*The Name Buried Under Silence***
The world snapped back like a rubber band stretched to breaking.
Bungo gasped, eyes flying open—
—and found himself **falling**.
Air whipped around him, cold and sharp. The tower's interior blurred past in streaks of steel and static. He twisted mid-air just in time to see the jagged ground rushing up—
"BUNGO!"
A pair of arms slammed around his torso, yanking him sideways into another corridor. Momentum rolled them across the floor, scraping metal and sparks.
When he finally stopped spinning, Kairo was kneeling over him, breathing hard.
"Bro—Bungo—you okay!? You vanished! The Warden almost—"
But Bungo barely heard him.
Those words from the dream-hallway still clawed at his skull.
**"Your name is not Bungo."**
Everything inside him trembled.
Kairo shook him gently.
"Hey. Talk to me. What did you see?"
Before Bungo could answer, Solace emerged from the shadows, mask cracked at the jaw from the earlier attack.
He studied Bungo in silence.
"You saw her again," Solace said quietly. "Didn't you?"
Bungo clenched his fists. "She said… I'm not who I think I am. That my name—my real name—is something else."
The corridor trembled again, lights flickering like dying stars.
Solace's eyes behind the mask lowered.
"Then the tower has started unlocking you."
Kairo grabbed Solace by the collar. "What do you mean unlocking!? You said we were here to find answers, not break Bungo!"
Solace removed Kairo's hand, firm but gentle.
"I told you: this tower stores fear. The deepest, most powerful kinds. And Bungo…"
He turned toward him.
"…has something sealed inside him that this place recognizes."
Bungo felt the air choke him.
Kairo stared at him.
"Bungo… what exactly is locked in you?"
"I don't know."
He pressed his trembling hand to his forehead.
But a faint whisper echoed from somewhere behind his ribs—
**—remember—
—remember—
—remember—**
The Warden's distant shriek rattled the metal again, closer this time.
Solace stiffened. "It's tracking him. Your resonance is drawing it."
Kairo pulled Bungo up. "Then we move. NOW."
They sprinted down the corridor, the lights stuttering as if the tower itself was panicking. Each shut-down cast long shadows that chased them, stretched them, distorted them.
Then—
"STOP!"
Solace threw out an arm.
In front of them, the corridor ended in a vast circular platform suspended over a hollow abyss. No rails. No support beams. Just a massive open drop that swallowed all light.
But what froze them wasn't the void—
It was the **monolith** in the center.
A tall, rectangular slab of obsidian crusted with symbols that pulsed faintly like breathing runes. Around it floated small fragments of broken stone orbiting like slow moons.
Kairo whispered, "What… is that?"
Solace answered in a hushed tone.
"The **Mnemonic Seal**."
Bungo's heartbeat hammered.
"The… what?"
"A prison," Solace said. "Built to lock away a person's entire emotional core. Their trauma. Their identity. Their past."
Kairo's eyes widened.
"You're telling me someone sealed Bungo's life away in THAT thing?!"
Solace hesitated.
Then nodded.
Bungo felt the world tilt beneath him.
"But… why? Who would—"
A voice cut him off.
Soft.
Familiar.
Heartbreaking.
"You sealed yourself."
A gust of cold wind washed over them.
Behind the monolith—
A silhouette stepped into view.
The **Woman in White**.
Except she wasn't distant now.
Not fog.
Not fragment.
Not vision.
She was here.
Fully formed.
Barefoot.
Her white dress trailing across the metal like ghost-silk.
Her eyes—silver, shimmering, ancient with sorrow—locked on Bungo.
Kairo stepped between them. "Don't come any closer!"
But she didn't even look at him.
Her gaze was only for Bungo.
"You hid your past here," she whispered. "Your real name. Your memories. Me."
Bungo stepped backward, voice cracking.
"Why—why would I do that?"
She walked slowly toward the monolith, her fingers brushing the obsidian surface.
"Because someone was hunting you."
Her voice trembled.
"Hunting **us**."
She placed her hand flat against the stone.
Instantly, the symbols flared, glowing like burning veins.
Bungo felt his knees weaken.
His skull throbbed.
His breath hitched.
The monolith pulsed—
—and the world around him evaporated into blackness.
In the void, memory-fragments flickered:
A small room with white curtains.
A girl laughing beside him.
His hand reaching for hers.
A name whispered into warm sunlight—
Then everything snapped.
Darkness shattered.
Bungo collapsed to the metal floor, gasping like someone dragged up from drowning.
Kairo rushed to him. "Bungo! Bungo! Talk to me!"
Bungo lifted his head slowly.
His pupils were trembling.
His breath uneven.
His fingertips numb.
The Woman in White watched with eyes full of longing and fear.
"Say it," she whispered.
"Say your name."
Bungo opened his mouth—
—and for the first time in his life…
He remembered.
A single word surfaced.
A name full of warmth.
A name full of pain.
A name he had locked away.
He breathed it out like a forgotten prayer:
**"...Aru."**
The entire tower shook violently.
The Warden roared somewhere above.
The Mnemonic Seal cracked with a blinding flash.
Kairo stumbled back.
"Aru!? Your name is— What—!? BRO—!?"
Solace turned sharply.
"So it truly is you…"
The Woman in White closed her eyes, tears slipping silently down her cheeks.
And the tower, as if awakened by the name, began to collapse around them.