The ground beneath them vibrates with a low, unnatural hum.
Not seismic.
Systemic.
As if the world is clearing its throat before a collapse.
Rin stands near the dead console tower, her fingers flicking through backdoor threads in the Variant framework.
Every movement bleeds faint light. Every swipe risks corruption.
"The deletion wave isn't coming," she says quietly.
"It's already begun. Silent. Selective."
Matthew stands behind her, jaw tense.
"We need to find where it's bleeding in from. This isn't random."
Sora approaches slowly, holding a fragment of shattered signage—one from the Hide and Seek map.
She turns it over.
On its back is a charred symbol—the same that once marked the King's Trail:
A loop, half-broken, spiraling inward.
"It's targeting players tied to the old maps," she mutters.
"The ones who carry residue from the first Variant age."
Rin opens a map—one not meant to be visible.
A fracture-layer of the system: a lattice of broken nodes, ghosted forks, leftover players.
Each pulsing point shows a fragmented player—echoes, copy-memories, those who were erased… or almost were.
Sora watches as names begin to surface:
Zehra (ZE9-RA) — red flag. Nico — gray, flickering. Ilari — static-wrapped, unreadable. Rin — blinking, cracked. Matthew — half-shadowed. Sora — labeled "unstable memory carrier."
"They're coming for us next," Rin says.
"Anyone who ever crossed a node that collapsed is being flagged."
"We need to fuse the fragments before the system shatters us apart."
Fusion Protocol: Dangerous and Unstable
To fuse memory-fragments means exposure.
Each player must revisit their corrupted node and retrieve the part of themselves the system left behind—or tried to delete.
Matthew steps forward first.
"Let's do it. Start with me."
Sora grabs his arm.
"No. If the NULL SHEPHERD notices the protocol, it won't wait for us to finish."
"We go together. One memory each. No more."
Rin uploads the temporary fusion map to their neural layer.
It flickers like burning film.
The group moves into a broken corridor, doors forming around them—each marked by a player's name and a piece of distorted audio.
Sora turns to the others:
"We're about to step into who we used to be."
"But if anything in there tries to rewrite you—fight it."
They split.
One door each.
SYSTEM MONITOR: NULL SHEPHERD UPLINK DETECTED
"Tracing fusion attempts… Observing rebellion node… Awaiting outcome."
Behind one of the doors, the NULL SHEPHERD appears—
but not to stop them.
To see what part of itself they might bring back.