"You will suffice."
That's what whispered in Raizen's mind the night a Nyx slaughtered his village - right before the creature dissolved into golden ash at his feet.

He doesn't know what spoke. He doesn't know why it chose him, or why it led him to an unconscious girl in the forest with no memory of who she is. All he knows is his parents are dead, his home is gone, and he's too weak to do anything about it.

So he runs to the only place that'll take him: the Underworks.
An underground city of rust and desperate souls living below Neoshima's gleaming walls, where Nyx hunters - Gravers - buy chipped weapons with their last coins and drag themselves back from contracts with missing limbs. Where a few come back and most disappear in the dark alleys.
But Takeshi - a scarred veteran and legendary assassin with a mechanical arm and a wall full of mysteries - takes him in. Gives him a roof. Gives him a chance. Introduces him to the Rust Room, where a former Phalanx warrior named Kori teaches him the deadliest of weapons are nothing without the deadliest of techniques.

Then Takeshi gives him a choice: stay in the Underworks and become another Graver with a death wish, or aim higher. Train for the Lotus Academy - where Vanguards learn to master Eon, the mysterious force that turns ordinary fighters into the only ones who can truly fight nightmares and live to see more.

But the voice that saved him hasn't spoken since that night.
And Raizen's starting to realize - it's still watching.

Raizen stood in the entryway with the dead-eyed expression of a man who had been handed a workload disguised as a homework assignment. Kori's slate was still in his hand, she let him have it because the "homework" was too much to transfer via cloud. The header on the document had read, in three lines of bold, something like:


VANGUARD CADET RANK 2 EVALUATIONCOMPETENCIES: MISSION REPORT, COMBAT VERIFICATION, DIVISION PRESENTATION, INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENTDEADLINE: 7 DAYS


He'd had his life back for approximately two hours.


Arashi exploded off the couch like a launched projectile. He was wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing the day Raizen left for Ukai, plus a few stains that suggested he'd been wearing them a lot lately. Same loose shirt with the most comfortable pants Arashi had. His grin was huge, arms already opening for what appeared to be an attempted tackle.


Chapter 403 - Incomplete Home