> "This isn't an attack."
> "It's a restoration."
> "We're taking back what they tried to erase."
---
### 05:00 – Operation "Backtrace"
Neo and Sana stood inside an abandoned Echo classroom. Dust still hovered midair. Memory energy hummed from old desks.
> "We plant the signal here," Neo said.
> "It will thread through every unarchived Echo file on campus."
Sana placed a silver shard — a data spike — on the floor.
> "We're not stealing anything," she whispered.
> "We're giving it *back* to the minds they stole it from."
The spike glowed.
A web of thin white threads snaked outward, vanishing into the walls.
---
### 05:05 – The Council Core
Lucid's monitor lit up with **unauthorized resonance infiltration**.
> "They're flooding the academy's subconscious layer."
> "Old Echoes are waking up in unconnected students."
Students began freezing mid-step. Others whispered strange words. One student collapsed in the cafeteria and murmured:
> "I dreamed… of a girl named Sana."
> "But I've never met her."
Lucid's jaw clenched.
> "Shut it down."
> "We *can't*," a technician said.
> "She's using our own neural drift to override protocols."
---
### 05:11 – Marei's Dilemma
Marei watched from the upper hall balcony.
Below her, three first-year students sat cross-legged, holding hands — *remembering*.
They spoke of memories they had no reason to know.
> One remembered a name carved in chalk.
> One whispered coordinates.
> One cried for a sister she never had.
Marei shook her head.
> "This isn't rebellion anymore."
> "This is… *restoration by infection*."
And she didn't know whether to warn the Council or let it unfold.
---
### 05:16 – The Heart of the Raid
Neo stepped into the **Old Echo Archive Room**, where erased data once vanished.
The walls glowed faintly.
Sana joined him, placing her palm on the archive console.
> "Ready?" he asked.
> "Say it again," she replied.
> "Sana."
With that one word, the room **lit up in a storm of past light** — forgotten names, denied experiments, shadowed students — all pulsing with returned memory.
---
### 05:20 – Lucid's Final Command
Lucid stood in the Reverb Tower, shaking.
> "They're rebuilding identity," she muttered.
> "If they finish this… we lose control of *everything*."
She stared at the emergency reset switch.
> "Wipe the campus. Full mind-wipe."
But her finger never reached the button.
Because her console flickered.
And a line appeared across every terminal:
> **"I remember."**
> **"And now they do too."**
---
*End of Chapter 44.*