The cathedral loomed ahead like a dead god's throne.
Kairo's steps echoed through the fog-thick streets, slow and uneven. Every muscle in his body ached with that raw, just-born pain, and yet… it was fading too fast. Healing unnaturally. Not regenerating—rewriting.
He kept one eye on the crumbling buildings, expecting more of those mask-things to peel from the walls. Nothing came. Even the wind was silent now, like the world was afraid to interrupt whatever came next.
The massive doors of the cathedral stood cracked open.
Inside, the air was colder. Still. Choked with silence so heavy it felt like pressure on his skull. The stained glass windows spilled fractured red and gold across the pews—each window twisted with impossible images: eyes where there should be stars, hands holding burning clocks, a girl drowning in a mirror.
He stepped onto the central aisle.
The moment his boot hit the stone, the system pulsed again.
[ENVIRONMENTAL ENTRY CONFIRMED]
[LOCATION: DOMAIN CITADEL // LAYER: SURFACE SANCTUARY]
[RESTRICTION LEVEL: 3 // ACCESS GRANTED VIA GLITCH SIGNATURE]
That last part made his skin crawl.
He passed rows of pews, most cracked, some overturned. At the altar stood a strange statue—no face, no eyes, only a circle for a head and wings made of chains. Blood—real or painted—drenched its arms.
And someone knelt in front of it.
The girl.
Same bandaged shawl. Same hollow expression.
She didn't turn to him when she spoke.
"You're not supposed to be here."
Kairo stopped behind her.
"You ran," he said.
Her voice trembled. "You shouldn't have followed. They only hunt outside."
"Who were they?"
"Her servants," she whispered. "They wear the masks so they can forget what they are."
Kairo stepped closer. "Who's 'her'?"
The girl turned her head—barely.
And her eyes—
They weren't human.
One was a normal iris, dull and brown. The other was a mirror.
And in that mirror, Kairo saw not himself… but something wearing his shape. Broken. Twitching. Covered in blood.
He staggered back.
The girl stood. Her shadow stretched far too long across the cathedral floor.
"The system told me you were coming," she said, voice lilting. "But it didn't say which version of you."
The system flared again.
[UNSTABLE CONSTRUCT DETECTED]
[WARNING: DUPLICATE LOOP ECHO PRESENT // SYSTEM CONFLICT IMMINENT]
A crack split the air beside her. Not in the wall—in reality.
Thin lines of white static etched a circle into space, like the world had been folded wrong.
And from that circle stepped—
Him.
But twisted.
Bloodied cloak. Hollow eyes. Mouth smiling too wide, like it had been stretched into a grin by something that didn't understand faces. He held a spear—no, a broken shard of glass shaped like one.
Kairo didn't move.
The system pinged again, faster this time.
[TARGET: RECURSION SHADE // LOOP 7 FRAGMENT // LEVEL: UNKNOWN]
[AUTO-SKILL: TRACE//FORCE - DENIED]
[NEW SKILL GENERATED: REFLECT//PAIN - LV.1]
[WARNING: CORE DESTABILIZING]
His double lunged.
Glass-whip spear slashed through air like a blink. Kairo ducked—barely—and pain scorched across his shoulder. The shard didn't just cut flesh—it unzipped something deeper. Like it tried to rewrite who he was on contact.
He rolled, struck back with his palm, firing a kinetic pulse—
—but his system hesitated. Lagged.
The Shade grabbed him by the throat and whispered in a voice that wasn't his:
"You're just another rewrite."
Kairo grabbed the Shade's wrist and activated the new skill.
Reflect. Pain.
Light screamed.
Not outward—but inward. The pain flowed back into the Shade, amplified. It let go, stumbling back with a roar that shook the windows.
The girl stood unmoving. Still watching.
The Shade lunged again, but its movements distorted—its body flickered between poses, skipping like bad animation. Glitches ate at its frame. The system lit up one last time:
[CONFLICT RESOLUTION: SYSTEM OVERRIDE GRANTED]
[ECHO PURGED // SHADE CONSUMED]
[VOIDPOINT +2 EARNED]
The Shade exploded into static.
Silence returned.
Kairo collapsed to one knee, panting. Blood dripped down his arm, evaporating as his skin sealed again. His shoulder still throbbed.
The girl turned to him at last.
"I had a brother," she said quietly. "He tried to escape the system, too."
Kairo met her gaze.
"What happened to him?"
She smiled—sad, small.
"He became a fragment."
Kairo stood slowly. "Who are you?"
She hesitated.
Then:
"I'm a Watcher. I remember things the system deletes."
And without another word, she walked into the statue's shadow.
And vanished.
Kairo stood alone in the cathedral.
And the system whispered, softly this time—
"This world will not wait for you to remember who you were."