The roof was burnt, broken, and covered in scattered stone. Smoke wreathed into the gloom above, and the air stank of fire and lightning. Kairos was halfway across, his body battered, bloodied, but alive. Ahead of him, the figure was kneeling in the ground, cloak burnt, mask cracked.
"You've grown," the figure grated, finally removing their mask.
Kairos's body tensed.
Underneath the steel plating was a face he recognized—though not in this existence. It hit him like a wave, and his mind was flooded with memories that were not his, and yet somehow felt like home.
Arius.
His warrior-mage of his third life. A brother-in-arms once. A friend once.
"You remember," Arius said, standing. "Good. Then you know I'm not your enemy. But I'll go easy on you no more until you know what's at stake."
Kairos moved back, cautiously. "You tried to kill me."
"No. I tested you. And you passed. Barely."
Lightning crackled at Kairos' fingertips again, reflexive, defensive.
Arius raised a hand, not to strike—but to placate. "The Circle isn't monitoring you. They're afraid of you. You're the first reincarnate to awaken all prior lives. They wish to seal you, prior to you remembering them all."
"Seal" you? Kairos frowned.
"They want to steal your soul, wipe out all memory of your past, and reprogram you as their pawn. You'll look the same, sound the same—but you'll be a pawn."
A sink in his gut. The chase hadn't been a hunt. It had been an abomination.
"Why?" he breathed.
"Because you were one of them," Arius spat. "In your first life—you created the Circle."
Kairos stumbled. Images exploded in his mind—rituals in bloodstone thrones rooms, armies kneeling, galaxies burning. His own face, crowned and empty, ravenous for power beyond comprehension. A conqueror. A god.
"I—I'm not that man—" he choked.
"It was you, nonetheless," Arius said. "And will be again, if you're not careful."
The earth trembled beneath them. A rumble, distant beneath them, drew nearer by the second. Arius stood at the rooftop's edge, his face grim.
"They've found us."
Up from the streets below poured a dark tide—agents in black silver armor, bearing gleaming temporal energy swords. Obsidian drones trailed after, following Kairos' energy signature.
"Run?" Kairos said, flames already bursting into life within his hands.
Arius cracked his knuckles. "No. We fight. And this time, we fight together."
The rooftop dissolved into pandemonium. Drones screeched as Kairos unleashed fire and lightning into the skies, tearing their formation asunder. Arius sprang into the air, calling upon a sword of pure memory—a sword of past lives—and plunged into the front ranks.
Blades met. Time fragmented. One of the agents struck Kairos, and for a moment he blinked into another existence—riding horseback, riding to war—then snapped back, parrying the next attack.
The more fiercely he fought, the more his other existences intruded on his mind. A priest murmured prayers of healing. A thief twisted with sinuous elegance. A tactician mapped the battlefield in his mind.
He was reclaiming more than himself.
He was pulling all of them back.
"Ay, kairos!" Arius shouted. "They're summoning a soul cage!"
On the opposite side of the rooftop, a Circle mage stood, his hand raised with a glittering monolith, its face shrouded in ancient runes. The air rippled with mutant gravity, pulling Kairos' soul magnetically towards it.
It would trap him—if it was summoned—mind, body, and all of the free souls.
He sprinted across the rooftop, dodging a blast of energy, and launched himself into the air. He landed in front of the monolith as it began to hum—and punched it in the face with both fists.
"I am not yours to command."
Energy erupted from him, an explosion of all his lives. The monolith cracked. then blew up in a burst of blinding blue flame.
There was silence.
The agents fell. Most of them turned and ran.
There were some left, and they knew they were outnumbered.
Kairos stood in the radiance of his own power, shaking, spent but victorious.
Arius crept towards him, gasping. "You're waking up earlier than I expected."
Kairos didn't answer. His eyes were still on the disappearing runes in the air, his hands still feeding on the destruction of the monolith.
He looked at Arius.
"What do we do now?"
Arius glanced up, where a second wave of drones erupted on the horizon.
"Now?" he growled. "Now we break out. And we find the others."
"Others?"
"Like you. Like me. Reincarnates. The ones they haven't found yet."
Kairos tightened his fists, every part of him trembling with fire, fear—and purpose.
"Then let's start a war."
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