There are places even Hell refuses to remember.
They exist in the negative spaces of creation—corridors between moments, pockets of reality sealed shut not by locks but by neglect. Things forgotten by gods become heavier than things destroyed. Memory, Delta had learned, was the most violent force in existence.
The chains lay there.
Not coiled. Not broken.
Waiting.
The chamber was narrow, carved from a mineral that had never been named because no one survived long enough to give it one. It absorbed sound the way grave soil swallowed rain. Delta stood at the threshold, one hand resting on the wall, feeling the faint vibration of something old enough to resent being touched.
He hadn't meant to come here yet.
That was the lie he told himself as his boots carried him forward anyway.
Each step stirred dust that wasn't dust—particles of discarded timelines, failed futures crushed into powder. Above, the ceiling shifted subtly, as if the space itself were uncertain whether it was allowed to exist.
At the center of the chamber, suspended in nothing, were the chains.
Lyrieth's chains.
They were not iron. Not steel. Not divine alloy or infernal craft. They were decision made physical—bands of dull silver etched with runes that predated language. They had been wrapped around her arms once, not to restrain her, but to remind the universe that even something absolute could choose limits.
She had smiled when Delta asked why she wore them.
> "Because control is meaningless if it isn't voluntary," she had said, tightening one link with practiced ease. "And because one day, you'll need to understand that."
He hadn't understood.
Now the chains hung open, empty.
Delta stopped three paces away.
For the first time since Asgard burned, his breath caught.
Lyrieth had not bled here.
That was wrong.
Every battle left marks. Even god-killing carved scars into reality. Walls cracked. Time frayed. Consequences accumulated.
But here—
Nothing.
No distortion. No echo. No residue of power.
As if the universe had cut her out with surgical precision.
"She didn't die," Delta said softly.
The chamber did not answer.
Good.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the nearest link, the world folded inward.
—
Memory struck without warning.
Not the gentle kind. Not nostalgia.
This was recall as a weapon.
Lyrieth stood before him, whole and terrifying, her stance relaxed in the way only the truly dangerous could afford. Her blade rested on her shoulder, edge downward, reflecting a younger Delta staring back—angrier, reckless, too convinced that strength was something you took.
"Again," she said calmly.
Delta lunged.
He always did.
The exchange lasted less than a second. Her movement was minimal—almost bored—but Delta found himself face-down in shattered ground, the taste of blood sharp in his mouth.
"Do you know why you lose?" she asked, crouching beside him.
"Because you're stronger," he spat.
She shook her head. "No."
She tapped his forehead.
"Because you want to end things. I want them to continue."
The memory fractured.
—
Delta staggered back, chains rattling softly now, disturbed by recognition.
"That wasn't fair," he muttered.
Something stirred behind him.
Not Nyx.
Not Noctis.
This presence was narrower. Colder.
Institutional.
"You shouldn't touch artifacts without authorization."
Delta didn't turn.
"Funny," he said. "I don't remember signing anything."
Footsteps approached. Slow. Deliberate.
"I am not here to fight," the voice said. "That would be inefficient."
Delta sighed and finally looked over his shoulder.
The figure wore layered robes etched with sigils of containment and observation. No crown. No weapon. No wings. His face was unremarkable to the point of discomfort—as if every defining feature had been sanded down.
A Recorder.
One of the entities tasked with documenting cataclysms rather than preventing them.
They existed because gods needed witnesses to feel real.
"You're trespassing," the Recorder said.
"This isn't a place," Delta replied. "It's a wound."
The Recorder's eyes flicked briefly to the chains. Something like uncertainty crossed his face.
"Those belong to—"
"—someone you failed to understand," Delta finished. "Step away."
"I cannot."
Delta tilted his head. "Then choose your next words carefully."
The Recorder straightened. "Lyrieth was removed by unanimous accord."
The air went still.
Delta's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Say that again," he said quietly.
"She represented an existential contradiction," the Recorder continued, clearly reciting prepared doctrine. "Absolute skill paired with voluntary restraint destabilizes predictive models. The consensus determined her continued existence introduced unacceptable variance."
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the floor buckled.
Not shattered—buckled, as if reality had suddenly realized it was standing on something stronger than itself.
Delta took one step forward.
The Recorder did not retreat.
"I am authorized," the Recorder said, voice tightening, "to inform you that inquiry beyond this point constitutes narrative interference."
Delta froze.
Slowly, carefully, he looked past the Recorder.
Not at the chamber.
At you.
"Oh," he said softly.
Oh.
Now it made sense.
They hadn't killed Lyrieth.
They had edited her.
"You hear that?" Delta asked aloud, though no one had spoken. "They think this is a story they can maintain by removing complications."
The Recorder frowned. "Who are you addressing?"
Delta laughed.
It wasn't loud.
It was honest.
"You see," he said, rolling his shoulders as something deep within him woke, "this is where they always misunderstand me."
The chains lifted from their suspension, drifting toward him as if pulled by gravity that hadn't existed a moment ago.
"I don't break rules," Delta continued. "I break assumptions."
The Recorder raised a hand, sigils flaring. "Delta, as an entity of record, I must advise—"
Delta snapped the chains around his forearms.
The runes ignited.
Reality screamed.
There was no explosion. No light show.
The Recorder simply… ceased.
Not dead.
Unwritten.
The space he had occupied smoothed over, as if embarrassed to have ever acknowledged him.
Delta stood alone again.
He looked down at the chains now coiled around his arms, heavy in a way weapons never were.
Responsibility weight.
Memory weight.
"You didn't deserve that," he murmured. "You deserved better enemies."
The chamber began to collapse—not physically, but conceptually. Forgotten places could not survive acknowledgment by a being like him.
Delta turned away as the walls dissolved into nothing.
As he walked, something brushed against his thoughts.
A whisper.
Not from Hell.
Not from Heaven.
From the narrative itself.
> You're not supposed to know this.
Delta smiled without warmth.
"Neither were you," he replied.
Far away, in a realm pretending not to listen, a mask waited.
And for the first time since Lyrieth vanished—
The story hesitated.