Silence ruled the tunnels beneath the Spiral.
Not the soft stillness of peace—but the heavy, airless quiet that came after a collapse. Like the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for the echo to die.
Riven walked carefully. Each step stirred light in the shattered floor—veins of fractured glass lit by memory residue. Kaia padded close beside him, silent, sensing the tension.
Ahead, the earth gave way to something unnatural.
The Bloodglass Archive.
It rose from the ruin like a broken cathedral—spires of mirrored crystal jutting at impossible angles. It pulsed with muted light. A structure grown from the emotions of the dead.
Riven stared.
"I've seen enough ruins to know this one breathes."
A sound behind him—boots on stone. Heavy. Familiar.
He spun, blade half-raised—then froze.
"…Brenn?"
The tall figure stepped into the glow. Broad-shouldered. Steel-plated chest guard scarred with ash. Same tired eyes. Same anchored presence.
For a second, Riven couldn't speak.
"You're real?" he breathed.
Brenn's face didn't change, but his voice cracked faintly. "I was about to ask you the same."
"You were—" Riven stopped himself. "I saw the tunnel collapse. Back then. Before the sky burned."
"Yeah." Brenn looked away. "So did I."
Footsteps echoed from the darkness above. Light, fast, sure.
Kalix landed in a crouch, blades shimmering faintly at her sides.
Her voice was a whisper, taut with disbelief. "You stubborn bastard."
"Kalix…"
She stood. The same short-cut hair. The same narrowed eyes that saw everything and trusted nothing.
"You died," Riven said.
"You did too," she snapped. Then her expression cracked—something desperate in her grin. "Took you long enough."
He didn't know who moved first—just that she was hugging him tight, blades forgotten, fingers trembling on his back.
"I tried to find you," he whispered.
"We all did."
A figure stepped into the light. Cloaked. Silent. Hair silver-white. A faint shimmer of woven threads curled from his fingers.
Nilo.
Of course Nilo had survived. Quietest of them all. Most impossible to kill.
Kaia stared at him, growled softly—then approached and sniffed his hand.
Nilo knelt, resting his palm on her head without a word. Kaia leaned into the touch.
Riven looked at the three of them. "This is impossible."
Kalix's eyes flicked to his. "The System didn't bring us back. We've been alive. Scattered. Pulled through hell."
"I thought you were gone," Riven said. "I thought I lost everything before the world even changed."
"You nearly did," Brenn muttered.
They were real. Solid. Breathing.
His team.
No, more than that.
Back when the world still had rules, before the fractures began, before the System turned survival into numbers—Kalix, Nilo, and Brenn had been his only constants. His shelter in the storm.
They hadn't been teammates. They'd been family.
Kaia barked low, breaking the moment.
The Archive pulsed ahead.
"I was following a thread," Riven said. "Aya's. I think part of her is inside."
No one questioned it.
They just stepped beside him, like they'd never been apart.
The Archive opened as he reached it—no resistance. It accepted him.
Inside, the air thickened with memory. The walls glimmered with embedded emotions—frozen in panes of glass. Rage burned in red veins. Love pulsed in soft gold. Fear, grief, longing—they glowed with desperate heat.
Kaia whined at his side.
"She doesn't like it," Kalix said.
"Neither do I," Brenn added, hand drifting toward his hilt.
Nilo touched a glass shard gently. "This place remembers."
The System chimed—quietly, as if wary.
> Anchor Zone Detected: Class II – Echo Archive
State: Sentient / Mnemonic / Dangerous
Reward Fragment Detected – [Aya Vale]
Warning: Emotional Instability Likely
"Aya…" Riven whispered. "She was here."
A whisper shivered through the Archive. A voice not spoken, but remembered.
> "If you find this, I'm sorry. I wasn't strong enough to stay."
His sister's voice. Not audio. A memory. Burned into the walls.
"Then we bring her back," Kalix said.
They pushed deeper.
The Archive twisted as they walked. Corridors looped into themselves. Rooms blinked out and reappeared elsewhere. Nothing stayed still.
Then the Echoforms came.
The first emerged as a flickering silhouette—half-child, half-shadow, its face blank but weeping. Dozens followed—some wearing familiar features. Friends. Parents. Lost strangers Riven had glimpsed in his past.
All false. All hostile.
Kalix moved first—her shadow-blades singing. Nilo wove threads that snared and confused. Brenn anchored their line, absorbing blows and pushing forward. Kaia evolved before his eyes—striking harder, faster, glowing gold with stored memory.
And Riven… he let instinct guide him. He remembered how they moved as a team. Not perfect—but practiced. A rhythm that hadn't left them.
Wave after wave fell.
At the heart of the Archive, the air condensed.
A figure stood waiting. Cloaked in mirrored glass. Its face reflected Riven's own.
"You seek the girl," it said in his voice.
"She's not gone."
"She is preserved. What remains is not yours to claim."
"I don't care," Riven said, stepping forward. "She's my sister."
"You're not strong enough," the Archivist whispered. "You never were."
Kaia growled—and surged.
Riven followed.
The fight was chaos.
The Archivist fractured reality. Spun emotions into weapons. Echoforms poured from the walls. But together, they held. Brenn's shield became immovable. Kalix danced through shadows. Nilo severed threads before they unraveled.
Kaia slammed into the core, and Riven struck the final blow.
The Archivist shattered.
And everything stilled.
A shard of golden memory floated upward.
Riven reached for it.
And suddenly, he was standing in a hospital hallway. No Archive. No enemies.
Just a girl on a bed, pale and smiling.
"Aya."
She looked up. "You made it."
"I thought you—"
"I'm still here," she said. "But I'm scattered. I gave myself to keep the thread from breaking."
Tears blurred his vision. "I'll find the rest of you."
"I know." She looked behind him. "Don't lose them again. They matter."
Then she was gone.
Riven fell forward—
—and landed back in the Archive.
Kaia was beside him, glowing brightly. Her breathing deep but calm.
The System stirred.
> Companion Evolution Complete
Kaia: Phasekin II – Echo-Bound
Trait Gained: [Memory Anchor]
Riven sat up, stroking her fur.
Brenn stepped forward. "What did you see?"
"Hope," Riven whispered.
The System pulsed again.
> Subordinate Link Established: Brenn – Relic Sentinel
Trait Gained: [Shared Weight]
Brenn snorted. "About time."
Kalix emerged, blades low. "Was it really her?"
"Yes," Riven said. "And she's not finished."
Nilo joined them, silent but steady.
Riven looked around—at the people he thought he'd buried before the world ended. Before the System. Before rebirth.
"I don't know how you survived," he said. "But I'm not letting go again."
They nodded, as if that was all they needed.
As they turned toward the exit, the last shard of Aya's memory shimmered and joined the thread in Riven's chest.
She was out there.
And now, he had the people he needed to find her.
Together, they left the Archive—and stepped into whatever came next.