Krrrk-krrrk… chirrrrp…
The sound of morning birds.
The scent of wet earth.
The rustle of leaves and the distant babble of a river.
For a moment, everything felt… normal.
Too normal.
Like the world had wrapped itself in nostalgia just to mock me.
I blinked, and sunlight poured into my eyes—warm and real. My feet stood firmly on soil, not fracturing platforms or cosmic ruins. A village stretched before us: tiny houses with tiled roofs, smoke curling from chimneys, children laughing in the distance.
And then—her voice.
"Kaito…?"
My head snapped toward the sound.
She stood there—Aya. Dressed in a simple school uniform. No crown, no glow, no cryptic presence.
Just… her.
Elira whispered, "That's her… the real her?"
I couldn't answer.
I was already walking.
One step. Then another. Heart hammering so loud it drowned out everything else.
She gasped as I approached, tears glinting in her eyes.
"Kaito… I thought—" she choked. "I thought you never made it."
I stopped in front of her, afraid to breathe.
"Aya… is it really you?"
She reached out, touched my face gently, her thumb brushing the corner of my eye like she used to do when we were kids.
Her touch wasn't divine. It wasn't overwhelming.
It was human.
It was real.
"You're late," she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob.
I couldn't speak. Every possible word stuck like glue in my throat.
Rhys and Elira stood behind me, quiet but watchful. The sky above no longer pulsed with cosmic energy—it was clear, blue, gentle.
"Where… where is this?" I asked finally.
Aya smiled through her tears. "It's the village we grew up in. Before everything… before your reality broke."
"But it's impossible," I muttered. "This place was—"
"Gone?" she finished. "Wiped when your world collapsed into mine."
I nodded, numb.
Aya stepped back, her fingers trailing down my arm like she wasn't sure she was allowed to hold me yet.
"It still exists… because this is your trial," she said. "The Crucible. A piece of your own memory stitched into time."
My stomach turned.
"So you're not really her," I murmured.
She looked hurt. "I am Aya. At least… the part of me you loved."
"Then where's the rest?"
Her gaze fell.
"Scattered."
She turned, leading us down the dirt path through the village. The people greeted her with familiarity, but they didn't seem to notice us.
"This world is watching you, Kaito," she said. "It's judging you not with monsters or battles… but with the weight of what you left behind."
We arrived at the schoolhouse.
Where we first met.
Aya pushed the wooden door open, the hinges creaking softly. Inside, time had frozen. The chalkboard still had my name scribbled in sloppy kanji. Our old seats—mine in the back corner, hers in the front—remained untouched.
"I used to write you letters," she said, running her fingers across the desk.
"I know," I said.
"Did you read them?"
"I did."
She turned slowly, eyes sharp now. "Then why didn't you come back?"
The silence was thunderous.
I swallowed.
"…Because I thought I had to forget you to move forward."
Her eyes shimmered, lips trembling. "So you made peace with leaving me behind?"
"No," I said, voice cracking. "I lied to myself. Every day. Told myself you were a dream. A glitch. A dead thread in a broken reality."
Tears began to fall down my cheeks. Real ones. Heavy ones.
"I thought forgetting you would let me stop hurting."
She stepped closer, fists clenched.
"But you didn't stop hurting, did you?"
"…No."
BOOM.
A loud crack echoed in the distance—like thunder splitting open the air.
Outside, the sky began to shift again, turning reddish-pink. The village shimmered, rippling like water disturbed.
Aya turned to the window.
"They've found you," she whispered.
Rhys drew his sword instinctively. "Who's 'they'?"
Aya's face turned cold.
"The Constants. The real ones. They've seen too much truth restored."
She grabbed my hand. "There's no more time. If you want to keep me—this me—you must fight them. Not with strength. But with remembrance."
The walls cracked.
Reality groaned.
We stepped outside into a world now twisted—half village, half chaos. One side remained lush and peaceful. The other—fragmented, glitching, unnatural.
Hovering above the rift were three figures—twisting, luminous things that shifted shape.
The Constants.
The real arbiters of balance.
"You have remembered," one intoned, its voice like metal grinding glass.
"And that is forbidden."
Another pointed at Aya.
"This fragment was sealed."
"Your heart opened it."
The third turned to me.
"What will you sacrifice to keep it?"
I took a step forward, breath steady.
"I'll sacrifice what I must. But not her."
They laughed—a sound like wires snapping in wet silence.
"Then offer your past."
"Erase the Kaito who lived in that village."
Aya gasped. "No! Kaito, if you do that—"
"—Then you won't remember me. Not this version. Not this love."
I looked at her.
I looked at them.
Then I closed my eyes.
And remembered everything.
Our first walk to school.
That time I threw water balloons at her window.
Her laugh in the rain.
Our first argument.
The quiet moment after her mom's funeral when she just sat beside me, holding my hand for hours.
The way she cried when I said goodbye before I left that final day.
And I realized—
I'd rather hurt with those memories than live peacefully without them.
I turned to the Constants.
"You want my past?" I said. "Take it."
FWWWWWWWSSHHH!
A surge of light exploded from my chest, memories pouring out in streams of color and light.
The village around us faded, crumbling like ash in wind.
But Aya didn't fade.
She stood there—alone, crying—but real.
A tear fell from her cheek and floated, sparkling, toward me.
I caught it.
She smiled.
And then—
BOOM!
Everything went black.
When my eyes opened again, I was lying on a stone floor—Rhys and Elira beside me, breathing heavily. We were back in the cosmic dome, the Crucible now sealed behind us.
But clutched in my hand…
Was a single white ribbon.
Aya's ribbon.
Still warm.