Takeshi woke to the sound of someone screaming.
For a disorienting moment, he thought he was back in the cell, back in the loop, experiencing death number ten. His body tensed, muscles coiling in preparation for guards that never came, for a rope that would never again touch his neck.
Then reality reasserted itself. He was in the Sanctuary. In a crystal chamber. Safe.
The screaming continued.
It wasn't coming from nearby. The sound was distant, muffled by layers of crystal walls, but unmistakable. Someone in terrible pain or terrible fear—possibly both.
Takeshi rolled out of bed, his body protesting the movement. Despite the healing Yuki had performed, he still felt like he'd been beaten with hammers. Nine deaths took a toll that couldn't be completely erased overnight, even with temporal medicine.
He moved to the door. It opened before he could touch it, responding to his proximity with smooth silence.
The corridor outside was empty, lit by that same ambient golden light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The screaming was clearer now. Coming from somewhere deeper in the Sanctuary.
Following the sound felt like a terrible idea. Every survival instinct Takeshi possessed told him to go back to his room, lock the door, wait for Yuki or Akari to explain what was happening.
But he'd spent nine loops dying helplessly. Spent his entire life being pushed around by forces beyond his control. Something had changed during those deaths, during his escape through the Crossroads. He was done being passive. Done waiting for others to tell him what was happening.
He followed the screaming.
The corridor branched and rebranched in ways that shouldn't have been geometrically possible. Takeshi got the impression that the Sanctuary's architecture wasn't entirely fixed, that the paths rearranged themselves based on need or intent or some other factor he didn't understand.
But the screaming served as a guide. A terrible, reliable beacon drawing him deeper into the crystal labyrinth.
Eventually, he reached a large chamber. The door was partially open, golden light spilling through the gap. The screaming was coming from inside, along with other sounds—a rhythmic humming, the crackle of energy, voices speaking in low, urgent tones.
Takeshi approached carefully, peering through the gap.
The chamber was some kind of medical facility, far more advanced than the simple healing room where Yuki had treated his wrists. The walls were covered with those crystalline devices, all pulsing with different colors of light. In the center of the room, suspended in what looked like a column of liquid light, was a man.
He was young—maybe thirty—with dark hair and a lean build. His body was covered in burns that looked wrong, that seemed to shift and change even as Takeshi watched. And he was screaming because parts of him were flickering, becoming translucent, as if he were being slowly erased from existence.
Yuki stood nearby, her hands moving rapidly through the air, manipulating controls that Takeshi couldn't see. Her expression was intense, focused, beaded with sweat.
"Hold him stable!" she barked at someone Takeshi couldn't see. "If his temporal anchor collapses completely, he'll scatter across every timeline he's ever touched!"
"I'm trying!" A male voice, strained. "But the paradox damage is too severe. He's been in too many places at once. His causality thread is fraying!"
"Then weave it back together! That's what you're trained for!"
The screaming intensified. The man in the column of light began to convulse, his body bending in ways that defied anatomy. And then, for just a moment, Takeshi saw something that made his blood freeze.
The man's face flickered. Changed. Became someone else entirely—a woman with red hair and scars—before snapping back to the original face.
He was experiencing multiple timelines simultaneously. Living and dying and existing in different forms all at once.
"We're losing him!" The unseen male voice was panicked now. "His identity is fragmenting!"
"No." Yuki's voice was firm. "I am not losing another one. Not after what we went through to extract him."
She made a complex gesture, and the golden light surrounding the man intensified. His screaming cut off abruptly—not because the pain had stopped, but because his vocal cords had temporarily ceased to exist in this timeline.
Takeshi watched, horrified and fascinated, as Yuki worked. Her hands moved with the precision of a surgeon, but she wasn't cutting flesh—she was cutting time itself, severing connections, cauterizing temporal wounds, somehow stitching together a causality thread that had been torn to shreds.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Time felt slippery in this place.
Finally, the man in the column stopped convulsing. His form stabilized, solidified. The burns on his body began to fade, not healing so much as being retroactively prevented.
