The aftermath tasted like ashes.
We gathered in the ORC clubroom as dawn broke over Kuoh - exhausted, bruised, victorious. But no one celebrated. Victory rings hollow when the foundation of your world collapses.
Xenovia sat in the corner, eyes fixed on nothing. Durandal lay across her knees, its holy light muted like a dying star. The woman who had walked into battle with unshakeable faith now looked like a shell wearing human skin.
"I would like to join your peerage."
Her voice came out flat. Empty. A formality spoken by someone with nowhere else to go.
Rias looked at her - really looked - and nodded. "Are you certain? This is permanent."
"God is dead." Xenovia's laugh held no humor. "What else matters?"
The Knight piece glowed as it merged with Xenovia's chest. Another addition to our family, born from tragedy.
Asia sat beside Irina on the couch, holding her friend's hands. Irina's faith had cracked but not shattered - she muttered prayers between sobs, desperate to believe they still reached someone.
"He's still there," Irina whispered. "He has to be. The system still works. The prayers still... they still..."
Asia didn't correct her. Some lies are kinder than truth.
I watched from the doorway, cataloging everyone's condition. Kiba stood by the window, tension coiled in every line of his body. Valper was in custody, but the satisfaction of justice felt distant. Akeno made tea with mechanical precision, her usual playful energy buried under exhaustion. Koneko sat in a sunbeam, silent as stone.
And Mira, in the far corner, watched me with Fragment-sharp eyes.
She knows something's wrong.
"Everyone knows something's wrong," the Fragment observed. "You're radiating distress like a beacon."
I stepped outside before anyone could ask questions.
Rias found me on the roof.
Of course she did. She always found me when I was trying to hide.
"That scar on your wrist." Her voice cut through the morning air like a blade. "It's been glowing."
I looked at the mark. The twelve-pointed star pulsed with faint luminescence, visible even in daylight. I'd stopped trying to hide it weeks ago - too much effort for too little gain.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Since the trial." I met her eyes. "Maybe before."
"What is it?"
The question I'd been dreading. The secret I'd kept even from her, even after I'd confessed everything else.
"His name is the Watcher." The words came out heavy. "He's a psychic entity - ancient, territorial. He's been marking potential hosts for centuries." I touched the scar. "I'm one of them."
"Marking for what?"
"Extraction. If I hit 50% Echo without integrating, I become... vulnerable. He can separate me from the Fragment." I paused. "Consume me. Use my body as a vessel."
Rias's expression didn't change, but her hands trembled at her sides. "How long has this been happening?"
"Months. The countdown started at thirty days. After last night..." I checked the Fragment's internal clock. "Maybe ten days left."
"Ten days." Her voice rose. "You've been carrying this for MONTHS and you didn't - "
"I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"That you'd lock me up. Keep me safe. Stop me from helping." I forced myself to hold her gaze. "That you'd treat me like a liability instead of a partner."
The silence stretched. I watched her process - the anger, the hurt, the understanding. Rias Gremory, who'd been protecting people her entire life, confronted with someone who'd hidden danger to protect himself.
"I'm not going to lock you up," she said finally.
"You should. It would be safer."
"Safer." She stepped closer. "You think I care about safe? You think ANY of us care about safe?" Her hand caught my chin, forcing me to look at her. "We face this together. That's what families do."
"Even when one of us might kill everyone?"
"Especially then." Her eyes blazed crimson. "The Watcher wants you isolated. Weak. Doubting. Don't give him what he wants."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to trust that this wouldn't end in betrayal.
The mark pulsed. The Watcher laughed.
I found myself alone in the training room an hour later.
The others were resting, recovering, processing. I should have been doing the same. Instead, I stood in the center of the empty space, sword in hand, running through forms I'd never learned.
Kiba's forms.
The footwork came naturally - precise, elegant, efficient. The stance felt like home. The blade moved in patterns that shouldn't have been familiar, but were.
"Identity bleed," the Fragment noted. "Concerning."
I know.
The sword dropped from my fingers.
I wasn't practicing. I was remembering. Experiments I'd never suffered. Pain I'd never felt. Friends I'd never had, dying in a gas chamber I'd never seen.
Thirty children. Screaming. Scratching at glass.
Not my memory.
But it felt like mine.
[ECHO STATUS: 47%]
[Identity coherence: DEGRADING]
[Source: Kiba Yuuto behavioral patterns]
"No," I gasped. "No, no, no - "
The room spun. Kiba's grief poured through me like poison, mixing with my own fears, my own traumas. The Fragment tried to intervene, but the boundaries were breaking down.
I screamed.
The sound echoed off the walls, raw and desperate. I wasn't Ryder Cross anymore. I wasn't Kiba Yuuto either. I was something in between - a patchwork of stolen lives, held together by willpower and denial.
"Control yourself," the Fragment commanded. "You are Ryder Cross. Host of the First Fragment. Everything else is echo."
How do I know? My thoughts came fragmented. How do I know which memories are mine?
"You don't. But you decide which ones matter."
The darkness closed in.
The Watcher struck while I was vulnerable.
One moment I was kneeling on the training room floor. The next, I was somewhere else - a cold, empty space that smelled like fear.
Rias stood before me, but wrong. Her expression held no warmth. Her eyes held no recognition.
"You're too dangerous," she said. "I need to protect my peerage."
Movement behind her. Figures in robes - Restoration agents, their powers humming with hostile intent.
