"Amnesia."
Raze blinked. "What?"
"You have amnesia."
He stared.
"What are you talking about?"
The study breathed like it had been exhaling for hours.
Lamplight low, parchment curled at the edges.
Thalia didn't sit like a priest or a scholar.
She sat like someone waiting for a truth to drop.
Across from him. No desk between. Just silence.
"Alteria ordered it," she said finally. "A probing. A therapy session, if you need to call it something palatable."
Raze didn't speak.
"If we find nothing," she continued, "you'll be dismissed. Freed of duty. If we find too much—"
She stopped. Let the words rot unsaid.
"—then maybe we'll finally see who you've been hiding behind all this silence."
Thalia didn't reach for a quill.
Didn't reach for anything.
Just leaned back, gaze steady.
"We'll start shallow," she said. "See what floats."
Raze didn't move.
"What's your name?"
A pause.
"Raze."
"Not what they call you. What do you call you?"
His jaw twitched.
"I don't know."
"Good. That means we're not lying yet."
She shifted. Crossed one leg over the other.
"Favorite color?"
He blinked. "That's not important."
"Neither is breath, until you stop doing it."
A moment left.
"Violet," he muttered. "I think."
She nodded once. "What does fire smell like?"
"Metal. Sweat. Sometimes... citrus."
"Do you like citrus?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It feels like being watched."
Thalia tilted her head. "Interesting."
She didn't write it down. Didn't need to.
"What do you feel when you wake up?" she asked next.
Raze looked past her. Not at the wall. At something behind it.
"Like I've survived something I don't remember dying from." Thalia tilted her head. Not curious. Calculating.
"Can you elaborate on that?"
Raze exhaled slow. Not tired. Just bracing.
"It's like… waking up after drowning. But dry. No cough. No water in the lungs. Just the ache."
A pause.
"I don't remember the panic. Just the weight after it."
Her gaze sharpened. She didn't interrupt.
"Like my body knows it happened," he added, "but my mind refuses to replay it. So I wake up ready to flinch… but there's no noise."
Glitched.
"And that silence feels earned. But I don't know what I paid for it."
"Drakonis," Thalia said, voice even. "The first word mirrors Drakos. It's a skill you have access to. But when Alteria searched the archives—there was nothing."
She watched him.
"Do you think it's connected to your past life?"
Raze didn't answer right away.
So she asked something else.
"Why do you like kicking?"
He blinked.
"It's precise. It ends things without needing hands."
Another pause.
"Do you remember what it felt like to die?"
"Yes."
Her brow lifted.
"And?"
He looked at her.
"Weightless. Then too heavy to scream."
She didn't blink.
"What's your earliest memory of fire?"
He closed his eyes.
"Not warmth. Not light. Just control. Like I could shape the air if I hated it enough."
Thalia leaned forward, elbows on knees.
"What would you burn, if no one was watching?"
Raze opened his mouth.
Then shut it.
She let the silence hold.
Then—
"Why do you flinch when people touch your wrist?"
His jaw tightened.
She waited.
"…Because that's where they grabbed me," he said.
"Who?"
"I don't know." A pause. "But they didn't let go."
Thalia didn't look away.
"Do you want them dead?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because if they're dead, I can't ask them why."
"Why what?" Thalia asked, voice low.
Raze's eyes flicked up.
"Why did they reincarnate me," he said, "when I already lived?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ memory sealed ]
[ system has denied access ]
> > >
[ you are human
not god. ]
> > >
[ higher authority has allowed access ]
[ system message:
"It's inevitable for you to remember…" ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The air thinned. Something behind his eyes pulled tight. Like a knot in thread long abandoned.
A pressure. A flicker. Then a voice. Not loud.
Not kind. Not foreign. Just final.
He blinked. Slowly. Like light had changed.
"…The system just tried to repress this memory."
Thalia didn't react. Not yet. "What is the system?"
Raze's voice felt too close to thought.
"…I don't know," he said. "It appeared when I got here. Gave me a bunch of crazy commands…"
He paused.
"It's saved me once. Told me when I got skills. When I was dying."
Another breath.
"It speaks like it owns me. But it's never told me its name—Or my own."
Thalia didn't blink. Didn't shift. Just said.
"Miss Aun'va said you came to her shop, and told her your favorite number was eleven."
She let it sit.
"Why is that?"
Raze looked down. Not at the floor in his hands.
His fingers had curled slightly.
Like they'd caught something once and never let go.
"I don't know," he said. "It just… came out."
"Try again."
He inhaled.
"It's the number I wore."
A pause.
"On a jersey. Black kit. White print. Eleven."
She didn't interrupt.
"I didn't remember it until she asked," he continued. "But once I said it, the memory didn't feel new. Just buried."
Thalia tilted her head slightly. "You said 'jersey.' Were you a soldier?"
"No."
Beat.
"I was… a player."
Her brow twitched. "A player?"
He nodded. "Football."
"I don't know that word."
He almost smiled. Almost. "Not important. Just a game. But everything I had was tied to it."
"And number eleven?"
