1. Aro
The sensation struck like a delayed echo — a ripple through memory that wasn't entirely his.
He blinked. The room was still, the others — Alin, Iris, and Selene — seated in their respective chairs around him, each staring forward at something only they could see. But the pulse remained, just beneath his ribs.
Then, in the space between seconds, it happened.
Flash:
A white corridor. Flickering lights. Rin — running toward something. No — someone. A whisper carried in reverse.
"You should not have remembered this."
Aro gasped.
Alin's hand gripped his.
"You felt it too?" she asked, voice trembling. Her eyes were misted, as if she had seen a future that should have been a past.
From the corner, Selene looked up. "There's something wrong with the threads."
2. Rin
Rin stumbled into the next room — the one with no labels, no systems, just herself.
Except it wasn't just her anymore.
Across from her stood another girl. Same age. Same face. But her eyes were heavier — full of knowledge Rin hadn't yet earned. She wore the uniform from the very first exam. Chapter 1.
"Who are you?" Rin asked, already knowing the answer.
"I'm who you would've been," the other Rin replied, "if you hadn't ever remembered him."
And then the world shook. Not violently — but with a strange, crystalline click. Like a mechanism locking into place.
Weaver's voice, from nowhere, from everywhere:
"Do not trust this memory. She's a fragment. Not a threat, but… not the whole you either."
Rin stepped forward anyway.
"Even if she's a fragment… she was still me."
3. Technician Yren (Unseen, Monitoring Elsewhere)
Dozens of panels flickered across the curved wall of Yren's observatory. She tapped into both Aro's and Rin's feedback loops, comparing resonance.
"They're syncing. Not just across memory, but across current layers. That shouldn't be possible…"
She adjusted one of the sliders.
"Unless…" She froze.
The override controls had vanished. Not greyed out. Gone.
"Threadwriter. You didn't just seal the story…" Her voice trailed off, a flicker of awe (or fear) crawling into it.
"You're making it real."
4. Weaver (Private log – unsent)
Weaver stared at the still image of Rin and the echo of her memory self.
"They're merging."
He leaned back.
"And we're nearing the edge of fiction."
He didn't send the log. Not yet.
5. Back to Aro's Group
The memory anchors burned faintly above each of their heads — sigils not fully understood, flickering like forgotten constellations. They didn't know yet what they meant.
But all of them, silently, instinctively… reached out to each other.
And far away, in a space untouched by author or system, something very old stirred.