The moonlight clung to Yuri like a veil—soft, haunting, and too quiet to be real.
Jin stared at her, every memory in his body screaming at once. They had trained together as kids. She had vanished the day he awakened as Rank: Zero. No funeral. No answers. Just silence.
But now she stood before him—eyes colder than the night.
"You died," Jin whispered. "They said the gate took you."
Yuri tilted her head. "They said a lot of things. None of them true."
She held out a pendant—half-broken, cracked down the center.
He remembered it. They'd carved their names into it years ago.
Only his side was still visible.
"Do you know what really happened that day?" she asked. "The day you 'awakened'?"
Jin clenched his fists. "I remember the pain. The fire. Everyone screaming. Then nothing."
Yuri's voice trembled.
"You didn't fail the Awakening, Jin. You completed it."
The Echo Gardens shifted.
Noctis appeared at Jin's shoulder, watching Yuri closely.
"She's telling the truth," he said. "Her spirit is fractured—but it holds your signature. A twin resonance."
Yuri continued, her tone sharp now. "You were the first successful subject in Project: Chainbreak. You just didn't know it."
Back in the Assembly Hall, a secret chamber lit with blue sigils stirred.
Kael stood before a sealed archive door with Arin at his side. The emblem on the lock wasn't academy-made.
It was ancient.
Royal.
"Project: Chainbreak," Arin read aloud. "What the hell is this?"
Kael glanced at her. "The reason Jin was ranked Zero. The reason he was forgotten."
Yuri knelt in front of Jin now.
"When you awakened, you didn't connect with a spirit. You connected with something deeper. A chain beyond the veil. That broke the system."
Jin felt the fourth broken chain pulsing under his skin.
"I was the fail-safe," Yuri said. "If you ever remembered, I was meant to stop you."
She looked up.
Tears in her eyes.
"But I won't."
A wind blew through the gardens. Cold. Whispering.
Then a voice echoed from the shadows:
"Too late."
A figure stepped forward. Tall. Cloaked in red with no visible face—only a shifting black void beneath the hood.
Yuri gasped.
"The Warden…"
Noctis growled. "A Watcher of the Chains. They've found you."
The Warden raised a hand.
And the spirit realm tore open behind him—revealing the forgotten battlefield of the first Chain War.
Jin stood slowly, eyes burning.
"If you want answers," the Warden said, "step through."
"And if I don't?" Jin asked.
The Warden's voice was final.
"Then everyone you love pays the price of your hesitation."
Jin glanced at Yuri. At Noctis. At the broken moon above.
Then stepped through the rift.
Into the war he was born to finish.