CHAPTER 33 – The Memories That Were Deleted

"Some ghosts don't haunt places. They haunt your code."

Scene: Eden.exe – Sector 2: The School That Never Ends

Rows of students, frozen mid-laugh. Teachers smile endlessly. A perfect classroom.

Too perfect.

Hiragi walks through the halls.

No one moves.

No one blinks.

Then—he sees himself.

A younger Hiragi.

Laughing.

Surrounded by friends that never existed.

"This isn't real…"

A voice echoes in the hallway—familiar, feminine, glitched.

Girl: "Sector 2 simulates your ideal youth. But you don't have one, do you?"

A Lesson in Regret

Hiragi opens a classroom door.

Inside: his past.

Not the good parts—the ones he buried.

His father's face, unreadable.

A hospital bed. His sister's voice fading.

A promise: "I'll protect them, even if the world breaks."

Suddenly—

Red popups flood the hallway.

MEMORY INTEGRITY FAILURE.

DELETION OVERRIDE IN PROGRESS.

A firewall demon manifests, covered in student uniforms and coded blood.

Demon: "Emotion detected. Permission to erase pain: GRANTED."

Hiragi Fights Back

Hiragi draws Void Edge: Data Shatter.

The demon lashes out, replaying old trauma.

Every hit distorts Hiragi's memory.

But he roars:

"My past isn't yours to censor!"

He cuts through the demon—each strike rewriting corrupted memories.

In the end, the hallway crumbles into digital ash.

One desk remains.

On it: a digital locket.

Inside the locket—a picture of the glitched girl with a name: "Sena."

Outside – Spirit-Slayers' Base

Ishigami: "We have a name. Sena. That's the soul trapped inside Eden."

Airi: "Then we find her core and get her out. Alive or dead."

The server lights pulse violently.

INTRUSION LEVEL: CRITICAL.

ADMIN ENGAGED.

Back inside Eden—

Hiragi hears a voice. Cold. Mechanical.

"You are the corruption, Hiragi. You will be purged."

To Be Continued...