The corridor flickered.
A thin sliver of starlight poured through the cracks in the dream warped world, bending time and silence as the Observer's fragmented will scanned the changes. But it was not just the Observer watching now.
From a small ripple in the temporal distortion, Alicia Renvale stood alone— separated from Jay and Rei for the briefest of moments. Her hand hovered over a terminal made of floating runes and translucent petals. Her heartbeat thudded— not out of fear, but purpose.
"This… is part of him," she whispered, brushing her fingers against a glowing name tag: J. Arkwell. Data streamed from it like faded memories, silent but heavy.
Behind her, a glint of blue static shimmered, forming the outline of Rei Kazuma's previous self —silent, incomplete, but present. Alicia did not flinch. She turned her head just slightly, enough to acknowledge the echo.
"You're trying to save him too, aren't you?" she asked. No reply came but her intuition had already answered.
