Chapter 50
For the first time since he was born, Nezutsu no longer had a timeline.
No past.No future.Only ink.
He stood in the Realm of the Unwritten — a formless ocean made of abandoned beginnings and forgotten destinies. The sky above was parchment, torn and shifting. The ground below was fluid thought. And his body... flickered.
Not with flame. But with unfinished words.
His left arm read:
"The boy who should have never—"
His right:
"Until he chose to burn."
He was becoming a story. One not yet told.
The Ink Speaks Again
The voice returned — now everywhere, yet nowhere.
"You carry the Origin Ink. But you are not yet a Scribe."
"Then what am I?" Nezutsu asked.
"A contradiction. A paradox inked by defiance."
"Can I rewrite the world?"
"Yes. But at a cost."
"What cost now?" he snapped.
"To write… you must forget."
"Forget what?"
"Everything that defines you. Names. Faces. Reasons."
Nezutsu's heart pounded.
Kaelith's laughter. Eshryn's sadness. Velgrim's warnings.
Could he let those go?
"What if I find a way to write… without forgetting?"
"Then you will be the first."
Back in the Mortal Thread
Kaelith and Eshryn stood in the collapsing Temple of First Quill. The Timewalkers pressed inward — twelve avatars of decay and destiny.
"Where is the Ashless One?" the lead asked.
"Gone," Eshryn said through gritted teeth. "Beyond reach."
"Then you have failed the cycle."
Suddenly, the Timewalkers paused.
One of them began to flicker.
Its form turned to letters. Words. Then vanished.
The others staggered.
"Impossible. The Rewrite is unraveling."
"A new ink has entered the script!" shouted another.
"Who dares… re-author the Pattern?"
Nezutsu's Rebirth in the Script Sea
Nezutsu floated now in a sea of possibility. Each droplet whispered versions of himself:
A king of fire.
A monster in love with a goddess.
A forgotten child turned tyrant.
A lover who died before the kiss.
Each version tempted him.
But Nezutsu reached instead into his chest — into the place where the violet fire still pulsed — and whispered:
"I don't want to be what they write. I want to be what I choose."
With that, the Ink of Origin obeyed.
His form stabilized.
His eyes glowed with written stars.
A cloak made of unfinished pages wrapped around him.
And on his back appeared a single word burned in violet fire:
UNWRITTEN.
Clash of Ink and Time
Suddenly, he reappeared in the Temple — stepping out from the broken air itself, quill in one hand, flame in the other.
Kaelith gasped. "Your eyes…"
Eshryn whispered, "You rewrote yourself."
Nezutsu raised his quill like a blade.
"Timewalkers," he said, "you held the pen too long."
He struck the air — and wrote a new law.
"Let those who serve the past be bound by it."
Golden chains of ink erupted, latching onto the Timewalkers.
They screamed — not in pain, but in narrative reversal.
Their forms unraveled, words fleeing from their bodies, until all twelve were no more than footnotes on empty wind.
But There Was a Twist...
As the last of the Timewalkers faded, a shadow remained.
Not of ink. Not of time.
But of something... older.
It smiled at Nezutsu with a mouth full of red stars.
"You shouldn't have touched the Origin Ink," it rasped. "Now she knows you're alive."
"She?" Nezutsu asked.
"The one who wrote the first Rewrite. The goddess you dethroned. The one who burned you to ash before time began."
"...What is her name?" Kaelith asked.
The shadow leaned close.
"Her name is Aeylara. And she remembers what you stole from her heart."
Then it vanished.
The Memory Locked in Ash
Nezutsu staggered. A pain erupted in his chest — not physical, but emotional.
A memory not his own forced itself forward.
A battlefield.
A hand held in flame.
A kiss under a blood moon.
And a woman made of stars whispering:
"You promised… you'd love me even if I erased you."
Nezutsu collapsed to his knees.
"No… it can't be."
Kaelith knelt beside him.
"What did you see?"
He looked at her — his voice shaking.
"I think I broke the heart of a goddess… and now she wants it back."
[TO BE CONTINUED...]