– Chapter 39: The Blade That Remembers Her Name

The agency's basement was sealed—off-limits to clients and even Airi.

But tonight, Hiragi broke the seal.

He descended alone.

The stairs creaked under his weight.

The darkness whispered.

At the bottom was a door.

Not metal. Not wood. But something else.

It looked… alive. Like it breathed in his presence.

"Open," Hiragi said.

The door obeyed.

Inside was a shrine.

Old wires, petals from memory flowers, and in the center… a single blade embedded in a chunk of obsidian.

The blade pulsed, wrapped in ribbons engraved with the name:

Sena.

The room grew colder.

A recording activated on its own—his voice, broken, from the last night in Eden:

"Sena… if you're still in there—then I'm sorry. I ran. I was scared. I… failed you."

The blade shimmered. Its glow reached out to him.

Then her voice.

Not real. Not full. But enough.

"You didn't fail. You just weren't ready."

The blade lifted itself from the stone.

It floated to his hand.

It was light. Too light.

But when he held it, his palm burned.

A symbol formed.

A void-eye crossed with a flower:

The Bond Sigil.

"Then lend me your voice," he whispered.

"And I'll carve open every illusion that dares to take you from me again."

The blade hummed—alive. Remembering.

And as he turned to leave the shrine, the symbols on the floor glitched into a new phrase:

"Eden.exe is not gone. It was just dreaming."