The box shook.
Rin gripped it tightly, eyes flicking between the version of herself and the light beginning to leak from the seams. It wasn't aggressive. It was something subtler—like a warning being whispered in a language she almost remembered.
Other-Rin didn't move.
She looked at the box and smiled. Not cruelly. Not warmly either. Just—accepting.
"You're close now," she said softly. "That's why it hurts."
"What is this?" Rin asked, not taking her eyes off her double. "What was taken from me?"
"Not taken," she said. "Given. But too early. Before you could understand it."
The corridor flickered. The box made a hollow sound—like a key turning in a lock that wasn't meant to be turned yet.
And then, just before it cracked open, Rin looked again—
and the other version of her was gone.
Inside the chair-room, Aro's heart hammered as memory structures bled into his simulated space.
The glass around him pulsed. A memory-scene played—one he'd never seen before. He stood in a field of broken threads. Selene was beside him, older. So was Iris. The three of them were running from something, and Alin was already missing.
He heard himself shout: "This isn't the way out—we weren't supposed to remember this much!"
But the voices were faint. Overlayed.
In Selene's chamber, the mirror she'd been looking into cracked.
In Iris's, the second voice—the one that wasn't hers—started speaking in sync with her thoughts.
In Alin's, her name rewrote itself mid-screening. The system kept trying to stabilize her identity and failing.
All of them were drifting closer to something they weren't cleared to access.
Back in the command terminal, Weaver whispered under his breath.
"No—no, no, too fast."
He opened the channel. Almost pressed send.
"System pulse: Alignment Order 4—Delay Merge by 7 minutes."
His finger hovered.
But he didn't do it.
Instead, he asked aloud:
"…What happens if I let them meet?"
Behind him, the console began to calculate an answer.
The percentage of irreversibility climbed past 60%.
Weaver closed his eyes. And turned off the alert screen.
Far below, the Technician leaned forward in the unmoving train.
The girl across from her spoke.
"Are you watching them?"
"I always have," the Technician answered.
"Then why not stop it?"
She smiled faintly. "Because I already tried that. It made things worse."
The train lights flickered.
Then for the first time—moved forward by a single inch.
The Technician didn't look surprised.
But she finally whispered a name:
"…Rin."
Back in the corridor, the box in Rin's hands began to open on its own.
Not violently. But with the heavy softness of a door no one thought would open again.
Inside, she saw—
a thread.
Just one.
But not any thread she remembered touching. It shimmered between colors—red, then blue, then gold. Then all at once. It looked almost… alive.
She reached for it.
Behind her, footsteps echoed.
But this time—not from a double.
Someone else had entered the corridor.