Time of Death: 17/05, 24 of the Miredith Era: [H,42-M,25-S,51]

In an area within the region of Lantia, is a scene like no other.

In the area larger than a colosseum by a multiple of ten. There lie tens of thousands of buildings, shattered, torn, obliterated, even straight up disintegrated along with the ground. Craters, blood, bones, body parts lie strewn upon the land.

With the appearance of an ancient ruin or site of a massacre, a group of forty or so people walk towards the center.

Led by a man looking to be in his twenties with short deep tanzanite colored hair and observant light cobalt eyes. As they walked none talked, whether to respect the dead or something else, no-one knows.

After a good few kilometers of walking, the group stopped at a beautiful ruined house.

Made of aquamarine and emerald colored marble, twelve pillars laid upon a foundation of the same coloring. One could infer the building was a sort of enlarged pantheon due to the layout of the leftover intact rubble and the positioning of the pillars and collapsed entrance.

Stuck to the base of five of the pillars, were humans. With a large stake of metal, at times crackling with sparks, these spikes looked to be made by a master craftsman with runes lining the whole spike and the design resembling that of an ancient ballista bolt.

Many of the group's facial expressions twisted while others looked away, all of them recognizing at least one of the humans.

In between the group and the foundation lie bodies of hundreds, if not thousands of people. The leading man gazed upon the center of the two innermost pillars, sitting upon stairs was a person in a cloak and mask covered in blood.

The mask itself was simple, a frontal mask blocking off their entire face from those who gaze upon them. The mask's design consisted of a black base with a gold tree seemingly made of lightning upon it. The cloak had a golden-brown and green tree with almost endless roots embedded into it's black silk.

The leader of the group began to walk, only for their arm to have been grabbed by another man. As the man opened his mouth, he met the suffocating gaze of the leader before hesitatingly freeing him from his grip. As the leader walked, more and more of the group whispered among each other, while some took up bows that shimmered, created orbs of varying elements or readied a weapon. As the leader arrived in front of the man on the last step of the foundation, he noticed the thin cracks along inner bits of the lightning on the mask.

The leader spoke, with a rough and subtle fury in his tone. "Gray... you won't escape this time you know, just come with us quietly and go to Fiel, we can stil-"

A melodious, androgynous voice came from the sitting man. "You know more than I, that you can't stop what I've done. You know the destruction of an Origin Root will kill the person. Subtly, slowly and sorely. Don't kid yourself, Laine Wyatt, not again."

"BUT! WE C-"

"NO! NO YOU CAN'T LAINE!"

Gray abruptly shouted. Following the shout were tightened bowstrings, grips and further compressed magic.

The leader, Laine, clenched his teeth visibly and roared. "ARE YOU JUST GOING TO GIVE UP ON YOUR LIFE THEN! WHAT DO YOU THINK H-"

In a tone colder than helheim itself, Gray spoke. "𝕯𝕺 𝕹𝕺𝕿. 𝖀𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖊."

A man in the group shouted furiously, borderline a roar. "AND WHAT DID YOU DO FOR HER? LEAVE HER TO DIE? WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO SAY HER NAME GRAY! WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT!?"

A silence developed before Gray spoke once more. "I don't recall saying that I, of all people, could speak her name."

Although quiet, the enhanced senses of those present could hear the whisper of Gray.

Laine spoke once more. "Then let me ask one thing."

A small nod from Gray and Laine continued.

"Why?"

The nostalgic question caused a scene to flash before Gray's eyes. A flower field of nothing but purple hyacinths and an abundance of multicolored azaleas. A lone girl stood solitude in the field, only when she turned towards him did her dark and cold green eyes gain a semblance of life back and her thin mouth curved into a stunning smile.

*CRRK*

The lower half of Gray's mask broke, revealing his sincere cracked smile. Only a few seconds later when the rest of it broke, did they see his closed eyes. His body, void of life.

None of the group cried or showed any form of emotion at his death. Only Laine bit his lips until they bled in frustration.

At what, who knows.

Laine walked back to the others. The group turned... and left.

Barely a few minutes had passed after they left when Laine's vision begin to blur, his steps unsteady, his body falling. The last thing he heard was the worry and shouts of his friends along with his own single thought. 'I wish I could have helped Gray, before any of this happened, before... before...' Before becoming void of all life.

Far away from them, in a void of it's own, stood a solitary tree. It's 32 roots disappearing into portals, floating far below the levitating tree. The tree itself was at least a few kilometers tall and a light brown color trunk with green leaves, however, the true beauty was the intricacy of it. Etched into the tree's trunk, it's leaves, it's roots, it's very essence... were golden veins and runes. With an occasional pulse of a turquoise light, the tree stood in silence before releasing a a flash of light, much longer than any other pulse that occurred.

It thought to itself, 'I hope that boy can entertain my theory. If so, the 30 worlds of Origin will be able to fight back.

For once in a millennium.'

Unbeknownst to most, the soul of Gray, through incomprehensible means, went back in time. To 24 years ago.

In the hospital, in a solitary room, devoid of people, lay a boy. He looks to be eight years old, with turquoise-silver hair. He abruptly opened his heavy sparkling eyes. His tired but open eyelids revealed shimmering golden irises with amber flecks and a silver lining. He had a round face and cheekbones while his mouth was thin with a single fang-like tooth hanging out. This boy, is Gray.

