Kazuki stood in a room of clocks—every one broken, ticking backward, the sound warped and slow, more accusation than timekeeping. Shadows pressed into every corner, the air thick with the kind of silence that only happens when you're waiting for something to break.
His hands trembled; he pressed his palms together tight, as if he could shake out the water in his bones. 'They think I'm unstable. They think I've lost control. Maybe I have.'
Mirrored walls wrapped the chamber, each pane reflecting a different Kazuki: one crying with fists pressed to his eyes, one dripping with blood and smiling through tears, one slumped against the floor next to Ayato's corpse—expression vacant, soul burnt out. There was nowhere to look that didn't feel like staring through a window into pain.
Kazuki dropped hard to his knees, biting back a sob. 'I didn't ask for this role. Didn't want the thread or the echo. Didn't want to keep coming back.'
Something flickered behind him—a Proxy Thread, translucent but deadly, labeled "Kazuki α3." It whispered, a voice the color of old bruises:
'He abandoned you in the Wishing Pool. He chose Mio's memory over yours. Why follow Ayato, when you could become the axis?'
Kazuki's lip curled. 'Because someone has to remember the blood. Someone has to keep the pain real. Even if it's just me.'
The door slid open. The air pulsed with the vibration of someone else's arrival—the one he'd been waiting for, dreading, needing. Ayato stepped inside, his hair stuck damply to his forehead, his movements haunted. There were no illusions on this floor, no tangled dream logic—just two boys and a lifetime of regrets.
Ayato said nothing at first, just crossed and sat opposite Kazuki, folding in on himself as if even his body couldn't stand to hold together. The silence went on, filling every crack in the marble, until Kazuki let it crack open:
"So you came. Not to explain. Just to observe me fall?"
Ayato lifted his gaze, eyes bloodshot but steady. Kazuki pressed on, voice shaking but sharp:
"Did you ever consider I was breaking because you were pretending? Because you didn't let yourself feel, Ayato. You just kept solving us. Like we were problems to be erased, not people who needed you."
Ayato stared back, something like guilt swirling in the blue of his eyes. 'He's right,' Ayato thought, chest heavy. 'I was so obsessed with surviving the Tower I forgot what mattered. I forgot about him. About all of them.'
The floor vibrated. An unfamiliar, merciless tone filled the space—the Tower's will, slipping into the cracks between them, refusing to wait any longer. The words sizzled in the air:
Proxy Link Detected. Shared Thread: Cycle 1 Memory Vault – Kazuki/Ayato. Activate Link?
They had no time to answer. The Tower answered for them. Their eyes whited out; the world vanished.
Memories poured in like ice water:
The first cycle—Ayato stumbling into sacrifice, Kazuki forced into the Observer's place.
The second—Kazuki lunging across the room to drag Mio from danger, screaming as the Tower eviscerated him.
The third—Ayato, numb with horror and fury, making a choice: Kazuki's blood in his hands, system access bought at the price of a friend's life.
They came back gasping, sweat cold on their skin. Kazuki pressed a hand to his chest, heavier with each recalled death.
"I remember dying in every cycle," he shuddered. "I remember you choosing the Tower over me. Again and again."
Ayato's voice was rough, not much more than a whisper. "And I remember choosing you. Once. In the timeline where it cost me everything else."
Kazuki looked away. 'So that's how it is. Every cycle, one of us bleeds for the other. And it never gets easier.'
A giant mirror monolith erupted from the ground—so sudden that both boys flinched. One side shimmered with Kazuki's reflection, all edges and anger and loneliness, standing tall but looking lost. The other held Ayato: blank-eyed, Karma data pulsing through his chest like circuitry, the system's narrative embedded bone-deep.
The Tower's voice boomed, cool and final as iron:
"Only one may anchor this thread. Only one may carry forward Cycle Memory."
Ayato stepped up, voice trembling with resolve. "Then let it be me. Kazuki's mind is still fractured—if I anchor, I can protect what's left of us."
Kazuki shook his head, a muscle in his cheek jumping. "No. I'll carry it. I want to remember what you've done. And what I've become." He pressed his palm to the cold glass, jaw set hard.
Memory Anchor Request: Kazuki Tōdō.
Risk: Emotional Collapse / Proxy Integration Conflict.
Anchor Confirmed.
A shudder went through Kazuki—all those fractured timelines, all the dying and grieving and betrayal lining up behind his eyes. It was almost unbearable, a river of pain he couldn't dam. But he stayed upright, refusing to drop the weight.
'Let the others trust you, Ayato. Let Mio believe in you. Let Ren be angry for all of us. I'll be the one who never forgets. One of us has to remember the blood cost.'
Ayato took a long, shaky breath. 'I want to hate him for that. Want to force him to let go. But I know I can't. He's carrying what I never could.'
Kazuki turned from Ayato, shoulders squared but not relaxed. "I won't forgive you yet. But I'll fight beside you. Not for your sake. For the version of me you keep killing."
Ayato nodded once, quietly. "Good. We need each other. Even broken."
They exited the Divergence Core together—not healed, not suddenly whole, but bound by their jagged angles, the tower's nightmare warping the space behind them back into darkness.
They weren't reconciled. They weren't enemies, either.
The Tower watched them go, remembering every wound.
And for the first time since the cycles began, Kazuki's spine felt steely, not fragile. He wasn't a margin note. He was a survivor—one who would not forget.
Ayato walked at his side, silent.
'Maybe that's all this is. Suffering through, thread by thread. Making sure someone always carries the truth—no matter how much it hurts.'
They kept walking. The corridor twisted forward, as if daring them to make the next choice.
Not to fix the past. Not to find solace. Only to face it.
(Chapter 33 End)