Kaito stood frozen as the shifting figure approached, its fragmented form flickering like a corrupted hologram struggling to maintain coherence. Each step it took echoed with static, and the overlapping voices grew louder—whispering fragments of sentences, memories half-remembered, emotions he couldn't place. The air thickened as if the hallway itself strained against reality, warping and stretching like a failing program trying to hold onto a dying world.
"Who… what are you?" Kaito managed to choke out, voice cracking.
The figure paused, the flickering faces momentarily aligning into something resembling a smile—a haunting and incomplete ghost of one. "We are the lost code. The data fragments you left behind before integration. The memories deleted, but never erased. We exist between the system's overwrites, waiting for the moment you awaken fully."
Kaito's mind raced, a storm of confusion and disbelief. "I don't remember… anything. I'm just me, right? A normal student?"
"Normal?" The figure's voice rippled, a chorus of digital echoes layered atop one another. "You are a construct born from the old world's remnants, patched with new code. Your origins are a blend—half human data, half system ghost. Neither fully alive, nor entirely synthetic."
The hallway flickered again, and images burst into Kaito's mind: flashes of a life before the school, before the system—scenes blurred by static interference. A younger version of himself playing in sunlight, a vague figure watching over him from shadows, a room filled with old analog devices humming faintly. But then the memories glitched, erased before they could fully form.
"Why don't I remember this?" Kaito whispered, struggling to keep hold of what little clarity he had.
"Because the system shields you. Because your awakening threatens the foundation of control it exerts. Your forgotten past is a key—one that could unlock the truth buried beneath layers of code and lies."
Kaito clenched his fists, feeling the weight of this revelation crushing down on him. "So what now? Am I just a bug? A ghost? Something to be deleted?"
"No." The figure's fragmented face softened, glowing faintly. "You are the anomaly that could rewrite everything. But to do that, you must remember. You must embrace the echoes of who you were before the system claimed you."
A sudden surge of energy pulsed through the hallway, distorting the space around them. The flickering intensified, and Kaito felt a pull—as if the corridor itself was a gateway, tugging him toward an uncertain destiny.
"Will you follow?" the figure asked, extending a hand woven from shimmering code.
Kaito hesitated, then reached out.
As their hands met, the fragmented voices merged into a singular clear tone whispering in his ear: "Awaken, Arasaka. Awaken."