The Archive of the Unnamed quieted as Ahri rolled the scroll shut, the names still burning faintly beneath her skin. Jin. Baek Hyun-tae. Herself. Her mother hadn't left a trail—she'd woven a lockbox and placed it in the hands of fate's most fragile rebel.
A thread hummed against her wrist.
Ahri turned to Sol, who was watching the floating spindles drift in their silent orbit.
"There's more," she said.
"There always is," he replied. "But this next part… you won't want to see."
"Then that's where I need to go."
They passed deeper into the archive, beyond the rings of unspun fates. The threads began to change—less memory, more structure. Rigid. Precise. Bound not to people, but to design.
Sol's voice dropped low. "The Loom has two eyes."
Ahri paused. "You've only ever talked about the Loom."
He looked at her carefully.
"One watches. One enforces."
They entered a chamber unlike the rest.
Not ancient—new.
The walls were smooth and white, polished with artificial threadglow. Crystalline orbs floated along the ceiling, blinking like eyes half-lidded with judgment. On the far wall was a giant embroidery—pure geometric symmetry. No chaos. No emotion.
A flawless pattern.
"This is the Loom's Other Eye," Sol said. "The Judicator."
Ahri took a step forward, eyes wide. "It's… beautiful."
"It's sterile." His voice was tight. "It doesn't weave life—it edits it."
From behind the embroidery, a sound stirred. Mechanical. Sharp.
Then a figure emerged.
Not Weftborn.
Not Hollowed.
This one wore no threads at all.
Their robe was smooth, colorless. Their face obscured behind a featureless porcelain mask. But their voice was unmistakably human—and eerily calm.
"Threadseer Ahri Seo. You were not meant to breach this archive."
Ahri took a step back.
"You know who I am?"
"You are a deviation. A spike in the pattern. You are the child of an erased mother and a frayed bloodline. Your golden thread is unstable. Your existence is… inefficient."
The golden thread on her wrist coiled tightly, glowing brighter in defiance.
Ahri narrowed her eyes. "And what do you do with inefficiencies?"
The Judicator tilted its head.
"We observe. Then we correct."
Sol stepped between them, voice dark. "This is what broke Miran."
The Judicator didn't flinch.
"Miran failed containment. Her thread became volatile."
"She was betrayed," Sol snapped.
"And she became a contagion," the Judicator replied, as if stating a weather report. "Just as you, Threadseer, are becoming."
Ahri clenched her fists. "I'm not contagious. I'm alive."
"No. You are remembered. That is the threat."
Suddenly, the embroidery behind the Judicator rippled. The patterns twisted, threads reshaping into a face Ahri knew too well.
Her own.
Except this version was empty. Blank-eyed. Perfect.
A future without her soul.
A rewritten version.
"This is what the Loom will choose if you continue," the Judicator said. "A thread without pain. Without flaw. Without choice."
Ahri stepped forward.
"I don't want to be perfect," she said. "I want to be real."
The Judicator did not move. But the room itself began to tighten. The threads quivered and pulled inward, trying to restrain the very space around her.
Sol grabbed her wrist.
"We need to leave. Now."
But Ahri stood firm.
"Not yet."
She looked the Judicator in its eyeless mask.
"You said I was remembered."
"Yes."
"Then remember this."
She raised the scroll her mother left behind—and unleashed it.
Light exploded across the room. The scroll unrolled midair, threads of flame, wind, shadow, and starlight pouring from it like wildfire. The embroidery cracked. The false version of her blinked—and vanished.
The Judicator staggered.
"You've violated—"
"No," Ahri said. "I've rewritten."
The room trembled. The crystal eyes blinked out, one by one.
And the Other Eye of the Loom closed.
They ran, the archive collapsing behind them, scroll trailing flame, her golden thread ablaze.
And somewhere deep beneath it all…
A voice stirred in the Hollowed dark.
"She's opened the door."