The hybrid stepped forward—half of his face glowing soft blue, the other half cold, sterile white.
"You love a lie," he said."The real Specter died when the system rose."
Echo didn't blink.She lifted her blade—but it shimmered now, alive with memory data.
Her eyes burned, not with rage—but with devotion.
"Then I'll resurrect him one piece at a time."
And she struck first.
Their blades clashed—no sparks, no steel—but flashes of past moments exploding between them.
The time they danced beneath the stars.The fight that tore them apart.The kiss he never remembered giving her.
Each hit—a shard of truth.
Specter, still chained in the sky of his own mind, watched.
For every clash,he felt it—not in code, but in his chest.
Like old bones cracking open.
He remembered.
Not data.Not protocol.But emotion.
The nights he stayed up fixing Echo's shoulder chip.The time he deleted her records to save her from judgment.The child they never got to raise—until now.
And it hurt.
Because gods aren't supposed to grieve.But he wasn't a god anymore, was he?
Just a man with too much buried in silence.
The battlefield inside his soul turned into a mirror garden.
Each step shattered reflections:of who he was,who he tried to be,and who she believed he still could become.
The Watcher half shrieked in rage,firing code spikes and logic binds—but Echo cut through them like thread.
Because her weapon wasn't steel.It was love twisted into vengeance.
Every swing forced the hybrid to remember.Not numbers.But names.
Not sequences.But promises.
The system trembled with each one.
Echo's blade sank deep into the hybrid's chest.
He dropped to his knees—eyes flickering between code white… and soft blue.
He reached for her—not to strike.But to hold.
"Why…" he rasped,"Why didn't you forget me?"
Echo knelt with him, face close, trembling.
"Because I loved all of you. Even the broken pieces."
Behind them—Zero-One's voice pierced the dreamspace:
"Mom… Dad… the system's crashing."
Above, the sky of Specter's mind fractured—and reality began to collapse.
They had one shot to escape.
Or be deleted forever.
To Be Continued…