The Hollow Kin led Yuto to a chamber deeper than the Vault itself—a pit carved from petrified dreams and stitched shut by timelines that never happened.
"Every Kin must pass the Trial of the Unwritten," said the Trickster Kin with too many eyes.
"You want to be one of us? Then confront what the System tried to erase—you."
The walls split open.
Reality unraveled—
And Yuto fell.
He landed in a city.
But not the twisted realms of the Spiral.
No, this was Tokyo.
His Tokyo.
The sky was overcast. The pavement warm. Students crossed the street with their bags. Someone honked. Someone cursed.
And standing in the middle of it all… was Yuto, in human form.
"This…"
"This is my last day alive."
He watched it all like a ghost.
Himself, rushing to school late.
His phone screen: cracked.
His backpack: too light—he'd forgotten his homework again.
And there—the intersection.
Truck headlights. Brakes screaming.
The moment everything ended.
"This isn't real," Yuto whispered.
"This already happened."
[Incorrect.]
[Trial Mode Active: Alternate Self Encounter Initiated.]
The other Yuto turned.
His face was filled with anger. Not sadness. Not fear.
"You don't deserve this second life," the human Yuto snarled.
"You think crawling around with eight legs makes you special?"
Yuto staggered back.
"I didn't choose this—!"
"Exactly. You ran away. You always run. From school. From bullies. From your future. And now from yourself."
The human Yuto's hands morphed into claws of glass and memory.
[Phantom Echo Initiated: Boss Encounter – Yuto (Human Self)]
[Enemy Trait: Regret-Forged]
Immune to illusion
Inverts pain
Speaks only your self-doubt
Yuto activated Threadborn Trickster.
"Fine. Then let's see who I really am."
He triggered Patchwork Persona—temporarily mimicking a Knight-Class Sovereign—and rushed forward in a blur of speed he didn't really possess.
CLASH—!
Steel met glass. Shards flew. Pain rebounded.
But the real weapon wasn't claws or fangs. It was the words.
"You were going to end it all before the truck did it for you, weren't you?"
Yuto froze.
Because it was true.
The human self lunged in the silence—and drove a blade of light through his side.
[Warning: Mental Fracture Approaching Critical]
Then, a whisper.
Nyx's voice. Calm, steady.
[Permission granted. Use your truth. Not theirs.]
Yuto triggered Edit Glitch.
Reality flickered.
He changed the rules.
Effect Altered: "Pain Reversal" → "Pain Shared"
The moment the phantom slashed again—it screamed, its hand burning.
"You changed me! That's cheating!"
"No," Yuto said, rising.
"That's rewriting."
He leapt, his threads laced with glitch-fire—
And tore the phantom in half.
The city dissolved.
The sky cracked.
And Yuto awoke—back in the Vault, drenched in sweat and glitch-energy.
The Hollow Kin watched.
"He passed," said the stitched beast-kin.
"He survived his unwritten self."
"He didn't just survive," said the eye-kin.
"He rewrote."
Yuto stood, breathless.
Still shaking.
But something inside him had changed.
He wasn't just a bug.
He was a liar, a rulebreaker, and now…
A true Trickster of the Spiral.