached from where the sword had pierced him—but there was no blood. "Where… where are the others?"
"They're caught in the collapse." She reached out her hand, and the void opened like a mirror, revealing a shifting memory. Arata saw Karin's face fading to ash, Reiji blinking out of existence, Daigo whispering I'm sorry, and Yuna, glowing with alien light as her body split into fragments of glyphs.
Arata clenched his fists. "No. No. This can't be real."
"It is," Shirogane said. "But it is not yet final."
She looked upward, and for the first time, Arata noticed the sky was moving.
No—unraveling.
A lattice of dead stars spun above him, like a shattered dome slowly breaking further apart. Arata's heart pounded. Somewhere within him, something called to him. A mark burned beneath his skin—the same one that had first awakened back in Tenryuu Academy's courtyard.
"What… is this place?" he asked.
Shirogane didn't answer. Instead, she said, "Do you want to save them?"
He stepped forward. "Yes."
"Then listen carefully. You are not the first to stand here. You are not even the first Arata Kurogane to stand here."
His body froze.
"What?"
"This is not your first life," she said, voice steady. "It's your fifth. The others all failed. Each version of you made it further than the last—but all were consumed by the Legion."
"The Legion… it's connected to the glyphs," Arata muttered, remembering the way Yuna floated, the symbols, the scream. "It needs an anchor. That's why Yuna—"
"She is not the first either," Shirogane cut in. "In every cycle, a Sealed One awakens. The Host. The Anchor. And always, you try to save her."
Arata's hands shook.
"You're saying… it's already over?"
"I'm saying you have one final chance." Shirogane's gaze hardened. "There is still a sliver of the original timeline left. A thread not yet severed. But to reach it, you must accept what you are."
The mark on Arata's chest flared.
Glyphs burned across his skin in gold.
His breath hitched. The same symbols from Yuna's ritual. But they responded to him now.
"I don't understand what I am," he said.
"You are what the Legion fears." She stepped back. "You are the Broken Star."
Arata's mind reeled.
He remembered flashes—not memories from this life, but the others. Pain. Loss. Karin dying in his arms. Reiji screaming for him to run. Yuna choosing to end herself rather than become the gateway. In all of them, he was always too late.
But here, in this white void between timelines, something stirred inside him.
The glyphs moved.
Not randomly—but in order.
"Your name is not just Arata Kurogane," Shirogane whispered. "It is the key. Your body remembers what your mind has forgotten. Reach into the sky."
Arata raised his hand.
The white began to peel back, revealing strands of black and gold light overhead. As he reached, the mark on his chest erupted—bright, burning, alive. The void trembled.
A massive eye opened in the sky.
Not evil. Not angry.
Just watching.
> "He's waking up."
Another voice—this one not Shirogane's. A child's voice. Distant, but familiar.
> "This time… maybe he'll make it."
And with that, the entire world shattered.
White exploded into color.
Arata fell.
Fell through shards of broken time, screaming.
Fell through memories he never lived.
Fell into the sound of wind rushing past his ears—
And landed.
Hard.
On his knees, gasping, eyes wide.
He looked up—
And he was back at Tenryuu Academy.
But not the Tenryuu he remembered.
The sky above was red.
The moon was broken.
And the entire city floated in midair, bound by chains of glyphs that pulsed like a heartbeat.
He wasn't alone.
Around him, dozens of students lay unconscious in the courtyard. Daigo. Reiji. Karin. Even Yuna—though her body glowed faintly.
And standing in the center, back to him, was the boy in the black uniform.
The one who killed him.
He turned slowly, eyes as silver as ever.
"You're persistent," he said. "But this time, I won't let you get back up."
Arata stood, still shaking, but alive.
The glyphs on his chest dimmed, but did not vanish. His power lingered like a fading echo. He didn't understand it fully yet—but it responded to his will.
"You shouldn't be here," the boy continued, stepping forward. "You broke the cycle."
Arata looked past him—at the floating chains binding the sky, the cracked moon bleeding light, the unconscious bodies of his friends.
"I'm done running," Arata said. "If I fail here… there won't be a sixth."
The boy smiled. "Then die faster this time."
He snapped his fingers.
The world turned upside down.
Gravity reversed, and the city flipped midair. The sky collapsed inward as black glyphs spun to life, forming a massive sigil behind the boy's back. It pulsed once, and a spear of shadow flew straight for Arata's heart.
Arata didn't dodge.
He raised his hand.
The spear shattered against a glyph that formed midair, gold and perfect.
He breathed deeply.
"I remember now," Arata said quietly. "Your name. You were once human too."
The silver-eyed boy paused. "That name no longer matters."
"But it will when I carve it back into you," Arata growled.
Their eyes locked.
The world began to shake.
From above, a second presence stirred—Shirogane, watching from the stars. And far below, the unconscious body of Daigo twitched.
Then—
> Everything exploded into light.