The Null Zone did not announce itself. There was no explosion, no light, no warning. One moment the city breathed loud and unstable, full of sirens and flickering auras. The next moment, something went missing. Not sound. Not light. Pressure.
Rei felt it first. His mark, always warm, always present like a pulse under his skin, suddenly went cold. Not numb. Not gone. Muted. Like someone had wrapped it in thick cloth and pressed down hard.
He stopped walking so suddenly Aira nearly collided with his back.
"Rei?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
Around them, the street froze. Kai stared at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly. "Guys… I can't feel it."
Zeke clenched his fists. Nothing happened. No metal. No heat. Just skin and bone.
Suki snapped her fingers. No flame. Her smile faded instantly.
Rena pressed her palm to the wall beside her, her silence field reaching out on instinct. It failed. Her eyes widened.
"This is it," she whispered. "The Null Zone."
The street ahead looked normal. Too normal. No cracked air. No unstable aura. No flickering marks. Just abandoned buildings, drifting dust, and a silence that felt heavier than noise.
Rei took a step forward.
His knees buckled.
Aira grabbed him instantly. "Rei!"
"I'm fine," he said, too quickly.
He wasn't. Without the mark, the world felt wrong. Sharper. Colder. Like walking without skin. His heartbeat sounded too loud in his ears. Every breath felt delayed, like his body had forgotten the timing.
"It's like something's missing," Kai said quietly. "Like my body forgot a language."
A scream echoed from deeper inside the zone.
Not loud.
Close.
Too close.
The team froze. Zeke moved first, stepping in front of them without thinking. "That wasn't normal," he muttered.
Another scream followed. Then another. Different voices. Same panic.
Rei swallowed. "People are trapped in here."
"And powerless," Aira said.
They moved carefully. Every step felt wrong. The deeper they went, the heavier the air became. Old shops lined the street, doors half open like mouths frozen mid-scream.
Rena stopped suddenly.
"Do you hear that?" she asked.
Suki shook her head. "Hear what?"
Rena's face went pale. "Exactly."
They found the source of the screams near an underground access stairway. A crowd huddled near the entrance, some injured, some crying, some just staring blankly at the dark below.
A man grabbed Rei's sleeve. "It took them," he whispered. "The ground opened and they went down and something is moving under there."
Rei looked into the stairwell.
The darkness below wasn't empty.
It was layered.
Moving.
And then, from deep below, something spoke.
Not with sound.
With pressure.
With recognition.
Riftborn.
Rei staggered back, clutching his chest. The mark was silent, but something deeper answered anyway.
Aira grabbed him. "Rei, what did it say?"
His voice shook. "It knows me."
The darkness below shifted, climbing the walls like a living shadow without shape. People screamed and scattered.
Zeke planted his feet. "Without powers, how do we fight that?"
Rei stared into the stairwell, heart pounding.
"We don't," he said.
The shadow stopped.
Listening.
Rei stepped forward. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but something else pulled harder.
"I'm not opening the door," he said quietly. "I'm asking a question."
The darkness leaned closer.
Why were we silenced.
Rei's breath caught.
"Because they're afraid of you," he answered.
The shadow trembled. The ground shook faintly.
Then it laughed.
A sound like stone grinding against bone.
Good.
Rei felt cold spread through his chest.
Behind him, Aira whispered, terrified, "Rei… that thing isn't a villain.
He nodded slowly.
"I know," he said. "It's what survives when villains are erased."
Far below the Null Zone, something ancient began to move.
And this time, it wasn't waiting for permission.