Time: 11:20 AM
Date: 2742-08-27
Location: Kyoto – Near the Abandoned Underpass (a.k.a. Error City)
Ren stood at the mouth of the crumbling underpass, where traffic had been permanently rerouted ever since... well, reality started going wobbly.
Graffiti on the wall looked warped. Some of it moved, almost too subtly to notice.
And the air? It tasted wrong. Like warm copper and ozone and unwashed USB cables.
His eyes flared for the first time in hours—low, gentle light from the left. A sharper glint from the right.
BLAZE:
"Alright. Glitch pulse frequency's peaking here. I don't like this."
FROST:
"I do like it. It feels like we're about to find something. Or accidentally crack a god's wristwatch."
Ren stepped forward, hand grazing the wall. The concrete rippled.
And then—
The Aetherium Core spoke.
But not in voice. Not in whisper. Not in warm, vaguely sarcastic text.
[THREAD: 07.EXIST]
[PERCEPTION: LINEAR]
[TIMELINES: REDUNDANT]
[YOU: THE ONLY ONE]
[PATH: SINGLE]
[REBOOT: IMPOSSIBLE]
"Wait… hold the hell up," Ren muttered, feeling sweat bead on his neck. "Reboot impossible?"
FROST:
"...Well shit."
BLAZE:
"Translation: This world's running on one save file. No respawns. No do-overs."
Ren's breath caught in his throat.
It made sense now—why the visions didn't match past timelines. Why even the warped broadcasts hinted at strange, irreversible shifts.
This wasn't just his timeline.
It was the last one.
CORE:
[FINAL THREAD CONFIRMED]
[DIVERGENCE: UNAVAILABLE]
[SEEK: THE FINAL CORE]
[DATA: FRAGMENTED. TRIGGERED BY PHASE MEMORY]
"Phase memory…?"
A glitch sparked across the wall, and an object appeared—half-real, vibrating between dimensions. It looked like…
A compass.
But not just any compass. Its needle spun erratically, glowing faint blue.
And on its cracked glass was one word, burned in a strange dialect that slowly morphed into letters Ren could read:
"ORIGIN."
Ren picked it up carefully. As soon as his fingers closed around it—
FLASH.
A vision. Not of a place. But a moment.
A burning facility. Dozens of Cores in containment.
A red siren. A countdown.
And Ren's face—terrified, younger—reaching for a terminal before everything went white.
He dropped the compass, gasping.
FROST:
"Looks like you triggered something juicy."
BLAZE:
"It's a phase-locked memory. From before this timeline stabilized. One of the old versions of you. He saw the end. Maybe even caused it."
Ren's hands trembled. "So what now…?"
CORE:
[LOCATION: DETECTED]
[THE FINAL CORE WAITS AT: KAMI-DISTRICT, HIDDEN TERMINAL]
[TIME: ENOUGH IF YOU HURRY]
[DON'T FALL]
He looked up toward the blinking skyline.
The city was breaking. Slowly, pixel by pixel.
But the path was finally clear.
This was the only shot.
The final route.
No second tries.
Time: ??:?? PM
Location: Exiting Kyoto – On the road to Kami District
Ren adjusted his coat as he stepped out into the late afternoon light—well, what passed for light in a world that now glitched like a corrupted save file. A chunk of sky kept flickering between sunny blue and CRT static. Clouds moved in reverse. A traffic light blinked in Morse, possibly calling for help.
BLAZE:
"Still think we're just hallucinating from bad cafeteria curry?"
FROST:
"Weirdly specific. Did someone spike your ramen, hot stuff?"
Ren grunted. "Will both of you shut up while I—"
[THREAD: 07.EXIST]
[PERCEPTION: LINEAR]
[TIMELINES: REDUNDANT]
[YOU: THE ONLY ONE]
[PATH: SINGLE]
[REBOOT: IMPOSSIBLE]
The Aetherium Core spoke again. Its glowing pulse behind his chest beat once, hard.
"What does that even mean…?"
BLAZE:
"Means welcome to the Endgame, champ. You're in the only timeline left. No alt-Rens. No rerolls. This is it."
FROST:
"Except... that's not entirely true."
Ren froze.
He looked up the road—and saw it.
Himself.
Another Ren, standing in a broken phone booth, eyes empty, coat torn.
Then another. Sitting on a bench nearby, covered in ash and clutching what looked like a severed optic cable.
Another version ran screaming down the street, shirtless, wielding a baseball bat and yelling "I AM THE TIME WIZARD" before glitching out of view entirely.
Ren: "...The fuck."
BLAZE:
"Memory fragments. Old echoes of alternate timelines that collapsed. Some of them were you."
FROST:
"Some of them still are. But they don't belong anywhere now. Just like this broken-ass reality."
He kept walking. Past the ghost-Rens. Past the flickering buildings.
He passed a billboard that flashed:
FIND THE LAST CORE
REMEMBER WHO YOU WERE
[ERROR: EXISTENTIAL]
The deeper he went toward Kami District, the worse it got.
One version of him lay face-down in a puddle of something metallic and humming.
Another Ren was hunched over a vending machine, muttering numbers.
One sat cross-legged, eyes glowing pure white, whispering in Morse.
FROST:
"Okay, so, we might be dealing with fractured versions of your core memory. Or like, timeline diarrhea. Either way, this is a you problem."
Ren muttered, "I hate this city…"
Then the Core spoke again.
[LOCATION: DETECTED]
[KAMI DISTRICT: INNER ZONE - TERMINAL 03]
[BE QUICK. STABILITY: 9%]
[DON'T LOOK BACK]
Ren turned a corner—and the air snapped.
Suddenly gravity yanked sideways, like the ground was drunk.
His feet stumbled, falling into what looked like a spiraling data-chasm in the middle of the road.
Buildings rippled like water. A glitch in the sky formed a sentence in broken characters:
"YOU ARE STILL NOT READY."
He slammed into a stop sign that no longer existed.
A hand touched his shoulder.
It was another him. Silent. Pale. Eyes glowing red.
Before Ren could react, the other Ren spoke:
"Leave... before it finds you."
Then the version shattered like glass, vanishing into static.
Ren stood alone in the intersection.
The compass in his hand was glowing again.
Its needle spun—then stopped. Pointing directly toward the sealed gate in Kami District.
One last Core.
One timeline.
No backup.