Yuki lowered her hands, exhausted. The column of light dissipated, and the man collapsed to the floor. He was unconscious but breathing, his chest rising and falling with steady rhythm.
"Will he survive?" The male voice again, and now Takeshi could see its owner—a young man, maybe twenty-five, with silver hair and eyes that were solid black, no whites or pupils visible. He wore robes similar to Yuki's but marked with symbols that seemed to move across the fabric.
"Yes." Yuki's voice was tired. "He'll survive. But he won't remember who he is. Paradox damage that severe always results in identity fragmentation. We saved his life, but his memories—" she shook her head. "Those are gone. Scattered across the timelines he touched."
"Another one." The silver-haired man's tone was bitter. "That makes seven this month. Seven Bridge-Walkers who went too deep, stayed too long, got caught in paradoxes they couldn't escape."
"It's getting worse." Yuki moved to a nearby table and began making notes on something that looked like paper but shimmered like liquid. "Thorne's faction is destabilizing bridges deliberately. Creating paradox traps. Any Walker who tries to investigate their activities ends up like him—" she gestured at the unconscious man, "—if they're lucky."
"And if they're not lucky?"
"Complete temporal erasure. They never existed. Never will exist. Removed from causality so thoroughly that even we can't remember them." She paused, her stylus hovering over the shimmering paper. "How many have we forgotten, Riku? How many of our own have been erased, and we don't even know to mourn them?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered and unanswerable.
Takeshi chose that moment to push the door fully open. Both Yuki and Riku spun toward him, the silver-haired man's hands already moving in defensive gestures that caused the air to shimmer with potential violence.
"Takeshi." Yuki's expression shifted from surprise to concern. "You shouldn't be here. You need rest, not—"
"I heard screaming. I followed it." He looked at the unconscious man on the floor. "What happened to him?"
Yuki and Riku exchanged glances. Some kind of silent communication passed between them.
"His name was Daichi," Yuki said finally. "He was investigating Lord Vesper's murder. We sent him into the timeline to gather evidence, to find out who really killed the Revenue Minister and why they framed you."
Takeshi's breath caught. "He was helping me?"
"He was helping us understand what's happening." Yuki moved closer to the unconscious man, checking his vital signs with those glowing hands. "But he got too close to something. Triggered a paradox trap that was specifically designed to catch anyone investigating that particular event. And now—" her voice grew heavy, "—now he's alive but empty. A person without a past. Without identity. Without memories."
"Can't you—" Takeshi gestured vaguely, "—fix him? Like you fixed my wrists?"
"Physical healing is one thing. Temporal healing is another. But identity restoration?" Riku shook his head. "That requires retrieving memories from across multiple timelines and reweaving them into a coherent narrative. It's theoretically possible, but in practice—"
"In practice, we've never succeeded," Yuki interrupted. "Every attempt results in creating someone new. Someone who wears Daichi's face but isn't him. A copy without an original."
She stood, meeting Takeshi's eyes.
"This is what we're fighting against. This is what Thorne's faction does. They don't just kill people—they erase them. Make it so they never mattered, never existed in any meaningful way. And they're getting better at it."
"Why?" The question burst from Takeshi before he could stop it. "Why go to such extremes? What are they trying to hide that's worth all this?"
"That," said a new voice from the doorway, "is exactly what we need to determine."
Akari stood in the entrance, looking worse for wear but alive and whole. Her armor was scorched in places, her short black hair was disheveled, and there was a new cut across her left cheek that hadn't been there before. But her grey eyes were sharp, alert, dangerous.
"You're back." Yuki sounded relieved. "We weren't sure if—"
"Thorne's forces gave up the chase after the third bridge. They're not stupid—they know better than to attack the Sanctuary directly." Akari moved into the room with that predatory grace Takeshi remembered. "But they're regrouping. Building something. I could see the temporal energy gathering even from a distance."
"Building what?"
