4:47 AM – Rei's Bedroom, Five Years Earlier
Rei's eyes snapped open.
He was back. Past. Present. Alive.
His hands flew to his legs, they moved, whole and functional. The phantom pain from his broken future-body lingered like frost on his nerves, but his eighteen-year-old body was intact.
The morning sun felt different on Rei's skin.
Not warmer. Not brighter. Just different, like the world had shifted three degrees to the left while he was dying in a hospital bed five years from now, and reality hadn't quite settled back into place yet.
He finished his training routine in the alley, each movement more controlled than yesterday, each stance held a few seconds longer. The harness redistributed weight across his torso, making the weighted practice shaft feel almost manageable. His muscles still screamed. His hands still blistered. But there was progress.
Slow, painful, inadequate progress, but progress nonetheless.
When he climbed back through his window, Mira was standing in his doorway.
"You're up early," she observed, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in that particular way that meant she'd caught him doing something suspicious.
Rei froze halfway through pulling off the harness under his hoodie. "Couldn't sleep."
"For three days straight?" She stepped into his room uninvited, the way younger sisters did when they sensed vulnerability. "You've been sneaking out before dawn. I can hear you climbing through the window. The floorboards creak."
Damn. I thought I was being quiet.
"Just needed some air," Rei said, turning away to hide the harness as he pulled it off. "Thinking about things."
"What things?" Mira sat on the edge of his bed, making herself comfortable, clearly not planning to leave until she got answers. "You've been acting weird since the reunion. Weirder than usual, I mean. You barely eat. You stare at us during dinner like you're memorizing our faces. And now you're doing... whatever this is."
She gestured vaguely at the prototype on his desk, the scattered components, the notebook full of calculations and plans that he'd thankfully closed before leaving.
Rei's mind raced through possible explanations. Nothing too detailed, she was smart enough to see through obvious lies. Nothing too dismissive, that would just make her dig harder.
"I've been working on something," he said finally, which was true enough. "A project. It's complicated."
"Everything's complicated with you." Mira's expression softened slightly. "But you used to at least talk to me about things. Now you're just... distant. Like you're somewhere else even when you're sitting right there."
Because I am. Because part of me is still lying in that hospital bed, still drowning in that river, still watching you die in a future I'm desperately trying to prevent.
But he couldn't say any of that.
"I'm sorry," Rei offered instead, and meant it. "I've got a lot on my mind. But I'm okay. Really."
Mira studied him with those bright hazel eyes that saw too much. "You're lying. But I'll let it slide. For now." She stood, heading for the door, then paused. "Just... don't shut us out completely, okay? Whatever you're dealing with, you don't have to do it alone."
The door closed behind her, leaving Rei alone with the weight of words he couldn't explain.
Two weeks. In two weeks, your life changes forever, and I need to be ready to protect you. Even if you never understand why.
By mid-morning, Rei had cleaned up, changed clothes, and was sitting at the breakfast table trying to look like a normal eighteen-year-old who hadn't just died and planned a political coup before 6 AM.
His father looked up from the newspaper, those steel-gray eyes sharp. "You look tired, Rei."
"Didn't sleep well," Rei replied, which was becoming his default answer for everything.
Elias folded the paper slowly, deliberately. "Your mother mentioned you've been distant lately. Distracted."
Of course she did. They talk about everything.
"Just thinking about the future," Rei said carefully. "Career options. That kind of thing."
"The Awakening Ceremony is in four weeks," Elias continued, his tone neutral but weighted. "Most young people your age are either excited or anxious about it. You seem neither."
Because I already know I won't awaken. Because I've lived through this before and watched power ruin everything it touched.
"I'm trying to be realistic," Rei answered. "Some people don't awaken. Better to have backup plans."
Elias' expression was unreadable. "Realistic is good. But don't let realism become cynicism, son. The world's hard enough without giving up before you've started."
There was something in his father's voice something that made Rei wonder what Elias had given up on, back when he left the military over "ethical concerns."
"I'm not giving up," Rei said quietly. "Just... preparing differently than most people."
His father studied him for another long moment, then nodded slowly. "Alright. But if you need help with those preparations, whatever they are, you know where to find me."
The offer hung in the air, genuine but careful.
Rei wanted to accept it. Wanted to explain everything, ask for his father's strategic mind and military expertise. But that would mean revealing too much. Risking too many questions he couldn't answer.
"Thanks, Dad. I'll remember that."
Elias returned to his newspaper, but Rei caught the slight frown before it disappeared behind the headlines.
He knows something's wrong. He's just waiting to see if I'll ask for help or if I need space.
