The Cathedral, Now Consumed
The structure once known as the old cathedral no longer existed.
Where it once stood was now a vortex of red and black flame—memories colliding, time unraveling. Stone hovered like ash in stasis. The air trembled with the weight of something ancient being born again.
From within, Ashin rose.
No longer Kai. No longer fractured.
A singularity wrapped in chains, light, and blood.
The Red Widow floated opposite him, arms open—not in surrender, but in welcome.
"You've returned to the name," she whispered, her voice a lullaby of ruin. "Do you remember the vow?"
Ashin's eyes flickered white and gold.
"I remember everything."
And that was when the ground cracked.
Ryuu and Shin at the Edge of the Storm
They barely held their footing.
The sheer force of what Kai—Ashin—had become sent shockwaves into the bones of the world. Columns of gravity twisted like snakes. Symbols burned across the skies, not summoned—but remembered.
"Back the hell up!" Ryuu shouted.
Shin didn't move.
"I can't. He needs me."
"He doesn't need us—he's becoming something else!"
"No," Shin said quietly, watching as the void above the cathedral began to collapse inward. "He's becoming who he was meant to be."
Inside the Eye of the Rift
Ashin hovered in silence.
Chains floated behind him like wings broken and reforged. Every breath he took sent ripples across the world. The Red Widow stepped toward him, not as an enemy, but as a witness.
"I once thought you'd forget it all," she said. "That you'd vanish into the lie."
"I did."
"And now?"
Ashin raised his hand—and the sky answered.
A storm of names. A tempest of oaths.
A God's Memory returning.
Ashin spoke not to her—but to the world:
"You broke me."
His voice cracked the light.
"But I forgave you."
He clenched his fist.
"And that… was my mistake."
Elsewhere: Deep Below in the Archive
An old machine stirred.
Ancient AI fragments whispered to life.
[ARCHIVE // KEY RECOGNIZED: ASHIN, GODFRACT]
[PROTOCOL OVERRIDE: WRATH OF THE FORGOTTEN]
[RELEASING LOCKED SUBJECTS…]
A thousand containment pods hissed in unison.
The world wasn't ready.
The Red Widow's Final Gambit
"You're not the only one who remembers," she said—and tore open her chest.
Light screamed.
From it, a shape emerged.
Not human. Not god.
But the first name Kai ever erased.
A child.
A brother.
A twin?
Ashin staggered.
"No… that's not possible."
The Red Widow smiled through the blood.
"He remembered you, even when you didn't."
And the vortex split.
Shin charged forward.
Ryuu followed.
Ashin screamed as power surged through every atom of his being.
The world trembled.
The past returned.
And the war of names began.