The Glass Sea wasn't water.
It was solidified memory.
A vast, undulating plain of translucent silica that stretched to the horizon, shimmering with trapped echoes of drowned cities, lost battles, and forgotten lives. The surface was smooth as polished obsidian, yet it shifted underfoot like liquid, each step sending ripples of pale blue light through the depths below.
Teo walked carefully, the Banig of Remembering draped over his shoulders, its woven reeds now threaded with strands of Luminous Atoll coral—silver-white, humming with latent bonds. Lucario moved at his side, aura flaring faintly amber as it adjusted to the sea's psychic pressure.
"It's like walking on a dream," Rin murmured, her Conclave sensors blinking slowly, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of residual aura.
Veyla, however, stood rigid, her pre-cognitive Haki twitching like a live wire. "It's not just memory," she said, voice tight. "It's a crossroads."
She turned to Teo, eyes haunted. "I see two paths. One where we stop the Cult at the Primal Archive. One where… you become what they fear."
Teo's stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"
Veyla didn't answer. She just looked away, her jaw clenched.
Yumi signed urgently: The sea shows what's possible. Not what's certain.
But Teo couldn't shake the dread.
Because he'd felt it too—the slow erosion of "I" into "we." The moments when Lucario's memories surfaced unbidden, when his own past blurred like wet ink. If he lost himself completely… would he become a weapon? A force of pure bond, blind to everything else?
He placed a hand on Lucario's shoulder. "We stay grounded."
Lucario's response was immediate: "Always."
But for the first time, the word felt like a prayer.
They traveled for three days across the Glass Sea, guided by faint pulses from the Synkairo—now permanently golden, its crystalline core resonating with the sea's hidden currents. At night, they camped on floating shards of ancient city ruins—marble plinths, rusted steel beams, the fossilized hull of a cargo ship that had sailed centuries before the Sky Rending.
It was on the third night that Lucario began its new training.
Standing at the edge of a deep fissure in the sea—where the glass gave way to true water, black and fathomless—it stepped off.
Not to drown.
To adapt.
Teo watched from the shore as Lucario sank into the abyss, aura flaring gold-amber, fighting the crushing pressure. Its goal: Dragon-type Nen underwater.
Armament Haki wasn't just about hardening aura—it was about density. And the deeper Lucario went, the more it had to compress its energy to survive.
On the first dive, it lasted thirty seconds.
On the second, a full minute.
On the third, it emerged with its knuckles bleeding silver, but its aura denser, darker, sharper.
[ ARMAMENT HAKI — UNDERWATER MASTERY ACHIEVED ]
[ NEW TECHNIQUE: "AQUATIC FANG" — AURA CONDENSED TO PIERCE LEGENDARY-SCALE DEFENSES ]
Teo clapped it on the shoulder. "You're getting scary."
Lucario's eyes glowed faintly. "I have to be."
Because they both knew what waited in the Primal Archive.
Not just data.
The blueprint of existence.
On the fourth day, the sea changed.
The ripples turned red.
Not blood.
Warning.
Yumi's Synkairo let out a low chime, its core flashing crimson. Rin's sensors spiked.
"They're here," Rin said, voice sharp. "Cult scouts. But not hybrids."
From the horizon, figures emerged—tall, cloaked, moving with unnatural grace across the glass. Their faces were hidden, but their hands…
Glowed with the same silver dust Elara had wielded.
Sowers.
Not warriors.
Missionaries.
They didn't attack.
They sang.
A low, harmonic chant that resonated through the glass, not as sound, but as anti-memory.
Teo felt it instantly—a pull at the edges of his mind, like threads being unraveled. The memory of his lola's face blurred. The taste of sinigang faded.
[ WARNING: FUTURE-BOND ERASURE IN PROGRESS — PAST MEMORIES DEGRADING ]
"They're not just targeting eggs," Rin realized, horrified. "They're erasing the concept of bonding from reality itself."
Yumi acted first.
She hurled the Banig of Remembering into the air.
The woven reeds flared—not just with past pain, but with future hope.
The coral threads glowed, projecting visions:
—A Seedling's first bond with a Synkairo.
—An egg hatching in Luminous Atoll.
—Teo and Lucario standing together in the New Verdant.
The Sowers staggered back, their chant faltering.
But one stepped forward, voice calm. "You cling to ghosts. We offer peace."
Teo stepped between them and the Banig. "Peace without memory isn't peace. It's silence."
He raised his fists. "And I choose to remember."
The Sower smiled sadly. "Then suffer."
They lunged.
Not with weapons.
With emptiness.
Their hands passed through Teo's aura like smoke, not striking, but erasing.
For a split second, Teo forgot Lucario's name.
Panic clawed at his throat.
Then—Lucario's voice in his mind, sharp and clear: "Mateo."
Not "Teo."
His true name.
The one his lola used.
The one his mother called him when he was sick.
The memory snapped back.
Teo roared, Armament Haki flaring black, and struck.
Not to kill.
To disrupt.
His fist, wreathed in Aquatic Fang density, shattered the Sower's silver dust into harmless light.
The others fled.
But the damage was done.
Teo collapsed, gasping, his left eye flickering with static.
[ MEMORY INTEGRITY: 68% ]
[ WARNING: FUTURE EXPOSURE TO ANTI-BONDING TECHNIQUES MAY CAUSE PERMANENT IDENTITY LOSS ]
Lucario caught him, aura flaring protectively.
"I've got you."
Teo leaned into the touch, tears in his eyes.
Because he knew now.
The Cult's final weapon wasn't force.
It was forgetting.
And if he lost himself… who would remember for everyone else?
That night, as the group rested on a floating ruin, Veyla finally spoke.
"I see the path where you win," she said, staring into the glassy depths. "But I also see the path where you become so fused with Lucario that you lose all human perspective. You stop seeing individuals. You only see bonds. And when you can't save a bond… you erase the threat."
She looked at him, eyes burning. "You become the Cult's perfect weapon—just on the other side."
Teo didn't deny it. "Then I'll hold on to what makes me human."
He pulled out his dead phone—the one with the photo of him and his lola.
The screen was cracked, the image fading.
But he still remembered.
"Anak, come home soon."
Yumi placed a hand on his. "We'll help you remember."
Rin nodded. "Every day."
Lucario pressed its forehead to his temple. "Always."
Above them, the seven moons aligned.
And the Glass Sea shimmered with a thousand trapped memories.
Teo closed his eyes.
And chose to keep holding on.