Benihime: [urgent, deeply concerned, already moving toward the door] "Lord Drake, I must go and report this immediately. We need confirmation. If your core is unstable... it will require sealing."

  Raiden: [alarm rising, voice catching] "What do you mean? Sealing?"

  Benihime: [forcing a reassuring smile, unconvincing] "Please, rest easy. There will be no problems."

  Benihime exited swiftly, his footsteps echoing down the corridor. Raiden—no, the one who had been Raiden—rose from the bed. He stepped out of the room and looked around. What he saw shocked him into stillness. The mirror. The person staring back.

  A stranger. Tall—around 185cm, perhaps 80kg. Long white hair cascading past his shoulders. He stumbled, his balance foreign, wrong. This body remembered movements his mind did not.

  Raiden: [whispering, touching his own face in disbelief] "Is... is this me?"

  He walked. Each step revealed the vastness of this place. Then he saw it—a framed photograph on the wall. A child with loving parents. His chest tightened with desperate hope. But beneath the image he thought was his childhood, the name read:

  ASHURA DAEMON

  Not Raiden. Never Raiden.

  At the center hall, Elvira and Drake stood speaking with Benihime. They turned as Ashura descended the stairs, their expressions shifting—relief, worry, something unreadable in Drake's eyes.

  Elvira: [gentle scolding, maternal fear] "Ashura, why are you up? You should be resting."

  Ashura: [distant, searching, voice hollow] "I wanted to look around. To... remember myself."

  Elvira: [hopeful, careful] "So you no longer claim to be this 'Raiden'? You accept you are Ashura, my son?"

  Ashura: [conflicted, exhausted, rubbing his temples] "My head is still a mess. But it will clear... in time, I suppose."

  Drake: [studying him with calculating intensity] "Ashura. Has your core stabilized? Benihime says it may be... Dark."

  Drake: [lower, grave] "Because Light Will only rejects the cores of those who possess Dark Will. It is the only explanation."

  Ashura: [dread pooling in his stomach] "And if I have Dark Will... what happens to me?"

  Drake: [honest, helpless, jaw tight] "No one in our family has a Will. Our cores are empty. I cannot answer this for you."

  Ashura: [disbelief, isolation creeping in] "What? So I'm the only one?"

  Drake: [nodding, bitter pride and envy mixed] "Yes. For all our noble blood, none of us possess Wills. Our cores remain dormant."

  Ashura: [resigned, practical] "Then how do we learn what I am?"

  Drake: [already planning] "Roger. I will summon him. Tomorrow he will examine you—determine if sealing is necessary, or if..."

  He trailed off. Neither wanted to finish that thought.

  Drake: [changing subject, forced warmth] "By the way—I informed Suho. He will arrive tomorrow. This weekend, we hold a grand celebration."

  Ashura: [confused, uncomfortable] "A celebration? For what?"

  Drake: [proud, loud, perhaps too loud] "My son has awakened from a ten-year coma. And now he likely possesses a Will! This must be celebrated!"

  Ashura: [quiet, distant, staring at nothing] "I don't particularly enjoy celebrations. The last one I remember..."

  Narrator: [melancholic, heavy with unspoken trauma]

  He wished to forget. As everyone celebrated, Ashura—no, the one who had been Raiden—sought to bury those final moments of the Anka Team. Because those moments were merely a dream.

  He prayed they were merely a dream.