Before Odania was divided.
Before half of the land disappeared.
Before the occupation.
Before the rewritten history.
Before the name Safuu became known...
Odania was whole.
The land stretched farther than the generations of the present could imagine.
The Odaa trees stood freely.
The language did not need to hide.
Children did not have to learn their history in secret.
And among them...
was a thirteen-year-old girl.
“Lalise!”
The girl turned.
Her mother was calling her.
She ran toward her.
Her name was Lalise.
A name meaning...
to flourish.
But her mother had another name for her.
A name she used with affection.
“Safu.”
Lalise smiled.
Lalise.
To flourish.
Safu.
Respect.
Together...
The Flourishing Respect.
She was only thirteen.
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No mysterious old woman.
No warrior capable of standing against terrifying Origins.
No princess who had disappeared from history.
No woman carrying the weight of a broken Odania.
Just Lalise.
A thirteen-year-old girl living in a whole country.
And she wasn't alone.
Two figures were already part of her life.
Two young protectors whose names history would one day bury beneath titles.
One carried a spear.
Even then, there was something unusual about the way he held it.
Not like a weapon made for conquest.
Like an instrument of judgment.
One day...
he would become known as:
THE KNIGHT OF THE SPEAR.
THE RIGHTEOUS FIRSTBORN.
The other stood closer to the sacred Odaa trees.
Her connection to the roots of Odania would eventually become something far greater than anyone around her could have imagined.
One day...
she would become:
THE KNIGHT OF THE SACRED ODAA TREE.
THE GUARDIAN OF THE ROOTS.
But those titles belonged to the future.
For now...
they were simply part of Lalise's world.
A world that had not broken yet.
A world that still believed tomorrow would resemble today.
It wouldn't.
And somewhere impossibly far from thirteen-year-old Lalise...
another tomorrow had already happened.
A man was dying.
Safsan.
Older.
Different.
Blood covered him.
His breathing was failing.
And Kairo held him.
“Kairo...”
“Don't talk.”
Kairo pressed his hand against Safsan's wound.
“We can fix this.”
Safsan looked at him.
They both knew that wasn't true.
“Kairo.”
“Stop.”
“Kairo.”
This time...
Kairo looked at him.
Safsan's breathing weakened.
Then he said one name.
“Safuu.”
Kairo froze.
Safsan struggled for another breath.
“Save her.”
Kairo stared at his best friend.
In this future...
Safuu was dead.
Safsan had survived.
And somewhere along the path that followed...
that survival had led here.
To Safsan dying on Kairo's knees.
“Kairo...”
His voice was barely there.
“Don't let her die.”
Kairo's hands trembled.
Safsan looked at him one final time.
His best friend.
The person he trusted with his last wish.
Then...
Safsan died.
Kairo remained there.
Holding him.
For a long time...
he didn't move.
Then GREEN THUNDER began to form around him.
Time opened.
And Kairo made his decision.
He would go back.
He would save Safuu.
He would change what happened.
He would fulfill his best friend's final wish.
And perhaps...
if Safuu survived...
Safsan would never reach the future where he died in Kairo's arms.
Kairo entered time.
He searched.
He traveled backward through events Safsan had already lived.
And eventually...
he found what he needed.
There was something Kairo did not know.
Something even more cruel than failure.
SEENEE knew a future where Safuu survived.
But in the future Safsan had lived...
Safuu died.
Safsan survived.
Two futures.
Two contradictions.
Kairo believed he was moving from one toward the other.
He believed every warning he gave...
every intervention...
every choice...
was changing history.
He warned Safuu.
He gave her knowledge.
He helped shape decisions she otherwise would never have made.
He tried to prevent her death.
But step by step...
Kairo created the circumstances he was trying to escape.
The civil war.
Safuu's plan.
Her full Origin.
NAREZEN's appearance.
The battlefield.
Safsan.
The black chains.
Every attempt to move away from that future...
brought him closer to the events his dying friend had already experienced.
Kairo didn't know that yet.
He believed there was still time.
And so...
he went farther back.
Much farther.
Before the divided Odania.
Before the woman called Safuu.
Before everything.
GREEN THUNDER flashed.
Thirteen-year-old Lalise stopped walking.
Something felt strange.
The air changed.
The two young protectors immediately moved closer to her.
Then—
CRACK.
Green lightning appeared where nothing had been a moment earlier.
A young man stepped out of time.
Kairo raised his head.
For a moment, he simply stared.
She was so young.
Nothing like the Safuu he knew.
The girl looked at the stranger standing before her.
Kairo had traveled through time for this moment.
He had watched his best friend die.
He had carried his final wish.
He had come to save the woman who wasn't supposed to die.
But standing before him...
wasn't Safuu.
Not yet.
It was thirteen-year-old Lalise.
She looked at him curiously.
Kairo opened his mouth.
And for the first time...
Lalise met the man from her future.