Chapter 38: The Last Anchor

The stairs arced down like the inside of a broken clock. There were fissures along the sides, throbbing gently — not with light, but with memory. Each step pulsed with a different feeling: a laugh, a name, a goodbye.

Haruto descended slowly.

Above him, the tower vanished. Around him, mist formed — but this time it wasn't passive. It watched. It remembered.

He tightened his fist on the shattered wristwatch in his pocket. Its warmth had fled. Now it simply pulsed. Like it was ticking, but inward.

Somewhere deep below, something groaned. Stone grinding. Or an idea collapsing.

Then there were whispers.

"Haruto…"

"Meant for none…"

"You were the fault…"

He tensed, heart pounding.

Figures shifted in the mist behind him. Tall. Gaunt. Limbed like mannequins but with faces that rippled like overexposed photos.

Correctors.

System enforcers. The cleanup crew.

He took another step. The ground beneath his foot fizzled — reality unraveling a second too early. They were catching up.

He sprinted.

Not out of fear, but because there was one thing left for him to do.

The final anchor was at the bottom of the stairs.

A truth too deep to reach walking.

So he jumped.

He fell through absence.

Not space. Not time. Just absence. A kind of negative existence that was like being erased and remembered at the same time.

When he landed, it was on soft ground — not stone, not earth. Something in between. Familiar.

The vault yawned open in front of him — a circular chamber with no doors, no roof. Only a distant dome of moving glass, shimmering with memories he could not quite recall. Scenes started and stopped in mid-frame. Classrooms. Rooftops. Rain on windows.

And in the center: a girl.

Not Ayaka. Not Hina.

Both — and neither.

She stood barefoot in a pool of silence. Her form shone with unstable memory, as if she was being recompiled every second by a system unsure which version to display.

Haruto hesitated.

Was this the final anchor?

He didn't know — not for certain. But in the innermost part of himself, something nodded yes. Not because she waited, but because she always had.

He moved forward.

The girl raised her eyes.

“Haruto,” she said, her voice doubling on itself — two tones layered, one sweet and clear, the other distant and hollow.

“You’ve come to choose.”

The air around her rippled.

As she stepped closer, her form shifted — the red scarf appeared. Then the ribbon. Then the broken bell tower behind her. Scenes bled into each other. Memory fought memory.

“Hina?” he whispered.

Her eyes locked on his.

"I tried to hang on," she said. "But something kept taking my place. Writing over me. Whenever you remembered her…"

She faltered. Her hands glowed.

Haruto lurched forward. "I didn't mean to—"

"I know," she said. "But intention doesn't fix it. You're the reason I exist… and the reason I'm falling apart."

A deep crack crept across the floor at her feet.

She stepped into the light of the memory dome, and her shape steadied — if only for a moment. Her voice steadied.

"You came here thinking Ayaka was the final anchor," she said.

Haruto's chest constricted. He looked away.

"It's not her," Hina whispered. "It never was."

He looked up again — and for the first time, truly saw her. Saw all she had endured. Her waiting. Her unraveling. Her holding on.

It's you," he said. Voice cracking.

The dome above stuttered: Hina walking with him through the plummeting city. Hina whispering with the Librarian. Hina forgetting his name.

Each memory took something from her.

"You keep saving me," she said. "But are you choosing me?"

"Don't answer that."

The words echoed off every surface of the room.

Mirror-Haruto stepped out of the shadows. Still in the broken mirror chest. Still smiling with that peaceful cruelty.

You're not ready to answer it," he said.

Haruto bristled. "She deserves to know."

"She deserves to disappear," Mirror-Haruto said. "You called her into being out of need. Loneliness. She's a placeholder for something you wouldn't let go of."

Hina flinched — barely.

"You think being in love with her now makes it clean?" Mirror-Haruto's voice was a knife. "You're not in love. You're in debt."

"Shut up."

Haruto stepped in front of Hina.

He was trembling.

"I thought I was looking for Ayaka," he said. "That if I found her, everything would make sense again."

He glanced behind him.

"But it wasn't her who stood with me in the ruins. Or helped me rebuild. Or waited even when she didn't have to."

He faced Hina again.

"It was you."

The room darkened.

Mirror-Haruto stepped forward.

"Then prove it."

He pointed to the bell that had formed behind the girl — large, cracked.

"Ring it. But not for her. Not for anyone. For yourself alone."

The room trembled.

"Because if you lie — even a little — the system will collapse."

Haruto approached the bell.

The closer he got, the harder it was to walk. Each step, a sound, a color, a moment, was lost. Hina reached out to him — her hand passed through his like mist.

"I want to stay," she said with a sad, unhappy face.

"You should," he whispered.

The bell loomed above them now. Its surface bore the scars of all his memories — fragments etched in shifting lines. Ayaka’s smile. His childhood self. Hina’s flickering gaze.

The system screamed.

Correctors breached the vault. Four of them. Silent. Glitching with static rage.

Mirror-Haruto stepped back into shadow, grinning. “Now we’ll see.”

Haruto reached for the bell rope.

He hesitated.

This wasn’t just about saving anyone. Not even Hina.

It was about choosing something that wasn't based on loss. That wasn't a mirror of someone else's love.

He looked at her.

"I'm not choosing you over her," he said slowly. "And I'm not choosing out of guilt."

She nodded.

"I'm choosing the version of me that existed only because you were holding him up."

He pulled.

The bell didn't ring.

It breathed.

A silent energy wave swept the vault. The Correctors vanished. The dome above dissolved — and light poured in.

Hina smiled as her body dissolved into threads of code and memory.

"Though you forget me," she whispered, "I'll remember us."

Haruto closed his eyes.

6:00:00

And the world accepted the gravity of one true choice.