> "Storms are loud.
> Fractures are quiet.
> Until the whole sky breaks."
---
### I. Lucid
She had built her entire strategy on control — clean, contained, clinical.
But now?
The Unknown Girl wasn't using Echo.
She was *bending it backwards*.
Lucid stood alone in the Echo Core, trembling.
> "This isn't manipulation."
> "It's resonance."
> "She's syncing with Neo."
Screens showed overlapping echoes — of Neo, of the girl, of a time before Virelia.
Lucid whispered:
> "She's not his enemy."
> "She's his *origin*."
And then… the Core shut down.
---
### II. Neo
Neo sat beneath the clocktower, eyes blank, hands buried in dirt.
He wasn't moving.
He was listening.
To voices that weren't there.
To **echoes** of himself.
> "I didn't ask for this."
> "Why do I remember pain that's not mine?"
> "Who was I before silence?"
His Echo Step activated without him.
It mimicked not his present…
…but his **past**.
Images flickered around him:
A little boy. A girl with his eyes. Needles. A dark lab.
Neo whispered to himself:
> "They turned me into silence."
> "She... remembered the noise."
---
### III. Marei
She watched from the rooftop as chaos spread across the academy.
Stormfront was eating itself.
Students she once trusted now wore chrome masks. Some wore nothing at all. And some… just watched.
Marei clutched her coat.
> "I led a rebellion."
> "But he started a movement."
She pulled out a note from Neo.
It simply read:
> *"I'm not trying to win. I'm trying to end what never should've started."*
Marei whispered:
> "You liar."
> "You planned all of this."
And she didn't know if she hated him more…
…or respected him more.
---
### IV. The Council
The emergency chamber was in full lockdown.
Three members had already defected.
Two more were missing.
One — Councilor Rez — stood and slammed his badge on the table.
> "This isn't governance. This is war."
> "And the boy is winning."
The Head Councilor didn't flinch.
He simply said:
> "He's not the threat."
> "The girl is."
Then turned to the shadows.
> "Reactivate REVERB PROJECT. I don't care how many memories it burns."
---
### V. The Girl
She sat on the academy lawn, alone.
She touched the soil.
It echoed.
> "Neo didn't start the storm."
> "He absorbed it."
> "I was what he buried."
She looked up.
And whispered to the wind:
> "It's time to unbury him."
---
*End of Chapter 41.*