It began with a bell.
Not a sound anyone else could hear.
Just Hiragi—
Lying in a cold room, staring at a wall of masks.
Eight of them now.
But one was missing.
The final one.
The Ninth Mask—the one without a face.
He stood in the center of the ritual circle.
The air felt thick, pixelated.
Time glitched.
Lain stood behind him, her eyes glowing blue.
Airi watched silently from a chair, bound by dream-threads.
The shrine twisted around them.
No longer reality.
Not a dream.
Just Void.
Then came the voice.
A whisper from all sides.
"You've worn every name but your own."
The God Without Name stepped forward.
It had no body.
Only fragments—like broken code, floating in human shape.
Its mask was unfinished.
A thousand screaming mouths on a blank canvas.
"I am the seed that bloomed in your silence," it whispered.
"Born from everything you refused to feel."
Fight?
There was no blade.
No stage.
Just confrontation.
The god pressed a finger to Hiragi's forehead.
Suddenly—
He saw everything.
Sena, glitching in her last moment. The white room where he first awoke. A classroom with no doors. The voice that said: "You were never supposed to be here."
"You're an error," the god hissed.
"A slayer made from corrupted prayer."
Hiragi's knees buckled.
His chest burned.
But he remembered Lain's hand, gripping his.
He remembered Suguru laughing in the distance.
Even Ishigami's cold, perfect logic.
And the faces of the forgotten.
The ones who gave him power.
"I'm not the error," Hiragi said.
"You are."
He placed all eight masks in a circle—
And wore none of them.
"I don't need a mask to be myself."
The Ninth Bell rang.
A soundless, absolute tone.
The God Without Name screamed.
It fractured.
Reality bled.
And Hiragi stepped through the veil.
When his eyes opened again—
The sky was clear.
The system had reset.
Eden had shut down.
Airi was crying.
Lain looked away.
"You made it back."
He didn't speak.
He walked to the wall.
Where the ninth mask had appeared.
And above it…
Arc Complete: Eden.exe Terminated
Memory Core Locked
Void Access Unlocked – Tier II
End of Arc 3 – Eden.exe