[Sakura Dimension – Day 2, 06:45 AM]
The petals no longer fell like blessings.
They scattered like warnings.
Kaito stood before the mirror-still surface of Sakura Lake, its waters now darkened with swirling fragments of emotion. Aya sat behind him, legs tucked beneath her, eyes fixated on the silver reflection that no longer showed her true face.
The first event had ended, but its echoes had only just begun.
Thirty-two duos had returned from the grave. Some smiled. Others wept. But none remembered how they'd come back. And the system remained silent.
Aya reached forward and touched the ground. It pulsed faintly.
"We're still inside the mind trial," she whispered.
"No," Kaito said. "We're inside our version of it now."
She looked at him, brows knitting.
He gestured to the horizon.
Where the lake ended, the sky began—but it wasn't sky anymore. Fractures ran across the firmament, like a mirror dropped from a great height. Each crack shimmered with memory. Some glowed with warm light. Others flickered like dying film.
Kaito narrowed his eyes.
One fragment showed his childhood—his mother handing him a torn lunchbox before school.
Another, a battlefield—bodies strewn around him in a snowstorm of silence.
He blinked, and they vanished.
Aya stood up, voice trembling. "This place is reshaping itself… based on us."
"No," Kaito said slowly. "It's reshaping itself based on everyone's mind."
And that was when the screams began.
[Valley of Thought – 07:30 AM]
Meera's voice echoed first.
Dev held her back as she clawed at the mist. "Let me go! She's in there!"
"Meera!" he growled. "There's no one there!"
"I heard her! My mother—she was calling me!"
Dozens of Awakeners had broken away from the camp near Sakura Lake. The dreamlike serenity had shifted into a realm of psychic distortion.
Everyone saw someone.
Everyone heard something.
And no two visions were the same.
Takeshi saw a thousand faceless women bowing to him, whispering "Save us."
Reina found herself surrounded by children made of water, each asking her why she didn't protect them.
Even the revived—those who'd returned from death—began to falter.
Kiko Amamiya, the UR-rank prodigy who had once died screaming, stood at the edge of the forest, arms crossed. "Something's off," she murmured. "This isn't part of the System's usual patterns."
She looked up at the sky—and it looked back.
One of the mirror fractures turned black.
[System Notification – Private Channel: Kaito Yamada]
> [System Alert – Dimensional Stability Compromised] Cause: Wish Activation (Undisclosed) Repercussions: Internal Conscious Collapse Event Initiated Recommended Action: Anchor Stability Points Before Merge Phase Begins
Kaito stared at the message.
Aya stepped beside him, reading over his shoulder. "Stability points?"
"Places. People. Memories." He ran a hand through his hair. "If we don't lock parts of ourselves down… we might lose them."
"Lose them… like memories?"
"Like selves."
Aya's breath caught.
"What happens if we can't hold on?" she asked.
Kaito didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The wind screamed across the lake—and the petals caught fire mid-air.
[Sakura Camp – Emergency Gathering, 09:00 AM]
All 69 active Awakeners had gathered again. The ones who had returned from death were growing agitated. Symptoms were spreading: dissociation, speech lapses, déjà vu spikes.
One man began talking to himself in five languages at once.
Another forgot his own name halfway through introducing himself.
Dev stepped forward, voice calm but urgent. "We need to treat this like a psychic infection."
Kiko crossed her arms. "We're inside an unstable dimension built on collective trauma. The more unstable we are, the faster it collapses."
Aya turned toward Kaito. "Can you anchor us?"
He hesitated. "I don't think it's me the System wants."
She touched his wrist. "It doesn't matter what it wants. You brought them back. You broke the rules."
Kaito looked around—at the shifting trees, the sky that now bled memories, the survivors with haunted eyes.
"I'll try."
[Anchor Ritual – Initiated, 10:15 AM]
The Awakeners gathered in a circle around Sakura Lake.
Kaito stepped into the center, followed by Aya.
System runes appeared beneath them—jagged glyphs written in thoughts, not words.
"Focus on one memory," Aya instructed everyone. "Just one. Something that reminds you who you are."
One by one, the duos began anchoring.
Dev and Meera shared a memory of eating mangoes on a Delhi rooftop during monsoon.
Takeshi remembered falling into a koi pond during training—and Reina's laugh.
Kiko closed her eyes and whispered a lullaby her sister used to sing.
Kaito hesitated.
Then he reached into himself.
And found the moment—years ago, forgotten in the chaos of awakening—when a younger Aya had passed him a lunchbox on his first day in a foreign middle school in Japan.
No words. Just a smile. Just kindness.
The glyphs exploded with light.
The ground shivered.
And the mirror sky stopped cracking.
[System Message – Global Broadcast]
> [Dimensional Anchor Complete] [Sakura Dimension Stability: 72%] [Next Phase Unlocked – Event Two: Mind Merge Simulation] Start Countdown: 48 Hours Warning: Incomplete Anchors May Be Compromised During Merge
The light faded.
Everyone breathed again.
But they all knew—
This was only the eye of the storm.
[Nightfall – Sakura Lake Ridge, 22:45 PM]
Aya sat beside Kaito, knees drawn up to her chest.
"You remembered," she said quietly.
He looked over. "What?"
"That lunchbox. That was the first time we met."
He nodded.
"I thought you forgot."
He gave a tired smile. "I don't forget the people who saved me."
Silence passed between them.
And then:
"You scared me," she whispered.
Kaito blinked.
"Back there. You didn't hesitate. You bent the rules. You rewrote fate. You could've lost everything."
He looked up at the stars above the mirrored lake.
"I did lose everything once," he said. "But this time… I decided not to let go."
Aya didn't answer.
Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
Not romantic.
Not dramatic.
Just… there.
Kaito placed a hand gently over hers.
They didn't speak again that night.
The lake shimmered beneath the falling petals.
And above them, the stars rearranged themselves into strange, unfamiliar constellations.
The mind merge was coming.
And with it—
A test no blade could cut.
---
End of Chapter 46