He didn't wake up all at once. He surfaced. Like rising from the bottom of a black ocean, lungs burning, chest tight, head full of noise.There was no battlefield. No sword in his hand. No smell of ash, metal, or blood. Only warmth.
A faint yellow glow. Soft shadows. The creaking of old wood. And his body—feeling small, weak, foreign.
He tried to move. His limbs flailed instead. A sound left his throat — not words, not a command — but a thin, fragile cry. Panic hit like a hammer.
"Where is my sword? Where am I? Where—" A face leaned over him. A woman.
Exhaustion clung to her eyes, but she smiled through it. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead, her lips pale, her breathing shallow. She said something he didn't understand.
A language he didn't know.
Her arms slid beneath him, lifting him gently against her chest. Warmth. Heartbeat. The smell of milk and metal. He froze.
"I'm… a baby."
The realization crashed down like a collapsing building. Memories flooded in. The sky breaking. The drop of golden blood. The masked being. A hole punched clean through his chest. The ships escaping. His failure. And that voice.
"You could have won… if only you had more time."
He wanted to speak. To demand answers. To ask where he was. What happened. Who saved him. What he produced instead was a choked infant wail. The woman hushed him gently, rocking him. He couldn't stop shaking. He tried to swallow back the fear, but his infant body betrayed him. His lungs spasmed. Tears spilled without control.
"I died."
"Then why am I here?"
The last thing he remembered. A voice. Not enemy. Not a animal. Something vast. Something old.
"Then I shall grant you another chance."
The memory of that presence crawled under his skin. It didn't feel kind. It didn't feel malicious either. Only… deliberate. He didn't know what bargain had been struck, or what price was demanded. But he was alive again. And that meant one thing.
"Next time… I won't lose."
The woman spoke softly, rocking him until his body finally gave in. Exhaustion swallowed him, and he slipped into uneasy sleep. Years Passed. Not quickly. Not gently.
Kazuki grew inside a world he didn't understand. The name they gave him was "Nick." A new name. A new life. But not a new mind. He learned early that the world he'd been reborn into wasn't Earth. The sky wasn't the same.
It was darker. Dimmer. Even daylight felt muted, like filtered through a layer of dust or grief. It was "Astreon" the planet remaining human survivors escaped off to.
Sometimes, when the wind was quiet, Nick swore the sky whispered. A single word.
"Return."
His new home wasn't a city. It was a shelter built from scrap and old tech. A place clinging to survival by rusted steel and desperate hope. It was a wound that refused to heal. Metal buildings patched with salvage. Air that tasted faintly of ozone and burnt circuitry. Streets made from broken hull plating and repurposed ship fragments.
People didn't live here. They endured. And everyone believed in one thing.
"The Return Mission."
From the time he could understand speech, he heard the same words over and over.
"We will reclaim Earth."
"Humanity will return."
"The Orb zones hold the key."
He learned quickly. Earth was gone — or unreachable. The invaders weren't myths. They were still out there. Humanity had fled, scattered across distant colonies and habitats. Only a handful of fortified stations survived. And the greatest of them trained humanity's future:
'The Academy."
The Academy wasn't a school. It was a sorting machine. A machine that decided who mattered. Who would be useful. Who would be discarded. Children were tested constantly — strength, reflex, memory, adaptability. They weren't raised as citizens. They were raised as tools. Roles were everything.
*Explorers — scouts who mapped forbidden zones.
*Combatants — soldiers trained to face the impossible.
*Relic Divers — those brave or desperate enough to enter ancient ruins.
*Engineers — the minds who kept the failing tech alive.
*Orbital Navigators — those capable of guiding humanity through the void.
And above them all was one sacred goal. Enter the Orb retrieval zones. Retrieve the cores. And eventually… reclaim Earth. That was the promise. That was the religion.
"The Return Mission."
Nick grew with this world. But he never belonged to it. Not fully. Because every night, the dreams returned. He saw a white sky splitting open. He heard screaming. He felt heat searing his lungs. He saw mountains fold like paper. He saw a mask. And golden blood dripping from a wound he had made. And every time the dream ended the same way. A voice, not his own, whispering one word.
"Return."
He woke screaming more than once.
When the colony alarms sounded — test sirens meant to prepare for emergencies — his entire body seized. Sweat soaked his skin. His hands trembled. His lungs locked like the air had turned to stone.
He didn't fear the alarms. He remembered them. From the battlefield. From the end of everything. Other children laughed. Played. Fought. Formed friendships. Nick watched from a distance. They dreamed of joining the Academy. They dreamed of glory. Nick did not. He remembered dying. He remembered failure. And the weight of that memory shaped everything he did.
Years sharpened him. He trained his body in secret — repeating old forms from a life no one remembered. His muscles were still young, but his technique was flawless. When other children slept, he practiced. Every swing. Every breath. Every movement was a vow.
"Next time… I won't be too slow. Next time... I won't lose."
By the time he reached sixteen, he had grown into someone quiet and dangerous. Not loud. Not boastful. Not celebrated. People ignored him. Overlooked him. To them, he was just another low-status kid in Astreon. Poor. Unremarkable. Invisible. That was fine. Being ignored meant freedom. Freedom to train. Freedom to prepare. Because he knew something the others didn't. The war wasn't over.
Those beings were still out there. And someday… He would meet them again.
And every time he closed his eyes, the voice waited. Patient. Certain.
"Return."