The training camp slept like a wounded beast.
Even the fires burned low — less flame, more memory. Kael sat by himself on the broken wall behind the barracks. The only place the stars could still be seen clearly. He didn't sleep much anymore. Not since the mirror blink — that moment in the fight where time wavered. He wasn't afraid of it. He just… didn't know what it meant.
"You breathe like someone waiting for the stars to answer you," a voice said.
Kael turned. A girl stood a few paces away, hooded and still. Not part of the camp. But she didn't hide. She just watched — with calm eyes, not curiosity.
Kael stood slowly.
"Are you with them?" he asked.
"No," she replied. "And I think you know that."
"Then who are you?"
A pause.
"Someone looking for a reason to keep walking."
She stepped forward but stayed at a respectful distance.
"I saw you today," she said softly. "How you moved when you didn't mean to."
"That was nothing."
"That's not true. You moved through a thread. Not time. Not instinct. Thread."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're like me."
El sat across from him now, lowering her hood. Even in the dim light, her eyes carried weight. Not sadness. Not danger. Just... gravity. A history she hadn't told anyone in a long time.
"My name isn't important right now. But I've lived a long time. Longer than most here."
"You look—"
"I know. Young. That's what power does. But it doesn't make you free."
Kael didn't reply. He waited.
"I'm here because I thought I knew what I was. I had power. I had answers. And then…"She paused."...then I watched someone like us die for asking the wrong questions."
She looked away.
"Since then, I've hidden. Observed. Waited. Tried to find some sign that what I am... wasn't a curse."
"And you?" she looked back at him. "You're my sign."
They sat there in quiet for a moment. Not teacher and student. Not protector and protected. Just two people — lost in the same mystery.
"You said 'like us.' What are we?"
El smiled. Not with joy — with understanding.
"I don't know."
"But I think we're not here to win the Sector Battle."
"We're here because someone — something — is waiting to see if we remember what we were before we became this."
Kael looked up at the stars.
"You think there's a reason I was chosen?"
El nodded.
"Not by them. By something older."
Kael turned to her.
"Do you know its name?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Only once have I heard it. A name buried in ash."
"Raygon."
Kael's heart didn't skip. It froze. Something in the name didn't sound like a name.It sounded like a thread pulling tight.