The last door hissed as it sealed behind them, swallowing the faint traces of light from the upper levels. What remained was a narrow, descending corridor—made of dark composite metal, covered in fractures, and faintly breathing with cold mechanical pulses. The lights overhead flickered in uneven intervals, as if the corridor itself was unsure whether it wanted to stay alive.
Reiji stepped forward first.
His grip tightened around the hilt at his waist, fingertips trembling—not in fear, but in focus sharpened to a blade's edge. Akari followed closely behind, her steps silent, her eyes moving across the broken sigils etched on the walls.
The sigils were the first thing Reiji noticed.
They weren't merely symbols.
They were scars.
Lines of ancient script, half-burned, half-erased, as if something violent had ripped through the original pattern. Some of them glowed faint red, like dying embers refusing to fade. Others blinked with static, distorted into meaningless noise.
Akari knelt beside a shattered one, fingers hovering above the ruined mark.
"These were operational once," she said quietly. "Security sigils. Memory seals. This was meant to protect something… or keep it contained."
Reiji didn't answer. His jaw tightened.
He could feel something pushing at the edges of his thoughts—an echo, faint but invasive, like someone tapping against the walls of his mind.
It was subtle.
Too subtle.
The kind of intrusion that only someone deeply familiar with his psyche could manage.
The Director was already reaching for him.
Reiji inhaled slowly, steadying his heartbeat.
You wanted me to come. Now I'm here.
The corridor bent sharply downward, and as they descended, the temperature dropped. Frost lined the edges of the walls. Their breaths escaped in pale clouds.
The hum of dormant machinery filled the air, mixed with distant echoes—metal shifting, whispering, groaning. As they moved deeper, Reiji noticed more sigils fractured along the path. Something had intentionally disrupted them. The cracks weren't chaotic; they followed a deliberate pattern.
A pattern that mirrored Reiji's own memories.
Akari noticed it too. "These breaks… Reiji, they match your neural echo patterns. The same distortions you showed after the Resonance Incident."
Reiji paused. His pulse sharpened. "So he's been using them."
"Using you," Akari corrected gently.
He didn't respond. He didn't want to.
Not yet.
The path opened into a wide chamber, circular and hollow, lined with floating shard-like panels of glass. Each panel flickered with static—like broken windows reflecting scenes that no longer existed.
Then Reiji froze.
One panel cleared.
A child ran through a dim hallway—stumbling, crying, shadows chasing him from behind.
Reiji's breath caught.
He knew this place.
He knew this moment.
He had lived it.
But he had never spoken of it.
And yet it was here.
Projected.
Distorted.
Observed.
Akari stepped closer, voice tightened. "Reiji… is that—"
"Not exactly," he said through clenched teeth. "It's the version he wants me to remember."
Another panel sparked to life.
Reiji saw himself—older, but younger than now—kneeling in a dim cell, hands trembling, whispering something he couldn't hear. The image glitched violently, repeating the motion again and again.
Breaking.
Reiji swallowed hard, forcing the rising heat in his chest to settle.
"He's been collecting fragments," he muttered. "Pieces of me."
Akari turned her eyes toward him. "Then we take them back."
Reiji looked at the broken projections one last time, then turned away.
"Let's finish this."
They continued deeper.
The next hall was darker than any before. Not because the lights had failed—but because something had deliberately shut them down. Only faint strips of white emergency luminescence guided their path.
The sigils here weren't cracked.
They were mutilated.
Scratched out by hand.
Clawed out.
Erased as if someone had tried to hide the original purpose of the chamber.
Reiji's fingers brushed one sigil.
Cold.
Dead.
Completely severed from power.
"Why destroy them?" Akari whispered.
"So only he can control what happens next," Reiji replied.
The hall ended in front of a massive reinforced door—one that didn't belong to the same technology as the rest of the facility. This one was old. Pre-Concord. Possibly pre-Court.
Circular carvings spiraled across its surface, filled with faint luminescent dust. Even broken, the sigils radiated a strange pressure—like a mind leaning against another mind.
Akari examined the mechanism. "Three locks. One mechanical, one biometric, and one…"
"Cognitive," Reiji finished.
The moment he said it, the door pulsed—like something inside recognized his voice, his presence, his mind.
And then—
Click.
One lock disengaged.