Realizing where he was, Gray instantly sat up, only to regret it as pain flared in his abdomen. His first thought at seeing the familiar hospital room was 'D-did, I really, go back? In time?'

As Gray glanced around he spotted the same stuff that was there 24 years ago. 'T-that's, my sisters' phone, she left it here when she went to get water. Over there is that? It... it's Freddy, my teddy bear. I-I thought that was destroyed in the fire 21 years ago.'

Gray rubbed his right temple clockwise while pondering on the current events. Of course, he was holding Freddy.

At that moment, a girl, a boy and a man entered the room. Their entrance was evident due to the creak that emanated from the door. Gray looked towards the narrow corridor from which three people came out.

The first, a boy with healthy pale white skin. He had curly chestnut brown hair with clear amber eyes. His face consisted of sharp eyes and a pointed nose while his lips seemed dry. He wore simple attire that went with his short stature of 4'3. It was made up of a sky blue t-shirt and navy jeans with dark red and black sport shoes.

The next one to come in was a girl of 4'3 with rosy white skin, she had long and wavy dark blue hair and soft ocean eyes with short lashes. She had a round face and button nose with thin saturated light red lips. She had a grey blouse over a green t-shirt and a knee-length grey skirt with black socks and yellow flats.

The last to come in was a man with light brown skin. He had short and spiky blonde hair with slanted golden-brown eyes to complement it. He was about 6'4 and had a chiseled face and crooked nose. He wore a doctor's clothing consisting of a lab coat, jeans and long-sleeved shirt.

All three looked at Gray with eyes opened wide and mouths half-open. The girl's eyes became teary before she ran up and straight up bear-hugged Gray.

"GRAY!" The girl shouted, her voice was a childish but clearly feminine one.

Gray was bewildered before returning the 7 year old's hug.

'It's Alicia... but, she died?'

His own closed eyes had tears on the edge as he embraced her.

"How do you feel?" Gray looked up to find the owner of the slightly ambiguous voice was the boy.

'It's Alex, damn, I forgot that 'demon' master of the Fier guild was once an innocent child. Wait, wasn't... wasn't Alex a girl? No, no that's right, he was genderbent.'

Gray laughed softly before speaking in a soft voice barely on the masculine side. "I'm fine Alex, how have you been? It feels like I haven't seen you in years."

Alex gave a wry smile and said. "I've been well, a bit tired here and there. Especially worried about the fact that one of my best friends got struck by lightning. You're lucky your Origin Root is lightning based, otherwise you might've died."

As if a lightbulb lit up above the doctor's head he asked. "Did the lightning strike improve your understanding? How high is your root now?"

Gray opened his eyes and looked at the doctor with a glimmer of surprise. 'Ah right, that's the serial killer I teamed up with at one point... what was his name again... Jeff? No... Jason? No, ah! It was Jack!'

Gray opened his mouth to speak, and said a simple sentence. "It did, I jumped from 19th Root understanding to 13th."

Alicia lifted her gaze and stared at Gray with a mouth wide open while the other two did as well. Gray looked back at Alicia and said. "Close your mouth, you'll let flies in like that."

Alicia suddenly exclaimed and shut her mouth with her hands clasped over it. Jack, Alex and Gray simply let out loud laughter while Alicia pouted with her cheeks puffed out... and her hands were still guarding her mouth.

After a while of laughter, the others left Gray to let him rest. Alicia pouted as she left since she tried to take Freddy but Gray moved him behind his back at the last moment.

The empty, solitary room left Gray to his thoughts.

'It's... the same. So far, everything that happened from me waking up to this point is, the same.'

"Of course it is."

Gray's heart jumped at the sudden voice.

"Calm down, I'm just here to deliver a message."

It was an ambiguous but clearly wise echo that bounced throughout his head.

The voice took a deep breath before speaking.

"Only in despair, did you regret.

Only at the loss of your anchor, did you finally go insane.

Only for your duty, did you attempt to defy death and try to avenge 'her'.

By the Authority of the Origin Tree, Yggdrasil, I shall give you a single chance."

"Why" Came out from Gray's mouth instinctively.

"Why, you ask? It's simple, boredom and nothing else."

He blanked for a minute before chuckling, saying a simple but rare thing.

"Thank you."

He sat up and crossed his legs, closed his eyes and held his knees with his back straight. As he slowly entered deep meditation, he saw the image of a tree. The tree itself was blurry and mostly obscured. A single path of roots, however, were clearly seen and had yellow shimmering veins along them. He focused on the highest part of the roots. The one he focused on was made of pure lightning, it was not, however, normal lightning. It was solid. A solid Lightning root, symbolising something that every Lightning practitioner can only dream of. Origin Root 0 of Lightning, the Origin of Lightning.

This was the fortieth time that Gray glanced upon it but only the third in this 'new life'. Gray already concluded that he went back in time after he died. This time, however, he decided to change the rule he lived by. No longer would he not intervene, he would protect 'Her'. In order to that, he'd need 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 and he'd need to do what he couldn't do before dying.

Figure out, track down and 𝓢𝓛𝓐𝓤𝓖𝓗𝓣𝓔𝓡 those who killed 'Her'. Gray then realised something, changing his expression.

'It looks like... in order to get 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, I'll have to lose 𝘪𝘵.'

"Fuck." He cursed.

From there on, Gray saw his parents, his other siblings, his classmates, some of his friends, all for a second time, until...

Laine arrived.