They emerged from the gate into a different sky.
The clearing they'd left had shifted—subtly, unnaturally. Trees leaned at impossible angles, casting shadows toward the sun rather than away. Time in the Veins Beyond did not move forward or back. It drifted.
Kaela staggered slightly as she stepped out, the anchor stone still glowing faintly within her palm. Toji caught her by the shoulder before she could fall.
"I've got it," she muttered, but she didn't pull away.
He didn't release her either.
The others trickled out behind them, each changed in a different way—Roth with a new scar across his jaw, Niko wide-eyed and grinning like he'd glimpsed something glorious, Sorei quietly muttering the name of a dead sibling, Mirell tapping her rings against her skull as if trying to knock a thought loose, and Dain… his Echo was gone entirely.
"Where's his Echo?" Kaela whispered.
Toji narrowed his eyes. "Still here. Just not outside."
Dain said nothing. But the vines on his neck now pulsed to a rhythm no one else could hear.
Varn's voice returned in their comms, crisp and faintly static.
"Report. Anchor retrieved?"
Kaela answered. "Yes. Group intact. Minor mental strain. No fatalities."
"Good. Mark the path and move to the northern promontory. The next gate isn't far, but the terrain will not be stable."
"What does that mean?" Roth asked.
Toji responded instead. "The Veins are adapting."
Sorei gave him a sharp glance. "To us?"
"No," Toji said. "To me."
⸻
As they moved, the surreal terrain became more blatant.
At one point, they crossed a stairway that led upward into a pond. At another, they passed through a corridor where gravity rotated every ten steps. Reflections whispered in mirrors that no one carried, recounting not just memories—but almosts. Alternate outcomes.
One showed Kaela dead in the arms of a younger Toji.
Another showed Niko holding Phantom Edge.
Toji ignored them all.
At a certain point, Kaela pulled close and walked beside him in silence.
"You saw them too," she murmured.
"I see more than that."
She nodded slowly, the echo-tower still trailing behind her like a guardian monument.
"Why does the Vein want you?" she finally asked.
Toji didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was low.
"Because I remember too much."
She stopped in her tracks.
And he kept walking.
⸻
The northern promontory was a shattered mesa that rose like the cracked hull of a ship, with jagged ridges forming a half-circle around a black obelisk. Lightning curled in reverse along the sky—flashes that sucked light away rather than casting it.
Varn's voice crackled again.
"This gate is not meant to be entered. It is meant to be survived. Stay together. Form a ring. Echo binding is mandatory."
Toji didn't need the warning.
The moment they stepped toward the obelisk, the world collapsed again—this time not into a memory, but into a storm.
Figures emerged from the rocks, not monstrous like the construct from before—but humanoid.
Familiar.
Twisted.
Kaela gasped.
"They're us."
Copies. Echo-doubles. Warped. Wrong.
Toji stepped forward—and his double did too, Phantom Edge already drawn, the Mnemo-Eye crackling with dark hunger.
Niko shouted, already rushing to clash with his own doppelgänger. Roth held his ground. Mirell unleashed rings of sound-magic in wide arcs while Kaela froze, staring into the face of herself—broken, glass-eyed, flickering with barely-contained guilt.
Toji didn't speak to his mirror.
He attacked.
The sword strikes clashed like thunder. The doppelgänger moved with uncanny precision—knowing his patterns, his spacing, his reflexes.
He switched grips.
Shifted his stance.
Used something new.
The Mnemo-Eye snapped into a new orbit, spinning tighter, locking into an alignment he hadn't tried before.
Gear Unfurl.
Layer One: Recursive Hollow.
A dark ring flared out from the eye and Toji stepped through it—blinked forward—appeared behind the doppelgänger and sliced clean through its shoulder.
The fake gasped—but did not bleed.
Instead, it collapsed into swirling ink, whispering: "You are not him yet."
Toji didn't respond.
Because he didn't need to be him.
He needed to be himself.
Nearby, Kaela screamed.
He turned sharply—and saw her doppelgänger pinning her down, her Echo-tower trembling under the weight of doubt.
He moved.
Blink-step.
Phantom Edge in reverse grip.
He didn't hesitate.
The cut was clean—and this time, it left no residue. Just silence.
Kaela coughed once, then looked up at him.
"…Thanks."
He held out a hand.
She took it.
This time, she didn't let go.
⸻
When the storm receded, the obelisk was gone.
In its place, a single rune: not in any known language.
But they understood it.
