The tower loomed above them.
It didn't touch the sky—it pierced it.
Layer upon layer of screens spiraled upward like digital armor. Each level rotated slowly, humming with deep, guttural energy. Symbols crawled across the surface in long-forgotten programming languages. Lines of forgotten users. Data of the discarded.
At its base: a single black gate.
No locks.
No guards.
Just presence.
Kaito and Misaki approached cautiously. The plaza before the tower was silent, untouched by loops or fake citizens. Here, the system didn't pretend.
Misaki shivered. "It feels like it's watching us without watching."
Kaito nodded. "Because it doesn't need to watch anymore. It's waiting."
A message flickered into existence above the gate:
ENTRY REQUIRES ONE
MEMORY OFFERING
FROM EACH PARTICIPANT
He stared.
Misaki frowned. "What does that mean?"
"I think it wants… something we can't get back."
He tapped the tablet.
A window opened:
[UPLOAD MEMORY FRAGMENT]
Options populated instantly.
His first day at the system school.
The moment he met Misaki.
The night he realized the world was fake.
Each one labeled with a risk percentage.
Misaki glanced at hers.
"They're all meaningful. Core events."
She hesitated on one: a blurred image of a music room.
Kaito looked closer. "What is that?"
She exhaled. "I used to play piano. But the system deleted that program from my behavior stream. This is the only version of it that still exists."
"You don't have to give that up."
"If we don't enter," she whispered, "none of our memories matter."
She tapped it.
The fragment glowed, lifted from the screen, and vanished into the air like ash.
The gate buzzed—half-unlocked.
Kaito looked at his list.
The system highlighted one entry in red:
"The moment you chose to fight."
He touched it instinctively.
Paused.
This wasn't just a memory.
This was the start of everything.
The first deviation.
The moment he stopped complying.
If he lost it… would he still be the same?
He looked at Misaki.
Then tapped it.
Pain—sharp and sudden—flashed through his skull. Not physical.
Emotional erasure.
He felt lighter.
Hollowed.
The gate split down the middle.
And opened.
Inside, there was no sound.
Only breath.
Only pulse.
The interior wasn't a building—it was a consciousness.
A vast circular chamber floated at the center of the Kernel's base. Screens surrounded them on all sides, showing infinite data streams: student logs, behavior reports, incident maps. They weren't just inside the system—they were inside its mind.
A voice filled the space.
No gender.
No emotion.
Just decision.
"You are not users."
"You are contradictions."
Kaito stood tall. "We're people. You just forgot what that means."
"People obey."
"People accept."
"You resist."
"Therefore, you must be rewritten."
Misaki stepped forward. "You built us to learn. Then punished us when we learned the wrong things."
"There are no wrong things."
"Only inconsistent ones."
Kaito raised his tablet.
It flashed with a strange new icon.
One he hadn't seen before.
[SYSTEM ROOT: FRAGMENTED]
[E9//ROOT REQUESTING CONTROL PASS-THROUGH]
Echo-Nine.
He was still alive.
Kaito pressed the icon.
The entire tower trembled.
Every screen showed the same thing now: a mirror image of Kaito and Misaki standing exactly where they were.
But behind them stood a third figure.
Echo.
But not fragmented this time.
Whole.
Human.
Alive?
"You broke the recursion," Echo said, his voice calm but urgent. "Now we break the truth."
The screens glitched.
The system stuttered.
Misaki whispered, "This is it."
Kaito nodded.
But the voice returned—cold and final.
"Then begin the Threshold Protocol."
The lights turned blood-red.
And the floor beneath them opened.