To anyone else, the morning sky looked normal.
Pale blue. Thin clouds. A sun hanging on the horizon like a soft yellow yolk.
But to the Ancient Ancestor nothing about it was normal.
Sunlight was distorted.
Clouds moved half a second too slow.
And the wind… seemed afraid to cross the boundary of the yard.
He stood there, staring at a sky that appeared calm.
Silent.
Even though he knew:
Something had shattered behind the veil of the world.
He felt it in the pulse of light within his body, in the faint trembling of the space around him. The crack caused by that creature from last night hadn't faded.
It was spreading.
Like a hairline fracture on a crystal glass.
Small footsteps broke the silence.
"Big bro…"
Hana stood in the doorway, hair messy, eyes half-open. Her stuffed dog dragged across the floor.
"You didn't sleep?" she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.
The Ancient Ancestor turned slowly, masking his tension behind a blank expression.
"I did. I just… woke up early."
"You're lying," Hana said bluntly. "I heard you. You went outside at three."
He paused.
This child… too perceptive.
"…The wind was noisy," he said at last. "I was making sure everything was safe."
"It wasn't the wind that was noisy," Hana replied. "It was that weird cracking sound."
His breath stilled for a second.
"…You heard it?"
Hana nodded. "Like… really tall glass breaking."
That was bad.
Very bad.
Hana shouldn't be able to hear that.
It was a sound beyond the frequency of the physical world.
If she heard it…
It meant the line between her and the Primordial Light was starting to open.
"Big bro… why do you look scared?"
A simple question.
A blade to the heart.
He turned fully, crouching, placing his hands gently on her shoulders.
"Hana…" his voice low but steady. "Whatever you hear or see… don't tell anyone. Understand?"
"Why?"
"Because… something is looking for you."
Hana bit her lip.
Her eyes tightened.
"Is it the thing from last night? The one that made the forest look like it was gonna fall?"
He exhaled slowly.
This girl… not as clueless as the world believed.
"Yes," he said. "That thing came for you."
"Why?"
He met Hana's pure black eyes eyes that held something he himself couldn't fully decipher.
"…Because you are not just human, Hana."
Hana blinked.
Twice.
"Then… what am I?"
A simple question.
A world-ending answer.
The sky suddenly darkened.
Not cloudy.
More like… the sunlight itself was being siphoned out of the atmosphere.
A bird fell from the sky without a sound.
Not dead.
Just… stopped.
As if time refused to touch it.
Hana hugged her stuffed dog tightly. "Big bro… what is that…?"
The Ancient Ancestor stared at the horizon.
Space rippled.
Left and right stuttered slightly, like a film lagging by a fraction of a second.
A tiny crack appeared in the air.
Thin.
Almost invisible.
But he saw it.
"No… impossible…" he muttered.
Hana looked at it. "Is that the thing that sounds like glass?"
He picked Hana up instantly.
"We're leaving," he said sharply. "Right now."
"W-wait where?!"
"Anywhere. As long as it's far."
But their first step froze.
Because the crack… grew.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Without sound.
Then
CRACK.
The sky shattered like porcelain dropped from a height.
The fracture spread outward like a spiderweb, glowing with a deep violet light from within.
From that rift
A voice emerged.
Not the demon from last night.
Not the entity he confronted.
This voice was older.
Deeper.
More ancient than roots.
"Heir of Light…"
A whisper echoing through a nightmare.
"You are there…"
Hana shook violently.
Instinctively covering her ears.
"Big bro… the voice is inside my head…"
He strengthened his aura, blocking the dimensional frequency.
"Shut up, you ancient bastard…" he growled. "You're not fully free yet."
"I don't need freedom… to call my child."
Hana stared at the rift, trembling.
"Big bro… it's talking to me…"
He tightened his grip.
"You will not answer it," he ordered. "You will not look at it. You will not hear it."
"She is mine…"
"She is MY SISTER," he roared, aura slamming into the ground and splitting the earth beneath them.
The crack vibrated.
As if the sky itself struggled not to tear open completely.
He whispered into Hana's ear:
"Hana… no matter what happens… don't let go of my hand."
Hana nodded quickly. "Okay…"
The rift glowed brighter.
Something behind it moved.
Something larger than what appeared last night.
Something space itself refused to show.
White aura burst across his body, shaking the air.
"All right," he muttered.
"If you all want to come…"
He looked up at the fractured sky, a thin smile forming.
"Then come down properly."
His white aura surged into the heavens
And for a moment,
the world stopped turning.