The cockpit was trembling.
Alarms screamed like dying birds, each second pulling the air tighter around her. Clouds tore apart across her visor like splintered glass. The control stick vibrated with the chaos of metal being ripped apart in midair.
"Lieutenant Arisawa, enemy drone cluster incoming from sector Theta-Five!"
Kaede's voice crackled through the comms, panicked, sharp.
"Copy that," Reina whispered, her fingers dancing over the control panel. Her voice was calm, disturbingly so. "Redirecting targeting matrix. Prepare counter-strike. Kaede... fall back."
The world outside her fighter jet was crimson and black — burning skies, flares spiraling like falling comets, the sea far below glowing with fire. Aerial dogfights bloomed in violent arcs, dancing like fireflies in hell.
She should have been scared.
But Arisawa Reina, age 27, Lieutenant of Japan's Strategic Drone Command, wasn't just a soldier.
She was a tactician. Cold. Precise. A mind trained to think in outcomes, not emotions.
Still… something inside her ached.
"I can handle it," Kaede's voice came again, softer now.
"I know you can," Reina replied, a faint smile on her lips, "That's why you need to live."
Then she cut the channel.
She could see them now—seven unmanned war drones, rotating in formation like vultures. She only had one missile left. Just one.
She adjusted her altitude, angled her jet toward the storming sky, and whispered:
"Let's make this count."
She launched the missile.
Three seconds of silence.
Then—
A blinding white flash.
---
When Reina opened her eyes, the world was no longer fire.
It was… light.
Soft, golden, endless. The scent of spring. The sound of a gentle stream. She was lying on a field of silver grass under an unfamiliar sky — where two moons hung, and stars moved like they were alive.
Her breath caught.
"Am... I dead?" she murmured.
She tried to sit up, but pain wracked her ribs. She looked down — her flight suit was gone. In its place, a tattered cloak, strange markings running along her arms like vines of light.
Footsteps.
She turned sharply.
A group of robed figures stood at the edge of the clearing, whispering.
"Another one from the stars..."
"She bears the sigil."
"Could it be... her?"
One stepped forward — an elderly man with eyes like embers.
"Child of the sky," he said, kneeling, "Welcome to Ryuusekai. The Realm of Falling Stars."
Reina's mind froze.
Ryuusekai?
Was this… another planet? A dream? A hallucination?
"Where... am I?" she asked, barely able to breathe.
The man looked at her with reverence and terror both.
"The world awaits your flame, O one who rides with dragons."
---
They took her to a temple—ancient, overgrown with roots, yet pulsing with magic. The people spoke in hushed tones around her. They called her "Reina no Shinka" — the Flame of Rebirth. A name from some forgotten prophecy.
But Reina didn't care about prophecy.
She wanted answers.
"You're saying... I died?" she asked, sitting before a fire, the flames reflecting in her stormy eyes.
The elder nodded. "In your world, yes. Here... the stars caught you. Chose you. Few souls arrive in Ryuusekai. Fewer still... carry the bond."
"What bond?"
The elder hesitated. Then rose, motioning her to follow.
They walked through stone corridors until they reached a sealed chamber — a massive door with markings older than language. He raised his hand. The door groaned open.
Inside... lay an egg.
Black. Cracked. Still breathing.
And glowing with an ember that pulsed in sync with Reina's heartbeat.
She staggered back. "What... the hell is that?"
"A dragon's final egg," the elder said, voice trembling. "For 400 years it has lain dormant. Dead. Until you arrived."
The egg shivered.
Then... it spoke.
In her mind.
> You are mine.
And I... am yours.
Reina gasped.
"No. No, this isn't real—"
But her arms were already glowing — the same vines of light as before, but now blooming like fire.
She dropped to her knees, clutching her chest.
"What is happening to me?"
The elder knelt beside her. His eyes were wet.
"You are not a soldier anymore, Reina. You are a rider. The last dragon's soul has chosen you."
She looked up, eyes blazing.
"Then I'll burn this world before I let it use me."
---
That night, Reina stood alone on a cliff, the twin moons casting her shadow across the valley.
Memories of fire danced in her head.
Kaede's voice.
The missile.
The moment her jet shattered in the sky.
And yet… here she was. Breathing.
Not as a soldier. Not as a pawn of governments.
But as something else.
The wind whispered across the stones.
And from deep within the mountains, a roar echoed — ancient, lonely, and familiar.
The dragon was waking.
And so was she.
Arisawa Reina died in the skies above Earth.
Reina no Shinka was born under the stars of Ryuusekai.
And the world would never be the same again.
---
To be continued...