Chapter 43 – The Fire That Was Sealed

Cain sank into fire.

Not the raging inferno of battle. Not the golden flames of his Titan Core.

This was different.

It wasn't burning him.

It was recognizing him.

The moment the chains dragged him under, he stopped existing. His body dissolved, his thoughts unraveled, and for the first time since stepping into the abyss—since fighting, surviving, struggling—he felt nothing.

And yet, he was aware.

Not of himself.

But of what had been taken.

The fire shifted, shaping itself into something more than flame—a memory, a past, a truth he had been denied.

Cain saw himself.

Not as he was now.

Not as the struggling survivor clawing his way through an endless cycle of enemies.

But as something greater.

The vision was blurred at the edges, flickering between reality and something deeper, something unfinished.

He was standing on a battlefield, a real one, not a twisted reflection of memory.

And in this past—

Cain was not alone.

Titans stood beside him, golden fire roaring across the landscape as they clashed against an enemy Cain could not yet see. Their weapons cut through the air like living extensions of themselves, their bodies moving as though the very fabric of the world bent to their will.

And Cain was one of them.

He wasn't watching from the outside.

He was inside this moment, fighting alongside them.

His Titan Core burned brighter than any other, a golden storm that wrapped around him like an untamed sun. His armor was different—not the makeshift gear he had scavenged in his current life, but something forged for him. Something meant for him.

Cain felt the weight of it.

Felt the familiarity.

This wasn't just a battle.

It was the battle.

The last stand of the Titans.

The moment where everything was lost.

The clash of blades and fire shook the heavens, but Cain could feel something wrong in the battle—a weight pressing down on him, on all of them.

Something they could not stop.

And then he saw it.

A figure stood on the opposite side of the battlefield, watching the war unfold like a king observing his subjects. Unlike the Titans, who burned with golden fire, this being radiated something else.

Something wrong.

His form flickered, shifting between solid and something far less real. His eyes—golden, like Cain's own—glowed with something ancient and unchained.

Cain's breath caught.

The presence from the abyss.

The one who had whispered to him.

The one who had said—

"You were not meant to wake up."

The realization struck him like a hammer.

This wasn't just a war.

This was his war.

Cain turned to the Titans beside him, looking for something—anything—that could tell him why he was here, why he was seeing this now. But their faces were blurred, their voices distant, like echoes from a time too far removed.

But he knew what happened next.

He had always known.

The golden battlefield, the Titans who had stood beside him, the war they had fought—they had lost.

The fire had been snuffed out.

And Cain—this version of himself, the one in this vision—had been the last one standing.

His past self stepped forward, facing the flickering figure across the battlefield.

"You," Cain heard himself say, voice laced with fury. "You were never meant to exist."

The figure tilted its head slightly, as if amused.

"And yet, here I am."

The world around Cain rippled, the fire surging higher, brighter—then collapsing inward.

Everything froze.

The battlefield vanished, the Titans disappeared, and Cain was left standing in an empty space of golden light.

Alone.

No.

Not alone.

Cain turned, heart pounding.

The figure from the abyss was there.

Not in shadow, not hidden in the void.

Standing before him, clearer than ever before.

"Now you remember."

Cain's fists clenched, his Titan Core blazing in response. "What are you?"

The figure smiled.

"I am what you tried to destroy."

Cain's body locked up.

"I am what you sealed away."

The fire burned hotter, the golden light splintering like glass around them.

Cain knew what was coming next.

Because he had done this before.

This wasn't just a memory.

This was a warning.

And the thing in front of him—

The presence that had haunted him, the force that had whispered to him from the abyss—

Wasn't an enemy.

It was himself.

The part that had been locked away.

The part that should have never been freed.

The fire around them exploded, and Cain's Titan Core tore itself apart.

And then—

Everything went dark.