---
> "When the world forgets you, only a voice remains.
And when that voice rises again,
even time listens."
---
[Location: Forgotten Temple – Outside Gwangju, Korea]
The light had faded completely.
What remained inside the temple was breathless stillness, the kind of silence that no longer felt safe—but sacred.
Jin-Soo stood with one hand pressed against the statue's forehead.
Cold.
Dead stone.
But his system pulsed faster. Hotter.
> [Activating Monarch Fragment...]
[Dormant Memory Core Detected: "Voice of the Lost"]
[Reconstruction: 3%… 7%… 12%… 29%…]
Then suddenly—
The statue cracked.
Not shattered.
Cracked… open.
---
[Fragment Awakening – Core Sync]
Stone peeled like skin.
From within emerged a figure, curled in a fetal position, draped in layers of ancient cloth.
A young woman—barefoot, long white hair drifting like mist.
Her eyes flickered open: pure silver.
And the first thing she did was scream.
---
But there was no sound.
Her mouth opened, body trembled…
Yet all that came was a terrible silence that made the temple walls vibrate.
A silent scream felt inside the bones.
Then she fell forward.
Jin-Soo caught her gently.
---
[System Alert: Monarch-Class Entity Linked]
> [Monarch Signature Confirmed: Yuna]
[Title: Voice of the Lost]
[Last Activity: 113 years ago – presumed erased.]
[Emotion Class – Type: Grief Conversion Catalyst]
[Status: 9% Recovery]
[New System Effect: Bonded Silence (Passive) – Silence abilities resonate stronger within shared radius.]
---
Jin-Soo set her down softly near the altar.
Her hands clutched his wrist like a drowning soul finding shore.
Finally, she spoke.
Just one word:
> "You…"
Her voice wasn't loud.
But it echoed.
Not through sound—but through memory.
And with it came images—not Jin-Soo's, but hers:
Cities burning in white light.
Children with shattered systems begging for help.
Her voice calling out for justice, swallowed by Architect code.
And finally, a cave of whispers, where a young boy had been left behind…
> Jin-Soo… as a child… dying slowly in darkness.
But she had heard him back then.
Her memory had clung to him.
Even as she was sealed away.
---
[Dialogue – Monarch to Monarch]
Yuna (faint):
> "You found me…
You're real…"
Jin-Soo (quiet):
> "You remembered me?"
Yuna nodded slowly.
> "I heard you cry…
All those years ago…
You called for help no one gave you.
But your voice reached me through the fracture.
I kept it.
It became a thread I couldn't let go of."
Jin-Soo's throat tightened.
For the first time in years, someone had seen the moment he fell apart.
---
[System Update – Monarch Pair Active]
> [Bond Formed – Two Monarchs Now Active]
[Combined Presence Disrupts Local Temporal Flow]
[Warning: Your existence is now interfering with Architect Historian Protocols.]
[Immediate Reaction Expected.]
---
[Meanwhile – Architect Realm: The Atrium]
Phi-One, the Archivist, twitched.
Thousands of data lines flickered.
One blared red.
> [Inconsistency Detected: Subject "Jin-Soo" exists in seven divergent memory timelines simultaneously.]
> [New Monarch Entity Detected: "Yuna – Voice of the Lost"]
[Status: Previously Erased]
[Reclassification: Threat Level: "Recursive Anomaly"]
Phi-One's voice pulsed like broken static.
> "They are restoring what we deleted.
This must not be."
A gate opened.
Something stepped out.
Not a warrior.
Not a killer.
An Eraser.
Name: Eta-Void
Title: Memory Collapse Agent
---
[Next Morning – Temple Ruins]
Yuna awoke wrapped in Jin-Soo's coat, seated beside a small fire made from broken offering benches.
She looked at him—truly looked.
> "What do we do now?" she asked.
Jin-Soo stared at the sun, eyes unreadable.
> "We find the rest."
> "And if they're already gone?"
He turned to her, voice firm.
> "Then we bring them back."
---
[Final Scene – Architect Memory Recalibration Center]
Eta-Void stepped into a digital construct of the Korean landscape—pixels rendering midair like memory forming.
He looked across the field and whispered:
> "Let us begin forgetting."
With one hand, he reached forward.
A village—real, with people, lives, names—flickered out of time.
And in its place:
Only void.
---