There was no ground, no sky.
Only fractures—pieces of memory and shattered code drifting like dust through endless black.
Sora floated through it, unanchored, her breath shallow but steady.
"Keep thinking," she told herself.
"Keep remembering."
The Mask of the Forgotten had nearly consumed her… but she'd broken the reflection. Still, her identity was unthreaded. She couldn't feel time, only flashes:
—Rin's hand catching hers in a stairwell—
—Matthew's voice yelling her name during the collapse—
—The false version of her whispering, You were never first—
She reached for anything solid—and her fingers brushed against a floating name.
Literally, a name. Glowing in air.
Zehra.
Then: Ilari.
Then: Luca — fading.
She was in the Residual Layer. A limbo of memories the recursion discarded too unstable to hold.
Sora's voice cracked. "Where are they?"
The system didn't answer.
But she saw a thread now, barely visible, curling through the space like a falling strand of hair.
She chased it.
As she moved, the fragments began speaking—broken echoes of the trio's shared past:
"We should have waited…"
"The signal wasn't meant for us…"
"You were the variable, Sora. Not the anomaly."
Her head ached. Her memories stuttered.
Then—a light ahead.
It flickered like a broken window, showing Matthew and Rin standing on unstable platforms in the Fractured Queue.
They were whole. Alive. Talking.
Sora ran—no footing, just intent.
And then a wall of mirrored code rose up.
Blocking her.
On its surface, her reflection returned—but smiling again.
"You want to go back?" the reflection mocked.
"You still think you're you?"
Sora clenched her fists.
"I'm the one who remembers the way out. That's enough."
The Mask of the Forgotten began glowing at her side, drawing in code—twisting symbols and storing them like keys.
"Then prove it," the system whispered.
"One connection. One test."
A single memory surfaced in front of her, wrapped in white flame.
The first moment she met Matthew—his hand reaching for hers on the rooftop of the King's Trail.
But it was flickering.
If she entered that thread and got it wrong, it would erase the bond completely.
"I remember this," Sora said. "He didn't just grab my hand—he waited. He gave me the choice."
She reached out—slow, careful.
The flame dimmed.
The thread accepted.
Suddenly the space cracked open—and she fell forward.
Straight through the memory. Straight through time.
Into real space.
She landed hard on cold marble. The flickering arena was gone. Ahead, Matthew and Rin spun, stunned—
"Sora?" Matthew asked, voice raw.
Rin didn't speak—she just ran to her and pulled her into a hug.
"I found the way," Sora whispered.
"I was still here."
The system shuttered, static hissing across the walls.
Something else had noticed her reentry.
Something watching… deeper.
New participant anomaly confirmed
Error: Rejoined fragment restored
Next game calibration in progress…
The trio was together again.
But something had followed Sora back.
And it was wearing a version of her face.