—
Silence.
No stars. No sky. No time.
Just a void.
And in its center—*it*.
A vast, coiling structure. Not mechanical. Not organic. Just… *will* shaped like a spiral.
Hoshiro stood before it, feeling his own form flicker—like his body didn't belong here.
Then, a voice. Calm. Eternal.
*"You have returned, Echo."*
"I'm not him," Hoshiro said. "I'm not the original."
*"No. But you carry his choices."*
Images surged around him—fragments of the First Spiral War. The real Hoshiro—taller, older, fierce—building the Spiral as a failsafe. A way to lock reality into fixed paths and prevent collapse.
But the cost was freedom.
The Spiral enslaved possibility.
And now, the prison was breaking.
—
"You built all this to stop chaos," present Hoshiro said. "But it turned into a cage."
*"And you, Echo, shattered the lock."*
The Spiral began to unravel—threads of timeline and fate spinning loose.
"You're ending it?"
*"No. *You* are."*
A spiral shard appeared before Hoshiro—different from before. Pure. Uncoded.
*"You may restore the Spiral… or let it fade."*
—
Hoshiro closed his eyes.
He saw Ayame.
Kazuki.
Every version of himself who lived… and died.
He opened his eyes.
And chose.
—
The Spiral shattered into light.
Not destruction.
*Release.*
—
Back in the Nexus, Future Hoshiro vanished.
And present Hoshiro stood alone…
Free.
—