Reiji exhaled slowly. "That's one."
Akari positioned herself defensively and scanned the upper edges. "Second lock should be triggered by direct contact."
Reiji placed his hand against the cold metal.
The door reacted instantly.
A surge of memory-laced static shot through his arm.
For a moment, he wasn't in the corridor anymore.
He was somewhere else.
A chair.
Cold restraints.
A voice whispering just behind him.
"…you will not remember this part, Shinomiya Reiji."
Reiji yanked his hand away with a gasp, breath unsteady.
Akari caught his shoulder. "Reiji—"
"I'm fine."
He wasn't.
The second lock clicked open anyway.
Akari's jaw tightened, but she said nothing. She knew forcing him to talk would only destabilize him further.
The third lock was the cognitive one.
Which meant the Director had designed it.
Reiji stepped in front of it, staring into the faintly glowing sigil.
This is it.
The hallway quieted.
Even the hum of machinery seemed to hold its breath.
Reiji closed his eyes.
And he let the past touch him—just enough.
Not enough to break him.
But enough to open the door.
A whisper rippled through the air.
Familiar.
Cold.
Parasitic.
"…welcome home."
The final lock clicked.
And the massive door slowly opened.
A burst of white light flooded out, forcing both of them to shield their eyes.
When it settled, Reiji and Akari stepped inside.
The room was vast—circular, cathedral-like. The air was unnaturally still, as if sound itself refused to linger.
At its center stood a raised platform.
On it:
A chair of polished metal and shattered glass—woven with cables and sigils that pulsed like veins. A machine built for one purpose:
Resonance.
Memory extraction.
Mind breaking.
Reiji felt his breath catch in his chest.
This was where it had happened.
Where it had begun.
Akari stepped beside him. "This place… it's designed around you."
He didn't deny it.
He couldn't.
Before either of them could examine further, the lights dimmed.
A low hum filled the chamber.
Then—
A voice emerged, amplified but calm.
Cold.
Measured.
Analytical.
"Shinomiya Reiji."
Reiji stiffened.
Akari tightened her stance.
The voice continued, unfazed.
"Your arrival was expected. Though I must admit… earlier than projected."
Reiji's hands curled into fists. "Director."
A figure stepped from the far shadows—tall, thin, wrapped in a dark coat reinforced with reflective filaments that shimmered like broken mirror shards. His face was partially obscured by a visor of fractured glass, each segment reflecting a different angle of the room.
Different angles of Reiji.
The Director tilted his head slightly, as if observing a specimen.
"You've grown significantly since the last calibration."
Akari's eyes narrowed. "Calibration? Is that what you call what you did to him?"
The Director didn't look at her.
He didn't even acknowledge her existence.
His attention remained solely on Reiji.
As it always had.
"You broke the sigils," Reiji said quietly. "Why?"
"To free you."
The response chilled even the air.
"To free you from the constraints you were… born with."
Reiji stepped forward. "You don't get to talk about my past."
"But I constructed it," the Director replied calmly. "I am the one who preserved you. And now, Shinomiya Reiji… I am the one who will complete you."
Akari's voice was sharp as a blade. "Over my dead body."
The Director still didn't look at her.
"Possible," he said simply.
Reiji's chest tightened.
Not in fear—
But in anger so controlled it cut deeper than rage.
The Director raised a hand.
The shattered sigils embedded in the walls sparked to life—red, unstable, pulsating like beating hearts.
And Reiji felt something inside the room shift.
Bend.
Reach.
Not toward Akari.
Not toward the Director.
Toward him.
The Director's voice softened.
"Come now, Reiji. You've always known—"
A pause.
Almost affectionate.
"—that this was where you were meant to return."
The air trembled.
The chamber darkened.
And the Resonance platform behind the Director blazed to life.
Reiji inhaled sharply, the weight of years pressing down on him.
Not memories.
Not trauma.
Not fear.
Resolve.
He stepped forward, shadows pulling around him like a second skin.
Akari mirrored him, blades drawn.
And Reiji spoke—
Sharp.
Clear.
Unbroken.
"I didn't come back to be completed."
His eyes fixed on the Director, steady as steel.
"I came to end this."
The Director smiled faintly behind the fractured visor.
"Then step forward, Shinomiya Reiji."
The chamber sealed behind them.
And the confrontation truly began.