After the Eye Opened
The sky did not shatter.
It peeled.
Layer by layer, like burnt paper curling at the edges, revealing something far older than stars.
Kai stood at the altar, the chains now ash, the Red Widow gone—no, dispersed into smoke and whispers.
His fingers brushed the cracked floor.
Symbols flared—not red, not white—gold.
He remembered the warmth.
Before everything broke.
Before names were stolen.
A fragment surged back—his father lifting him by firelight.
"You were born under the First Flame, Kai. Never forget... it remembers you."
And now it had.
It was watching.
Shin & Ryuu, Perimeter of Collapse
Shin slammed his blade into the ground, the echo alone forcing buildings to shift.
"What did he just do?" Ryuu muttered, clutching his head.
"I don't know," Shin replied, sweat running down his cheek, "but the world just blinked."
The Bleeding Blade was silent now.
Almost... reverent.
Ryuu knelt, pressing his palm to the earth. Veins of light pulsed beneath the surface.
"Something's not just waking up," he whispered. "It's remembering how to hunt."
Flashpoint: Kai's Mindscape
He stood in a burning forest.
A boy, again.
The Red Widow sat across from him, dressed in a mourning gown, sipping tea as if none of it was wrong.
"You saw it," she said. "Didn't you?"
Kai nodded.
"The First Flame."
Her smile cracked.
"You've made a terrible mistake."
"I've made peace," Kai said softly. "And I'm ready to burn."
The forest ignited.
Elsewhere
In a sealed room beneath the ruins of Paradiso, monitors blinked to life.
A woman in silver stared at the footage of Kai.
"Activate the Lazarus Protocol," she said. "Target: Kai Renshiro."
An operator's voice crackled, nervous.
"He's not a target anymore, ma'am."
She turned.
"He's a catalyst."
Kai stepped out of the cathedral.
The storm didn't touch him.
Every drop curved away like the world itself refused to defy him now.
Shin and Ryuu saw him from a rooftop.
"Yo," Ryuu said. "We found him."
Shin narrowed his eyes.
"No..."
The Kai they knew was buried beneath that gaze.
Whatever stepped out now?
Wasn't waiting to be found.