*The Child the Tower Tried to Forget***
The floor split.
Not a crack—
—a violent, living rupture that tore the platform apart like the tower was screaming.
Bungo—**Aru**—stumbled as metal plates flipped sideways, crashing into the abyss below. Kairo grabbed his arm, yanking him back from a sudden drop.
"BRO, THIS WHOLE PLACE IS FALLING APART—MOVE!"
The Woman in White remained perfectly still amid the chaos, her dress billowing in the violent wind.
She wasn't afraid.
She wasn't surprised.
She was remembering.
The monolith behind her—the **Mnemonic Seal**—shuddered, its cracks glowing with molten light. Voices leaked from it in broken whispers:
**—aru—
—come back—
—please—
—aru—**
Aru clutched his skull as the memories clawed toward him like frantic hands.
Kairo shook him. "Hey! Stay with me—ARU, look at me!"
The name felt foreign on Kairo's tongue.
It felt foreign in Aru's chest too.
Like a shirt he remembered wearing, but that no longer fit.
Solace stepped forward, shouting over the quake:
"We must leave! The seal's breaking—if it fully shatters, the Warden won't be the only thing unleashed!"
But the Woman in White turned sharply.
"No!"
Her voice cut through the collapsing metal like a blade.
"The seal must break. He needs to remember."
Solace faced her.
"You don't understand—"
"I understand more than anyone," she snapped. "I was there when he begged me to erase him."
Kairo froze. "He WHAT!?"
Aru felt the air leave his lungs.
Erase… himself?
The Woman in White stared at him, tears glimmering.
"Yes, Aru. You asked me to take it away. To hide your name. To lock your memories. To bury *everything* before they found you."
The shaking intensified.
Plates of metal ripped loose and spiraled into the abyss.
Solace hissed, "They? Who is *they*?"
The Woman in White looked at him.
Her eyes weren't scared—they were exhausted.
"The **Aural Crown.** The original rulers of Ardenia. The ones who controlled emotion, memory, and rhythm. The ones who used children as instruments."
Aru's heartbeat stumbled.
"I… was one of them?"
She stepped closer.
"You were."
Her voice cracked.
"But you were also the one who escaped."
Aru couldn't breathe.
He staggered back as shards of forgotten truth stabbed through him.
A laboratory.
Cold walls.
Voices chanting his name—
—no, chanting *Aru*.
Hands forcing him to perform rhythms until his vision blurred.
The Woman in White—
—standing at his side—
her trembling fingers entwined with his.
"We run," she had whispered.
"They can't have us. We run."
Aru gasped.
His legs buckled.
Kairo caught him again and yelled at the Woman in White:
"WHY the hell didn't you tell him earlier!? Why wait till we almost got eaten by a nightmare noodle monster!?"
A chunk of ceiling crashed behind them with the force of an explosion.
The Woman in White stepped toward Aru.
"Because the seal would have killed him if it broke before he was ready. But now…"
She touched his cheek with a trembling hand.
"…he's remembering on his own."
A crack thundered through the air.
The **Mnemonic Seal split down the center**, light pouring out like molten stars.
Aru felt the memories slam into him:
Running barefoot through a garden at night.
Her laugh echoing like bells.
A promise under the moon.
His hand reaching for hers.
A voice whispering:
**"If they take me, don't forget me, Aru."**
He remembered crying.
He remembered failing.
He remembered choosing to forget everything just to keep her alive.
The tower roared.
The Warden shrieked above, growing closer—faster.
Solace pointed toward the far edge of the platform. "We must move NOW!"
But the Woman in White didn't move.
Aru turned to her, voice breaking:
"What's your name…? Who were you to me?"
She closed the distance between them and pressed her forehead to his.
Her whisper was soft, trembling:
"**I was the girl you loved.**"
Aru's breath shattered.
"And my name…"
She gently lifted his hand and placed it over her heart.
"…is **Lyria**."
His chest clenched.
The Mnemonic Seal behind them burst completely—
A geyser of light erupted, blowing apart what remained of the platform.
Kairo screamed, "ARU, WE GOTTA JUMP!"
Solace grabbed his arm. "NOW!"
The tower walls tore away, exposing a vertical descent filled with drifting debris and glowing threads of memory that twisted like ghostly ribbons.
Aru reached for Lyria—
But she stepped back.
A soft, sad smile touched her lips as the wind pulled her hair like floating silk.
"You remember now," she whispered. "That's enough."
And before he could answer—
before he could grab her—
before he could scream—
The floor beneath Lyria collapsed.
Aru lunged—
"LYRIA—!!"
But a beam of light swallowed her, dragging her down into the abyss of memories below.
A single word echoed as she vanished:
**"Survive…"**
The blast knocked Aru backward.
Kairo and Solace grabbed him just as the tower gave its final, thunderous roar—
—and the three of them fell into the collapsing darkness.