[Rin]
The floor beneath Rin was smooth and white, but it felt cold, like something unfinished. She stood alone in the white room, still holding the memory box. It was half-open now, and every time she blinked, something flickered in her vision — not a scene, not a memory. Just fragments. Her hand trembled, and the lines on her palm darkened.
Ink.
It was ink, not blood, that dripped from a small cut on her wrist. It pooled in her hand and then spread thin across the floor in delicate lines, like something was trying to write using her.
A voice spoke behind her — a child's voice. Quiet, direct.
"Don't let it finish the sentence."
She turned. No one. Just the empty white.
Her breath slowed. She closed the box fully, and the ink stopped spreading. For a second, she could hear her own heartbeat, and she realized she hadn't heard it at all until now.
"Who wrote me like this?" she said aloud. "And why are they trying to take it back?"
[Aro, Selene, Iris, Alin]
Aro crouched by a crack in the garden wall, watching the clouds above shift unnaturally fast. Something was coming. He turned back to the others — Alin was checking the compass device, while Selene stood silent, staring at the reflection of the tower in the garden's still water. Iris leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"They've started scrambling the sky," Aro said.
"Which means Rin's made contact," Selene replied. She spoke without hesitation now. The hesitation she once carried was gone.
Alin turned. "Are we going in?"
Aro nodded. "Yes. But not just to follow. We're not here to retrieve her. We're here to finish what started with us too."
Iris looked between them. "All of us failed last time, didn't we?"
Selene's voice was steady. "No. We survived last time. That was the point."
They moved together toward the tower — not rushing, but focused. The gate accepted their presence with a low hum. No resistance.
"Someone opened this already," Alin murmured.
Aro felt it in his spine: Rin had left a trail behind. But she wasn't waiting for them. She was ahead — farther than they had ever gone.
[Weaver | Observation Deck]
Weaver stood before the projection wall, watching the layers collapse and reorder. Threads that were once distinct had begun to intersect. Several were blinking out.
A technician approached. "The system's running untested overlaps. The failsafes aren't applying correctly."
Weaver didn't respond at first. His eyes were fixed on a ripple forming at the edge of the core thread. It looked familiar.
"She's not just remembering," he said. "She's writing. With herself."
The technician stepped back.
Old Weaver's voice came through the open comm panel. "You see it too now, don't you?"
"I thought we had time," Weaver replied.
"You never did," Old Weaver said calmly. "You thought sealing her memories would slow her. But she was made by him."
"And us," Weaver added, quietly.
There was silence. Then Old Weaver said, "We tried to patch something infinite. It was always going to overwrite us."
The feed glitched.
"Then why did we try?" Weaver whispered.
"Because we were afraid of what would happen if she remembered everything."
[Closing Beat]
Somewhere beyond the observation decks, beyond even the layer the Weavers controlled, a girl stepped into a new corridor. The lights flickered in sequence, then stabilized.
Her steps slowed.
"Jun...?" she said.
But the corridor remained still.
Her name had not been called.
And yet... it was waiting.