—
The battlefield was no longer Tokyo. It was a memory-space—a broken tapestry stitched together by emotion, sacrifice, and time.
Each step Hoshiro took crackled with power. His allies, spectral yet solid, flanked him. Kaizen's blades shimmered with the laughter of old battles. Aiko's flames roared with vengeance. Ryuji's calm presence bent time around them.
And at the center, the *Idea* took form.
It shifted constantly—sometimes a god, sometimes Hoshiro himself, other times a featureless mass of voices: doubt, fear, despair.
"I am every world's forgetting," it hissed. "I am what comes *after* hope."
Hoshiro raised his cracked blade, steady. "Then I'm the one who remembers."
—
Ayame watched from the edge of the memory field, her tether glowing, her strength waning. "He's rewriting the final chapter…"
Kazuki, eyes wide, muttered, "He's *becoming* the story."
—
The Idea launched forward—time fractured. Lifetimes flashed: Hoshiro as a child, crying; as a teen, training alone; as a warrior, masked, feared, broken.
But he *held on*.
To every version of himself.
To every *truth*.
—
With a cry that shook every timeline, Hoshiro struck—not with hate, but with memory.
The blade sank deep into the Idea's core.
And all went still.
— Then, the light faded.
And Hoshiro stood alone in a quiet Tokyo morning.
Alive.
Remembered.