(Arc II: The Fractured Threads)
Aster did not remember walking through the hallway.
One moment he was stepping out of the Archive Chamber with Kael's coded warnings still echoing in his mind—
and the next, he found himself standing in front of the Observatorium of Causal Strings, fingertips brushing the cold silver door.
It felt like something had moved him here, a quiet pull…
or a quiet summon.
The lights above flickered.
Not from electricity—the academy's halls were lit by runic luminescence—but something deeper, like the world had blinked.
Aster inhaled sharply.
> [WARNING: A temporal discontinuity has occurred.]
The white text flashed across his vision like a whisper burned into reality.
And then—it vanished.
"Not again…" Aster muttered.
He pushed open the Observatorium doors.
Inside, the vast dome of crystal and mana engines hummed. Thousands of thin threads—gold, blue, silver, obsidian—shimmered from ceiling to ground like a web drawn by gods. Each represented a probability, a choice, a consequence.
But today…
the threads were wrong.
Half of them trembled violently, shaking like taut strings struck by an unseen hand.
Others flickered in and out of existence, blinking like broken stars.
Aster stepped forward—and the threads reacted.
Not to his mana.
Not to his presence.
But to something behind him.
A shadow.
His shadow.
It stretched unnaturally long across the polished floor, bending at angles that should've been impossible. And then—slowly—it stood upright, peeling itself from the ground as though rising from water.
Aster froze.
This wasn't the first time his shadow moved independently.
But it had never… appeared this solid.
The shadow tilted its head.
Its voice—if it was a voice—slithered across the dome like smoke.
"…you're late."
Aster clenched his fists. "You again. What do you want from me?"
The shadow didn't blink. It didn't breathe.
But it smiled. Not with lips—just a curl of intent across its faceless outline.
"…I want what you stole."
The words hit Aster like a physical strike. His heartbeat thudded.
He had heard that line before—from the Thread-Reaper in the corridor weeks ago, the one who said Aster was a displaced fragment.
"What did I steal?" Aster demanded.
The shadow leaned closer.
"…me."
The threads around them began thrumming louder, reacting to the anomaly. Several snapped—releasing brief sparks as they dissolved.
And then—footsteps.
"Aster? You're not supposed to be in here."
Lyra rushed into the chamber, her silver mana flickering in panic. The moment she saw the shadow, her expression shifted—fear, recognition, and something softer.
"Aster," she whispered, "your mana signature is splitting again."
He didn't turn.
He couldn't.
The shadow's form contorted, growing taller, gaining a second limb, then a third. It looked less like Aster and more like a creature wearing his outline—something that had crawled out of a forgotten timeline.
Lyra raised a hand. "Get back from it!"
"I can't," Aster murmured. "It's tied to me."
The shadow moved.
Not toward Aster—toward Lyra.
Threads burst into sparks as it crossed them, warping probability with each step.
Aster's chest tightened. Without thinking, he reached for Lyra's wrist and pulled her behind him.
It was instinct—simple, human instinct.
But Lyra's eyes widened for a split second, cheeks faintly tinged.
"Aster…" she breathed.
The shadow twitched.
And in its flat, echoing voice:
"…Interesting. She stabilizes you."
Lyra tensed. "I—what?! No, I— That's not—"
But the shadow didn't wait.
It surged forward.
Aster felt a cold spike pierce the air—pure hostility, pure intent. He reacted faster than thought, summoning the fragment's power. Golden text ignited across his arms, lines of causality snapping into place.
[Causality Override: Sequence 1 — PREEMPTIVE COUNTERACTION]
The world slowed.
He stepped sideways—
But the shadow stepped with him, mirroring perfectly.
It shouldn't have been possible.
Aster felt a chill slide down his spine.
"This thing…" he whispered, "it's learning."
The world resumed.
Impact.
Aster crashed into the threads, dozens shattering around him in bursts of light. Lyra screamed his name, but her voice felt distant, echoing beneath layers of static. The shadow loomed over him.
"…Return what you are."
And for the first time—
Aster saw something inside the shadow's form.
Not darkness.
Not emptiness.
But a fragment of memory.
His memory.
His chest tightened painfully.
Someone was calling his name in that memory—
a girl wrapped in white light—
a promise breaking—
a world collapsing—
And then the memory vanished, swallowed again.
Aster gasped.
"What—was that…?"
The shadow placed a hand on his chest.
"…Give it back."
The Observatorium's dome cracked slightly overhead.
Lyra rushed forward, trembling but determined, her mana swirling like silver ribbons.
"You aren't taking anything from him!" she shouted.
And for a moment—just a moment—Aster saw it.
A faint line of shimmering probability connecting him and Lyra.
A stabilizing thread.
The shadow recoiled slightly.
Aster exhaled shakily.
"…So that's it."
The shadow hissed.
The threads trembled.
The dome lights shattered.
The chapter ends as Aster rises to face his own anomaly—
the thing he once was,
the thing he will become,
and the thing that wants to erase him from the timeline.