The darkness that swallowed Reed's final warning wasn't the gentle void of unconsciousness—it was the aggressive absence of something that had been violently torn away. Lio floated in the space between memory and reality, his consciousness still bleeding from the revelation about the Goblin Lord, still aching with the weight of Reed's centuries-old guilt.
But even in that darkness, he could feel something watching him.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
The voice didn't come from any direction—it simply existed, pressing against his thoughts with the casual authority of something that had never been denied. Not Reed's broken whisper, not Shia's blazing defiance, but something older and infinitely more patient.
The Neutral Archivist.
"The way memory can reshape understanding. The way truth can recontextualize every choice you've ever made." A pause that stretched across eternities. "Reed showed you that particular memory for a reason, you know."
