Age: Sakamoto – 4.5Location: VelduinTime: Two days before their journey northWeather: Harsh frost, wind whispering in foreign tongues
The scroll didn't open.
It unfolded.
Like it had bones.
And between each line of ink, something whispered.
The Scroll's Trial
The room filled with violet light.Ravian tried to move — couldn't.Aelira reached for me — stopped by a barrier of frost.
And me?
I was pulled inward.
Not physically.
Mentally.
Spiritually.
I stood before a door made of swords — each one humming with a voice I'd never heard but somehow recognized.
"Who are you?" they asked in unison.
"Sakamoto."
"Wrong."
The blades shrieked.
And one voice broke through.
"You are the one who betrayed Lucala."
The Test: Memory Weight
They didn't show me my past.
They pushed it into me.
Like someone pouring fire into ice and asking it to survive.
I saw:
A boy bleeding in a crater
A divine being crying
Ireina begging someone not to forget her
And then…
Myself.
But older. Taller. Smiling — before being struck down by the very sword I now carried.
"You asked to be erased," Niris whispered inside the dream.
"Why?"
"Because remembering… meant hating yourself."
Waking Up — and Marev's Truth
I screamed as I woke.
The scroll had vanished. Turned to ash.Everyone stared at me — especially Ireina.
"Did you see him?" she asked quietly.
"See who?"
"The version of you… that killed me."
Marev stepped forward, calm as ice.
"I came to witness that moment," he said.
"What moment?"
"When your core binds."
"To what?"
"To regret. That is your class. The Echoborne. You are not powered by will, or justice, or light."
"Then what?"
"By everything you can't forgive."
Aelira Breaks
Later that night, Aelira left the hut.
I found her behind the old blacksmith's ruin, crying.
"You okay?"
"No."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"That you were… that. Echoborne. Cursed. Important."
"Because I didn't ask to be."
She looked up, red-eyed.
"I just wanted to be someone who mattered to you."
I said nothing.
Because no matter what I could've said… she wouldn't have believed it.
Final Scene: The Black Sun
That night, high above Lucala, the second moon flickered.
Then it stopped glowing.
And a new star appeared beside it — black and burning like a sun.
Far in the south, the Shadowsworn bowed.
"The child remembers."
"Then begin the cleansing."