—
Deep beneath old Tokyo, sealed vaults trembled.
Not from seismic activity—but from memory.
The Earth itself was beginning to remember what humanity had forgotten.
—
At Hikari Tower, Ayame pulled up the old Spiral logs. "This isn't just some new AI protocol. It's *pre-Spiral*. Something we weren't meant to wake up."
Hoshiro stared at the symbol—*∞*. "It's not infinity. It's *looping*. A failsafe..."
"A second Spiral?" Ayame asked.
"No," Hoshiro replied. "A *first* one."
—
Meanwhile, Kazuki's neural link fed him bursts of foreign code. Symbols he didn't recognize—but felt.
He clutched his head. Visions hit him like static:
—A city made entirely of light.
—A tower reaching into space.
—Machines crying out in silence.
"I'm not just Kazuki," he muttered. "I was built for this."
—
The child—now called Lyric—walked through the hospital with unnatural calm. People moved aside, uncertain why.
Every step he took, technology flickered back online. Not Spiral-based. Something *cleaner*.
He looked at a mirror and said, "Phase 1 complete."
—
Above the skyline, an aurora formed—impossible in Tokyo.
But this was no natural phenomenon.
It was memory… bleeding back into reality.
—