> "Forgery initiated."
"Searching root file: [Admin_Identity.exe]…"
The console crackled, lines of code falling like green rain.
I couldn't understand the language.
But she could.
---
The air changed before I even heard her footsteps.
As if the system itself was holding its breath.
A figure stepped from the tunnel's threshold, cloaked in robes frayed by corrupted mana.
The edges of her clothing floated, as if time itself hesitated to touch them.
Her face was covered by a black cloth mask…
…but her eyes burned.
Not with light.
But with a living contradiction.
Pain… and total control over it.
---
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
Her voice was soft, but every word dragged a secret behind it.
"Neither should you," I replied, never taking my eyes off the console. "This place has no name. No recorded entrance."
"That's exactly why I like it."
---
Silence.
Then she stepped forward… and her name fell from the system without anyone requesting it:
> "User detected: Seraphina_Veyl"
"Status: Ex-priestess | Corruption Mark: Level III (Stable)"
Allow shared access?
I turned to her.
"You're… 'S'?"
She didn't answer right away.
She approached the console, ran her hand across the screen… and the code aligned itself, recognizing her.
"I'm not 'S,'" she whispered. "But 'S' spoke to me first."
---
Everything clicked at once.
The letters.
The anomaly.
The symbol.
It wasn't a message just for me.
It was an invitation… and she'd been answering it longer.
---
"Why didn't you alert the system?" I asked.
"Because the system doesn't hear me," she said, pulling off the mask. "It only watches… waiting for me to fail."
Her face was younger than I expected.
But her eyes… they had lived through wars the world had already forgotten.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"The same thing you do," she replied, and for the first time, her voice trembled.
"To stop being a side note in someone else's story."
---
The system shuddered.
A new line appeared:
> "Anomalous link detected: Extra_9387 + Seraphina_Veyl"
Merge permissions?
We looked at each other.
And without a word…
We accepted.