"Endure."
The path ahead shimmered—and cleared.
The Veins had accepted them.
For now.
⸻
Nightfall came strange in the Veins Beyond.
The stars moved like fish beneath the surface of a pond. Their campfire crackled with no fuel. Echoes circled them in quiet patterns—observing.
Kaela sat beside Toji, her tower-Echo casting a soft aurora across the cracked stone.
"Tomorrow, we go deeper," she said.
He nodded.
She hesitated.
Then leaned her head against his shoulder.
"…You'll still be Toji tomorrow, right?"
He didn't answer.
But he didn't move away.
——
The second night in the Veins Beyond pressed heavier than the first.
The air was not colder—but it had grown dense, humming with silent static. The world no longer shifted like a dream. It waited like a question.
Toji sat apart from the others, legs folded beneath him, elbows on his knees, sword unsummoned. The Mnemo-Eye floated nearby, orbiting in slow, erratic loops—not the usual precision he demanded from it.
It had been off since the confrontation with his double.
Not broken.
But resisting.
Kaela approached quietly, her tower-Echo trailing at her heels like a ghost-temple.
"You look like you're trying to figure out whether to fight your sword or your shadow," she said, crouching across from him.
Toji didn't smile. "Both are part of the same thing. The problem is they're not syncing."
He raised his hand. The Mnemo-Eye flickered in the dark.
"It won't stabilize."
Kaela tilted her head. "Did something happen with the copy?"
"…No. It happened after. It said something." His jaw tightened. "I am not him yet."
Kaela frowned. "What does that even mean?"
He looked away. "It meant I didn't finish something."
The Eye pulsed once—dim, frustrated.
Kaela leaned forward, examining it.
"May I?"
Toji blinked. "Touch the Eye?"
"No. Sync with it. Briefly. I have my tower—it's not dangerous. I want to try something."
He hesitated. The Mnemo-Eye, for all its power, was deeply personal. It held more than just ability—it stored layered memory, tether resonance, and echoes of older magic from before Valemont.
But he nodded.
Kaela placed one palm over her tower's crest, and the other slowly hovered beneath the Eye.
A small shimmer flickered between the two—a cross-channel.
Toji felt it instantly.
Not just Kaela's tether—but her presence. Her signature magic. A calm, forest-green pulse. Gentle, inquisitive, bright like moonlight filtered through leaves.
The Eye stopped moving.
Kaela inhaled sharply. Her eyes closed.
Then—she smiled.
"…It's not resisting you."
Toji furrowed his brow. "Then what is it?"
"It's… searching."
She opened her eyes.
"It's looking for its 'final shape.'"
Toji was quiet.
Kaela continued, her voice gentler now. "You formed it too fast. The Forge gave you power before you gave it clarity. That's why it fights you sometimes. It's trying to evolve—but it doesn't know what you want it to be."
"…A weapon," he muttered.
"Sure," she said. "But is that all you are?"
He blinked.
The Eye pulsed.
She smiled faintly.
"I think it needs something more specific. Not just to be sharp—but to be shaped."
Toji looked at her carefully. "How do you know that?"
Kaela shrugged. "I don't. But your Eye let me in. Just for a second. Maybe it wanted to be seen. Even by someone else."
He didn't answer.
But he didn't deny it.
⸻
Later, after the camp fell into uneasy sleep, Kaela stirred again.
She found him standing at the edge of the cliff near their outpost, staring out into the warped sky where stars moved sideways and light pulsed in slow tidal waves.
The Mnemo-Eye now floated still, a faint new rune turning at its center. A subtle detail—but she noticed it.
"Did it change?"
"A little," he said. "I think you were right."
She folded her arms.
"Well, I usually am."
He looked at her sidelong.
Then—to her mild shock—smiled.
Only a little. But it was there.
"You're still changing," she said quietly. "From when we met. Every day, a little."
Toji watched the sky.
"…So are you."
She reached over, gently touched the back of his hand.
"Then maybe we change together."
He didn't pull away.
The Eye spun once—faster now. Harmonized.
⸻
By morning, the terrain had altered again.
And Toji felt it—the subtle pull in his chest, the Mnemo-Eye now aligning not as a foreign orbit, but as a part of him.
For the first time, it wasn't dragging behind him.
It was beside him.
Waiting.
"What changed?" Roth asked as they prepared to move.
Toji didn't answer.
But Kaela glanced at him—and smiled.
"He stopped fighting what he already was."