Fragments of Yugen

The Realm was shifting again.

Ever since the battle at Veridon Ash, the Spiral System had grown louder. Every hour, another dead zone blinked back into partial existence. Places they thought erased began breathing again. Yet none of it felt natural.

The team gathered at the edge of the restored zone called Tessera Verge, once a spiral monastery buried in zero-gravity ruins. Now, it pulsed with unstable memories and dense Spiral storms.

Yumi knelt beside the edge of a ruined glyph, whispering, "This place is flooded with raw Eidos..."

Ren tilted his head. "Eidos?"

Kael raised an eyebrow. "You've never heard of it? That's... impossible. Every Spiral runs on it."

Rei stepped closer, tapping the hilt of her chain-blade. "We use it all the time. But none of us ever called it anything. It's like breathing. You only notice when it's gone."

Yumi stood, her sketchbook glowing. "The Spiral System was built on something older than memory. This—this is it. The base layer. Pure Eidos Flux. I think we've finally found the source code of this world."

---

The World Explains Itself

Ren reached out, placing his hand on a fractured monolith.

And the world responded.

A glow pulsed from the rock, and light patterns formed mid-air—a spiraling map of the Realm. Twenty zones were highlighted. All newly active. At the center, an unseen pulse. But before Ren could trace it, the light flared, and they all heard a voice.

> "This world was made to reflect the forgotten. But memory... was never enough."

"To change it, you must choose how you exist within it."

"Select your Flux. Become more than Spiral."

The map fractured. Four glowing paths split off. Each pointed toward a glyph floating in midair.

---

Eidos Classes Revealed

As the glyphs rotated, each of them felt pulled—subtly, deeply—toward one of them.

Ren's hand hovered above the VESSEL glyph… but it glitched, rejecting him. A moment later, the SKETCHER path sparked instead.

Yumi drifted toward the ANCHOR glyph—calm, steady, rooted in memory and meaning.

Rei barely hesitated. She reached toward IMPRINT, her chain-blade glowing with old victories and scars she refused to forget.

Kael chuckled, unsurprised as the ANCHOR glyph pulsed around him. "Figures."

And then there was Aki.

He didn't move. He didn't choose.

Because the VESSEL glyph came to him.

Not like a calling.

Like a lock finally finding its key.

His eyes widened. His body trembled.

And then the truth poured in.

---

Aki's Origin Unveiled

For a moment, he couldn't breathe.

Flashes of white rooms. Scientists. Machines humming. Codes written into bones. He wasn't born. He was loaded.

Aki dropped to his knees. His sketchbook—always his defense, always his escape—fell from his hand.

Ren rushed forward, grabbing his shoulder.

"Aki?"

Aki didn't respond at first. Then, slowly:

"I'm not like you. I never was. I didn't just become a Vessel. I was built to be one."

He looked up, eyes glowing faint blue.

"They used me to store... early Eidos. I'm not even sure all of it is mine."

Kael's voice went serious. "You mean you've had Spiral code inside you this whole time?"

"No." Aki stood slowly, trembling but firm. "I am Spiral code.

The Eidos Surge

Before anyone could speak, the zone around them exploded into light. Eidos surged from the monoliths, forming tendrils of color and possibility.

They weren't alone anymore.

A figure hovered above them—tall, cloaked in drifting glyphs. Its body shimmered like wet ink. It didn't attack. It evaluated.

> "Test Subject: Eidos Awakening Confirmed. Prototype Vessel Detected."

"Target Priority: RECLAMATION."

Aki's eyes narrowed. "They're coming to take me back."

Rei drew her blade. "They can try."

---

Battle – First Use of Eidos

The battle was chaos. The figure split into three forms, each using different Eidos flows.

Kael and Yumi worked in sync—Kael freezing areas of space-time while Yumi activated sigils of memory-defense around their team.

Rei darted forward, every swing of her chain-blade echoing past victories—using IMPRINT Flux to learn the enemy's patterns within seconds.

Ren, for the first time, felt the Sketcher inside him activate fully. He didn't need to draw with a pen. He drew with will.

A wall. A whip. A prism of thought. They formed and shattered at speed.

But it was Aki who changed everything.

---

Aki Unleashed: Prototype Vessel Form

Surrounded, back to the monolith, Aki whispered something—and the Spiral mark in his palm flared.

He didn't create like Ren.

He absorbed.

The enemy fired a beam of compressed Eidos. Aki raised his hand—and swallowed it.

His skin cracked with light. Threads of Spiral code ran up his neck. His eyes glowed white.

Then he moved.

Instantly, the three enemies halted. The energy they used bent toward him. He wasn't just countering.

He was rewriting their forms—mid-battle.

One of them dissolved.

The other two fused.

Yumi shouted, "He's too deep! Pull out or you'll fracture!"

But Aki kept going, hand raised.

And then… he stopped. Slowly, carefully. The light receded.

His voice was quiet.

"I'm not a weapon. I'm not a jail."

"I'm choosing my shape this time."

---

Aftermath: The Ministers Stir

The battle ended. The glyphs around the zone faded. Aki was breathing hard but whole.

Yumi placed a hand on his shoulder. "You've just accessed something that took most Seekers decades."

Kael added, "No one becomes a Vessel and survives the first sync. You just did both."

Ren helped Aki up. "You don't have to hold it all alone."

Aki gave a tired smile. "I never wanted to be the center. But if I'm holding Spiral code from the beginning... we may need it."

Because at that moment—

Every Spiral zone lit up with the same red sigil:

🜃 A circle of 20 Spiral shards.

Kael's voice dropped.

"That's a call sign. And not for fragments."

Rei nodded grimly. "It's a war formation"