"Not all anomalies are created.
Some… awaken."
— Classified Dataline, Black Archive Omega-2
The New Siberian Zone wasn't on any current map.Officially, it had sunk beneath the ice shelf in 2097. Unofficially, it had become the graveyard of the first failed world reset.
Now, it pulsed again.
Like a heart trying to remember how to beat.
Rafael stood on the edge of the frost-covered chasm.His breath misted in front of him, but not from cold — from pressure. The kind that made atoms hesitate to exist.
Kiryuu Aoi knelt beside a fractured stone pillar, scanning the energy lines running through the ancient runes etched deep into its structure. She said nothing, but the sharp angle of her brow said everything: this wasn't normal.
Not even for them.
Elira paced behind them, holding her blade low, flames flickering along its edge but not rising.
Something was watching.
No — something was remembering.
And then it spoke.
But not through sound.
Through everything.
Through the wind.
Through the crunch of ice under their boots.
Through the blood in Rafael's veins.
"Reset protocol... unlocked."
The ground fractured in a perfect circle around them — no quakes, no debris, just absence.
In its place:A figure.
Not emerging. Not appearing.Simply being.
A man — perhaps. Or the shape of one.
Dressed in layers of tattered, dark-gray robes that shimmered like wet ink. No eyes — just sockets that burned with starlight. Symbols drifted off his skin like smoke.
He looked at Rafael.
He looked through Kiryuu.
He passed over Elira like a shadow skipping light.
Then he spoke, aloud this time:
"I am the Original Reset."
Kiryuu stood instantly, her frost aura snapping into defensive form. "Explain. Now."
The figure tilted his head. Slowly. Almost peacefully.
"You think the Rifts are invasions. You think they are openings.You are wrong.The Rifts are returns."
Rafael took a step forward. "To what?"
"To before choice.Before war.Before cause or consequence.Back to the blueprint of what reality was supposed to be — before you broke it."
A flicker — and the figure stood directly before Rafael now, inches away. No movement. No warning.
Just placement.
Rafael didn't flinch. "You think I broke the world?"
"Not think. Know."
Elira readied her blade. "Then fix it, asshole."
"That's what I'm doing," the figure said gently. "But some variables refuse to be erased. Some... like him."
He looked at Rafael again — no malice. Just certainty.
"You were supposed to die in the first cascade. But you didn't.Something held you outside the reset."
Kiryuu narrowed her eyes. "What held him?"
The figure didn't answer with words.
Instead, he raised a hand toward Rafael's chest.
The artifact.
It pulsed. Bright. Then brighter. Then…
It unfolded.
Like a mechanical flower. Metal layered with light and script. Ancient, divine, almost biological in its design. It floated in the air now, no longer just a trinket — but a seed.
The figure whispered:
"It's not an artifact. It's a memory of the world that never happened.A failsafe encoded in a moment you weren't supposed to keep."
Rafael stared at it.
Something in him split.
Not pain — not quite.More like the feeling of someone else's scream pressing against the back of your own skull.
Kiryuu caught him before he collapsed.
"Don't move," she muttered, setting him gently against the pillar. "Something's changing him."
The Reset figure knelt beside them now. His presence didn't freeze the air or ignite it — but warped it, like time hesitated to pass near him.
"He is both wound and weapon," the figure said. "And the deeper he remembers… the more dangerous he becomes."
"Dangerous to who?" Elira snapped.
"To the Board."
Kiryuu's eyes flashed. "So that's it. There is a Board."
"There was.And then it collapsed under its own lies."
A pause.
"But someone rebuilt it."
A tremor. Deeper than the crust. A resonance.
The second Rift that had opened above them began to shift.
It was expanding.
Not like a tear — but like a mouth.
And something was coming through.
Not a drone.Not a monster.Not a god.
A girl.
She drifted through the Rift like a leaf falling sideways.
Her feet didn't touch the ground. Her eyes were completely white — not blind, just… overwritten.
And she wore Rafael's face.
But younger.
Smiling.
Dead.
Elira took a step back.
Kiryuu's voice dropped to a whisper. "What the hell—"
The Reset figure finally showed emotion.
For the first time, he looked… uncertain.
"That's not my design."
The girl landed.
And spoke.
"Father."
Rafael's pulse stopped.
Because somewhere inside the haze of broken memory and second lives and lost time...
He remembered her.
Not from this life.
But from a life where the world never ended.