Former military. Always assessing. Always three steps ahead.
I get it from him, probably. The strategic thinking. The paranoia. The inability to trust even when you want to.
Liora brought out plates of eggs and toast, her honey-brown eyes warm but concerned. She touched Rei's forehead gently, checking for fever despite obvious evidence he was fine.
Force of habit. Nurse instincts never quite turned off.
"You'd tell us if something was wrong, wouldn't you?" she asked softly, in that tone mothers used when they already knew the answer but needed to hear it anyway.
"Of course, Mom."
The lie tasted bitter, but necessary.
She kissed the top of his head and moved back to the kitchen, unconvinced but willing to wait.
They're worried. All of them. I'm worrying them by acting different, by being secretive, by carrying weight I can't explain.
But if they knew the truth, if they knew what was coming, the worry would be so much worse.
Mira kicked his shin gently under the table, a silent reminder of their earlier conversation. Her expression said I'm watching you.
Rei managed a small smile in return, trying to project reassurance he didn't feel.
The rest of breakfast passed in careful normalcy. Mira complained about a history assignment. Elias offered to help with the math she was struggling with. Liora mentioned she'd be working a double shift at the clinic today.
Normal family breakfast. Safe conversations. The kind of morning Rei had taken for granted in his first life.
Now every moment felt precious and fragile. Like glass sculptures balanced on a wire, beautiful and doomed.
He memorized details obsessively, the way sunlight caught in his mother's hair, the exact cadence of his father's laugh when Mira made a terrible pun, the warmth of his sister's foot tapping against his under the table in their old childhood rhythm.
I won't lose this again. I won't watch them burn. Whatever it takes.
After breakfast, Rei retreated to his room and pulled out the notebook again.
Two priorities today. Both critical. Both dangerous in different ways.
First: He needed money. Real money. Enough to start making moves in merchant circles without looking like a desperate kid with delusions.
Second: He needed information. Current information. About Marlen Crest's operations, about the merchant networks in Cindralith, about trade routes and supply chains and where the real power flowed beneath the surface of legitimate business.
The question was: how to get both without attracting attention?
In his previous life, Rei had been invisible, too anxious to make connections, too poor to matter, too broken to try. He'd existed in the margins while the world moved around him.
Now he had knowledge. He knew which investments would pay off, which businesses would fail, which trade routes would become vital in the coming years. He knew the future.
But knowledge without capital was just daydreaming. And capital without connections was just hoarding.
He needed an entry point. Someone who operated in both worlds, legitimate and underground. Someone who dealt in information as readily as goods. Someone who could be convinced to take a chance on an eighteen-year-old with sharp eyes and sharper intuition.
His mind drifted back to Velbrax Market. To Kael Venrik's stall, where he'd successfully reversed the merchant's con and walked away with a crystalline power cell.
Kael. He's connected. He knows people. He deals in gray markets and information networks. And I embarrassed him publicly enough that he'll remember me.
That could be useful. Or dangerous. Probably both.
Rei stared at his notebook, at the plans and calculations and desperate gambits sketched across pages that no one else could read.
The prototype hummed faintly on his desk, unstable, dangerous, incomplete.
His training harness hung from the chair, still damp with sweat.
Outside his window, the city moved through its routines, oblivious to the fact that in two weeks, everything would start changing.
Rei closed the notebook and stood, grabbing his jacket.
He had a merchant to visit.
And a future to steal.
Meanwhile – Eternal Order Surveillance Division, Central District
Agent Castor Vey reviewed the overnight footage for the third time, his pale gray eyes tracking heat signatures and movement patterns with mechanical precision.
Mira Ashborne. Thermal anomalies during sleep. Early morning excursions. Increasingly erratic behavior.
Castor added another note to the growing file:Subject continues divergent behavior. No obvious awakening symptoms but covert activity outside residence remains unexplained. Recommend discreet tailing if patterns persist.
He paused, then added: Match FoundRESIDENCE: WESTERN TERRITORIES – HOUSE VAREN . NO CRIMINAL RECORD. FATHER: ELIAS ASHBORNE, FORMER MILITARY ENGINEER, CURRENT EDUCATOR. MOTHER: LIORA ASHBORNE, PART-TIME MEDICAL STAFF. SISTER: MIRA ASHBORNE, AGE 14, STUDENT.
Secondary anomaly detected: a highly concentrated, extremely valuable thermal source beneath the Ashborne residence, intensity rising each night. Origin and purpose unknown.
Assessment: Priority: procure the valuable source by any means. Family members: Elias Ashborne (father), Liora Ashborne (mother),