Chapter 44
The door was wrong.
Not broken. Not sealed. Just... wrong.
It pulsed like a second heartbeat in Nezutsu's mind — one that didn't belong to him. As he crossed the threshold, the Trial around him screamed, not in sound, but in shifting reality.
The air twisted.
Colors inverted.
And then —
Silence.
Nezutsu stood in a void. No floor. No sky. Just a single floating structure ahead — a monolith shaped like a spiraling flame trapped inside a glass cube.
From its center, a voice emerged.
"Welcome, Echo. You've stepped beyond judgement."
"Who are you?" Nezutsu asked.
"We are what remains when fate forgets. We are the shards of paths denied."
"And this place?"
"This is the Delta Memory. The path that was erased."
The cube cracked. From its fracture emerged a girl — barefoot, floating, and wrapped in smoke. Her hair flickered like candlefire, and her eyes were stitched shut with silver thread.
"You… look like me," Nezutsu whispered.
She smiled, sad and knowing.
"I was what you were supposed to become."
"What do you mean?"
"Before the gods erased you. Before the world was rewritten. There was a version of you that never hid. A version that burned too bright. I was sealed here. Forgotten."
Nezutsu took a step forward.
"Then why am I here?"
"Because you shattered the trial's lie. And that means we can merge. Become whole again."
Meanwhile… In the Real World
Kaelith burned.
The Prism Watchers surrounded her, muttering their incantations, projecting false memories into her mind. Her hands trembled as visions flickered — images of Nezutsu wielding the violet flame to slaughter innocents… corrupt kings… even tear through the sky.
"He never did those things!" she screamed. "You're lying!"
But part of her — the part shaped by doubt — trembled.
One of the Watchers stepped closer.
"We preserve the Archive. And the Archive says Nezutsu was never meant to exist."
She looked them dead in their hollow, glowing eyes.
"Then I guess it's time to break the Archive."
And with a snap of her fingers, she triggered the Echo Sigil Nezutsu had secretly burned onto her skin days ago — a failsafe rune keyed to his flame.
It activated.
And the world rippled.
Back in the Delta Memory
The flame-girl — the Other Nezutsu — circled him.
"We were once the same. But you forgot me."
"No," Nezutsu said. "You were taken."
"That's why I'm offering you a choice. Take my flame. Become what we were. And nothing can stop us."
"And the price?"
"You'll forget everything else. Kaelith. Velgrim. The boy who learned will be replaced by the one who already knew. The fire will burn your humanity."
Nezutsu looked at her — this flickering mirror of what could've been.
Then he said softly:
"No."
She paused.
"No?"
"I'll find my own path. With my flame. My memory. My flaws. You're a part of me, but you don't get to consume me."
He stepped forward and hugged her — not out of love, but recognition.
And with that, she wept flames, and faded into his chest — becoming part of his fire, not all of it.
Suddenly, the void cracked open.
And Nezutsu awoke.
Cliffhanger Twist: The Shattered Sky
He landed in the waking world — not in Kaelith's arms, not in safety — but in the ruins of the Trial Temple, now collapsed and burning.
Velgrim was waiting, wounded and breathing hard.
"She's gone," he said. "Kaelith was taken by the Prism Watchers. They're dragging her to the Archive's Core — to be erased."
Nezutsu's flame flickered wildly.
He clenched his fists, and the violet fire erupted around him like a living storm.
But now — it wasn't just fire.
It spoke.
"Rewrite the lie."
"Burn the Archive."
"Free the stories buried beneath obedience."
Nezutsu looked at the sky.
A massive glyph appeared overhead — a spinning construct of forbidden runes.
The Archive had noticed his choice.
And it was coming for him.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]