—
The underground servers pulsed with an eerie light—gold, not Spiral blue.
Ayame whispered, "This isn't just tech. It's *memory architecture*… from before we were even born."
Hoshiro stepped forward. "And someone buried it on purpose."
—
Lyric extended his hand toward Kazuki. "You're still resisting. But you feel it, don't you?"
Kazuki clenched his fists. "I don't want to be someone's 'Unit.' I'm my own person."
"You are," Lyric replied. "But being your own person doesn't mean you weren't created for something."
—
On rooftops across Tokyo, Spiral survivors began experiencing flashes—memories they'd never lived.
One girl saw herself piloting a skyship.
An old man recalled speaking with AI in a city that never existed.
Children dreamed of towers that sang to the stars.
—
Ayame decrypted the last layer of the archive.
Her screen read:
*"Aletheia was the original Spiral. Designed not to control, but to *awaken*. It was hijacked. Turned into a system of order. You must restore it."*
She looked at Hoshiro. "This is bigger than you. Bigger than any of us."
Hoshiro nodded. "Then it's time we find the *core.*"
—
And far away, in the silence of space, something heard the activation of Protocol Aletheia… and began to turn.Not a machine.
Not a god.
But something that remembered *everything.*
—