The morning came too fast.
I stood at my window, watching dawn bleed across Kuoh's skyline. Orange and gold, creeping over rooftops, promising a day that might be my last as... whatever I was now.
49% Echo. The number sat in my consciousness like a tumor.
[ECHO STATUS: 49%]
[Integration window: CRITICAL]
[Countdown: 0 days]
Zero days. The Watcher's countdown had ended. Every hour that passed was borrowed time.
"You should eat," the Fragment observed. "The integration process requires significant energy reserves."
I'm not hungry.
"Irrelevant. Your body requires fuel. Sentiment is a poor substitute for nutrition."
I forced myself to the kitchen. Made something - I don't remember what. Ate it without tasting.
The others watched me like I was already dead.
Mira found me first.
She sat across from me at the table, her Fragment-sharp eyes cataloging every twitch, every tell.
"You're going to do it today."
Not a question. She knew.
"Yes."
"The Soulscape." She said the word like it tasted bitter. "I've heard of it. Other hosts... most don't come back the same."
"Most don't come back at all?"
"Some don't." Her hand reached toward mine - stopped short, remembering her curse. "Fragment #4 tried once. When she came out, she couldn't remember her own name. Just the names of everyone she'd absorbed."
Comforting.
"Thanks for the pep talk."
"I'm not trying to comfort you." Her expression didn't change. "I'm trying to prepare you. The Soulscape isn't a test - it's a war. Every Echo you've ever absorbed will fight to replace you."
"And if I win?"
"Then you become something new. Something neither you nor they were before." She finally met my eyes. "Integration isn't victory. It's... merger."
I thought about that. About becoming something new. About what pieces of me would survive the process.
"Good to know."
The roof called to me.
It had become my place - the spot where I processed impossible things, made impossible decisions, faced impossible truths. Today was no different.
The sun had risen fully, painting everything in harsh morning light. Kuoh Academy spread below, students beginning their days, unaware that one of their classmates might cease to exist by nightfall.
Rias found me there.
Of course she did.
She moved without sound, appearing at my side like she'd always been there. The wind caught her crimson hair, scattering it across her shoulders.
"Whatever happens today - "
She stopped. Reached for my hand. Took it.
"I need you to know - "
I stopped her. Gently.
"Not yet."
Her eyes flickered with hurt. Just for a moment.
"After."
"After what?"
"After I come back. Whole."
She studied my face - searching for doubt, for fear, for the cracks she knew existed. I didn't try to hide them.
"Promise?"
I kissed her forehead. Soft. Careful. The kind of kiss you give when you're not sure you'll get another chance.
"Promise."
She pulled me into a hug. Tight. Her arms wrapped around me like she could hold the pieces together through sheer force of will.
"Then survive." Her voice broke on the word. "Survive, and ask me again."
[TRUST BOND: STRENGTHENED]
[Echo Status: 49% (stable)]
"Sentimental," the Fragment observed. "But strategically sound. Emotional anchors improve integration survival rates by approximately twelve percent."
Shut up.
"Shutting up."
We stayed like that for a long moment. Her warmth against my chaos. Her certainty against my doubt.
When we finally separated, her eyes were dry. She was too strong to cry. Too proud.
But I could feel the tremor in her hands.
The Watcher made his final move at noon.
I was meditating in my room, preparing for the integration, when the vision hit.
Rias stood before me - but wrong. Her expression cold. Her eyes empty.
"You won't survive."
I knew it wasn't real. I'd learned to recognize the Watcher's touch, the way reality bent when he pushed his will into my mind.
"You'll fail. You'll be lost."
The false Rias stepped closer. Her voice dripped with certainty.
"She'll move on. Find someone real. Someone who isn't a patchwork of stolen lives."
[FINAL PSYCHIC ASSAULT]
[Source: THE WATCHER]
I looked past the illusion. Through the window, I could see the real Rias - crossing the courtyard, heading toward the clubroom. Alive. Whole. Waiting.
"No."
"You can't - "
"I CHOOSE to trust her."
The false Rias flickered. Something ugly surfaced beneath the mask - the Watcher's true frustration bleeding through.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer that matters."
The illusion dissolved. Rias's face melted into shadow, into the twelve-pointed star that had haunted my wrist for weeks.
"Then lose yourself," the Watcher's true voice echoed. "I will collect what remains."
The mark on my wrist BURNED. White-hot pain lancing up my arm, into my shoulder, through my skull.
[Countdown: 0 days]
[Integration: IMMINENT]
[Watcher influence: MAXIMUM]
I didn't scream. Didn't give him the satisfaction.
You won't have me.
"We shall see, little thief. We shall see."
The meditation chamber was cold.
Rias had set it up in the basement of the ORC - a space cleared of furniture, filled with cushions and candles and the kind of quiet that pressed against your eardrums.
The peerage gathered to see me off.
Akeno stood in the doorway, her usual smile absent. "Ara ara... try not to die in there."
"That's the plan."
Koneko pressed a chocolate bar into my hand. "...for when you come back."
I pocketed it. "Thanks."
Kiba gripped my shoulder - brother to brother. "Whatever's in there, you're stronger."
"I hope so."
Asia clutched her hands together, green light flickering between her fingers. "I'll pray for you. I know... I know God is..." She trailed off. "I'll pray anyway."
"Thanks, Asia."
Xenovia said nothing. Just nodded. The acknowledgment of one warrior to another.
And Rias.
She stood at the center of the room, beside the spot where I would sit. Where I would enter my own mind and fight for my existence.
"I'll be here," she said. "However long it takes."
"Could be hours. Could be days."
"Then I'll be here for hours or days." She touched my face - one last anchor before the storm. "Come back to me."
"I will."
I sat. Crossed my legs. Closed my eyes.
The Fragment's voice filled my consciousness, clinical and calm.
"The process is simple in concept, complex in execution. I will guide you into the Soulscape - the mental landscape constructed from your memories and those you've absorbed. There, you will confront the Echoes. Merge with them, defeat them, or be consumed by them."
What are my odds?
"Uncertain. Your control yesterday proved promising. But the Soulscape is not the physical world. Different rules apply."
Great.
"I aim to inform, not comfort."
The darkness began to close in. The candles dimmed - or maybe my perception dimmed. The boundary between the meditation chamber and my own mind started to blur.
"Ready?"
I thought about Rias's promise. Survive, and ask me again.
I thought about Kiba calling me brother.
I thought about everyone who'd trusted me, believed in me, waited for me.
"No."
"Understandable. Shall we begin anyway?"
"Let's go."
The world fell away.
The last thing I heard was the Fragment's voice, distant now, echoing from everywhere and nowhere.
"Welcome to your war, Ryder Cross."
Then - light.
Blinding. Absolute. Searing through my consciousness like a solar flare.
When it faded, I wasn't in the meditation chamber anymore.
I wasn't anywhere I recognized.
I stood in a desert made of broken glass.
Each shard reflected something - a memory, a moment, a stolen piece of someone else's life. The sky above was colorless, neither day nor night. The horizon stretched infinitely in every direction.
And in the distance, rising from the glass like a needle piercing heaven -
A tower.
The Core. The center of myself.
I had to reach it. Had to claim it before the Echoes claimed me.
The glass crunched beneath my feet as I took my first step.
Something moved in my peripheral vision.
Shadows. Under the surface. Watching.
Waiting.
The integration had begun.