Gaia Chronicles: The Integral Saga

Location: Northern Outskirts of Euralegia – 3 Weeks After the Rift Truce

Snow drifted across the frozen landscape like dust from a forgotten world. The mountains here remained silent witnesses to the events of ages long past. Beneath one of those peaks, a lone figure trudged forward, the wind howling against the long coat wrapped tightly around him.

Cyg Synthesis 11 moved without emotion. His gunblade, Aetheron, rested against his back, and his boots crunched steadily through the deepening frost. He hadn't spoken a word in days.

"Why here?" Thea's words from a week ago echoed in his mind. "Why now?"

"Because the signals from the First Abyss Temple appeared here," he had replied coldly. "And because no one else can outthink this place."

But it wasn't just the abyssal anomaly that had drawn him to these mountains.

It was memory.

Location: Gaia HQ – Courtyard Balcony

Back at Gaia HQ, a small group gathered beneath the lantern glow. Hikari stood at the railing, arms wrapped around herself.

"He left without saying goodbye again…" she whispered.

Harriet scoffed, arms crossed. "He never says goodbye. Just vanishes like frost on glass."

Eun-Ha's eyes narrowed. "This isn't one of his normal missions. I felt it in his posture—he's chasing something personal."

Charlotte appeared with a flick of her holographic wristpad. "He filed the mission solo. No backup. No returns expected. Classic Cyg."

Mia, sitting on a bench with Lexigra floating by her shoulder, looked worried. "He doesn't want to be found."

Elaine stood beside her. "But we'll go after him anyway… right?"

Sylvia gave a half-smile. "He'd do the same for us. Even if he'd pretend not to care."

Location: Frozen Archive Ruins – Interior

Cyg entered the remnants of a long-forgotten Gaia installation, half-buried beneath the mountain's crust. The temperature dropped with every step. His breath frosted in the air.

This place wasn't listed in any records. He had only known of it from encrypted fragments hidden deep in the Gaia network—a place once used for experiments in temporal ether fields. The name had been redacted. But the moment he arrived, one word had appeared etched on the walls in ice:

"SYNTHESIS."

He narrowed his eyes.

"No one should know that word unless they were part of the original trials..."

He stepped into the central chamber—and there it was.

A cryo-stasis capsule. Empty. Shattered.And beneath it, carved in perfect mirror-etched frost:

"Welcome back, Subject 11."

Flashback: Age 8 – Gaia Pre-Trial Facility

In the dim corridor of sterile walls and constant humming, a younger Cyg sat silently at a table, eyes staring ahead as a technician observed him.

"He's never spoken. Never cried. Barely eats. But he solved the harmonic ether puzzle in thirty-two seconds."

"He doesn't need to speak," the other muttered. "He just needs to survive."

The door opened. A much younger Leonardo walked in. He looked at the boy.

"Cyg… do you want power?"

Cyg turned his head slowly. His first word ever spoken was:

"Why?"

Back to Present – Cyg

Cyg clenched his jaw. The capsule, the frost, the memories—they weren't just anomalies.

Someone was luring him here. Someone who knew.

"Show yourself," he said quietly.

From the shadow behind the ice, a voice emerged.

"I thought the cold might jog your memory."

The figure stepped forward—masked, tall, dressed in ruined Gaia armor etched with abyssal markings. A fallen Knight.

"You're the result. I'm the failure. But we were both born here."

Location: Gaia HQ – Hikari's Room

That same night, Hikari sat in the dark, Sanguira leaning against the wall beside her.

Her fingers clutched the scarf Cyg had once left behind—a tactical one, faded with wear, but still holding faint traces of his ether.

"He'll get himself killed if he keeps locking himself away," she said aloud.

She stood.

"...Not this time."

The wind outside howled faintly, as if answering her resolve.