The battlefield lay silent beneath a blood-orange sky.
Ash fell like snow, dancing over the wounded and the dead.
Kaizen stood amidst the stillness, his eyes locked on the closed rift above.
Ayaka lay breathing in his arms—alive, but unconscious. Her body trembled as if something unseen still gnawed at her soul.
Around them, the surviving Bist and human warriors kneeled, not in fear…
…but in recognition.
They had seen a flame not meant for this world.
---
Miles away…
Beneath a mountain forgotten by time…
A throne made of glass, bone, and black crystal cracked open with a sound like thunder under water.
A figure awoke.
It didn't breathe.
It remembered.
> "He speaks the flame tongue…"
"And still survives…"
Its voice was ancient.
Not evil.
But something far more terrifying—
eternal.
A single name echoed from its lips:
> "Ryouma…"
---
Back at the Hollow Veins, Kaizen stared at the fading embers in the sky.
His body trembled—not from fatigue, but from something within.
Something that had shifted.
Ayaka stirred weakly in his arms.
"Kai… Kaizen…" she whispered.
"I'm here," he said softly.
She looked up at him, her voice barely a breath.
"What… did you do…?"
Kaizen couldn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
---
Later, inside a newly raised command tent…
Tsura stood with folded arms, Rei and Sora beside him.
Wounded soldiers rested in beds, medics moving like ghosts through smoke.
"Half of the Frost Division is gone," Tsura said quietly. "We won the battle. But we didn't win the war."
Kaizen didn't respond.
Sora approached him, eyes filled with awe and concern.
"You unleashed something we've never seen before. Even the Bists felt it."
She hesitated. "No… they heard it. Something spoke to them, Kaizen. Through you."
Kaizen looked up, voice low. "I didn't speak it. It spoke through me."
Rei stepped forward. "What do you remember?"
Kaizen closed his eyes.
And the memories came back—not his own, but inherited.
A flame king kneeling before a god.
An empire burning.
A promise carved into the stars.
> "When the last flame bearer awakens, the skies shall burn once more."
---
Suddenly, the tent quaked.
A strange pulse ran through the land—like a heartbeat.
Everyone paused.
Kaizen's eyes widened.
"I felt this before…" he whispered. "In the Forgotten Temple. In my dreams."
Ayaka gasped from her cot. "It's not a pulse…"
She sat up, eyes wide.
> "It's a summoning."
---
Far beneath the Hollow Veins…
The ancient figure moved slowly toward a circular altar.
Torches lit by bloodfire lined the hall.
The being wore robes of crimson smoke. Veins of molten gold pulsed under translucent skin. Its head was crowned with jagged bone. No mouth moved—yet it spoke:
> "The Pact was broken."
"The new heir breathes the language of ash."
"Then the Veinborn Trial must begin."
It raised a single claw-like hand.
Three flames ignited mid-air—black, red, and white.
Each one held a face inside:
One was Kaizen, burning.
One was Ayaka, screaming.
And one… was someone unknown.
A boy with a jagged sigil across his chest.
The being's final whisper echoed through the world:
> "Summon the Flamewalkers."
"And tell the world… the Skyburner lives."
---
Back at HQ…
A group of robed elders in a sealed council room felt the same tremor.
"The prophecy chain has activated," one muttered. "We were too late."
Another slammed the table. "He must be destroyed before the trial begins!"
But the third elder—an old woman with silver eyes—shook her head slowly.
"You don't understand…"
> "Kaizen isn't the threat."
"He's the lock keeping the real one sealed."
---
Meanwhile, Kaizen and Squad Umbra made their way toward the Veinspire, an ancient tower half-swallowed by the earth. It was said to hold the original scripts of the Pact—a place where time itself bowed.
The entrance opened on its own.
As they stepped in, a voice greeted them.
> "You who burn…"
"…must now walk through flame."
Each member vanished in a flicker of red.
Kaizen found himself alone.
No walls. No floor. Only void.
And then…
> A figure appeared before him.
Human, yet not.
Made of flame and stars.
Kaizen blinked.
It spoke:
> "I am the first to burn."
"I set the sky on fire to defy the gods."
"And now, Kaizen Ryouma… you are my heir."
Kaizen stepped back. "Who are you?"
The figure's eyes were suns.
> "I am Valtherion—the Skyburner. The First Flame King."
"And you, my son, must complete what I began."