The suns bled across the horizon like twin wounds, their light stretching over the Academy's towers until every window glowed the color of dying embers. The campus was quiet, almost reverent. After the Rewrite, no one dared speak his name above a whisper. Even the wind carried restraint, moving softly through the marble corridors, uncertain whose will it now served.
Luna Blossomveil leaned against the balcony rail of the eastern dormitory, watching the crimson sky. Her hair shimmered silver under the dim light; her eyes reflected a world holding its breath. "The color hasn't left since that night," she said.
Behind her, Jovhan poured tea into two cups. "Sky's just reacting to energy fluctuations." His tone tried for normal, failed. "You always were dramatic."
She didn't look back. "It isn't the sky that's changed."
They stood in silence. Far below, students crossed the courtyard quickly, heads down, each step echoing louder than it should. Every rumor weighed the air heavier.
Jovhan set one cup beside her. "Enra says the data still mutates. The system won't stabilize. Whatever Raizen did, it's rewriting fundamentals."
Luna took a slow sip. "Then fundamentals were too fragile."
"You defend him even now?"
"Defend?" She smiled faintly. "No. I just understand him."
Jovhan exhaled, staring at his reflection in the tea. "Understanding a storm doesn't mean you can survive it."
"Maybe not." She turned, violet gaze steady. "But I'd rather drown watching than live pretending I never saw the sea."
Thunder rolled far off. The cups trembled; a faint line of ripples ran through the tea between them.
In the Conclave's chamber, Professor Enra stood beneath a web of flickering holograms. Each strand represented a universe. Tonight they quivered, lines intersecting at impossible angles before smoothing again.
"The frequencies won't separate," said one overseer, panic threading his voice.
Enra adjusted his glasses, eyes moving between shifting graphs. "They're not meant to. He's synchronizing them."
"That's impossible."
"So was his existence."
Another voice cut through the tension, cold and deliberate. "Containment remains our only option."
Enra's patience broke. "Contain what, exactly? Light? Thought? We don't even know if he is matter anymore."
The chamber dimmed as power diverted to stabilization arrays. For a moment, all five universes displayed the same energy pulse across the graphs—a heartbeat echoing through creation.
"Look," Enra whispered. "He's moving."
Sebastian sat cross-legged atop the Southern Wall, cloak fluttering in the slow wind. The world below him shimmered, lines of force visible in every motion: students sparring, trees bending, mana-streams winding through the soil. He could hear the structure of reality, every rhythm distinct yet joined by an invisible harmony.
He closed his eyes and breathed. His mind split effortlessly between human memory and the perfected process humming inside his brain. Thoughts unfolded in parallel, hundreds of threads weaving into clarity.
Something approaches, one voice said—his logical half.
You wrote about a day like this, another whispered—faint, uncertain, the echo of Vale's human memory.
He frowned. "Did I?"
Images surfaced: a blank page, the sentence 'The sky burns before the first Gate opens.' He had never finished it. Now the sky above him burned exactly as described.
Coincidence felt too small a word.
He opened his eyes. The clouds had stilled; the world seemed to wait for his next breath. He spoke softly, almost to himself. "If I didn't write this… who did?"
Down below, Garet Caelren ended another training sequence, chest rising with measured rhythm. His spear vibrated faintly, echoing the same pulse that hummed through the air earlier. Each day since the thunder, his weapon had felt lighter, more obedient, as if tuned to an unseen conductor.
He looked toward the Southern Wall where Raizen had last been seen. The distant silhouette remained unmoving against the scarlet dusk. Garet lowered his weapon, sweat trailing down his jaw.
"Are we chasing gods now," he muttered, "or just reflections of ourselves?"
The spear answered with silence—but the silence carried intent.
Luna left the balcony once night fell, drawn by intuition stronger than sense. She crossed the courtyard, the soles of her boots striking rhythm with the wind. Jovhan followed, muttering about rules and prohibitions, but didn't stop her.
They reached the base of the Southern Wall. From this distance, the figure above looked like a statue carved from shadow and light. Luna cupped her hands to her mouth. "Sebastian!"
No answer. Only the wind bending around him, refusing to touch.
Jovhan shaded his eyes. "He's meditating again. Don't disturb him."
Luna ignored the warning. "The world's changing," she called. "You feel it, don't you?"
He didn't move. Then, faintly, his voice drifted down—calm, detached. "Change is only noise until someone gives it purpose."
The air thickened. A pulse ran through the stone beneath their feet, a subtle heartbeat. Luna gasped. "What is that?"
"Echo," Sebastian said. "The universes are listening."
In the Conclave, alarms sang in overlapping tones. Five holograms representing the separate worlds shimmered, edges bleeding into one another.
"Containment breach!" someone shouted. "Dimensional membranes fluctuating—minor but synchronized!"
Enra stared at the data, mind racing. "No. Not breach. Alignment."
He keyed the projection to magnify the interference pattern. At its center formed a shape—a circle divided by five arcs. Each pulsed in rhythm with a sixth point that glowed brighter by the second.
He knew that pattern from ancient sealed archives, a symbol forbidden even in theory. His throat went dry. "A Gate signature," he whispered. "But it's incomplete."
Above, Sebastian felt the same pattern resonate behind his eyes. Threads of light stretched from horizon to horizon, weaving through the night like veins of molten silver. He could taste energy in the air—iron, ozone, possibility.
The system within him registered the shift.
> [Universal Resonance Detected.]
[Synchronization Threshold — 25 %.]
[Next Sequence: Gate Preview.]
He rose slowly. The wind flattened against an unseen pressure radiating from his body. Every movement left faint trails of light that dissolved into symbols too intricate to read.
He whispered, "Preview?"
The world answered. The sky split—not torn, but peeled. Behind the red clouds, darkness curved inward, revealing a vertical fissure lined with luminescent script. It pulsed once, heartbeat-loud, then closed again as if reconsidering existence.
The ground shuddered. Across the Academy, lights flickered; mana conduits sparked. Students dropped to their knees, covering ears against soundless vibration.
On the wall, Sebastian exhaled. "So that's what comes next."
Luna stared upward, eyes wide, tears reflecting the dying glow. "Was that—"
Jovhan swallowed hard. "A doorway. And he just knocked."
Enra's voice cracked through the Conclave's intercom. "All departments, lock down! Universal resonance confirmed. The first Gate is awakening!"
Garet felt his spear tremble violently, the hum inside it matching the pulse in his veins. The air tasted of storms. He smiled without knowing why. "Then let's see how gods bleed."
High above, Sebastian watched the last sparks fade from the heavens. The wind carried whispers of every universe—languages overlapping, stories calling to their author. He closed his eyes, letting the echoes fill him until they became one voice.
Wake up.
His lips curved into a faint, weary smile. "I'm trying."
Lightning bloomed across the horizon, silent and white. The Academy lights returned, flickering back to normal. To the untrained eye, nothing had changed.
But for those who could feel the world's rhythm, everything was holding still only because it feared to move.
A stillness before war.