Reborn to take over the stage のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 161 - チャプター 170

The voice echoed through the darkness.“We are coming back.”Ethan held his son closer as the black circle on the baby's palm opened like an eye.Seren's expression changed.“Everyone, stay behind me.”The First Chooser laughed bitterly. “You still believe you can protect them?”“No,” Seren answered. “I believe they deserve the chance to protect themselves.”The darkness split.Figures emerged from the opening, each carrying a different face. Some looked human. Others were little more than shadows with glowing eyes.Ethan recognized one immediately.The silver-eyed figure from the earlier fractures stood at the front.Behind it were countless unfamiliar beings, all staring at the golden field with expressions of anger, grief, or bewilderment.“They were never supposed to return,” the Witness whispered.Seren shook her head. “They were never supposed to be prevented from choosing.”The silver-eyed figure approached Ethan.“You promised us freedom.”“I offered you a choice,” Ethan repli

Ethan stared into the darkness.The boy standing beside Mara looked no older than seven. His eyes were unmistakably Ethan's, but his expression carried a sadness that belonged to someone who had spent years being forgotten.Elena covered her mouth.“No,” she whispered. “We shut down the project. We destroyed every record.”The boy looked at her.“You destroyed the records, Grandma. You didn't destroy me.”Richard caught Elena before her knees gave way.Ethan felt his newborn shift against his chest.“Brother,” the baby murmured.The boy below looked up.For a moment, the two children watched each other across the darkness. Their marks glowed simultaneously, yet the black circles remained separate from the five golden points.“Who are you?” Ethan called.The boy hesitated.“I don't remember my first name.”“Then you don't have to give me one.”The child's expression changed, as though nobody had ever offered him that freedom.Mara tightened her grip on the fragment of light.“Ethan, li

The last light went out.For a moment, Ethan could hear nothing except his newborn's cries.Then the darkness spoke.“I am coming.”The First Chooser fell to its knees.“No,” it whispered. “You cannot do this.”Ethan turned toward it. “What is happening?”The ancient consciousness looked up, its face stripped of every trace of certainty.“The first possibility has waited outside existence since the beginning. I tried to bring it back, but it refused. Now it has decided to enter on its own terms.”“Why would that be wrong?”“Because it doesn't want a life,” the First Chooser answered. “It wants existence itself to belong to it.”Seren's expression tightened.“If it succeeds, there will be no other choices. Every consciousness, every possibility, every life will become part of one existence.”Ethan looked down at his son.The black circle on the baby's palm was growing darker.His daughter clung to Richard's leg.“Daddy, broken.”Ethan knelt beside her.“Something is changing, sweethear

For one terrible second, Ethan could not breathe.His arms were empty.The golden points had vanished. The sixth black circle was gone. Even the faint connection he had always felt with his son had disappeared.“No.”The word escaped him before he could think.He reached outward with his consciousness, searching for the familiar presence that had once chosen him as a father.Nothing answered.His daughter clutched his shirt.“Daddy?”Ethan forced himself to look at her.“I'm going to find him.”“Brother gone?”He swallowed.“Yes. But I haven't stopped looking.”Richard moved beside him. “Ethan, whatever took him—”“I'm not waiting for it to bring him back.”Ethan closed his eyes and reached beyond the space around them. He searched through memories, abandoned possibilities, and the fragile connections that remained between realities.He found thousands of voices.He found the city.He found the people who had nearly been absorbed by the first possibility.But he could not find his son

Ethan recognized the voice.Not because he had heard it recently, but because some part of him had carried its echo through every broken reality.“Evan?”Kai looked up sharply.“Who is Evan?”Ethan didn't answer immediately.The voice came again, quieter this time.“Ethan, listen to me. Whatever happens, don't let the boy remember me.”Ethan's newborn gripped his shirt.“Daddy, who?”“I don't know yet,” Ethan lied.His son studied his face.“Not true.”Ethan sighed. “No. Not entirely.”The boy nodded, apparently satisfied with the honesty.Behind them, the Witness approached, its expression troubled.“That voice came from a reality the Unmade should have erased.”“Evan is still alive?” Richard asked.“Alive is not the right word,” the Witness replied. “His consciousness was separated from the pattern that allowed Ethan to exist. He may be trapped in a place where neither life nor death has meaning.”Ethan remembered the warning Evan had given him before.Do not let them choose you as