Down. It only went down. Farther and farther and faster and faster, it was the only thing she knew at that moment. Anything else took conscious effort to try and recall. Anything else was madness, horror, terror. She did not want to remember.

She struggled to remember anyway. Where was she? And how? Someone—she needed to help someone. Someone was worried for her, she had to make sure that he wasn't worried. Someone else was—dangerous. Or had the danger already passed? Where was she?

It was all darkness and spinning. She felt as though she were being ripped to pieces. Dammit, dammit, she had to focus. One thing at a time.

My name is Merag. I am an Emperor of the Barian. My brother is Nasch, the Emperor of Emperors, leader of the Barian World.

We are at war. The Astral World wants to destroy us. We have been amassing a force to protect ourselves.

Vector.

She remembered. Remembered his hands, grabbing her by the neck from behind, dragging her across the stones even as she kicked and struggled. Her brother—she remembered him running after her. Remembered Vector threatening her life, telling Nasch to step down from his throne immediately or he would cut her throat and throw her into—

The Abyss. The swirling mass of darkness at the center of their world. That was where they were.

They were getting ripped to pieces at the very soul.

She felt arms around her. Nasch. He had jumped in after her after she had tried to knock both her and Vector into the Abyss together—he had let her go and his wings had saved him, her alone dropping into the swirling darkness. Nasch shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have gone after her. The Barian needed their Emperor of Emperors. She should not have made him make a choice like that—what would the Barian do without them? And—and Vector. Vector was still up there. Would he take advantage of their absence? Would he declare himself ruler? That would only end in the death of the Barian World. Her people, her home, it would be run into death and ruin and despair. They would fall to the Astral and they would die. Durbe, Alit, Gilag, Mizael—

She had to get back up. She had to stop that from happening. She had to had to had to—

"I will preserve them for you."

The voice rippled through her. She felt her breath catch, something in her froze, her heart—did it stop? Was she dead, now?

Where did Barian go when they died?

And then everything stopped.

For a moment, she saw a glimmer across the back of her eyes. A pair of swirling sparkles that circled around a rectangle made up of many puzzle pieces that all interlocked and moved in and out of each other of their own accord. She could see it in perfect clarity—the Numeron Code?

"I have come to accept your contract," a small voice whispered past her ears. "My self in exchange for their lives."

Merag felt everything inside her seize up. The world flashed around her in a horrible spiral of thoughts and dreams and images. She saw herself, but it wasn't her—herself standing on a battlefield in ancient human clothing—herself as a child in a modern mansion, chased after by her brother while she waved his card just out of his reach. Timelines stretched and warped and overlapped and she couldn't breath, she couldn't see—

A face appeared at the back of her mind and she had to gasp. It was a familiar face, but it shouldn't be and it had a name she shouldn't know but she did.

And then everything stopped again.

She stared for a moment into a pair of pure black eyes, flecks of red burning like coals in their depths.

"They gave themself up for you," the owner of the eyes said, as though examining her. Considering her. She felt—she felt stripped by those eyes, right down to her very soul, and she shuddered, held captive.

"Who are you?" she breathed.

The eyes did not answer. They merely lifted to meet her own eyes again.

"I hope you and your brother don't make me regret this," they said. "I had to give up a good friend to save you."

Merag tried to speak but the eyes spoke over her.

"I'll let you keep some of your powers—but just you. I'm not sure I trust that brother of yours. Your sight will guide you. Make sure you listen to it."

She thought she felt a hand brush over her head for a moment. And it was the kind of feeling like...like a father, brushing bangs from her eyes, and she felt so very, very small.

"Make sure that asshole of a brother of yours stays in line," the eyes said. "And does what he's supposed to."

The eyes paused.

"I am sorry," he whispered. "You shouldn't have had to become this in the first place...we failed you. All of you."

And then she was falling again, falling, falling, falling—

And Kamishiro Rio burst away, gasping for breath, choking and flailing, there was something over her face, something plastic forcing air into her but she just wanted to breathe on her own, please just let her breathe—

"She's awake! She's awake! Someone call the doctor, we need him in here right now, both of them are still alive and they're fighting!"

Pain pain pain pain. In her head, in her limbs, in everything, she was dizzy and she couldn't see and—and where was her brother, where was he, why wasn't he right next to her, hadn't they just been in the car on the way to the theater...?

"Kamishiro-chan, just hang in there. Just hang in there, Rio-chan. You're going to be okay, all right? I'm right here. Just keep breathing."

Rio, she thought uncertainly. Kamishiro Rio. That's...that's my name.

It was her name. Right? That was her name.

Another name flickered over her for a moment. But it disappeared just as quickly.

She was Kamishiro Rio after all, right?

The name of the face she wasn't supposed to know fluttered over her mind before her eyes closed again.

Mayutsu, she remembered. That's...that's important...I should remember that...