"A siege weapon, if I had to guess. Something designed to crack open the Sanctuary's defenses." She finally looked at Takeshi, and something flickered in her expression. Relief? Guilt? "You survived the night. Good. We have work to do."
"Work?"
"Yes." Akari turned to Yuki. "Has he been briefed on the actual situation? Does he understand what we're up against?"
"I was waiting for you to return before—"
"No more waiting." Akari's voice was hard. "Daichi's failure proves that conventional investigation is too dangerous. They've locked down that entire section of the timeline with paradox traps. Anyone who tries to access Lord Vesper's murder directly gets scattered."
She moved to one of the crystal devices and began manipulating it with practiced ease. The air above it shimmered, and an image appeared—three-dimensional, rotating slowly. It showed a map of some kind, but instead of geography, it displayed time. Branches and connections and nodes of light, all interconnected in ways that made Takeshi's head hurt to follow.
"This is the temporal map centered on Lord Vesper's death," Akari explained. "Each node represents a moment in time. Each connection represents causality flowing from one moment to another. See these dark spots?" She indicated areas where the light seemed to be absorbed, creating zones of shadow. "Those are paradox traps. Touch them, and you end up like Daichi."
"So how do we investigate if we can't access the actual events?"
"We don't." Akari's smile was sharp and humourless. "We go around them. We investigate the edges, the moments adjacent to the murder. We look for patterns, for connections, for the things they didn't think to protect because they seemed insignificant."
She manipulated the image, zooming in on a particular section. A single point of light, unprotected, three weeks before the murder.
"You said you saw a man with a crescent moon scar on his left hand. You saw him in the administrative quarter, near the Revenue Office. That moment—that specific encounter—is unprotected. Which means we can access it. We can go back and see what really happened."
"Go back?" Takeshi's mind reeled. "You mean time travel? Actual time travel?"
"That's what Bridge-Walking is," Riku interjected. "Moving along the causality threads to access different moments. Different possibilities. It's not true time travel in the classical sense—we can't change what happened. But we can observe it. Record it. Understand it."
"And once we understand what happened three weeks before the murder," Akari continued, "we can start unraveling the conspiracy. We can figure out who that man was, what he was doing, and how it connects to Lord Vesper's death."
She turned to face Takeshi fully.
"But here's the problem. The moment you saw—that brief encounter in the hallway—it's a weak point in the timeline. Barely there. If I try to access it alone, I might miss crucial details. I might see the wrong angle, focus on the wrong things. But you—" she pointed at him, "—you were there. You experienced it firsthand. Your temporal signature is woven into that moment."
"So?"
"So if you come with me, we can access your memory of the event directly. We can relive it, see it from multiple angles, extract details you didn't consciously register. It's called Memory Diving, and it's dangerous as hell, but it's our best option."
"Dangerous how?"
Yuki answered, her voice grave. "Memory Diving requires synchronizing your consciousness with a past version of yourself. If something goes wrong—if the connection breaks, if paradox damage occurs, if Thorne's forces detect what we're doing—you could end up scattered across the timeline just like Daichi. Your memories fragmented, your identity erased, your very existence questionable."
"But you'll do it anyway," Akari said. It wasn't a question. "Because it's the only path forward. Because staying here and hiding accomplishes nothing. Because you want the truth as badly as we do."
She was right. Takeshi knew she was right. Despite the fear, despite the very real danger, despite having seen what happened to Daichi—he wanted answers. Needed them. The alternative was spending the rest of his life running, hiding, never understanding why someone had gone to such extremes to destroy him.
"What do I need to do?"
Akari's expression softened slightly. Not quite approval, but something close. "First, you need to understand what you're getting into. Memory Diving isn't like watching a recording. It's full immersion. You'll feel everything you felt that day. Smell the same smells. Hear the same sounds. For all practical purposes, you'll be back in that moment."
"Won't that cause a paradox? Me being in two places at once?"
