The observation chamber smelled of ozone and cooling metal.
Satori stood with arms folded, staring at the central holoscreen that dominated the far wall. Blue-white data streams flowed across it in orderly columns vital signs, temporal anchors, bleed containment metrics. All of them flatlined in perfect synchronization.
He exhaled through his nose.
"Yes?" Satori replied to the microphone.
__Beep.
"Hm? Nobita nobi? Come in, nobita?"
The comms channel hissed once, softly, like breath against a cold microphone.
Static.
Satori's posture didn't change. Only his eyes narrowed a fraction.
"Full report." He glanced at a blonde woman next to him, standing in a formal red attire and bunch of files in hand.
A blonde woman in formal red attire—Lieutenant Mara Voss—stepped forward from the cluster of analysts below the raised platform. She carried a slim file of physical printouts, an anachronism she insisted on for high-priority anomalies. She moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who had seen too many flatlines.
She leaned toward the nearest console operator, murmured something, then returned to Satori's side.
"Containment confirmed," she said, voice level. "Class-Two bleed resolved. Anchor signature dissolved eleven minutes ago. No residual distortion waves. Timeline branch is stabilizing."
Satori gave a single, small nod.
"Good."
He reached up and switched the comm channel back on.
"Nobita. Bleed is closed. You're clear for extraction. Respond."
Nothing.
Not even static this time. Just the flat, empty tone of a dead line.
Satori's jaw tightened—barely perceptible.
He glanced at Voss. "Reconnect."
She was already moving. She descended the short steps to the central pit where three operators sat surrounded by floating holopads. She spoke low into their ears, one after another. Fingers danced across controls. Diagnostic overlays bloomed across the main screen.
Satori waited.
After twenty-three seconds, Voss climbed back up.
"Negative contact," she reported. "No signal bounce. No transponder ping. Vital telemetry is… absent. Not dropped. Absent. As if the endpoint never existed."
Satori's arms unfolded slowly. He placed both hands on the railing.
"System integrity?"
"Green across the board," one of the operators called up without looking away from his display. "No hardware fault. No interference spike. The channel simply… isn't there anymore."
Satori stared at the screen.
The flatline icons had not moved.
Then, without warning, the entire containment grid flickered.
Not a glitch. A deliberate refresh.
When the display settled, the metrics were no longer flat.
The bleed signature had returned full strength, original phase, as if the resolution eleven minutes ago had never occurred.
The room went still.
Satori's voice, when it came, was quiet. Too quiet.
"System check. Now."
Operators moved instantly. Fingers flew. Secondary diagnostics cascaded across every monitor.
"Primary anchor intact," one reported.
"Secondary relays stable," another said.
"Quantum buffer clear—wait." The third operator froze. "Sir… the timestamp on the resolution log just rolled back. Eleven minutes, forty-three seconds. Exact match to the moment of reported dissolution."
Satori did not blink.
"Replay the log."
The screen obliged.
There it was: containment confirmed, signature dissolved, branch stabilized.
Then the frame-by-frame rollback.
The metrics climbed backward, numbers inverting, icons reversing like a film played in reverse.
Satori watched the entire sequence without expression.
When it finished, the bleed was once again active. Full. Unresolved.
He exhaled, very slowly.
"Recursive," he said, almost to himself.
Voss turned toward him. "Sir?"
"Recursive time loop pocket," Satori repeated, louder. "A self-sustaining causality trap. The bleed didn't resolve. It folded back on itself. Nobita is still inside."
He finally turned.
The room was silent except for the soft whine of cooling fans.
Then a new voice spoke from behind him...calm, measured, unfamiliar.
"Precisely."
Satori turned.
A figure stood in the shadowed doorway leading to the observation deck. Tall.
Unremarkable suit. Face half-hidden by the glare of overhead lights.
The man stepped forward one pace.
His eyes were calm.
Too calm.
"The pocket isn't a bleed anymore," he said.
"It's a prison. And your observer is the inmate."
Satori's hand drifted toward the sidearm holstered at his hip.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled small, polite, empty.
"His old friend. "
Satori squeezed his eyes, turning to him fully.
The main holoscreen behind Satori flickered once more.
The containment metrics froze.
Then began climbing again.
Backward.
And the line went dead.