An explosion of white light... screams... then absolute silence.
When the light faded, Cairn was no longer the same. He stood at the center of the hall, his body radiating a faint aura of intertwined blue and golden light. His eyes had changed: the right one glowed with a radiant blue, while the left was a deep black, speckled with points of light like distant stars.
The Axis members—Marin, Serena, Aliana—all froze in place, stunned by what they were witnessing.
"What have you done...?" Marin whispered, his voice trembling for the first time.
"What should have been done from the very beginning," Cairn replied, though his voice had also changed—deeper, more resonant, as if two voices spoke in unison. "The fusion is complete. I am now Cairn the Shadow, Guardian of the First Memory."
One of the Axis members tried to move toward him, weapon aimed at Cairn's chest, but with a simple gesture of his hand, Cairn froze him in place. Not physically, but by halting the very moment of time around him.
"I have seen the truth now," Cairn continued, looking directly at Marin. "I have seen everything. I saw what was, and what could be. I saw your betrayal, but I also saw your motives."
He took a step toward Marin, who recoiled in fear. "You were afraid of chaos. Of the burden of collective memory on humanity. Of the endless conflicts. You thought you were protecting them."
"People cannot bear the weight of all their memories," Marin defended, trying to regain his composure. "The pain, the loss, the endless ancient wars. Forgetting was mercy."
"But it became a weapon," Aliana interjected, cautiously approaching Cairn. "A means of control, not mercy."
Cairn nodded. "Power corrupts, Marin. Even good intentions."
"And what will you do now?" Serena asked, lowering the device in her hand, realizing it would no longer affect him. "Will you return the world to its former chaos?"
"No," Cairn replied calmly. "I will give it the balance it has always lacked."
Cairn raised his hands, and the crystal pillar, which had been shattered by the Blade of Memory, began to reform, but in a different shape. It was no longer a single column but seven smaller pillars forming a circle around a central point.
"Seven cities, seven types of memory," Cairn explained. "The original balance on which the world was created."
"But the other cities were destroyed," Marin said. "Erased from existence."
Cairn smiled strangely. "Nothing is ever truly erased, Marin. Memories remain, even if forgotten. And now, with the fusion complete, I can see them all."
He placed his hand on the central pillar, which began to emit a powerful light, flowing through the seven pillars. The entire hall trembled, and the light seeped through its windows, reaching the strange sky above them.
"What are you doing?" Serena cried out in panic.
"Restoring balance," Cairn simply replied.
Outside the tower, the sky began to change. The golden mist surrounding Eidolith expanded, spreading and flowing like rivers of light in every direction. And in the distant horizon, new lights began to appear—six large lights, each glowing with a different color, shining in different locations.
"The cities are returning," Aliana whispered in awe.
"Not the same cities," Cairn clarified. "But echoes of them. They will be seeds for a new system."
Marin looked anxiously out the window, then turned back to Cairn. "And what about the Forgetting System? Will you destroy it? Will you restore all the erased memories?"
"No," came the unexpected answer.
"What?" Aliana exclaimed in shock. "After everything that's happened, you're going to let it continue?"
Cairn shook his head. "I won't let it continue, nor will I suddenly restore all memories. Both would lead to catastrophe."
"Then what will you do?" Marin asked cautiously.
"I will restore balance to the system," Cairn continued. "Recollection and forgetting will remain, but they will be a choice, not an imposition. No one will ever again have the power to erase others' memories without their consent."
He looked directly at Marin. "Your system will end, but your original idea will not die. People will have the right to leave painful memories behind, but only by their own free will."
Marin shook his head in disbelief. "You don't understand. Humans are incapable of making these decisions for themselves. Chaos will reign."
"Perhaps," Cairn agreed. "But that is the chaos of freedom, and it is better than the tyranny of forced forgetting."
Cairn stepped toward the central pillar again, running his hands over the seven pillars, one by one. With each touch, the color of the pillar changed, beginning to pulse in a new, more harmonious rhythm with the others.
"What exactly are you doing?" Serena asked, watching with scientific curiosity that her fear could not suppress.
"Reprogramming the fundamental memory system," Cairn answered. "The system that existed before the Forgetting, before my original invention, before everything."
"Is that even possible?" Aliana asked in astonishment.
"With the full fusion, yes," Cairn replied. "The Eternal Shadow has existed since the dawn of human consciousness, guarding the collective memory. Now that we have returned to unity, we can correct the imbalance."
As he worked on the pillars, the ground began to shake more violently, and the hall lit up with intermittent flashes of light. Outside the windows, the sky was changing, rippling with multicolored waves like the aurora borealis, but sharper and more vivid.
"The transformation has begun," Cairn said. "The great shift."
Suddenly, the hall's windows shattered inward, and fierce winds blew through—but they were not ordinary winds. They consisted of threads of multicolored light.
"The memories are being freed!" Aliana shouted.
The Axis members tried to retreat toward the shattered door, but the luminous winds surrounded them, penetrating their armor and seeping inside them. One of them fell to his knees, screaming—not in pain, but in shock at what he was seeing in his mind.
"They are remembering now," Cairn said calmly. "Everyone who worked within the Forgetting System will recover the memories they erased from themselves. They will remember what they did to others."
Marin, who had stood firm until that moment, began to show signs of psychological torment. The luminous threads swirled around him more intensely, piercing his body and reaching his mind.
"Stop!" he cried out hoarsely. "I can't... I can't bear all of this!"
"This is not punishment, Marin," Cairn said, stepping closer to him. "It is responsibility. You will remember every person you erased from existence, every story you forced the world to forget. And you will live with those memories, just as others had to live without them."
