Vastarael's vision was still heavy when he woke up.
A lush field stretched endlessly before him. Beyond the gentle rise of the horizon, the city of Tokyo gleamed in the early afternoon sun. The park was slightly teemed with people.
It was then that he felt a light, almost teasing tap on his shoulder that was delicate enough to startle him. He turned slowly, expecting perhaps a friend, a familiar face, or even a shadow of the world he had once known.
Amethyst hair and eyes of the same shade was the first thing he saw of her.
"Why are you so shocked to see me?"
Veneri—his younger self, naive yet instinctively perceptive—stammered, fumbling for words.
"I… I think I just… I dreamt something. I was transmigrated into a world where I had—well, beautiful women, powerful allies, and I ruled an organization of divine beings."
The girl laughed as she almost fell on the ground doing so.
"Reading manga has really ruined you, hasn't it? And here you are, cheating on me even in your dreams."
Veneri's lips quirked in a wry, uneasy smile.
"It's a dream. This is reality. Of course a world like that doesn't exist."
He rose from the grass and glanced around at the other students. Some of the girls were clearly watching them with their curiosity barely contained.
"Did you take photos?"
"Yes," she admitted with a shrug, a faint blush tinging her cheeks, "but I deleted them. Don't worry about it."
It was then, in the midst of this almost idyllic memory, Vastarael—the man he had become—watched from some removed plane, looking at the scene. He remembered, in vivid detail, the third year of his high school life. It was the final summer holiday before the apocalypse tore through every conceivable certainty in his world.
The teenage girl was Greshina Emberforge.
Her hand had flicked in a motion so slight that the phones of the girls attempting to snap more pictures emitted tiny, sizzling bursts, forcing them to squeal and drop their phones.
Vastarael was shocked.
Greshina wasn't supposed to have powers yet. The apocalyptic events that would later unfold, the Divinity that would awaken within her, all lay far in the future of this memory. And yet here she was, using energy?
How?
-----
His eyes snapped open. Pain pierced his body. Every nerve ending screamed. His back arched involuntarily and he gritted his teeth against the sensation, forcing himself to sit up despite the agony.
His bionic arm was destroyed permanently.
"This… this is going to be an issue."
His voice was calm, deceptively casual, though every fiber of his being screamed otherwise. Body Reconstruction, the most advanced and reliable of all his Tethers, was useless here. The arm was lost to him forever and he had no spare. He didn't needed one before. This arm had been stronger than his other and superior in every measurable way. He had been cocky and arrogant and now he was paying the price.
He could have accepted the offer from the Primordial of Life to restore his arm.
Veneri realized that he was inside a chamber so dark it felt less like an absence of light and more like a substance. There were no walls he could clearly make out at first, He exhaled slowly, letting his senses expand outward the way they always did when he wasn't sure whether the universe was about to stab him in the back or simply watch.
That's was when he noticed it a glow so faint it could have been dismissed as a trick of exhausted perception but it was unmistakably emerald. It hovered ahead of him, suspended in the air like a sta. His Time Divinity stirred, responding instinctively.
"You've got to be kidding me."
With every step closer, the connection intensified. When he finally stood before the source of the glow, he stopped short out of sheer disbelief. It was a tiny small emerald sphere, no larger than a fingernail, floating innocently in the air.
"You're way smaller than I expected."
Before his instincts could even react, the emerald light shot forward into his right eye.
Veneri's body slammed into the ground as he clutched his face. His vision was gone. His agony felt like molten glass being poured directly into his skull. Blood streamed freely from both eyes, staining the floor beneath him.
"Of course it goes for the eye—ugh!"
He didn't scream. He could have but pain like this wasn't new to him. He lay there, withstanding out the agony with sheer, stubborn endurance. Time went on until finally, the pain stopped. His Body Reconstruction activated instinctively, rebuilding what had been destroyed. Fresh eyes formed. His vision returned. He blinked once.
The darkness was gone.
He could see everything. The chamber, the minute cracks in the stone and even the dust motes hanging motionless in the air. Each detail was impossibly sharp and clear. Veneri pushed himself to his feet and raised one hand. A sapphire spike formed effortlessly in his palm. He flicked his wrist and sent it upward.
The spike barely rose.
It moved through the air at a pace so slow it was almost comical. Veneri stared at it as his lips parted slightly.
"No way."
He lifted his other hand and casually fired a thin beam of Soul Energy. The beam crossed the distance instantly, vaporizing the spike before it had even moved further.
"That is awesome."
A familiar chime echoed faintly through the system interface he hadn't realized he missed so much. A translucent notification flared into existence through Phaenora's system, hovering in his vision with that annoyingly cheerful formatting he remembered all too well.
[You have obtained the First Time Fragment: The Mystic Eye of Time.]
[You are the first being in Spheraphase to possess two Mystic Eyes.]
[Congratulations, Monarch Vastarael Richinaria.]
He stared at it for a long moment before he scoffed.
"Wow. I almost forgot how dramatic system messages are."
He rolled his shoulders, testing his vision again. He glanced around the chamber, half-expecting something else to jump out at him, some grand trial or hidden guardian or cosmic voice explaining the meaning of existence.
Nothing happened. That was it.
"Wait, hold on. That's it? I spent days preparing. I almost died twice and all I had to do was get shot in the eye by a glowing marble?"
The chamber, predictably, did not answer. He sighed with a crooked grin tugging at his lips.
"Figures. I guess this is my Destiny taking effect after suffering from death twice."