(First Kai – Protocol Thanatos Activated)
***
Zero Point Trench – Subnautic Tomb Theta-9
The sea screamed.
Not a sound. A signal.
Encrypted in whale-song frequencies and buried beneath miles of tectonic silence, the ocean floor cracked open like a blistered scar.
Chains dissolved. Cryo-seals melted. One by one, the last failsafe mechanisms blinked red.
Inside the blackened sarcophagus, his eyes opened.
Not Kai Renshiro.
Not exactly.
Thanatos had returned.
A version of Kai that had never woken properly. The first draft. The origin. The one they feared too much to kill and too dangerous to let live. He was never given a childhood. Never programmed for mercy.
Only completion.
Now, he remembered what he was built for.
And what had been taken.
"Rebuild. Reclaim. Rebirth."
The mantra burned itself into the walls as he stepped barefoot across the subnautic tomb, trailing ash where water should have drowned him. His presence did not disturb the sea.
It obeyed.
***
Paradiso Ruins – Hours Later
The battlefield was quiet. Too quiet.
Subject Zero sat beneath a tree that no longer existed yesterday. Kai stood nearby, watching her rest—half-asleep, half-broken. Unit 9 was dismantled. Ryuu lay on his back laughing, covered in bruises. Shin meditated in silence, bleeding through his fingers. Syl floated three inches above the ground, her glyphs unstable but glowing.
They had survived.
But not won.
Not yet.
Kai tilted his head.
"…Do you feel that?"
Syl's eyes widened. "Another version of you just woke up."
Shin stood. "That's not Kai."
"No," Syl confirmed, trembling. "That's the one they made before Kai became Kai."
Ryuu sat up. "Wait. There's another Kai?"
Then the sky turned black.
And the sea—boiled.
***
Thanatos Protocol
He walked across the scorched horizon like a god who had forgotten how to die.
His body was Kai's. Taller. Gaunter. Etched with forgotten runes that pulsed like reversed veins. His eyes were absence—mirrors that reflected nothing.
Every step he took left fractures in time.
He stopped twenty feet from Kai.
"Version 6.3," he said. "I've been watching your errors."
Kai stepped forward, defiant. "You're not me."
"I'm what you refused to be."
Shin drew his blade, but it shattered in his hands without Thanatos moving.
Ryuu blinked. "Okay, this one's a little extra."
Syl hissed, backing away. "He's coded into the backbone of Directive Sovereign. If he moves, reality compensates."
Subject Zero opened her eyes. "He's not a weapon."
"What is he, then?" Kai asked.
She looked at Thanatos and whispered:
"He's the final question."
***
Flashback – Project Genesis Archive [Redacted]
[Footage playback authorized.]
A room of white. An empty crib. A monitor showing fetal vitals at impossible speeds. A scientist, whispering:
"We made a god… but didn't give him a reason to believe in anything."
Another responds:
"We need to erase this one. He doesn't adapt. He consumes."
A third, trembling:
"Then bury him where even the flame won't reach."
[End playback.]
***
Back to Present
Thanatos extended his hand. Not to fight.
To offer.
"You don't have to be the Ashbearer anymore, Kai."
"Then who takes it?"
"I do. I was born to carry the end."
Kai stared, unmoving. Syl and the others waited.
Subject Zero, tears lining her cheeks, murmured:
"If he takes the Ash… the paradox collapses. The story ends."
Kai's hand hovered.
Then—he clenched it into a fist.
"No."
"I don't give away burdens."
Thanatos blinked once.
"Then I'll take it from your corpse."
***
Earthquake – Sovereign Path Breach
The ground split in twelve directions. Columns of ash spiraled into the sky. The House of Hollow Gods groaned as the Sovereign Path reacted.
It wasn't ready for two versions of the same origin.
Reality destabilized.
Syl's glyphs shattered.
Ryuu collapsed, laughing through blood.
Shin dropped to one knee.
Kai stepped forward, his body igniting—not with fire, but with memory.
"You were the first," he said to Thanatos.
"But I'm the last."
And then they charged.
Kai versus Thanatos.
Flame against Finality.
Two truths fighting to be the last one written.