Echoes of a Broken World

The wind rose in the Valley of Ashes, whistling like a forgotten lament lost to time. Under its gusts, fragments of memory floated, torn from a world slowly crumbling. The Lightrover, silent, swayed above the ravaged ground, engine stopped, as if frozen in a mute prayer.
Akarui was alone.
Not physically. No. Yûna was still asleep, curled up in the core room. Mira had locked herself in the meditation chamber for three hours already, wrapped in silence. But in his heart, in his mind, Akarui was more alone than ever.
He stared at the black crystal lodged in his right hand. It wasn’t just an object. It was the heart torn from the Inverso, the echo of that mirrored world where emotions crashed like furious waves against the soul’s walls.
He had touched it. He had felt it. He knew.
Something was coming. A crack.
He closed his eyes. And, as always when he sought answers, an image returned. A silhouette. That of Elloran, the fallen guardian, eyes drowned in venomous red, his smile split like a crack in a sacred wall.
"The Inverso isn’t your enemy, Akarui. It’s you."
Those words still echoed.
Akarui shook his head. He had to focus.


Meanwhile, several levels below, Mira opened her eyes again. Her breathing was calm, but her heart was pounding. She had seen something in her trance. A white wall rising in the inverted lands. And behind it… a light. An ancient, familiar light. The light of the Arkheion.
But that wasn’t all. Someone was calling her. A muffled voice she would recognize among thousands.
“Mira…”
Yami.
No… not exactly him. A broken version. Twisted. But it was him. She felt it.
She jumped to her feet and left the room without a word. When she crossed paths with Akarui in the hallway, she stopped cold. They looked at each other for a long time, in silence. Then Mira spoke, her voice low:
— We have to go back.
Akarui didn’t ask where. He already knew.
— The Inverso?
She nodded.
— Something is awakening there… and I think Yami is still alive.


A few hours later, the decision was made. The Lightrover aligned itself with the dimensional rift floating above the black chasm of Vyrkön. There, the gate to the Inverso opened sometimes, without warning. An unstable breach. But Mira knew it now. She could force it open.
In the cockpit, Yûna took her seat without protest. Her gaze was serious. Akarui, to her left, hadn’t spoken since their decision. Mira, standing between them, raised her arms and spoke the words.
The Lightrover vibrated. The screens flashed. Reality bent.
And they passed through.


The world flipped.
The Inverso didn’t welcome them. It absorbed them.
They fell into a black sky. Literally black. The stars bled red light. The ground was no longer beneath them, but everywhere. Time folded, and gravity mocked them.
The Lightrover adjusted, but alarms blared. Something struck its hull. Not an enemy… a memory.
Memories. Theirs.
Akarui saw his childhood flash before him, but twisted. A father who beat him. A missing mother. A house in flames.
But… none of that had ever happened.
Mira screamed. Yûna sobbed.
They were bombarded by inverted versions of their own lives.
And at the center of it all, a voice echoed.
“You’ve returned… Why?”
Elloran.


They crash-landed.
The landscape around them was indescribable. Bleeding forests. Inverted mountains floating above frozen seas.
And there, before them… Yami.
But it wasn’t him.
His body was taller, his shadow longer, his face hidden behind a cracked mask. His eyes… empty.
Mira ran to him.
— YAMI!!
But the creature didn’t respond. It raised its hand.
And everything collapsed.