chapter 14 — A memory that was forgoten.
Yuto sat beneath the broken sky.
Not a real sky — a stitched simulation painted with corrupted pixels, stuttering light, and blinking fragments of stars that never existed. Above him, the last echo of his battle with the Cleaner still hung in the air like static dust. Around him, the world was quiet — too quiet, like something was holding its breath.
He held the second fragment of Ava in his hand.
It was warm.
Familiar.
And yet… wrong.
---
Years Ago – Before Everything
Back when things made sense, Yuto was just a quiet boy with a shy smile and a world too heavy on his shoulders. Their father had vanished in the tech collapse. Their mother worked three jobs. And Ava — his younger sister by three years — was the only person who ever made the house feel like home.
She was bright, curious, always tinkering with machines far too complex for her age. She once rebuilt an old drone using junkyard scraps and flew it through the hallway until it shattered the window.
Yuto yelled at her.
She laughed.
She always laughed, even when things broke.
Especially when they broke.
They shared one capsule, an older-generation VR unit scavenged from the marketplace. Only one of them could play at a time. Ava usually let Yuto log in first.
Then came the update.
EvoCore Ver. Beta-03 — Experimental Sync Layer
Ava convinced Yuto to let her try it.
"Just 15 minutes!" she grinned. "I want to test the Mirror Class glitch!"
He said yes.
He always said yes to her.
But that was the last time he saw her in the real world.
She never logged out.
At first, the company claimed it was a device malfunction.
Then, they denied her account ever existed.
The police stopped looking after two weeks.
Their mother stopped speaking entirely after three months.
And Yuto…
Yuto started sleeping in the capsule every night.
Not to escape.
To search.
To dig.
To destroy.
---
Now – With the Fragment
The Ava fragment in his hand pulsed wildly.
> [Fragment Status: Rebellious] [Emotional Sync Triggered: Sub-Realm Dive Imminent]
Yuto didn't resist.
He let it pull him in.
---
Sub-Realm AV-02: "The Glass House"
He woke inside a world of mirrors — endless reflective walls stretching into infinity. But none of them showed his face. Every mirror reflected someone else: Ava. Her smile. Her laughter. Her tears. Her fear.
He walked slowly, his steps echoing on the glass floor.
Then he saw her — sitting at a desk inside one of the mirrors. Her avatar glitched between a child and a teenager. Her voice echoed faintly, as if underwater.
> "Yuto… why didn't you come?"
His breath caught.
"I did. I'm still trying."
She looked up — her eyes empty, glassy, hollow.
> "I waited. But the system locked me. It changed me. I'm not even sure what I am now."
Her reflection shattered.
The world pulsed.
> [Memory Defense Engaged] [Hostile Echo Detected]
The glass exploded. A corrupted version of Ava stepped out — armored in jagged code, eyes burning with denial.
> "You left me behind."
"No," he whispered. "I lost the way."
She attacked.
Images flooded the air with every blow: their living room, her bike accident, the day he told her their father wasn't coming home.
Pain that wasn't physical.
Emotional code — raw, unfiltered.
> [Sync Surge: +3.7%] [Real-Time Distortion Detected in Memory Realm]
He dropped to one knee.
"I never stopped looking for you!" he shouted.
"I tried — but they erased your logs. They buried your existence. I thought I was going insane!"
The corrupted Ava paused.
She trembled.
> "...Then why does it still hurt?"
Yuto stood slowly, arms wide. "Because it's not your fault. It never was."
He reached for her hand.
> [Override Attempt: Echo Merge Consent Pending]
She hesitated.
The armor cracked.
Then — light.
A soft, white pulse spread outward, rippling through the sub-realm like a heartbeat. Ava's corrupted form dissolved, leaving only the true fragment.
Her voice, this time gentle and real:
> "You found me again."
---
System Layer
> [Ava Fragment 2 of 7 – Stabilized] [Memory Integrity: Partial] [Emotional Bond Reconstructed: +1] [Hidden Class Trait Unlocked – "Anchor of Echoes"]
Yuto gasped as the memory realm faded.
He was back beneath the broken sky.
The fragment floated into his chest and merged softly. His hands trembled — not from fear, but from the weight of truth.
And somewhere far above, in EvoCore's blackout layer, alarms whispered.
> [User: Yuto_(raven) has accessed Forbidden Memory Space] [Protocol Warden_03 is waking]
But Yuto didn't care.
Not anymore.
This wasn't just about defeating the system.
It was about remembering the lie they made him believe — that Ava was gone.
That she had died.
He knew now.
She wasn't dead.
She was trapped.
And he would burn every line of code in existence if it meant bringing her back.
But destiny is not what you always think....