"No, because you're not actually there. You're riding along in your past self's consciousness, observing without the ability to change anything. Like a ghost haunting your own history." She moved to another device. "But the danger comes from the fact that your present consciousness will be extremely vulnerable during the dive. If someone attacks us here, in the Sanctuary, while you're diving—your mind could be trapped in the past permanently."
"That's why I'll be maintaining the connection," Riku said. "Yuki will handle your physical body's life signs, and I'll serve as your anchor to the present. If anything goes wrong, I'll pull you back."
"And if you can't?"
"Then you'll be lost," Riku said simply. "Existing in a moment that's already passed, unable to move forward or backward. Conscious but trapped. It's considered one of the worst fates a Bridge-Walker can experience."
Takeshi swallowed hard. "You really know how to sell something."
"I'm not selling it," Akari said. "I'm being honest about the risks. You have the right to refuse. You can stay here, safe, while we try other methods. But I won't lie to you about what this entails."
The choice should have been difficult. Should have required careful consideration, weighing risks and benefits.
But Takeshi found the decision surprisingly easy.
"I'll do it."
"You're certain?" Yuki's concern was evident. "You just escaped a Shadow Loop. Your temporal signature is still unstable. Adding Memory Diving on top of that—"
"I'm certain." Takeshi's voice was firm. "I need to know who did this to me. Who killed Lord Vesper and destroyed my life. And if this is the only way to find out, then I'll take the risk."
Akari nodded slowly. "Then we begin immediately. Every hour we delay gives Thorne more time to reinforce his defenses, to set more traps." She looked at Yuki. "Prepare the diving chamber. We'll need full temporal isolation and maximum shielding."
"What about Daichi?" Riku gestured at the unconscious man. "We can't just leave him here."
"Transfer him to a recovery room. Monitor him for stability. But he's not our priority right now." Akari's tone was cold, practical. "Harsh as it sounds, Daichi is gone. We're trying to prevent more people from ending up like him."
Yuki didn't look happy, but she nodded. With Riku's help, she carefully levitated Daichi's body—using some technique Takeshi couldn't begin to understand—and guided him out of the chamber.
Which left Takeshi alone with Akari.
"You said you're from the future," he said after a moment of silence. "From a timeline where the war has already happened. Where I—" he paused, trying to process the impossibility, "—where I made some choice that led to humanity's near-extinction."
"Yes." Akari didn't elaborate.
"What was it? What did I choose?"
"I don't know." She turned away from him, studying the temporal map still hovering in the air. "By the time I was old enough to learn about the Bridge Wars, the original choice had been lost to history. All we knew was that Takeshi Kurogane—a nobody, a day laborer—somehow became the fulcrum point. The moment where everything went wrong."
"Then how do you know it was me?"
"Because your name is carved into the Memorial of Causality. A monument built at the exact spot where the first reality breach occurred. According to the historical records, you stood at a convergence point with the Temporal Key in your hand and made a choice. And that choice—whether to seal the bridges or tear them open—that choice killed three billion people and shattered reality into the fragmented nightmare I grew up in."
Her voice was carefully controlled, but Takeshi heard the pain underneath. The loss. The grief for a world that had been destroyed.
"So you came back to change it. To prevent me from ever reaching that moment."
"No." Akari finally looked at him, and her grey eyes were hard. "I came back to make sure you reach that moment with full knowledge of what's at stake. Because in my timeline, you made your choice blind. You didn't understand the consequences. You didn't know what you were really doing. And that ignorance—that lack of understanding—is what led to catastrophe."
She moved closer, and Takeshi fought the urge to step back.
"I can't tell you what to choose, Takeshi. That's not my place. The choice has to be yours, truly yours, or it defeats the purpose. But I can make sure you have all the information. All the context. All the understanding necessary to make an informed decision. And that starts with figuring out why someone trapped you in that Shadow Loop. Why they framed you for Lord Vesper's murder. Why they're so desperate to control your timeline."
"You think it's all connected? The murder, the loop, the future convergence point?"
