The girl stood at the center of the ancient platform, her feet still not touching the ground. Snow and ash swirled around her, caught in an invisible current that flowed out from her presence.
Rafael couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
Kiryuu Aoi placed a hand on his shoulder, not out of comfort—she wasn't built for that—but control. Rafael didn't notice. His eyes were locked onto the apparition before him.
The girl's smile faltered.
"You remember," she whispered. "You promised you would."
Her voice wasn't just sound. It was like a song half-remembered, a lullaby from a life that never happened.
Elira stepped forward, blade humming at her side. "Who the hell is she?"
"Not who," the Reset Entity answered. "When."
The girl turned to him. "You weren't supposed to follow me here."
He shook his head. "You're a paradox. You're not supposed to exist."
"Neither is he," she said, looking back at Rafael.
Rafael finally spoke. His voice was a hoarse whisper. "Your name is... Aria."
She beamed.
Kiryuu tensed. "Who is Aria, Rafael?"
He didn't answer immediately. Memories churned, not as recollections but as bleeding impressions—a home that never burned, a lullaby his mother never sang, a daughter he never held.
"She was my daughter," he said finally. "In another timeline. One that was erased during the first reset."
Elira's mouth fell open. "You're telling me the Rifts are bringing back people from dead timelines now?"
The Reset Entity nodded gravely. "The artifact you carry, Rafael—it's more than memory. It's a breach point. A fracture in causality. It's how she came through."
Kiryuu's eyes narrowed. "And what does she want?"
Aria looked down, her small hands curling into fists.
"To stop the reset," she said. "Once and for all."
Before anyone could speak, the wind around her shifted. Her body flickered, like a corrupted video frame.
"They know I'm here now," she whispered. "The Board will send their enforcer."
The name hung unspoken. But Rafael knew it.
The one thing even he feared.
The Architect.
Kiryuu's voice dropped. "Then we fight."
"You can't fight the Architect," the Reset Entity warned. "He's not bound by time. He writes it."
Aria took Rafael's hand. It was cold, smaller than he remembered, but real.
"We don't need to fight him. We need to wake you up. The real you."
Rafael blinked. "What are you talking about?"
Aria touched the center of his chest. The artifact pulsed.
And the world around them shattered.
Suddenly they were standing in a white void. The frost, the forest, the ruined platform—gone.
Instead, a memory-construct unfolded.
Buildings untouched by war. Children laughing. His wife—her name lost to time—smiling at him from a balcony. The world that should have been.
Rafael dropped to his knees.
"What is this?"
"Your anchor," Aria said softly. "What you were before the war. Before the resets. Before... clarity."
Kiryuu stepped cautiously beside him, watching everything with razor calculation.
"If you had this life," she said, eyes flicking to Aria, "why give it up?"
"He didn't," Aria replied. "They took it."
A sound boomed in the distance.
Not thunder.
A door opening.
The Architect had arrived.
And reality was about to rewrite itself.