The mirror cracked — not with a sound, but with silence.
The world around Ren and Yuki shifted. The spiraling memories that had once surrounded them fell away like ash, and what remained was only stillness. Not peace. Not calm. Just the void after a storm.
Ren stood alone.
Or so it felt.
The echo of the system's collapse pulsed faintly in the hollow of his mind, like a dying heartbeat. The Origin—his first self—was gone, swallowed back into the timeline. And with it, Tsuki, the system born of grief.
And yet... the price had not yet been paid.
Yuki stepped beside him. "Ren," she said softly. "We're still here."
He nodded. "But not for long."
Above them, the red moon flickered once… then went dark.
The shrine reformed itself around them — old, broken, real. Time resumed its march. Mio and Kaito stood where they'd last been, at the edge of this fraying boundary between worlds.
Kaito stepped forward, holding something — the last shard of Tsuki's memory.
It floated in his hand like a fragile thought.
In its glassy surface, an image played on loop:
Yuki. Standing alone.
Cherry blossoms falling.
Ren was not there.
System Tsuki: Final Rewrite Option Detected.
Cost: Singular Existence. One memory thread will remain. One will return to origin.
Confirm Selection.
Yuki took a shaky step forward.
"I'll do it," she said. "I'm the one who always needed saving. Let it be me."
"No."
Ren said it without hesitation.
She froze.
"I won't let your story end here," he said. "Not when I've been the one writing over it again and again."
Tears welled in her eyes. "Ren, please—"
"I created Tsuki because I couldn't let go of you."
He reached for her hand. "But holding on too tightly… that's how we ended up in this endless loop."
"You weren't wrong to love me," she whispered.
"I know," he said, smiling. "But I was wrong to keep you frozen in that love."
Mio stepped forward, voice low. "If he returns to origin, he'll never have existed as this Ren. The memories — yours and his — will fracture. This version of you won't recall him. Not fully."
"I don't need to remember him to love him," Yuki said.
Ren exhaled shakily. The mirror shard began to pulse faster.
He leaned close. "Yuki… you brought me back from so many ends. Let me give you one that's truly yours."
And then, softly, quietly, like snow on an old rooftop — he touched the shard.
A burst of light.
Not bright.
Warm.
✦
Yuki gasped.
Spring wind stirred her hair. She stood outside the school gates, sakura petals drifting like confetti across her uniform. Everything felt normal — painfully normal.
The sky was blue. The world was real.
And her heart ached like a forgotten melody.
No system voice.
No red moon.
But something — someone — was missing.
She looked over her shoulder, expecting… something.
But there was only air.
"Yuki?" a voice called.
She turned.
Mio stood at the school doors, waving. "We're gonna be late!"
Yuki nodded slowly and followed, one hand brushing against her chest as if chasing something no longer there.
That night, she dreamed of a boy beneath a dying moon.
She never saw his face.
But in the dream, she loved him more than anything.
Elsewhere...
A red moon hung over an empty world — the origin, the beginning of all loops.
Ren stood beneath it alone, smiling softly.
He remembered everything.
And still, he chose to let her go.
Final Loop: Concluded.
System Tsuki: Archived.
Remaining emotion: Love