"I don't believe in coincidences. Not when it comes to temporal manipulation at this level." She turned back to the map. "Someone has been playing a very long game. Moving pieces into position decades, maybe centuries in advance. And you—whether you like it or not—are one of those pieces."
Before Takeshi could respond, Yuki returned with Riku.
"The diving chamber is prepared," Yuki announced. "And I've set up full medical monitoring. If your vitals start deteriorating, we'll abort immediately."
"How long will the dive take?" Takeshi asked.
"From your perspective? However long the memory lasted. A few minutes, probably. But subjective time can be tricky during dives. It might feel longer." Riku gestured toward the door. "We should begin. The longer we wait, the more chance of interference."
They moved through the Sanctuary's crystalline corridors until they reached a chamber Takeshi hadn't seen before. It was circular, maybe thirty feet in diameter, with a domed ceiling that displayed what looked like a night sky—but the stars were moving, swirling in patterns that suggested this wasn't any sky from Earth.
In the center of the chamber were two raised platforms, each covered with intricate symbols that glowed with soft blue light. Above each platform floated a sphere of liquid crystal, slowly rotating.
"You'll lie on this platform," Yuki explained, indicating the nearest one. "Akari will take the other. The spheres will descend and envelop your heads, establishing the neural connection. Then Riku will activate the temporal bridge, and you'll dive into the memory."
"What do I need to do?"
"Nothing. Just relax. Let the process happen. The technology will handle the difficult parts." She helped him onto the platform, adjusting his position. "But remember—once you're in the memory, you can't change anything. You're just an observer. If you try to alter events, even slightly, you'll create a paradox that could destroy your consciousness."
"Comforting."
"I'm not trying to comfort you. I'm trying to keep you alive." Yuki moved to a control station. "Akari, are you ready?"
Akari had already positioned herself on the second platform. She looked completely calm, as if she did this sort of thing every day. Maybe she did.
"Ready. Takeshi, remember—follow my lead. I'll guide you through the memory. If you feel anything strange, anything wrong, tell me immediately through the mental link. Don't try to tough it out."
"Mental link?"
"You'll understand when it happens." Akari closed her eyes. "Begin the sequence."
Yuki's hands moved across controls that Takeshi couldn't see. The symbols on the platforms began to glow brighter. The spheres of liquid crystal started to descend.
"Initiating neural synchronization," Riku announced from somewhere Takeshi couldn't see. "Temporal coordinates locked. Memory signature identified. Beginning dive in three... two... one..."
The sphere touched Takeshi's forehead.
And reality dissolved.
He was standing in a corridor. Stone walls. Narrow windows letting in afternoon sunlight. The administrative quarter of Greyholm Fortress, three weeks before Lord Vesper's murder.
He knew this moment. Remembered it. He'd been making a delivery, carrying a package to someone in the tax office. His back had been aching from a long shift at the docks that morning, and he'd been thinking about whether he could afford to buy fresh bread instead of the stale loaves he'd been eating all week.
Such mundane concerns. Such normal, everyday thoughts.
He walked down the corridor—or rather, his past self walked, and he existed as a passenger in that body, feeling everything but controlling nothing.
*Takeshi.* Akari's voice echoed in his mind, clear and distinct. *I'm here with you. Can you hear me?*
*Yes.* He thought the word, and somehow she received it. The mental link she'd mentioned.
*Good. Now, just experience the memory. Don't try to force anything. Let it unfold naturally.*
His past self rounded a corner, nearly colliding with someone coming the other way.
"Sorry!" Past-Takeshi said, stumbling back.
The other man steadied himself against the wall with his left hand.
And there it was.
The cut on his left hand. Fresh. Bleeding slightly through a hastily applied bandage. Shaped like a crescent moon.
But now, reliving the moment with full attention instead of distracted half-awareness, Takeshi noticed other details.
The man was tall, maybe forty, with brown hair greying at the temples. Expensive clothes, but not noble-expensive—the attire of a high-ranking bureaucrat. His eyes were nervous, darting around as if checking to make sure no one else was watching. And the leather satchel he carried bore the seal of the Revenue Office.
