The corridor was dim, but not abandoned.
Rin stood near the thread—alive and still pulsing softly within its frame—when footsteps echoed behind her. Not hurried. Not hesitant. Just present, like they belonged here even more than she did.
She turned.
It wasn't Aro.
It wasn't the Technician.
And it wasn't the version of herself that had vanished.
The figure before her looked… familiar, but not in any one memory. Their posture was calm, hands visible, no weapons. Hair slightly longer than Aro's, eyes like stone over still water.
"Hello again," they said.
Rin didn't move. "Do I know you?"
"You did." A pause. "And in another sense… you still do. If the thread recognizes you, then you're still her."
Still who?
She didn't say it out loud. She didn't need to.
He stepped aside just enough to reveal something pinned to the wall behind him—a thin plaque of woven material. There were threads etched into it. And a name.
Her name.
It shouldn't have been there.
She looked back to him. "What do you want from me?"
"I don't want anything," he said. "But there's something you should remember before the others arrive. Before it all closes again."
Elsewhere, but not far—
Weaver watched the memory walls from a room that was supposed to remain sealed. His fingers hovered over the signal again.
He didn't press it.
Behind him, a protocol flared red.
Another presence had left their boundary.
Technician.
Of course.
Weaver leaned forward, voice low. "I thought we agreed not to interfere again."
A distant voice crackled in through a restricted channel. Hers.
"You agreed. I never did."
Aro's side—
The chamber had destabilized. The chairs had let go of them—Selene, Iris, Alin, all blinking in a shared open space that wasn't a room, wasn't a memory, but somewhere in between. They all turned to Aro, who was already standing.
Selene frowned. "We weren't supposed to remember this part, were we?"
Before Aro could answer, a figure stepped into the blurred edges of the space.
Weaver.
Visible, real, without veil or title.
Aro took a step forward, uncertain. "You're not supposed to be here."
Weaver didn't deny it.
"I'm tired of watching," he said.
Back to Rin—
The stranger approached the thread without touching it. "We used to think the thread was only memory. A way to record. To reflect."
He looked at her again.
"But it wasn't memory. It was will. Yours. His. Ours."
Rin narrowed her eyes. "His?"
Before the stranger could answer, the corridor behind them flickered again.
Another figure appeared.
The Technician.
This time, she looked directly at Rin.
And said softly, "It's time."