Arata woke up choking.
Not on blood.
On air.
Clean air.
He sat upright so fast his spine screamed. His hand flew to his chest—expecting a crater, broken ribs, the sensation of dissolving from within.
His fingers met intact skin.
He stared down.
No chitin.
No glowing veins.
No cracks of green light under flesh.
His right arm was human.
Whole.
Unscarred.
He yanked up his sleeve.
Smooth skin. Faint tan. The subtle lines of muscle from years of unconscious training—but not the hardened armor of evolution.
His throat worked soundlessly.
He looked around.
A small apartment bedroom. Cheap curtains. A desk stacked with textbooks and a half-empty bottle of water.
A fan is humming.
A familiar smell—laundry detergent, instant noodles, old paper.
His stomach dropped.
He knew this room.
He hadn't seen it in twelve years.
He stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over a pile of clothes, and slammed his hand against the wall mirror.
His reflection stared back.
Younger.
His face wasn't sharpened by starvation. His eyes weren't hollowed by twelve years of war.
But the stare…
The stare was the same.
He leaned close to the mirror, searching for the signs that proved he wasn't insane.
No scar on his cheek from the hornet sting.
No notch on his ear from the knife fight in the canal district.
No burn mark across his collarbone from the spore flare.
Gone.
All gone.
His breathing turned ragged.
He forced himself to count.
One.
Two.
Three.
He needed an anchor.
Something objective.
His hands shook as he grabbed his phone from the desk.
The screen lit up.
Date.
Time.
His pupils constricted.
Seven days.
Seven days before Bloomfall.
He didn't need to check the news.
He remembered exactly what the world looked like on the week before it ended.
Normal people commuting. Convenience stores stocked. Children laughing on sidewalks.
Seven days before the first green aurora split the sky.
His legs almost buckled.
He gripped the desk until his knuckles whitened.
A sound came from the other side of the apartment.
Soft footsteps.
A sleepy yawn.
Arata's blood turned to ice.
No.
He moved before thought could stop him, stumbling into the hallway, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might rupture.
The living room was dim, lit by the gray morning beyond the curtains.
And there—
A girl in an oversized hoodie, hair messy from sleep, was rubbing one eye as she walked toward the kitchen.
Yuna.
Alive.
Breathing.
Real.
She paused when she saw him, blinking slowly, confused by his expression.
"Arata…?" she said, voice thick with sleep. "Why are you up? It's… early."
Arata couldn't answer.
His throat locked.
His eyes stung.
Yuna tilted her head, then frowned slightly. "Are you sick?"
He crossed the distance in two steps and grabbed her shoulders.
Not hard.
Just enough to prove she didn't vanish.
Warmth under his hands.
A living pulse.
Yuna stiffened. "W-What are you doing?"
Arata's chest convulsed.
He tried to speak.
Nothing.
He swallowed and forced air through his lungs like it was the first breath he'd ever taken.
"Yuna," he managed, voice shredded. "You're… here."
Her brow furrowed deeper. "Of course I'm here. You're being weird."
Weird.
He almost laughed.
He almost cried.
Instead, he pulled her into a hug so tight she squeaked.
"Hey—Arata! Too tight!"
He loosened immediately, then held her at arm's length, searching her face like a starving man staring at food.
Yuna's annoyance softened into concern.
"Did something happen?" she asked quietly.
Arata stared at her.
In his head, the world was still falling apart. Ren screaming. Mei's vines are dimming. The Titan is collapsing.
His empire is dying.
His life is ending.
And yet here was Yuna in a cheap hoodie, alive enough to complain, alive enough to look at him like he was just her brother again.
He wanted to tell her everything.
But he couldn't.
Not yet.
Not with only seven days.
Not when words would waste time.
So he did the only thing he'd learned to do in an apocalypse:
He made a decision.
Right now.
Clear. Cold. Absolute.
He would build the Verdant Dominion again.
But this time, it would not be fragile.
This time, it would not be late.
This time, it would not lose to betrayal, to hunger, to panic, to ego.
This time, he would take the world by the throat before the world could swallow them.
Yuna's voice pulled him back.
"Arata… you're scaring me."
He forced his expression to soften.
Charisma.
Warmth.
The mask that made people breathe again.
He brushed her hair from her face with a gentle hand.
"Sorry," he said. "Bad dream."
Yuna studied him, unconvinced, but nodded slowly.
"Okay…" she murmured. "Then go back to sleep. You look like you saw a ghost."
Arata stared past her, through the crack in the curtain, at the pale morning sky.
Blue.
Still blue.
For now.
He smiled—small, reassuring.
"I'm fine," he lied.
Yuna yawned again and wandered toward the kitchen.
Arata stayed still.
Listening to the hum of the fan.
The distant traffic outside.
The normal life the world didn't deserve.
Then he whispered, so low even he barely heard it:
"Seven days."
His hands curled into fists.
Not in rage.
In resolve.
"I won't lose you again."
Outside, somewhere beyond the city, beyond the sea, beyond human sight—
The first spores were already forming in the upper atmosphere, waiting for the moment the sky would turn green.
And Arata Kisaragi began to plan.
Not how to survive.
How to win.