But there was something else. Something wrong about him that Takeshi hadn't registered the first time.
His shadow.
It was moving independently. Just slightly. Just enough to notice if you were paying attention.
*Akari, are you seeing this?*
*Yes.* Her mental voice was tense. *That's not normal. That's a sign of—*
The man spoke. "Sorry, didn't see you there. My apologies."
His voice was normal. Pleasant, even. But underneath it, if you listened carefully, there was another sound. Like an echo that didn't quite sync up with his words.
*He's possessed,* Akari said. *Or being puppeted. Something else is controlling him, using him as a vessel.*
Past-Takeshi was already moving on, dismissing the encounter as meaningless. But present-Takeshi, riding along in that memory, watched as the man continued down the corridor. Watched as his shadow rippled and shifted. Watched as he entered a door marked "Revenue Minister - Private Office."
Lord Vesper's office.
*We need to follow him,* Takeshi thought urgently.
*We can't. You didn't follow him in the original memory, so we can't access that space. We're limited to what you actually experienced.*
The memory continued. Past-Takeshi delivered his package, collected his payment, left the administrative quarter. Normal, mundane activities.
But present-Takeshi's attention was locked on those few seconds in the corridor. On the man with the wrong shadow. On the clear evidence that something supernatural, something beyond normal human capability, had been at work.
*We need to go deeper,* Akari said. *Riku, can you enhance the memory? Focus on the corridor encounter?*
*Attempting enhancement.* Riku's voice came from somewhere outside the memory, distant but clear. *This might feel strange.*
The world froze. Then rewound, flowing backward like water spiraling down a drain. They were back in the corridor, the moment of collision repeating.
But this time, the image was sharper. Clearer. Details that hadn't registered consciously were now visible.
The man's eyes. When light hit them from a certain angle, they flashed red. Just for a fraction of a second, but unmistakable.
The bandage on his hand. It wasn't just covering a wound—there were symbols drawn on it in dried blood. Sigils that seemed to writhe and shift when directly observed.
And his satchel. Through the leather, Takeshi could now see what it contained. Not documents. Not paperwork.
A knife.
An ornate knife with a blade that seemed to be made of crystallized shadow, and a handle wrapped in something that looked like human skin.
*Gods above,* Akari breathed. *That's a Causality Blade. A weapon specifically designed to cut through time itself. One strike from that, and the victim's death becomes a fixed point—impossible to prevent, impossible to alter.*
*Is that what killed Lord Vesper?*
*Almost certainly. But who created it? Who gave it to this puppet? And why—*
The memory shuddered.
Not rewound. Not froze. Shuddered, like reality itself was having a seizure.
*Something's wrong.* Riku's voice was alarmed. *There's an intrusion in the temporal stream. Someone else is accessing this memory. Someone—*
The man in the corridor turned.
Looked directly at them.
Smiled with too many teeth.
*Abort!* Akari screamed mentally. *Abort the dive now!*
But it was too late.
The man's form rippled, changed, grew. In seconds, he'd transformed from a nervous bureaucrat into something else entirely. Something familiar.
Thorne.
"Did you really think," the creature said, its voice echoing through the memory in impossible ways, "that I wouldn't monitor this moment? That I wouldn't set a trap specifically for anyone foolish enough to investigate?"
The corridor began to dissolve around them. The memory corrupting, breaking apart into fragments that spiraled away into darkness.
*Riku! Pull us back!*
*I'm trying! The connection is tangled! Something's interfering with the extraction protocol!*
Thorne took a step forward, and the step somehow covered the entire distance between them. Its hand—too many joints, remember—reached out toward Takeshi's consciousness.
"You're mine now, Takeshi Kurogane. Your mind. Your memories. Your very identity. All of it will be scattered across the timeline, and when I'm done, you'll wish you'd died your tenth death in that cell."
The hand touched him.
And Takeshi's world exploded into a thousand different directions at once.