The path wound upward now, threads reshaping into stairs that shimmered beneath Ahri's feet. Each step buzzed faintly—like a voice trying to speak a forgotten word.
Sol walked beside her, but kept his eyes low. Ever since she'd returned from Rin's chamber, he had said little. Not in disapproval. In recognition. She had seen something she shouldn't have. And she had walked away from it.
Only a few ever did.
At the stair's peak stood a massive stone archway, half-crumbled and draped in ivy woven from thread. Carvings etched into the arch twisted and reshaped when Ahri tried to focus on them, like they weren't meant to be read.
"What is this place?" she asked.
Sol glanced upward.
"The Archive of the Unnamed."
He stepped forward and pressed his palm to the arch.
The stone pulsed. A low, resonant tone vibrated through the ground.
Then the door opened.
Beyond it lay a vast circular chamber, ancient and hollowed out, with spindles of glowing thread suspended in midair like floating lanterns. Each spindle spun slowly, rhythmically—threads tightening, fraying, vanishing, returning.
There were thousands.
Tens of thousands.
Names—unspoken. Lives—unfinished.
Ahri stepped inside. Her thread glowed brighter, as if sensing kinship.
A thread hovered down to her, brushing her fingers.
A vision struck instantly.
A woman with braids of starlight weeping beside a dying tree.A child shouting for a brother who no longer remembered her name.A spirit fox pacing atop a mountain made of broken charms.A name being whispered—but drowned by silence.
Ahri staggered.
"These were real," she said. "These aren't stories. These were people."
Sol nodded solemnly. "People the Loom refused. Names it rejected because they broke its patterns."
He gestured to the room. "They were once Spirit Weavers. Dreamers. Rebels. Lost souls who didn't fit the design."
"Like Rin," she murmured.
"Yes," he replied. "And like you might become."
Ahri turned slowly, the threads brushing past her like soft winds.
"Why does the Loom erase them?"
Sol hesitated.
"Because perfection is efficient. Messiness is remembered."
Ahri stared at the thousands of stories that almost were. She could feel them pressing into her thread now—like a tide of memory pleading not to vanish again.
In the center of the room stood a table carved of old thread-bone. A scroll lay upon it. Rolled, sealed, humming faintly.
Ahri approached.
The seal bore a symbol.
Her family crest.
"I know this," she whispered. "This was my mother's thread."
Sol nodded once. "Her last weave. Sealed before she vanished."
Ahri picked it up.
The seal cracked open.
A warmth poured out—not just from the thread, but from within herself. As if the scroll was stitched into her already, waiting for permission to bloom.
Inside was only one line, inked in starlight:
"The Loom forgets. I remember."
And beneath it… three names.
Jin.Baek Hyun-tae.Ahri Seo.
Ahri stepped back.
"I was always meant to find this," she said. "She left this thread for me."
Sol nodded. "She didn't just leave you behind. She left you within the story. Hidden where the Loom wouldn't look."
Ahri turned toward the vast field of glowing spindles, now pulsing in rhythm with her breath.
These weren't ghosts.
They were reminders.
And maybe—if she was strong enough—they could be rewoven.