The last door did not swing open like the rest.
It trembled open—afraid of what was on the other side.
The instant Rin stepped across the entrance, her breath caught.
She recognized this room.
A dome-shaped room hewn from obsidian, its walls scored with lines that glowed like veins alive. The floor showed the stars. but not the sky itself. Instead, they reflected memory—hundreds, perhaps thousands of iterations of her. Of Kael. Of the world that came up and went down and shattered around them.
At the center, a solitary thread.
Wider than the rest. Shining softly purple, but with shadow tracing through it.
And wrapped around it— around a "mask."
Plain. White. But when Rin saw it, pain slashed through her skull.
She dropped to her knees.
"Rin" Kael rushed to her side, grabbing her just as she crumpled entirely.
But she didn't speak.
She remembered.
---
She remembered fire.
Herbs and smoke scented the air. Her hands covered in blood. Elias shouting Reika's name as walls tumbled in around them. Kael pulling her from a burning apothecary, legs shattered. She screamed.
She remembered coldness.
Standing in front of Daizen Mikado—her voice calm, her expression blank. He asked her to betray Kael. To give up Elias. She did.
And then she didn't.
She remembered both.
She remembered laughter.
Dancing with Kael beneath moonlight, the others watching with wine and soft smiles. A stolen kiss behind a garden wall. A promise: "We'll end this. Together."
And she remembered betrayal.
Kael, fingers dripping with blood. Her name in his mouth. But not hers. Not this Rin. Another. From another cycle. Another existence.
She screamed.
---
"Make it stop!" she panted.
But the room refused to listen.
The memories continued to flow.
Each one not a vision—but a version. Lives she'd lived. Deaths she'd survived. Decisions made and undone.
And all of them ended the same way.
With her alone.
Kael knelt, his arms around her, his voice barely above a whisper, "You're here. With me. I won't let them take you again."
And even as he spoke, the room shifted.
The shadows on the edge of the room began to move.
Evolving in a form....a shape.
They emerged from the walls like shattered dolls sewn together with soulthread. Each one carried Rin's face—but their eyes were hollow. Some cried. Others bled. A few shrieked. One merely gazed.
A voice resounded throughout the chamber.
Low. Familiar. Intimidating.
"Do you understand now, child?" It was Mikado's voice. Or a recollection of it. "You do not elude destiny. You merely wear a new mask."
Rin trembled and rose, Kael was holding her.
She glanced at the thread—the middle one, the one with the mask—and comprehended at last.
"It's the anchor," she whispered. "The one version that chose to forget."
Elias was at the doorway now, Reika by his side, both of them standing there with haunted eyes.
"She sealed herself," Elias said. "The strongest of your selves. She broke the chain by forgetting. By becoming… less."
Kael shook his head. "Not less. Just human."
Reika moved forward. "But now that one is waking up. And when she does, everything will fold back into her. Every version. Every life. Every death."
Rin's eyes sparkled with tears. "What do I do?"
Elias whispered, "You choose."
The mask shook.
It beckoned.
And Rin—heart shattering—stretched out.
-----
Her fingers passed over the mask.
A shock ran through her body. A voice—her own, and yet not her own—sounded in her mind.
"You have hurt. So many times. Stop. Let us become one."
Rin shivered.
But Kael's hand slipped into her own then.
He did not say anything.
He didn't need to.
She turned to address the crowd of versions—broken, bleeding, forgotten—and she moved toward them.
"I won't bury you," she said.
Her voice cracked.
"You all lived. And I… I will remember every one of you."
The mask shattered.
The central thread burst outward—breaking, splintering, and then entwining itself around her heart.
Memory filled her.
And this time… she clung to it.
---
She opened her eyes.
Not in the void.
Not in the chamber.
But in a field.
A sea of white lilies.
The sky above was broken—half golden, half violet. Time shattered like a mirror above her. But Rin stood. Tall. Unbroken.
Kael emerged at her side, wind in his hair, eyes unwavering.
Behind them, Reika and Elias crossed a final gate.
And in the middle of the field….
…was a figure.
No longer darkness.
But not completely light.
Lord Daizen Mikado.
He smiled, peaceful.
"You reached me, little flame."
Rin's voice did not shake.
"This time, you will remember me."
---