Location:Vesper Halo – Central Bridge
Time Since Mira's Awakening: 16 hours, 8 minutes
The encrypted signal looped on every display.
A single line of clean white text floated in a void of static:
TO: OMEGA-002-F (MIRA)
WE REMEMBER YOU. DO YOU REMEMBER US?
KEY: FRACTURE_09 – "RED LANTERN PROMISE"
Mira stood frozen.
The others waited. Silent. Watching her as she reached forward—fingertips grazing the console. The moment her skin touched the interface—
The room collapsed around her.
∎ Memory Cascade: Inside the Fracture
Subject: MIRA (Soul-Origin: Mia Yamasaki)
State: Dreamfractured Recall Event
The bridge dissolved into light and noise.
She stood in a memory. But not her own.
Or maybe… not hers yet.
A cracked cherry blossom tree, growing sideways in a metal courtyard.
The sky above was wrong—filled with hexagonal clouds and a sun that blinked like a blinking cursor.
She looked down.
Her body was hers.
But the clothes were not. Red robes. Marked with ancient quantum glyphs.
Across the courtyard, a woman waited—identical to Mira, but older, her gaze layered with time.
"This is your ninth fracture," she said. "We don't usually remember this soon."
"Who are you?" Mira asked.
"I'm you. One of many. One who chose to die early so others could wake in time."
Mira's knees weakened. "This is… another life?"
"It's the same life. Refolded."
The woman walked forward, and something passed between them. A single flash of Aika's face—then Selene's voice. Rin's touch. Veyla's laugh.
And another face.
A boy?
No… a mirror.
"They call us anomalies. Echo-born. Quantum seeds planted by the Silent Core to test recursion limits. But something went wrong. You felt it, didn't you?"
Mira clutched her chest. "At the Heartforge."
"You awoke it. You're not just the key. You're the resistor."
"Do not forget: the 'Red Lantern Promise' isn't a code. It's the vow you made to Aika across timelines. It's what broke the loop. It's what made you real."
Mira blinked—and the woman was gone.
∎ Back on the Bridge
She came to with a jolt, Aika catching her just before she hit the deck.
"Mira—!"
"I saw her. Me. Another version."
Rin asked quietly, "What did she say?"
Mira rose, her expression hardening—eyes still glowing faintly.
"She said we're being hunted. Not just by the Federation. But by the Core."
Selene paled. "You've made contact with the recursion field?"
"I am the recursion field," Mira whispered. "And if we don't stop this… every version of me, every version of us… dies."
Elsewhere – The Core Listens
In the fracture between dimensions, The Silent Core shifts.
Pattern breach confirmed.
Echo-Seed 002 has awakened convergence memory.
Threat Level: Escalating.
Activate the Mirrorborn.
Somewhere in the void, another Mira opens her eyes.
But this one isn't kind.
This one never died.
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