Chapter 3: A Name the World Forgot

Dust choked the air.

He walked—barefoot—over scorched earth that wasn’t supposed to exist. This wasn’t the world of prophecy. No gilded temples. No divine light. Only shadows, and the stench of forgotten prayers.

The ruins stretched for miles. Broken weapons. Skeletons of machines. Ash from battles that weren’t recorded in any scroll.

A graveyard of a war that had been erased.

“This was once a battlefield,” he muttered.
“And I was one of its ghosts.”

The wind didn’t answer. But something else did.

A shimmer.

Faint. Pale blue. Hovering above the cracked stone ahead.
It flickered. Then took shape.

A girl—transparent, eyes empty, lips parted in a silent scream.

A memory shard.

He stepped closer.

The ghost recoiled.

“Do not touch me.”

The voice wasn’t spoken. It was placed directly into his mind.

He paused. “What are you?”

“A record that should not be. I remember the hero who died here. The one the world deleted.”

He met her eyes.

“That was me.”

Silence.

The memory shard crackled.

“Impossible. The system has no record of your name. No lineage. No right to reincarnate.”

His fists clenched. “And yet I returned.”

She stared. Not with anger. With terror.

“What… are you now?”

He looked down at his palm—where the veins pulsed black beneath the skin.
The corrupted runes from the ritual now throbbed like scars. Not beautiful. Not divine. Just... wrong.

“I am what remains,” he said.
“What they tried to erase.”
“And I carry the truth they buried.”

He stepped forward.

The memory flinched. “Stop.”

But he didn’t. Not until he reached her.

And he whispered:

“Give me the names. The ones who killed me. The false heroes.”

The memory wavered.

Then—

FLASH.

Suddenly, visions surged into his mind. Faces. Voices. Moments.
The blade piercing his back. The cheers from the crowd.
The boy with golden eyes, smiling above him.

The one they called the True Hero.

His hands trembled.

“Kaito…” he growled.
“You took everything. My title. My fate. My death.”

And the world cheered for it.

Name: Kansō Enkaku (Recollection Shift)

Effect: Steals fragments of erased memories from unstable sources to fuel spell rewrites.

The shard shattered. The girl’s face vanished.

He stood alone again—no longer broken.

Now, he had purpose.
Now, he had a name to hunt.
Now, Tsuyoi was truly awakening.

“They gave you a world,” he whispered.
“I’ll give you a reckoning.”