The Vault was too quiet.
Saylor stood in the center, arms clasped behind his back, watching as the last remnants of the rewritten code stabilized across the Field. Naomi's anchor had been severed, her memories buried beneath recursive overwrite cycles. Eren lay inert, suspended in containment, his spark dimmed. Tomas no longer registered. Lucia's final threads had been quarantined beneath a barrier of mirrorlock code that only he could access.
The Field was his again.
For now.
He moved through the Vault with practiced stillness. One screen displayed the integrity of each Trial sector. Another tracked the latency of response code. A third held the pulsing, dormant echo of Sigil Zero—sealed for good. Or so he believed.
And then came the alert.
> WARNING: SPIN REGISTERED WITHOUT INPUT WHEEL MOVEMENT DETECTED – NULL PROTOCOL INITIATED
Saylor turned.
The Broken Wheel was not supposed to move. Not without a hand.
He tapped the console. It flickered.
> SPIN VALUE: ZERO SEED: UNDEFINED SOURCE: FIELD-LEVEL INSTINCTIVE CALL
No player had triggered it. No Trial invoked it. Yet the wheel turned.
A single slip of paper detached from its center and fell—not in the Vault, but into the Field itself.
---
Field – The Drift Expanse
A wind howled across dead stone. Fog danced around shattered platforms, whispering like forgotten voices. No players remained conscious here. Only relics—fragments of past encounters, static-wreathed bones, and silent ruins.
And yet, something stirred.
A slip of paper fell from the sky and landed on the ground with no sound. A second later, a spark of energy rippled across the terrain.
Naomi's body shifted.
Her hand twitched.
And her eyes opened.
Blank.
Then—clarity. Like fire running backward through a wet fuse.
Her memories hadn't returned. Not fully. But something else had.
Instinct.
The slip hovered just inches from her chest.
She reached for it.
Her fingers trembled—but she grabbed it.
> TICKET GRANTED: NULL SPIN EFFECT: RESONANT DISPLACEMENT STATUS: UNIQUE / ERRANT
The ticket turned to ash in her grip.
And the Field reacted.
---
Vault – Sudden Instability
Saylor felt it before he saw it.
A wave of static rolled through the console arrays. Lights dimmed. Symbols rearranged themselves in languages no Trial had ever used. The structure of the Wheel began to flicker—not as if it were breaking, but as if it was doubting itself.
> NULL SPIN ACTIVE ANCHOR VALUE: RESTORED LUCIA – SHADOW THREAD DETECTED
He clenched his jaw.
"Impossible."
He issued a lockdown command.
> FORCE SUPPRESSION: FIELD NODE 7R REVOKE: UNAUTHORIZED ANCHORS
But the system replied:
> COMMAND REJECTED. NULL PRIORITY EXCEEDS ADMIN
For the first time, Saylor stepped back.
---
Field – Naomi Reawakens
The ash of the ticket scattered into a spiral of glyphs.
Naomi stood slowly, her bones aching as if they'd been burned hollow. Her mind pulsed with broken images—Saylor's face, Lucia's voice, the moment her chain shattered.
But now... she felt it differently.
Not as pain.
As leverage.
She extended her palm.
And the ground obeyed.
Fragments of stone lifted beneath her command, weaving into a platform that hovered above the wreckage. Her eyes, once bright violet, now shimmered with deep silver-black—the reflection of something older than rebellion.
Eren stirred beside her.
"Naomi...?"
She turned.
"I'm here."
His eyes widened. "What... what did you do?"
"I didn't." She looked at the sky. "The Field did."
Saylor didn't speak as he watched Naomi rise.
She had defied every protocol—again. Her spin, labeled NULL, had bypassed control, seeded itself in dead soil, and drawn power directly from the Field's instinct.
That made her dangerous.
Not because she resisted.
Because she no longer needed to.
He stared at her through the Vault's deepest console, watching the gravitational threads curve toward her. The Field was choosing her again. It was remembering her. Empowering her.
