Absolute silence. The air in Yūgen hangs still, unnaturally heavy.
Aki stares at the girl who just stepped through the glowing door. She can't be older than 12. But her eyes—too knowing, too deep—reflect Spiral symbols rotating like clockwork. Her presence distorts the world around her: gravity bends, distant structures collapse inward.
Aki (softly):
"Who... are you?"
Girl (calm, emotionless):
"The next Seeker."
---
Kael immediately draws his revolvers. Rei steps between him and the girl, uncertain.
Kael (low):
"This doesn't feel right. She's not synced… she's overwritten."
Rei:
"She's not from this Realm. She's from another Layer."
Girl (smiling faintly):
"I wasn't drawn here. I remembered my way in."
---
Aki's sketchbook flickers, glitching out of his hands. The pages fly open on their own—symbols rearranging themselves into a map of unknown spirals. One spiral is circled: "Spiral -1".
Aki (confused):
"I thought Spiral 0 was the first…"
Girl:
"No. Spiral 0 was your starting point. But Spiral -1 is the origin. The place even Architects forgot."
---
Suddenly the sky cracks—Yūgen's laws falter. Buildings freeze mid-collapse. Creatures shift back into ideas. Time no longer flows.
Kael (panicked):
"She's destabilizing everything! Her memory is too strong—this Realm isn't built for it!"
Girl:
"Because this Realm wasn't meant to contain what's coming."
---
A massive tear opens in the sky like a wound. From it falls another Aki. Older. Hardened. Wearing the same ink-threaded black robes from Rei's earlier vision.
Rei (gasping):
"That's the one I saw. The future version of you."
Old Aki (coldly):
"I'm not a future. I'm a branch. The version who never woke up."
---
Old Aki lands with a silent pulse that cracks the ground. He looks at Young Aki.
Old Aki:
"You tried to save this world. But some versions of us… chose to rule it instead."
Aki:
"What are you talking about?"
Old Aki:
"Spiral -1 is opening. And only one of us can carry it forward."
---
The girl walks to Old Aki's side. She takes his hand. The air burns blue.
Girl:
"I chose him. He remembers everything."
---
Yumi appears again, forced into the Realm by a full sync spike in her sleep. She gasps, disoriented, then sees both Akis—
Yumi:
"What is this?! Two of you?!"
Aki (our Aki):
"He's me... if I gave up the real world."
Old Aki:
"You mean the weaker world."
---
Aki draws his blade. It flickers erratically—torn between versions. Old Aki draws his weapon: not a blade, but a staff made of intertwined timelines, shaped like a serpent.
Kael (stepping forward):
"This is a spiral war."
Rei (softly):
"Not yet. But it's coming."
---
Everything begins shaking. The girl opens her palm. A tiny black spiral hovers there—alive, pulsing.
Girl:
"When Spiral -1 blooms, only one memory of Aki will remain."
Old Aki:
"Make your choice now."
---
Aki grips his blade tightly. He glances at Rei. At Kael. At Yumi. Then at the sky fracturing above them.
Aki:
"I won't let someone else decide who I become."
Girl:
"Then stop us."
---
The world inverts. The spiral ignites. A new gate forms between them—deep, endless, and whispering.
Darkness. Then a pulse—deep and rhythmic, like the beating of a primordial heart. The gate to Spiral -1 looms overhead, spinning in reverse, bleeding static and whispers into the Realm.
Inside Yūgen, everything has frozen. Even time hesitates.
Aki, our Aki, stands facing his alternate self—the version who never woke. Between them: the girl, still holding the black spiral in her palm, like a tiny black hole sucking light and memory inward.
---
Rei (quietly, to Aki):
"You don't have to fight him. Not yet."
Aki:
"He's already rewriting the world just by being here. If I wait, I disappear."
---
Old Aki takes a step forward. His presence warps the ground, making it ripple like water.
Old Aki:
"This Realm doesn't need two of us. I'm not your enemy, I'm your inevitability."
Aki (steady):
"No. You're the version who gave in. Who stopped drawing and started destroying."
---
Kael tosses a time-lock grenade toward the gate—it explodes in slow motion, freezing a section of the spiral for just a second. The Realm lurches, momentarily stable.
Kael (grinning):
"I bought you a heartbeat. Don't waste it."
---
Aki leaps. His blade meets Old Aki's serpent-staff mid-air. The collision sends out a shockwave, shattering gravity. The sky cracks open again, showing flashes of other Realms—realities where Aki never woke, or woke too late.
Rei forms a barrier of linked sigils, protecting Yumi and Kael.
---
Inside the chaos, Aki is pulled into a memory by Old Aki's weapon. He falls through his own past:
Lying in the hospital, hearing his mom cry through a wall.
Watching Yumi sit beside him, year after year, whispering hopes.
The moment he opened his eyes and realized the world felt less real than Yūgen.
---
Old Aki appears in the dream-memory beside him.
Old Aki:
"This is where I stayed. Where I found peace. This world obeys me. The real one never did."
Aki:
"Then why does it still hurt?"
---
Aki tears himself free. The world snaps back—he lands hard, skidding across the glowing ground. The spiral gate above now opens fully.
From it… descends a new figure.
No face. No shape. Just distortion. A being made of erasure. It speaks in a voice that's made of silenced thoughts.
Entity:
> "YOU ARE VARIATIONS. I AM THE ORIGINAL FORGOTTEN."
---
Everyone stops. Even Old Aki turns.
Rei (stunned):
"It's not part of the Spiral. It's what Spiral -1 keeps locked away."
Girl:
"I… didn't summon this."
---
The entity reaches toward both Akis—hands like smoke, like failed memories. Everything it touches fades: ground, light, color.
Aki looks at Old Aki.
Aki:
"We both die if we don't stop it."
Old Aki (grudging):
"Then just this once… we draw together."
---
The two Akis raise their weapons—ink and time converging. The Realm pulses as a massive symbol etches across the sky: a new spiral, unnumbered, unnamed.
The erasure entity screeches, its form destabilizing.
---
Yumi (calling out):
"Anchor yourselves! Someone has to remember you both!"
She opens her sketchbook—her hands tremble as she draws both Akis, together, in the same frame. The page glows.
---
Final strike. Both Akis charge. The blade and staff pierce through the entity's core—
It shatters.
Not into pieces… but into voices. Forgotten names. Laughter. Moments no one remembered. They rain gently across the Realm like snow.
---
The Spiral -1 gate closes on its own. Slowly. Quietly.
---
Old Aki kneels, exhausted. He looks at Aki.
Old Aki (softly):
"I couldn't save myself. But maybe you can."
He fades—becoming pure memory. Aki catches the last of him in the sketchbook. A page turns blank again, waiting.
---
Rei walks to Aki, offering a quiet nod. Kael pats him on the back. Yumi smiles—but her eyes are wet.
Yumi:
"You came back again."
Aki:
"No. This time… I stayed for real."