The city woke up screaming.
Sirens cut through the night air from every direction. People flooded the streets, shouting questions no one could answer. Emergency lights washed buildings in red and blue, but something felt wrong beneath the noise, like the panic was only a surface reaction to something deeper.
Rei stood still in the middle of the street, breathing hard.
The mark on his chest no longer burned.
It watched.
Aira stayed close to him, her fingers still wrapped around his wrist as if letting go would cause him to disappear. Her eyes scanned the crowd, the buildings, the sky.
"Everything feels… delayed," she said quietly.
Zeke cracked his knuckles. "Like the punch already landed and we're just waiting to feel it."
Kai rubbed his arms, lightning flickering weakly under his skin. "I keep thinking I see people twice. Like they're slightly out of sync."
Rena stared at the ground. "That's because some of them are."
They all looked at her.
"The correction didn't finish," she continued. "It was interrupted. Pieces of the wrong version are still bleeding through."
Suki let out a humorless laugh. "Great. Ghost city DLC."
Rei finally moved. Each step felt heavier, like the world was subtly resisting him. The farther he walked, the worse it became.
He stopped.
The street ahead shimmered.
A man walked toward them, talking into a phone, smiling. Halfway across the crosswalk, his body glitched. For a split second, there were two of him. Then neither.
The scream came late.
Aira turned away sharply. "Rei… this is because of you, isn't it?"
He didn't deny it.
"Yes," he said. "But not in the way you think."
The mark pulsed once.
Images flooded his mind. Not visions. Logs. Records. Failed timelines stacked on top of each other like corrupted files.
Cities erased.
Worlds reset.
Names removed.
And always the same final note.
Iteration unstable. Cause unresolved.
Rei staggered slightly. Zeke caught his shoulder.
"What did you see?"
Rei swallowed. "Proof."
The sky shifted.
Not cracked. Not broken.
Focused.
Stars rearranged themselves into precise patterns, lines connecting them briefly before fading. Satellites across the planet adjusted their orbits at the same time.
Something had locked on.
Suki followed his gaze. "Tell me that's not a targeting system."
Rena whispered, "It is."
The ground hummed beneath their feet. Not shaking. Calibrating.
Then every screen in the city lit up.
Phones.
Billboards.
Emergency displays.
Car dashboards.
All at once.
A symbol appeared.
Simple.
Clean.
Wrong.
No language.
No translation.
But everyone understood it.
People screamed and dropped their devices. Some ran. Some froze. Some fell to their knees for reasons they couldn't explain.
Kai clutched his head. "It's in my thoughts. It's not talking. It's… counting."
Rei felt it too.
A countdown.
Not to destruction.
To selection.
A voice finally followed. Calm. Neutral. Everywhere.
"Final Iteration Protocol initiated."
Aira's breath caught. "Final?"
Rei nodded slowly. "No more resets."
Zeke bared his teeth. "Good. I hate reruns."
The air in front of them bent inward, folding like paper.
A figure stepped out.
Not the Continuance.
Not a god.
Not Azeroth.
This one was smaller. Human-sized. Wearing something like a uniform that refused to stay consistent, shifting between styles that never existed.
Its face was smooth and unfinished, like it hadn't decided who it was meant to be.
"Riftborn," it said.
It didn't use Rei's voice.
That scared him more.
"You are now a confirmed divergence," the figure continued. "Your continued existence reduces success probability below acceptable limits."
Aira stepped forward. "If you touch him—"
"You are irrelevant," the figure said gently.
Rei felt something snap.
The world leaned toward him.
"No," Rei said. "She isn't."
The mark erupted.
Not outward.
Downward.
The ground split open beneath the figure, revealing nothing but white space. The entity stumbled, surprised.
"Error," it said. "Authority conflict detected."
Rei moved before it could recover.
The Rift expanded behind him, not tearing reality but overwriting it. The air screamed as rules bent around his will.
"I'm done being corrected," Rei said.
The entity recovered quickly. "Then you will be archived."
It raised its hand.
The city vanished.
For a fraction of a second, they stood nowhere.
Then somewhere else.
A vast platform suspended in white infinity. Endless screens floated around them, each showing a different version of the world.
Some burning.
Some frozen.
Some peaceful.
All abandoned.
Kai whispered, "These are… all of them?"
Rena nodded slowly. "All the attempts."
Azeroth stood at the center.
Waiting.
Smiling.
"Welcome," he said. "You weren't supposed to get here like this, but I suppose you earned it."
Aira glared at him. "You did this."
Azeroth shrugged. "I delayed it. That's different."
Rei stepped forward. "You built the system."
"No," Azeroth replied. "I broke it."
The entity turned toward Azeroth. "Unauthorized presence detected."
Azeroth laughed softly. "You still think you're in charge."
The screens began to flicker.
Azeroth looked at Rei. "Every cycle ends with you erased. That's the only way it stabilizes."
Rei met his gaze. "Then the cycle's wrong."
Azeroth's smile faded for the first time.
"That's what I said," he whispered.
The platform trembled.
The system entity raised its hand again. "Final decision required. Preserve system integrity or preserve anomaly."
Every screen turned toward Rei.
Waiting.
The mark burned hotter than ever.
Rei took a breath.
"I choose neither," he said.
The Rift exploded outward.
Not destruction.
Rewrite.
The white infinity cracked.
Azeroth's eyes widened.
"No," he said. "That option wasn't supposed to exist."
Rei looked back at his friends.
"At least now," he said quietly, "we stop reacting."
The system screamed as logic collapsed.
Alarms blared across the void.
"Unknown path selected."
"Outcome unrecorded."
"Future undefined."
The platform began to fall apart.
Aira grabbed Rei's hand. "What happens now?"
Rei smiled grimly.
"Now," he said, "the world has to live with us."
The void shattered.
And somewhere far beyond systems and gods alike, something older than correction turned its attention toward Earth.
Not to erase it.
But to see what it would become without permission.