The last shrine waited atop a cliff wrapped in lightning and legend.
It pulsed with ancient energy, coiled tight like a spring ready to slap someone through a wall.
Mistral paced in the grass outside.
"The shrine doesn't want to open."
Kazuki blinked. "Shrines do that?"
"No. That's the part that's bad."
[System Alert: Alignment Instability Critical]Shrine Integrity Compromised. Vessel Thread Incompatible.]
Kaelith tried the usual—ancient chant, blessing scroll, elbowing the door.
Nothing.
Instead, the shrine spoke.
"You are not welcome. You are not one."
"You are glitch. Fragment. Fear."
Kazuki stepped forward.
And it cracked.
Time lurched.
Reality hiccupped.
The sun blinked.
Darin aged three seconds. Vera got younger. Mistral turned inside out for half a frame and hated it.
Kazuki fell to one knee.
Visions surged again. Timelines. Shrines. Himself.
One version crying. One ruling. One laughing. One burning.
They all whispered:
"Choose. Choose. Choose."
Kazuki clenched his fists.
"I told you. I'm not picking your paths."
"I'm making my own."
The shrine screamed.
Blood-red light poured from its cracks.
Then words appeared on the air, written in liquid time.
YOU TOOK TOO LONG.
HE'S COMING.
THE CYCLE IS BROKEN. THE REWRITE BEGINS.
Mistral's fur stood up.
"Kazuki. Someone's overwritten the cycle. Not you. Someone else."
Kaelith: "Who?"
Kazuki's answer?
Came with a voice.
"Hello again."
And from the broken shrine's doorway, stepped...
Kazuki.exe.
Future Kazuki.
But... different.
Worse.
He wasn't floating.
He was rooted. Fused to the shrine. Energy crackling from his fingertips.
"Welcome," he said. "To the dead end."
[BOSS ENCOUNTER – ??????????? – THE ECHO THAT BECAME REALITY][WARNING: YOU ARE FIGHTING AN IDEA.]
Kazuki stepped back.
The shrine crumbled behind him.
The sky warped.
And the system flickered violently:
[Volume Complete. Cycle Halted. Rewrite Imminent.]
Then, he reached out.
Not for a weapon.
For himself.
For the broken thing in front of him.
He hugged him.
The world screamed.
Time shattered.
The system crashed.
Kazuki's screen went black.
Only two words remained:
YOU CHOSE WRONG.