"Was mine."
He didn't mean it to sound so final. But it was.
"What does the letter 'A' mean to you?" Thalia asked, voice soft but loaded.
Raze didn't blink.
"…Royalty."
"B?"
"Bravery."
"C?"
"Comradery."
"D?"
He hesitated. Just enough to count.
"Destiny."
Thalia leaned in slightly. "K?"
His breath caught. Not a pause—an instinct.
"…Dominance," he said.
"Control. Success."
His eyes flickered. Once. Then again. Like something moved behind them but didn't surface. Then quieter—
"…Death."
"What does 'T' mean to you?" Thalia asked, voice steady.
Raze looked up, slower this time.
"…Therapy," he said. "Treasure. Trusted."
A breath.
"Trying."
She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Trying to flatter me won't make you better."
"Trying," he repeated, softer now, "is the only thing that ever did."
Thalia didn't respond right away. Just let the weight of it settle between them. Then—
"Let's take some of the clearly important things from this talk so far."
Her tone shifted. Not clinical. Not gentle. Just aligned.
"You have a connection to the letter K. Deep. Not fabricated. Felt."
She held his gaze.
"You have a connection to the number eleven. You wore it in a past life—on a jersey. On a black kit with white print."
She paused.
"I don't know what those words mean. Not here. But when you said them, your eyes sparked like they'd finally found something real."
She leaned in just a fraction.
"Do you remember anything else now?"
Raze didn't answer at first.
Then his hand moved, unthinking, to the back of his neck. Fingers pressed against skin like they were checking for something that should be there.
"…There was a match," he murmured. "Brazil. The stadium was loud. Not loud like crowds here—alive. Unforgiving. I was tired. Not injured. Just… tired of proving."
His voice dipped.
"I scored the winner. Last minute. Near post. Volley with my left. Didn't celebrate."
Thalia didn't breathe. Not yet.
"Why not?"
He blinked.
"Because I knew it wouldn't feel like anything."
He looked up again.
"But everyone called that my peak."
Thalia's voice returned low, curious. "Was it?"
"No," he said. "It was just the moment they stopped asking who I was."
A beat passed. Then another.
"And started calling me a god."
"How did it feel," Thalia asked, "to be immortalized as something you felt you weren't?"
Raze didn't flinch.
"Who said I didn't feel it?"
Her eyes sharpened. "You thought you were God?"
"No." His voice thinned. "But I played the role for the crowd."
He leaned back slightly, gaze flicking to the corner of the study like the past might be hiding there.
"They needed something untouchable," he said. "So I gave them it."
Thalia didn't interrupt.
Let him speak like it was muscle finally loosening.
"They chanted my name like it meant hope. Or fear. Or both. They painted my face on banners. Held up signs with my number. Gave me titles I never asked for."
His voice turned distant. Sharper.
"They chanted my name like it meant hope. Or fear. Or both. They painted my face on banners. Held up signs with my number. Gave me titles I never asked for."
His voice turned distant. Sharper.
"Some called me an artist. Some called me a weapon. But no one asked if I wanted either."
Thalia stayed still.
"I remember walking off the pitch after the match. That one. Brazil. I could barely hear the commentators. Not because it was too loud—because I was somewhere else. In my head. In my chest. I kept thinking... if this is the top, why does it feel so empty?"
He looked down at his hands. Open. Cold.
"I didn't even shower. Just walked out the back. Hoodie on. Earbuds in. Same way I always did."
The words started falling faster. Not forced. Unstoppable.
"There was an old woman in the crosswalk. Coat too big. She walked like the world owed her nothing. She didn't see the truck. Didn't flinch."
He breathed once. Shallow.
"I did."
His fingers curled.
"I moved before I thought. Like my body remembered something my soul hadn't caught up to yet. I pushed her. Light. Just enough."
Silence.
Then—
"And then I died."
Thalia didn't move. Didn't speak.
Raze's jaw clenched. "Not pain. Not fear. Just white. Total. Absolute."
His voice softened.
"And before the light swallowed everything, she looked at me. Eyes like she knew me. Like she'd been waiting. And she said—"
He stopped. Mouth open. No sound.
Thalia whispered, "She said what?"
Raze blinked once. Hard. Then again.
"She said my name."
He looked up.
Not shaken. Not triumphant. Just sure.
"Kaviar Ka'eli."
The sound landed like it belonged there.
Old. Whole. Heavy.
"She called me Kaviar."
A long breath.
"I never told her my name. But she said it like she'd known it her whole life."
[Ping!]
[ memory fragment restored ]
[ name recognized: KAVIAR KA'ELI ]
[ former status: human (earth) | designation: player ]
[ cause of death: vehicular trauma, spinal impact ]
[ soulbinding signature: reclassified ]
[ user: KAVIAR → RAZE ]
[ fate: severed. now rethreading. ]
Raze flinched. His body didn't move. But something inside shifted—like a weight that had been balancing too long, finally dropped.
Thalia watched him. No words.
"...I remember," he said.
Then quieter.
"I remember all of it."
God be with you.