Chapter 13: Echoes of the Self

Date: 2742-08-23

Time: 11:32 PM

Location: Aito's House

The front door creaked open quietly as Ren slipped back into Aito's house.

Aito was sitting on the floor of the guest room, surrounded by burnt matches and an aggressively judgmental expression.

"You left," he said flatly.

"I—uh—yeah. Sorry. Time-stopping death-ghost shadow stuff."

"Again?"

"Again."

I told you to stay inside. But nooo, let's walk directly into the supernatural murder alley. Genius.

Aito rubbed his temples. "You're banned from midnight walks."

"Noted."

Ren spent the next few hours decoding more of the letter. The symbols were reacting now — shifting every time he blinked, forming phrases, patterns

"This is impossible," he muttered, scratching his head. "I'd have better luck solving a Rubik's cube blindfolded with my toes."

[ERROR. UNDEFINED TRANSLATION SEQUENCE.]

He blinked. "Wait, was that you?"

No response.

"…Vortex?"

Silence.

He looked around. No ping. No sarcastic comeback. Not even an eye-hologram flicker.

Weird.

But exhaustion dragged at his spine. His brain was mush. Every page looked like abstract spaghetti.

Ren lay back on the futon, the letter pressed under his fingers.

"I'll try again tomorrow," he mumbled.

And he slept.

Time: 12:00 AM

Status: Aetherium Core Pulse: INITIATED

Location: Temporal Sync Layer – Host: Ren Ishida

The world tilted.

Ren sat bolt upright in bed — but nothing moved.

The second hand on the wall clock had stopped.

The dust particles hung still in the air. The trees outside the window paused mid-sway. The entire house — time itself — was frozen.

Then his chest flared.

The Aetherium Core embedded deep behind his ribs lit up, its glow piercing through his shirt in a faint gold-red pulse.

His breath caught.

And then—

The voice.

Cold. Digital. Echoing from within the core.

[ACTIVE THREAD: 04.023.ae]

[TIME: FRACTURED]

[VERB: WALK]

[DIRECTION: PATH_TEMPLE]

[REASON: ENDING → ORIGIN]

[YOU: REMEMBER]

Ren blinked. "What? Who—what are you?"

[IDENTITY: CORE-AWAKENED]

[UNIT: FUSE-HOST-RESONANT]

[INTENT: FINAL SYNC INITIATION]

A sudden pressure hit him — not pain, but a pull.

It wasn't his body that moved — it was reality that rearranged around him.

And somehow, he knew where to go.

He didn't question it.

He stepped out the door and into the still night.

Time: Unknown

Location: Shrine Path, Old Kyoto

The stone steps of the shrine glowed faintly in the moonlight.

The world was dead quiet — not silence, but absence. Frozen birds in midflight. A falling leaf hanging in the air like a glitch. Even sound itself refused to exist here.

But something was moving.

At the top of the shrine stairs — a crumpled figure. Faint red light pulsing. A cracked black helm lying beside it.

The Fallen.

Ren's breath hitched.

He approached slowly.

And then — with trembling hands — he reached out, and removed the mask.

What lay beneath made his heart stop.

It was him.

Older. Scarred. Hardened. And smiling with dry, broken eyes.

"You made it," The Fallen(Vorlag) whispered. "Took you long enough."

Ren stumbled back. "No. No. What—what is this?!"

"I'm what's left when you try to fix everything and lose yourself in the process."

"You're The Fallen?!"

The older version of him chuckled — then coughed hard, blood staining his lips.

"I tried. Just like Kael. Just like all of us. But eventually… you stop saving. You start rewriting. And that… that's where we fall."

He handed Ren a letter — soaked with blood.

"Here. My last mistake. Use it. Or burn it."

Ren didn't know what to say.

The older him smiled one last time. "Don't become me, brat."

And with that, his body fractured into light — fading into the frozen world like a memory collapsing in reverse.

Ren stood in silence.

And then — as the fragments vanished — a chorus of voices echoed through the shrine.

"You are the chosen one."

"You are the deviation."

"You are our last hope."

Time: 12:00 AM

Location: Aito's House – Guest Room

[REBOOTING… SYSTEM ONLINE]

Ren ignored the voice.

He sat back on the futon, Core dimmed, body exhausted.

He smiled.

And with that, Ren finally collapsed into the futon.

And for the first time in what felt like his entire life —

He dreamed.

Not of war.

Not of blood.

Not of rifts or gods or burning skies.

But a quiet field.

Golden grass swayed in the wind. A sky so blue it hurt. A sun that felt like it loved him back.

He stood barefoot. Whole.

No glowing core. No broken timelines. Just Ren.

And across the field walked his friends.

Smiling.

A different world. A better one.

And the child version of him stood at the top of the hill — laughing — waving him forward.

A voice whispered again.

"This is what you're fighting for. Not just the future. But the right to dream again."