Don´t You Have Somewhere Else To Be?

The cloak unraveled in a mix of silk and shadow, pooling at the woman’s feet.

The firelight caught on strands of deep, ink-black hair, smooth as obsidian. Her face was sharp, refined, with high cheekbones and dark, unyielding eyes that held a glimmer of something seemingly sinister beneath their surface. She tilted her head slightly, lips curving into something that might have been a smile but held none of the warmth of one.

Neon’s breath caught. This was no ordinary enemy. The weight of her presence pressed against the battlefield like a hand tightening around his throat.

Neon barely breathed. His body was still tense from the moment before—Aria, the queen, the blade against her throat—but the woman ignored them entirely. She didn’t even glance at the deadlock, as if the lives hanging in balance were beneath her attention.

Instead, she looked only at him.

“I’m Sakura,” she announced, voice smooth as glass. “The queen of Sumeria.”

Sumeria?

The name lodged itself in Neon’s mind like a dagger. He had never heard of such a place. But the way she said it—the way the name carried itself, heavy with unspoken history—he knew this was no mere deception.

“The hell do you want?” he spat.

“I’m so glad you made it here.” Her words coiled around him, slow, deliberate.

Neon’s fingers twitched toward his sword. The threat to Aria was still immediate, but something about this woman… she was speaking to him, only to him, as if the chaos around them was nothing but an afterthought.

Then she spoke again.

“Nyxia is being attacked right now, dear boy. And yet here you are, fighting a battle on the Militians´ stead. You really cannot trust anybody after all, can you?”

A chill ran through him.

Nyxia? That was impossible. It had to be.

Sakura’s golden eyes glowed faintly, like embers in the dark.

His hands clenched at his sides. The queen of Militia choked, struggling against the hold at her throat. Aria’s wide, panicked eyes flickered between him and her mother, desperate, pleading. And yet, Sakura still wasn’t looking at them.

She took a step forward, raising her hand.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

A sound, soft at first, then rising—like wind howling. The air thickened. It was like something invisible had cracked. A pressure, a force, something too vast to comprehend, surged out from her body. The world twisted. Neon’s breath caught.

And then the ground beneath him vanished.

The ballroom disappeared in an instant, as if it had never existed at all.

For a split second, he felt nothing—no floor beneath his feet, no walls around him, just weightlessness, like being suspended in mid-air.

Neon felt the battlefield slip away. The knife at Aria’s throat. The queen’s unsteady breathing. His own heartbeat. Gone.

Then—

Neon’s feet hit solid ground. His knees gave way, his breath shuddered out of him. He staggered forward, struggling to keep his balance. His vision blurred—his ears rang—

He was somewhere else.

The stench of smoke. The distant roar of chaos. The sky overhead, fractured and crimson, streaked with unnatural fire. He staggered forward, boots kicking up dust, eyes wide as he took in the streets—his streets.

Nyxia.

This wasn’t a trick. This was real.

He turned, wild-eyed, searching—Vey’s mansion. He was standing right in front of it, right where he had come before together with Aria. But it looked nothing like the last time. The windows were shattered, the door barely hanging onto its hinges. The streets were littered with debris, with multiple bodies.

Neon staggered backward, heart hammering.

No. No, no, no.

He turned wildly, searching for something, anything to prove this wasn’t happening. But it was.

His breath came fast, shallow. He had just—just been in Militia. He had been standing right there, watching Aria—watching her be held at knifepoint—

His stomach twisted. Their tether. The woman, Sakura, had somehow split the tether holding him and Aria together. And she´d instantly sent him back to Nyxia.

He wasn’t there anymore. 

They were going to kill her, weren´t they?

He knew it. He knew it.

His voice tore from his throat, raw, animalistic. The scream ripped through the ruined streets, but it reached no one. The city howled back in an echo.

He clenched his fists so tightly his nails dug into flesh, but he barely felt it. He had to—he had to find a way back. He had to—

But how?

How?

A sob burned in his throat, but he swallowed it down, chest heaving.

Think, Neon. Think.

But his mind kept circling back to one unbearable truth.

Anything he did, he would probably be too late.

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Back in Militia, the moment Neon disappeared, Aria screamed.

It was a sound of pure, unfiltered horror.

One second, he had been standing there, staring at that woman. The next, he had vanished into nothingness, like he had never been there at all.

It was like watching a nightmare unfold in real time. The tether holding them together seemed to have snapped too.

What did she do to Neon? 

The shock paralyzed her at first. But then her mother came back to mind.

Aria barely had time to react before the blade struck.

A choked cry.

Blood hit the cold stone beneath them.

Her mother staggered, eyes wide in disbelief as red bloomed from her side.

Aria’s world fractured. The soldier let go of her, stepping back, his knife now slick and dripping.

“Mom!”

Something snapped. The moment the guard turned his attention away, thinking her frozen in place, Aria moved like a blaze.

A flash of silver.

The knife came for her, but she ducked, moving with an instinct she didn’t even know she had. The guard’s momentum worked against him. The blade missed, just barely grazing her hair from above. 

She struck.

A sharp, precise movement—her elbow drove into his ribs, knocking him off balance. The blade clattered to the ground.

She didn’t hesitate.

Her fist connected with his jaw. He stumbled back, dazed. 

His breath hitched.

Aria turned, chest rising and falling. Her body trembled, the weight of the moment crashing down on her.

Her mother lay wounded. Neon was gone. The fight had ended, and yet—

Sakura merely watched, now staring at Aria. The last soldier stood beside her.

She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t intervened.

She smiled.

Not mockery. Not amusement. Something else. Something dangerous.

“You’re stronger than I expected,” Sakura said, eyes gleaming. “Good.”

Aria tightened her grip on the blade, shaking.

Sakura turned away. She motioned for her remaining soldier. “We’re done here.”

Aria’s breath hitched. “What?”

Sakura glanced back at her, golden eyes glimmering with something unreadable.

Sakura met her eyes. “We accomplished what we came for... come find me in Origin, Aria.”

And with that they vanished. The only thing left behind was a strange, shimmering void-like energy, flickering in the air where she had once stood—an energy that looked eerily like the Frontier.

Her mother lay unmoving. Neon was gone.

The war was far from over.

It had just begun.