Marin fell to his knees, his fists clutching his head, tears streaming down his face. "I was... I was only trying to save them from themselves."
"I know," Cairn said gently. "But there is a difference between helping and controlling."
Cairn turned to Serena, who stood in a corner of the hall, the luminous threads moving around her gently, without penetrating her.
"You did not directly participate in the erasures," Cairn observed. "So you will only remember what pertains to you, nothing more."
Serena nodded slowly. "And now? What will happen to the world?"
"Gradual awakening," Kairen replied. "Over the coming months, people will begin to recover their erased memories—not all at once, but slowly, in a sequence that suits each person's capacity to comprehend."
Kairen walked to the shattered window and gazed at the horizon, where new lights were beginning to appear, growing and spreading in every direction.
"The Seven Cities will return, but differently. They will become centers of collective consciousness, each representing an aspect of human memory. And they will be open to all, no longer reserved for an elite as they were before the Forgetting."
Alyana approached him, watching the world transform around them. "And what about you? About Kairen?"
He turned to her, his eyes gleaming with a strange mix of sorrow and peace. "The Kairen you knew no longer exists. Nor does the Eternal Shadow in its old form. We are a new entity now, the guardian of balance between memory and forgetting."
"Will you stay here? In Eidolith?"
He shook his head. "No. I will move between the Seven Cities and the world itself. I will be where balance is needed."
The moment was poignant. Alyana saw something familiar in Kairen's eyes—a memory of who he had been—but it was blended with something else, something deeper and far older.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," she said sadly.
Kairen smiled. "You didn't fail. You brought me here, helped me remember the truth. What happened had to happen. The merging was necessary to restore balance."
The light in the hall began to intensify, and Kairen himself started to transform, his body becoming more integrated with the surrounding light.
"Time is running out," he said. "There is still much to do."
He looked at Serena. "Use your knowledge to help people understand what is happening. They will need guides."
Then to the Pivotals and Marin. "You will face the responsibility for your actions, but not through vengeance—through repairing what can be repaired."
Finally, he turned to Alyana. "And you... you have an important role. You will be the bridge between the old world and the new. Between those who remember and those still on their path to remembrance."
"How?" Alyana asked. "I'm just a Rememberer who fled from the Keepers."
"You are much more than that," Kairen said with confidence. "When the truths begin to emerge, you will understand."
He placed his hand on her forehead, and Alyana felt a surge of warmth flow through her body. Then he gave her something—a small crystal, glowing with a faint blue light.
"This is a part of me... of us. Use it when you need guidance."
Kairen stepped away, moving toward the center of the hall, where the Seven Pillars pulsed with increasing strength.
"Goodbye, Alyana," he said, his voice resonating through the hall, blending with countless other voices. "We will meet again, but not as we are now."
With a single motion, he raised his hands, and light erupted from his body, flowing into the Seven Pillars, then shooting from them into the sky in seven massive beams of light, each a different color, piercing the clouds and reaching the horizon.
A collective gasp escaped from everyone, and when the blinding light faded, Kairen was no longer there.
The Seven Pillars remained, pulsing in a slow, harmonious rhythm. The hall, damaged from the battle, began to repair itself—the shattered glass returning to its frame, the cracks sealing.
And outside the windows, a new world was being born.
Four months had passed since what had come to be known as "The Great Day of Remembrance."
Alyana stood on a high balcony in the Tower of Memory, gazing at the transformed city of Eidolith. No longer shrouded in mist and isolated from the world, it was now connected to it through massive bridges of light, linking it to the six other cities that had reemerged across the globe.
She held a sketchbook in her hand, drawing what she saw: people streaming into the city from everywhere, searching for their memories, their histories, the truth of who they were.
The change had been difficult, as Kairen had predicted. The world had plunged into chaos for weeks as people gradually regained their memories. There were shocks, conflicts, trials for the former Keepers.
But there was beauty in the chaos as well—families reunited after long separations, forgotten cities brought back to life, histories, cultures, and arts once buried in the depths of oblivion flowing forth again.
Serena approached her, holding an old book. "We found more records."
Alyana took the book eagerly. She was leading an effort to document everything, to ensure that forced Forgetting would never happen again.
"Have you heard anything about Kairen?" Serena asked.
Alyana shook her head. "Only echoes. Sometimes I feel his presence, especially when I use the crystal. It's as if he's watching from afar."
Serena sighed. "The Keepers' system has completely collapsed. Some of them surrendered to justice, while others took their own lives when they remembered what they had done. Marin..."
"I know," Alyana interrupted. "He's working to repair what can be repaired. I saw him helping to build the new Memory Library in the Third City of Remembrance."
Alyana looked out at the horizon, where the Seven Beams of Light shimmered, stretching from the Seven Cities into the sky.
"Do you think we'll see him again?" Serena asked.
Alyana pulled the crystal from her pocket and watched the pulsating blue light within it. "I think he never truly left. He's everywhere now—in every memory recovered, in every truth revealed."
She smiled and turned to gaze at the glowing city. "And he's watching, waiting. Waiting for the day the world can bear the full truth."
"And what is the full truth?" Serena asked.
Alyana touched the crystal, feeling an odd warmth spread through her fingers. "That memories are not just images and sounds we store. They are who we are, what we are, and what we will always be."
As if the world had heard her words, the Seven Beams of Light flared brighter for a moment, then returned to their steady, rhythmic pulse, like the heartbeat of a giant breathing memories into existence.
And somewhere, in the space between memory and forgetting, between consciousness and the unconscious, Kairen the Shadow watched and waited. Because some stories never end, and some memories are eternal.
The End... or perhaps, the Beginning.