The child, small and confused and trying desperately to reconcile impossible memories with an innocent present. This version—me, I thought—was drowning in experiences that belonged to others, struggling to find solid ground in a sea of contradictory truths.

"Which death was real?" I whispered to the morning air, the words torn from my throat by a despair I didn't fully understand. "Which life had meaning?"

Without understanding why, I began to cry—not just for confusion, but for children whose names I remembered but had never known. For battles fought with skills I'd never learned. For deaths that felt more real than this sunlit morning. The tears came in great, heaving sobs that shook my small frame and drew stares from the other children.

Through my blurred vision, I could see scenes playing out like fragments of nightmares made manifest. A blade in my hand, moving with deadly precision until the moment it failed. Flames dancing at my command, beautiful and terrible, until they turned against me. The sound of my own voice pleading with creatures that had no mercy, begging for death as they tore me apart piece by piece.

The mudball fight ceased as everyone turned to look at me, confusion and concern written across their young faces.

"I couldn't save them," I whispered, and the words carried the weight of failures that stretched across lifetimes. The weight of children I'd watched die, of monsters I'd failed to defeat, of a village consumed by light while I stood helpless. "I was too weak. Again and again, too weak."

"Are you okay?" Sylphiette's voice was soft, concerned. She had moved closer while I was lost in my visions, her earlier fear apparently overcome by worry for a boy who had come to torment her. The kindness in her gesture cut through my confusion like sunlight through storm clouds.

I looked up at her through my tears, seeing both the frightened child she was now and the scattered fragments of other possibilities—her emerald hair streaming with blood as darkness claimed her, her gentle smile fading as monsters closed in, her voice calling my name as I failed to reach her in time.

They were all real. Every death, every failure, every moment of helpless watching as everything burned.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. "I'm so sorry, Sylph."

The nickname felt natural on my tongue, though I had no memory of ever using it before. Sylphiette's eyes widened in surprise, but there was no anger in them. Only confusion and something that might have been the beginning of forgiveness.

The weight of future knowledge pressed down on me like a physical burden. I knew what was coming—the great disaster that would scatter this peaceful village to the winds in seven or eight years. I knew the paths these children would walk, the pain they would endure, the choices that would define their lives.

But knowing and preventing were different things entirely. I had tried before—how many times?—and failed each time. The memories of those failures burned in my mind like acid.

"How boring. Let's head back," Somar muttered, his earlier enthusiasm dampened by my breakdown and Rudeus's display of magical power. I could see the tremor in his hands, hear the slight catch in his voice that spoke of fear poorly disguised as bravado.

"What are you doing there, Claude? Let's head back!" Mike's command carried the authority of someone desperate to return to normalcy, to pretend that magic and tears and strange behavior were things that happened to other people.

I pushed myself to my feet, brushing dirt from my clothes with hands that still shook from the memory fragments. The earthy scent of the forest floor clung to my clothing, grounding me in the present moment even as