The Shepherd’s Guest

The corridor is empty now.

Three doors closed.

No lights.

No sound.

Just Ilari, standing in the silence between worlds.

She didn't receive a door.

The system didn't mark her.

And yet… she stayed.

She could have run.

Could have vanished into the outer edge like before.

But something in her wants to witness what happens next.

She walks until the floor changes.

No longer the neutral grid of Variant space—now it's a surface made of mirrored obsidian, each step reflecting a version of her that never smiled.

At the end of the path: a room with no door, only a membrane—like glass and smoke, flexing outward.

She enters.

Inside is a single chair.

And a figure already sitting in it.

Wrapped in white.

Face unreadable.

Long fingers drumming slowly on the armrest.

The NULL SHEPHERD.

Ilari doesn't flinch.

She crosses her arms, voice steady:

"Why am I not being erased?"

The figure tilts its head.

"Because you were never fully written."

A ripple in the air.

Suddenly, three screens bloom mid-air.

Each showing a different version of her:

A young girl crying on a staircase. A test subject floating in black fluid. A player entering Death Land—alone, first, before anyone else.

"Which one is real?" she asks.

The NULL SHEPHERD answers with silence.

Then:

"You are an anchor. A placeholder for memory that refused to sort itself."

"The system can't delete you… because it doesn't own you."

Ilari steps closer.

"So why do you keep me around?"

"Why let me watch them remember?"

The NULL SHEPHERD stands.

For the first time, its voice changes—becoming layered, glitching, uncertain:

"Because I need to know if you're the one who started this."

Ilari breathes sharply.

"Started what?"

"The crack in the system," it replies.

"The variant that infects truth."

Her Choice

A screen appears before her.

A new map.

No doors. No trials.

Just a button labeled:

"FORK FRACTURE // REVEAL ALL COPIES."

"You can give them the truth," the NULL SHEPHERD says.

"But it will destroy what's left of the system."

"Or… keep watching. Let the illusion finish playing out. Maybe it ends cleaner."

Ilari turns away from the screen.

She places her hand on the mirrored floor.

And whispers:

"They deserve to know who they are."

The system vibrates.

Fragmented versions of Sora, Matthew, Rin—hundreds—flash across nodes in panic.

Because in the memory rooms…

They all begin to feel something pulling at their minds.

Not deletion.

But recognition.