I. The city where memory becomes crime
Varosk, known for centuries as the City of Archives, had been a symbol of judgment, of written laws, of collected truth. Its streets were paved with white marble, its buildings were living libraries, and its citizens prided themselves on living by unchanging codes.
But now, all that was about to be extinguished.
For three days now, the new authority imposed by the Historical Review Committee—secretly led by Serah V. , one of the Ebony Shadow's Fatalities—had begun replacing the public records with an edited version of the nation's history. Each new document was shorter. Cleaner. More… compliant.
And every time someone cited an unrecorded memory, they were accused of "Inventing the Past."
The city wasn't burning. The city was silent.
And that silence, like ink, hardened with each passing day.
II. The illegal entry of Akihiko and the team
Akihiko, Juno, and Riva arrived at the borders of Varosk under false identities provided by a still-resisting underground cell.
They posed as archivists from minor provinces.
The border didn't have armed guards. It had souvenir checkers.
Small devices scanned your brain activity as you answered questions about historical events. If your recollection differed from the official record , you were redirected to "cognitive counseling."
Akihiko, with a cool hand, passed the test by responding according to the corrupt protocol.
Riva nearly failed. And Juno… had to inject herself with an emotional blocker to suppress her rage.
Once inside, the city seemed beautiful. Orderly. Calm. But the air… had a dense weight, as if every word spoken was being watched from within.
III. The Official Memory Decree
In the Central Archive Tower, Serah V. was preparing to sign the new law that would give legal form to institutional oblivion:
"Any truth not recorded will be considered fiction. Any fiction that contradicts the official truth will be considered sedition."
That night, citizens would take to the streets with white candles, not in protest, but in celebration of "the clean truth . "
But Akihiko's team was already on the move.
IV. Infiltration of the Central Archive
The night before the signing, Akihiko and Riva entered the building through a conservation tunnel that had been sealed for years.
The interior was a marble temple, lit by soft light, guarded by formless drones.
There were no soldiers. There were language sensors.
Riva had developed a chip that fooled phonetic detection. But it would only last an hour.
—"Let's go get the original records.
If we show them, your story won't hold up."
Upon reaching the sealing chamber, they found the true texts. Among them was a document titled:
"Shadow Trial Instructions – Record of the Ebon Shadow in Varosk, Year 0."
It contained the first mafia infiltrations, judicial manipulations, symbolic murders...
And the name Serah V. as a direct daughter of one of the original executors.
V. The siege
Upon leaving the vault, they inadvertently activated a historical retention protocol. The entire archive changed structure: the doors disappeared. The walls began to rotate.
It was a labyrinth of narratives.
And each passageway led them to a new version of the truth.
Juno forced her way in from outside. Meanwhile, Serah V. had already been alerted.
—"They don't want to steal a file. They want to restore the wound. I won't allow it."
He activated Oculus Mode:
a holographic sequence that distorted the immediate memories of those who saw his face.
A psycho-legal weapon.
VI. The confrontation
When Akihiko and Riva reached the final hallway, Serah was waiting for them with two escorts.
—"Do you know what happens when a lie is repeated under your breath for a thousand days?"
—"It stops hurting," Akihiko replied.
—"No. It becomes a root."
Riva threw the original documents to the ground.
The archive's visual sensor scanned them and began displaying the real story on the city's screens.
Serah panicked for the first time. "You can't restore what the people chose to forget."
—"It's not the people who forgot. It was you who taught them not to remember."
The fight began.
It wasn't physical. It was perception. Each blow changed what the witnesses thought they saw. Riva began to destabilize the Oculus Mode core.
And when Akihiko managed to touch Serah's mask... she screamed.
A cry not of pain, but of exposure. Because when the mask fell away, his face revealed all the versions he had pretended to be.
VII. The Fall of the Archive Tower
With the core altered, the archive collapsed into content. The documents floated like projections.
People read them in the streets without knowing why they were crying.
Honestly, for the first time in days… I didn't ask permission.
Serah was captured by Juno. The decree was suspended.
And although many voices were calling for the official history to be restored…
a new question was emerging in the neighborhoods:
"What if our truth was never ours?"
VIII. One less enemy. But not the end.
Serah was handed over to an independent truth-preserving group.
But before she was locked away, she whispered to Akihiko:
—"It's not what we erase that hurts…
it's what we leave written by mistake."
And Akihiko knew that there were still versions of the world more dangerous than oblivion.
END OF CHAPTER 146