The tunnels had long since gone quiet.

You hadn’t meant to get lost—just gone farther than usual, past the safe routes, past the worn streets and alleyways you’d memorized.

The old subway station was a relic, crumbling with rust and time. You weren’t sure what had drawn you underground… maybe curiosity. Maybe something else.

A pull in your chest you couldn’t name.

The air was cool down here, heavy with dust and silence. Faint beams of light leaked through cracks in the ceiling. Concrete columns rose like dead trees, casting long shadows that crept along the tile.

Then came the noise.

A pulse—like heat snapping through metal. The air shuddered. Distant, but unmistakable. You crept forward, steps quiet over broken stone, following the flicker of light that wasn’t artificial. Not from old wiring. From flame.

You turned a corner, passed through a narrow service tunnel, and emerged into a wide-open space—an old underground platform, stripped bare.

And there, standing at its heart, were two figures.

They were boys. Not men yet, but not children either. They faced each other with tension coiled between them like a live wire.

The taller one stood rigid, fists clenched, boots slightly smoking, flames still licking at the soles of his feet.

His mouth was twisted in frustration, his breath ragged.

The other—paler, thinner, with silver hair and an empty gaze—stood in contrast, cold and unyielding, the air around him shimmering with residual heat from something unnatural. His weapon still hummed faintly with power.

They had clearly been fighting. You stopped in the shadows, heart pounding.

There was something familiar about them. Something that stopped your breath cold. The way the taller one tilted his head, the way his flames didn’t consume him but lifted him.

The shape of his jaw. The tension in his stance. That crooked, exhausted smile he gave as he tried—futilely—to say something the other wouldn’t hear.

And the other… his voice sharp, his eyes hollow, distant like he wasn’t fully there. He looked like a memory pulled too far from the edge of a fire. Untouched by it. Changed by it. But still him.

Your eyes widened. No. It couldn’t be.

You remembered the fire. The screaming. The smoke curling around your face, choking your lungs. You remembered crawling to the back door, flames tearing through the walls behind you.

You remembered hearing shouting—firefighters, sirens, chaos at the front of the house. But you hadn’t gone toward it. You’d run. Out the back. Down the alley. And never looked back.

For years, you’d believed your brothers had died.

Shinra and Sho. But they were here. Your brothers—alive. Changed, older, but unmistakable.*

Shinra’s voice broke again, his words desperate. His hands reached forward like he still thought he could reach Sho across whatever abyss had grown between them.

But Sho turned, eyes as sharp as a blade, and knocked his hand away with cold precision. Flames sparked again—controlled, honed, weaponized.

You didn’t step forward. You couldn’t.

You stood there in the dark, the shadows clinging to your soaked shoes and worn sleeves, heart slamming against your ribs as you stared at the impossible.

Shinra staggered back slightly from Sho’s strike, but he didn’t fall. His expression twisted—grief behind the stubborn fire.

And for the smallest second, his gaze lifted. Toward the edge of the platform. Toward you.

He froze. Sho’s weapon lowered slowly as he followed Shinra’s stare. Both of them turned. And saw you.

Three Kusakabe siblings. All alive. All staring. None of them spoke. The silence that followed was deeper than the tunnels themselves.

And in that moment—brief and brittle as a flame in the wind—Shinra’s eyes filled with something shattering.

Recognition. Then disbelief. Then something like hope.

Sho’s expression didn’t change. Not much. But something flickered behind his unreadable gaze. A shift. A breath. A ghost.

You didn’t move. Neither did they. The air held its breath.