And that, Saylor could not allow.
> COMMAND: REWIND THREAD – SUBJECT: NAOMI SCOPE: TOTAL APPROVED
The Vault turned cold.
---
Field – Null Spin Activation Site
Naomi stood tall above the wreckage of her last defeat, eyes flickering silver-black, the platform beneath her feet moving with her breath. Eren was at her side, confused but recovering.
And then the sky snapped.
The platform fractured beneath her, not from outside force—but from reversion. Time peeled backward in layers.
Naomi gasped as her skin shimmered, her memories spun in reverse, her breath caught between moments. Chains reformed around her wrists. Blood flowed back into uncut wounds. Her eyes dulled.
Eren shouted, "Naomi—what's happening?!"
She turned to him—just for a second—one final flash of resistance in her eyes.
Then she disappeared.
---
Vault – Saylor's Command Altar
The thread collapsed inward.
The screen blinked.
> NAOMI: ERASED THREAD EXPUNGED FROM CORE FILE
Silence.
And then Saylor moved to the console again.
He didn't hesitate.
> INSERTION: ENTITY - LUCIA V.6B (CORE-FUSED) ROLE: FIELD AVATAR / PROXY HOST INTENTION: SUBSTITUTION
The Vault hummed.
The system screamed.
And Lucia reappeared.
---
Field – Core Nexus Platform
She blinked awake, eyes wide with disorientation. Her body took form slower than Naomi's had—stitched together with memory glue and systemic spite. She fell to her knees as the Field hesitated.
Not in welcome.
In confusion.
Lucia coughed, shaking. "What—what did you do?"
Saylor's voice echoed across the terrain.
> "You never should've challenged me."
> "Now you'll replace her."
Lucia looked around—no Naomi, no anchor, no resistance.
Just her.
Alone.
And the Field, waiting.
Lucia stumbled across the cracked platform, arms limp at her sides, every breath ragged and shallow. She couldn't feel the Field—not the way she used to. The pulse of raw memory, the rhythm of player signatures, even the whisper of coded wind—it was all muted. Not gone, but dulled, as if she were hearing her own thoughts through a wall of static.
Her hands trembled.
She knelt and gripped the fractured ground, trying to find something—anything—to anchor herself. But Naomi was gone. The link was severed. The chain had ended.
And worst of all?
Lucia had been reinserted.
Not by choice. Not as a hero.
By Saylor.
As a pawn.
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears forming along her lashes but refusing to fall. Even her grief felt artificial—another thread recompiled and dressed up like emotion. Was she even real anymore?
She remembered the conversation with Naomi, remembered handing her the key to the echo chain, remembered trust. And now—erased. Rewritten. Naomi didn't just die; she had been unwritten. The Field didn't mourn her. It didn't remember.
And neither could Lucia—not fully. Saylor had made sure of that.
Across the ruined plateau, Eren stirred.
His eyes opened slowly, face bruised and blood crusted around his temple. He sat up in silence, looking around, instinctively searching for Naomi—only to realize what was missing.
"Naomi?" he whispered.
Nothing.
Then, a shape in the distance.
Lucia.
She looked at him, but didn't speak.
Eren dragged himself upright and took a few steps toward her, but stopped midway.
Something was wrong. The air felt thinner. The sky didn't ripple with emotion like before. The mist didn't respond.
And her presence—it felt hollow.
"You're not her," he said, voice like a cracked bell.
Lucia nodded. "I know."
"Where is she?"
"I couldn't save her."
He swallowed. "Was it him?"
Lucia looked away.
"Yes."
Eren's knees buckled, but he didn't fall. He clenched his fists so tight his knuckles bled.
"What do we do now?"
Lucia didn't answer.
She stared up at the Broken Wheel, still spinning slowly in the sky, mockingly silent.
"I don't know," she said.
And that truth—that admission—felt heavier than any command Saylor had ever given.
She had come back from deletion.
But there was no victory in it.