Somewhere between seconds and silence, the flame spoke.
Not in words.
In losses.
Kai stood at the edge of the Sovereign Path's unraveling, flame burning in his hands, memory breaking behind his eyes. The others hadn't followed yet. They couldn't.
This was his layer.
And something was waiting for him here.
A girl.
No older than sixteen, but her presence folded time around her like a cloak. Her eyes shimmered with barcodes that flickered through names, coordinates, sins. Her skin glowed with static, and her voice—
Her voice was his mother's.
"Kai…"
He staggered back, flame dimming.
"No. You're not her."
The girl blinked. "No. But I was written from the memory you buried. From the part you couldn't burn."
She stepped closer. The air warped behind her, turning crystalline, fragile—like the memory of a lullaby.
"I am Witness Protocol 1. You named me once. Do you remember?"
Kai's breath caught.
His fingers trembled.
"...I called you Hope."
She nodded.
"And now I am your failure."
***
Paradiso Ruins – Border Veil
Syl gripped the shifting strands of the broken Path, her knuckles glowing with sigils.
"He's being isolated," she whispered.
Shin frowned. "Can we breach it?"
"Only if we're remembered."
Ryuu raised a brow. "Meaning?"
Syl didn't look back. "Kai has to want us beside him. Otherwise, we're just echoes."
***
Inside the Protocol Layer
Hope circled Kai slowly, barefoot across the frozen light.
"You lit the Flame. You stepped beyond the Program's reach. But you left pieces behind, Kai."
A screen bloomed into being beside her.
It showed Kai—young, afraid—complying. Not resisting. Not fighting. Just surviving.
"You let them hollow you," Hope said. "And I was born from what remained. They called me a failsafe, but I think I'm something else."
She reached out—not to attack, but to touch his flame.
It recoiled. Alive. Scared.
"Every time you made a choice, they recorded it. They learned from it. And now, they've written me as your final truth."
Kai's voice cracked. "Then what are you here to do?"
Her eyes pulsed.
"To unwrite you."
***
Memory Collapse Initiated
The world shattered into moments.
Kai on the Program table.
Syl screaming through restraints.
Shin kneeling over a lifeless comrade.
Ryuu laughing through tears on a battlefield made of bodies.
Every trauma.
Every truth.
Every cost.
Played in reverse.
Erased.
Kai fell to his knees, hands shaking, trying to hold onto the flame—but his name was slipping.
Hope knelt beside him.
"You're tired, Kai. Just let go. Let me carry the burden. You can rest."
He almost said yes.
Almost.
But then—
A hand reached through the void.
Not Hope's.
Syl's.
Not real.
Not yet.
But remembered.
Her voice broke through the unraveling:
"We're not your past. We're your choice."
Kai's flame flared, burning straight through his doubt.
He roared.
Not in rage.
In remembrance.
***
Protocol Collapse
Hope staggered back, data cracking across her face.
"No... That's not how this ends."
Kai stood, flame in one hand, memory in the other.
"It is now. You're not my failure. You're proof I survived."
She looked up at him—no longer a threat.
Just a girl.
"Will I disappear?"
Kai hesitated. Then knelt, touching her forehead with burning fingers.
"No. I'll carry you."
And with that, the Witness Protocol dissolved—into him.
Her data, her truth, her pain—reclaimed.
***
Outside, the sky screamed open.
The Sovereign Path exploded into pillars of light, and Kai emerged—eyes burning, name reformed.
Behind him: Syl, Ryuu, Shin.
Before them: the Program's armies.
Unit 9 had arrived.
And they were not alone.
But Kai was no longer just a variable.
He was a witness.
And the world was about to remember what it had tried to forget.