The fragment appeared without warning.
There was no sign-in chime, no preparatory interface, no polite delay. One moment the workbench in the Arcadian outpost was empty; the next, something lay at its center that had not been there before.
Kaito felt it before he saw it.
A pressure behind the eyes. A sense of attention turning inward.
"Aya," he said quietly.
"I see it," Aya replied. Her avatar manifested instantly, sharper and brighter than Kaito had ever seen it. "Object classification pending."
The fragment was roughly the size of Kaito's palm, irregular in shape, its surface matte and dark—yet not black. It absorbed light without reflecting it, as if illumination bent slightly around it. Thin lines etched across its surface glimmered faintly, then faded when he tried to focus on them.
Liang froze mid-step when he noticed it.
"Don't touch it," he said immediately.
"I wasn't planning to," Kaito replied, though his hand hovered closer than he realized.
Mina, watching remotely through the outpost feed, leaned forward on the screen. "That wasn't logged," she said. "Did the system spawn it?"
Aya hesitated.
"This object did not originate from a standard reward pathway," she said. "Temporal signature inconsistent with sign-in allocation."
Kaito frowned. "So what is it?"
Aya did not answer.
Instead, the disk chimed—late, almost reluctantly.
UNSCHEDULED ARTIFACT DETECTED
DESIGNATION: ASCENSION KEY (FRAGMENT)
STATUS: INCOMPLETE
The words settled heavily.
"Ascension," Liang repeated. "That's a loaded term."
"Yes," Aya said. "It is not used casually by the system."
Kaito swallowed. "What does it do?"
Aya's glow dimmed slightly. "Function unknown. However, preliminary inference suggests this object interacts with system-level permissions rather than physical processes."
"That's worse," Mina said flatly.
They isolated the fragment immediately.
Aya erected a multi-layer containment field—electromagnetic, spatial, and something else Kaito couldn't quite name. The fragment resisted categorization, its readings shifting subtly whenever they tried to pin it down.
"It doesn't obey conservation laws," Liang muttered. "Not strictly."
"It doesn't need to," Aya replied. "It operates at a higher abstraction layer."
Kaito stared at the fragment through the containment field. "You mean it doesn't change things."
"Yes," Aya said. "It changes access."
That night, Kaito couldn't sleep.
The anchor hummed steadily, reassuring in its familiarity. The outpost's systems functioned normally. Nothing else had changed.
And yet everything had.
He returned to the lab before dawn, standing alone before the fragment.
"What happens if I touch it?" he asked softly.
Aya appeared at his side. "Probability of irreversible system state alteration exceeds acceptable thresholds."
"So don't," Kaito said.
"Yes," Aya agreed. "However, avoidance does not equate to safety. The fragment is now part of your operational environment."
Kaito sighed. "You're saying it's already in play."
"Yes."
Liang joined him shortly after, eyes ringed with fatigue. "I've been thinking," he said. "Fragments imply a whole."
"And a purpose," Kaito added.
Mina's voice came through the channel, lower than usual. "And other people looking for them."
That sent a chill through the room.
Aya confirmed it moments later. "External system noise detected. Pattern consistent with artifact resonance."
"Someone else has one?" Kaito asked.
"Possibly," Aya replied. "Or something compatible."
Kaito leaned back against the bench, exhaling slowly.
Up until now, the system had felt like a structured ascent—rewards, choices, consequences.
This felt different.
Older.
"Why now?" he asked.
Aya considered the question carefully. "Hypothesis: anchor establishment fulfilled a prerequisite. Persistent multi-world access may be a necessary condition for ascension-related artifacts to manifest."
"So this is a next stage," Kaito said.
"Yes," Aya replied. "Or a test of readiness."
The disk chimed again, softly.
NOTICE
ASCENSION PATHWAYS: LOCKED
KEY FRAGMENTS REQUIRED
Liang let out a slow breath. "It's not even pretending to be subtle anymore."
Mina shook her head on the screen. "This changes the board."
Kaito nodded.
Before, they had been defending against governments, corporations, and public fear.
Now, they were dealing with something that sat above all of that.
"Secure it," Kaito said at last. "We don't use it. We don't advertise it. And we don't go looking for the others."
Aya looked at him. "That strategy may not remain viable."
"I know," Kaito replied. "But it's the only one that doesn't turn us into hunters."
The fragment pulsed faintly within its containment field, as if acknowledging the decision—or marking it.
The disk chimed one final time.
DAY 015 — SIGN-IN COMPLETE
No reward followed.
Because the system had already given him something far more dangerous than power.
A direction.
Kaito stood in the quiet lab, staring at the fragment that promised transcendence and catastrophe in equal measure.
The path ahead no longer led upward in a straight line.
It branched.
And every branch carried a cost.