"Rias, wait - "
"I'm sorry, Ryder." She stepped back. "But you're not worth the risk."
She handed me over. Betrayal. Abandonment.
[PSYCHIC INTRUSION: THE WATCHER]
"She knows. She'll abandon you. 12 hours, Ryder Cross."
[ECHO SPIKE: 47%]
"NO!"
I lashed out - instinct, not thought. Power exploded from my hands, raw and uncontrolled.
The vision shattered.
Reality reformed around me. The training room. The dropped sword. And Rias - the real Rias - stumbling backward, hurt blooming in her eyes.
I'd hit her. Not hard, not dangerously. But I'd hit her.
"Ryder? What - "
"Was that real?" I gasped, clutching my head. "Or him?"
"Who?"
"The Watcher. He's in my head. Showing me things. Making me see - " I couldn't finish. The words stuck in my throat.
Rias's expression shifted. Hurt transformed to fury.
"Someone is attacking you psychically and you DIDN'T TELL ME?"
"I was - "
"Afraid. I know." She grabbed my shoulders, grip fierce. "Listen to me."
I looked at her. The real her. The Rias who had defended me at trial, who had accepted my Fragment, who had waited while I kept secrets.
"The Watcher wants you isolated. Weak. Doubting."
"So what do you do?"
"You TRUST."
"Me. Them. Yourself."
"That's how you win."
Her words hit harder than any attack. Trust. Such a simple concept. Such an impossible task when your own mind was the battlefield.
But she was here. She'd followed me despite the danger. She'd confronted me despite the lies. She was still here, hands on my shoulders, refusing to let go.
[ECHO STATUS: 47% → 46%]
[Trust reinforcement: ESTABLISHED]
The Watcher's voice receded, frustrated.
"Sentimental weakness. It won't save you."
But it just had.
We sat on the training room floor, backs against the wall.
Neither of us spoke for a long time. The silence wasn't uncomfortable - it was necessary. Processing time. Breathing room.
"Tell me everything," Rias said finally. "The Watcher. The Restoration. All of it."
So I did.
I told her about the psychic assaults - the visions of death, the manipulation of fear. I told her about the Restoration's interest in Fragment hosts, their extraction techniques, their ideology of "purification." I told her about the countdown, the escalating pressure, the growing difficulty of distinguishing my thoughts from the Watcher's insertions.
When I finished, she was quiet.
"How do you know what's real?" she asked.
"I don't."
"Then how do you function?"
I considered the question. The Fragment stirred, offering its perspective.
"Reality is consensus. When your perceptions are compromised, you rely on external verification."
"I trust the Fragment," I said. "And I trust you. When I can't trust myself, I trust the people around me to tell me what's true."
"That's a lot of faith."
"It's all I have."
Rias reached out. Her hand found mine - warm, solid, real.
"You have more than that," she said. "You have us."
The mark pulsed. The Watcher whispered something contemptuous. But the words couldn't reach me - not with her hand in mine, not with her presence anchoring me to reality.
"She's not abandoning you," the Fragment said. "The Watcher lies."
I know.
But knowing and believing were different things. And belief was getting harder every hour.
The Fragment's warning came at midnight.
I was in my room, trying to sleep, failing. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flashes - Kiba's dead friends, Rias's cold betrayal, Dohnaseek's contempt. The Echoes mixed with the Watcher's manipulations, creating a nightmare collage of everyone I'd touched and everyone who'd hurt me.
"Ryder Cross." The Fragment's voice cut through the chaos. "We need to discuss your status."
I'm aware.
"You've crossed a threshold. Echo at 46%, with Watcher acceleration, means integration cannot be delayed."
How long do I have?
"Days. Perhaps hours, if the Watcher continues his assault." A pause. "I must be direct: integration now or lose yourself. Those are the options."
I sat up in bed. The room felt too small, the walls too close. My hands trembled against the sheets.
What does integration actually mean?
"The Soulscape. Your internal landscape, where the Echoes reside. You will enter it, face them, merge or overcome them. Success means harmony - a unified self with access to all absorbed abilities without the bleed. Failure means..." Another pause. "You become what Dohnaseek was. What Riser was. A shell wearing their hatred."
Great options.
"I didn't design this system. I merely operate within it."
The door opened.
Rias stood in the hallway, dressed for sleep, exhaustion carved into every line of her face. She should have been resting. She should have been recovering from the battle, the revelation, the chaos.
Instead, she was here.
"I couldn't sleep," she said.
"Neither could I."
She crossed the room and sat on the edge of my bed. Not touching, but close. Present.
"Integration," I said. "I need to do it now. Before the Watcher wins."
"Are you sure?"
"No." I laughed - a broken sound. "But I'm doing it anyway."
"What can I do?"
"Be here when I come back."
"If you come back." Her voice cracked.
"WHEN." I caught her hand. "I'm coming back. I have too much to lose not to."
She squeezed my fingers. Hard. Like she was trying to anchor me through touch alone.
"Then I'll be here," she said. "Waiting. However long it takes."
"Preparations are complete," the Fragment announced. "Tomorrow, you enter the Soulscape. Tonight, rest. You will need your strength."
Rest. Right. Because sleeping before facing your demons was definitely possible.
But Rias stayed. She didn't leave, didn't offer false comfort, didn't try to fix what couldn't be fixed. She just sat with me, hand in mine, as the night crept toward dawn.
The Watcher's countdown continued. Seven days remaining. Maybe less.
Tomorrow, I would fight myself.
And only one of us was coming out.