The journey to the Tower That Was Never Built took them across broken bridges that hung like threads, over rivers flowing backwards into the sky, and through a forest of stone where trees had petrified mid-scream.
The closer they got, the more Reigen felt it — not fear, not awe…
Familiarity.
Like the stones remembered his hands.
Like the unfinished tower was waiting.
Kael said nothing as they walked. She hadn't slept since they left. Her eyes never left the horizon. And Reigen noticed: the way she traced her fingers along every surface they passed. Wood, steel, stone — like she was feeling for ghosts.
---
By the third night, they reached the base of the tower.
It wasn't a ruin — it was a scar on the land. A spiral staircase wrapped around a central core of blackstone that hummed, not from power — but from memory.
"The Shapers started this?" Reigen asked, running his hand along the wall.
"No," said a voice behind them.
"They abandoned it."
Reigen spun around.
From the shadows stepped a figure wrapped in a half-cloak of stitched blueprints, eyes hidden beneath a sculptor's mask.
Kael tensed immediately.
Reigen recognized him. Not his face, but his presence.
"...Laziel."
The man chuckled, stepping forward, hands raised.
"So you do remember me, Reigen. I was worried you'd forgotten everything."
Kael drew closer to Reigen. "Who is he?"
Reigen's throat went dry.
"An architect like me. A classmate. But he... he didn't stop building."
Laziel stepped beside the tower wall, pressing a hand to the blackstone. It lit up with glowing veins, revealing an entire hollow structure beneath the surface, still forming, still breathing.
"I stayed when the sky broke," Laziel said softly. "When the river in the sky split the world, I didn't run. I kept building."
Reigen stepped forward. "You built on a grave."
"I built on truth," Laziel snapped. "We're not meant to climb up. We're meant to dig in. Root deep. Create memory. Anchor it."
Kael's voice cut through: "You built this place on pain. The echo residue is choking the ground."
Laziel smiled, calmly removing his mask.
His eyes were gone.
In their place: twin rotating discs, like compass needles made of glass.
"I became what I built, Reigen," he whispered. "Will you?"
---
The tower began to hum.
The entire spiral trembled. Shapes moved within — not human, not machine, but twisted reflections of people long gone. Failed architects. Lost builders. Souls bound to unfinished work.
Laziel stepped into the light.
"There are only two kinds of architects left in this world," he said.
"The ones who build to remember…"
"And the ones who build to forget."
He turned to leave. "When you decide which one you are… climb."
Then he vanished into the tower.
---
Reigen stood in silence.
Kael placed a hand on his shoulder. "We shouldn't follow him. Not yet."
Reigen looked up at the tower — impossibly tall, yet still unbuilt.
For the first time, he realized:
This wasn't about restoring the past.
It was about facing what they had buried beneath it.