Kazuki opened his eyes to a silence thicker than darkness. Not quite the black void—something heavier, denser, as if the absence of sound was a thing alive and waiting.
'Am I alive? Am I even real?'
A voice slipped into his skull, smooth and androgynous—a mechanical hum with the intimacies of familiarity. Neither male nor female, neither friend nor foe.
"Welcome, Kazuki Shinomiya."
The room shifted, a breathing origami of stone walls folding and unfolding, patterns looping into themselves, the architecture folding into infinite repetitions. Kazuki's heart thudded erratically.
'A vault of echoes. Of the self. Fragmented and multiplied.'
Voices hung thick in the stale air—his own whispers, Ayato's commands, Yui's laughter, faint cries from dozens of timeline versions layered atop each other.
"Access granted: Karma Trait – Cycle Echo."
A heavy weight settled in his chest.
"You remember now, don't you? How you died. How they all left you," the voice cooed, relentless as the waves and just as cold.
Kazuki collapsed to his knees, trembling, memories fracturing all at once: fire licking at his skin, the sterile cold of Room 53, the screaming faces of his friends dying, the betrayal cut deep as Daichi's knife, trembling hands clutching a bloodied dagger—not his own but wielded by Ayato—quivering apologies that hung suspended in air.
"Forgive me," he'd whispered into the raging chaos. "Just one of us must carry the burden."
The echoes offered no comfort. They tore into his mind, each memory a shard piercing flesh.
Surrounding walls became mirrors, reflecting fractured shards of himself.
One reflection was the Kazuki who became a Proxy first, his eyes hollowed by structure and manipulation.
Another was a darker self, his hands watered with innocence lost, having killed Yui in a flash of panic and rage.
A third variant was bound in cruel alliance with Daichi, plotting their rise as victors at any cost.
Yet another stood monstrous and godlike, a final boss writ large in carnage and shadow.
"You are the variable, Kazuki," the voice echoed through every fracture, every corner. "The only student who consistently diverges."
Kazuki closed his eyes tightly, trying to outrun the cacophony of selves.
But the visions clung tighter with every blink—choices undone, paths untaken, sins unclaimed yet forcibly remembered.
"You're not supposed to have access to these," the voice admonished.
"But you do," it whispered darkly. "Because Ayato gave you his anchor."
Pain twisted inside Kazuki's chest as he looked down at his hands. A symbol burned faintly on his wrist—shaped like an endless loop, but inverted and broken.
His voice cracked as he muttered, "So I was never the protagonist. Just a margin note."
"No," the Tower intoned.
"You're the footnote that rewrites the ending."
Suddenly walls dissolved, swallowed by a white-hot light that fractured and refracted endlessly.
Echoes began to argue amongst themselves around Kazuki, each child of possible futures vying for dominance:
"Follow Ayato."
"Kill Ayato."
"Run from Ayato."
"Forgive Ayato."
Their voices overlapped, jagged and overlapping like shards of broken glass.
Kazuki screamed, overwhelmed by the weight of the infinite possibilities.
Then, with a rush like falling through shattered dreams, he surged forward.
A mirror rose before him, reflecting a shattered but smiling self, bloodied and alive.
With trembling hands, Kazuki reached out—and stepped through the looking glass.
The world twisted.
System Update:
Floor 31 Complete: Vaulted Echoes
Kazuki Trait Upgraded: Cycle Echo v2 – Divergence Pulse
New Ability Unlocked: Partial control over echo layering, allowing selection of a single timeline echo to anchor perception.
Warning: Divergence Threat detected. Karma Administrator monitoring closely.
Kazuki's breaths came in shallow gasps. The kaleidoscope of memories and possibilities churned within him, chaotic yet beginning to coalesce. Every choice, every chance consumed and yet offering a weapon.
'I fragment and yet I am whole. I diverge and yet I remain myself. I am the echo that alters fate.'
Looking back down the echoing corridor, he glimpsed the threads connecting the myriad selves—if he could control even one, perhaps he could rewrite the narrative.
But at what cost?
The Tower's gaze was unblinking.
Kazuki stepped forward, no longer just a player within the Tower's game—but a force reshaping the very paths of light and shadow.
His journey, fractured and infinite, had just begun.
(Chapter 31 End)