---
> *Some call it power.*
> *Others call it memory.*
> *Neo had stopped calling it anything at all.*
> He simply used it.
---
### 10:00 – Virelia's Quiet Panic
Across Virelia, students sat quieter. Not out of obedience — but *tension*.
Classrooms buzzed with forced lectures while eyes darted to flickering Echo interfaces.
Neo walked through Hallway 9A with calculated calm.
Sana's voice echoed in his thoughts — not as a whisper, but a shared thread.
> *"They think remembering is weakness."*
> *"They've forgotten what memory can command."*
---
### 10:12 – Echo Resonance Map (Neo's Dorm Terminal)
Neo pulled up the digital grid.
He traced the patterns where fragments had spread.
- Student 4A remembered his twin.
- Student 3C cried over a memory of a sister.
- Marei hadn't reported any of them.
The resonance wasn't chaotic.
It was **strategic**.
Neo smirked.
> "They think I'm reacting. I'm still three moves ahead."
---
### 10:15 – Black Echo Returns
A pulse flickered on the far end of the campus.
Neo felt it before he saw it.
> *Black Echo – a corrupted Echo channel that hadn't activated since Chapter 27.*
Sana's voice in his mind went tense.
> *"That wasn't us."*
Neo stood.
> "Then it's them. The Council's counter-play."
He closed the map.
> "Time to shift the board."
---
### 10:22 – Virelia Roof Access (Code G47)
Neo met Riko at the rooftop access gate. She handed him a thin datapad.
> "This is from Marei," she said.
> "Lucid's moving students into observational custody. 'Dorm rotations.' It's a cover."
Neo scanned the datapad, expression unreadable.
> "She's prepping for mind-wipe compliance tests," he said.
> "Classic Lucid panic."
Riko asked quietly:
> "So… do we escalate?"
Neo looked past the skyline — the wind carrying echoes of laughter, arguments, things no longer remembered.
He whispered,
> "No."
> "We make them come to us. And we let them remember *why they feared us first.*"
---
### Final Line
Some revolutions start with fire.
This one?
With memory — and a move no one saw coming.
*End of Chapter 46*