Yūgen's skies cracked.
Not from weather. Not from Spiral energy. From something worse—presence. A weight so dense it bent memory itself.
Ren felt it before the alarm.
The Spiral Map didn't blink this time. It screamed.
> ALERT: UNKNOWN ENTITY BREACHING REALITY CORE. Designation: MINISTER LEVEL. CLASSIFIED – REAPER.
He sprinted to the edge of Sector Halo-Fall, where light no longer reflected properly. The sky shimmered like oil. The wind whispered things he hadn't said in years.
Behind him, Aki approached slowly—Zenthros quiet for once. Tense.
Rei, Yumi, and Kael joined moments later, all pale.
> Yumi: "I drew a memory seal last night. It's gone." Kael: "I was training… now I can't remember the moves I learned." Rei: "My name was missing from my blade when I woke up."
They stood together at the edge.
And then he appeared.
Not walking.
Not forming.
Just was.
A tall, cloaked figure with no visible face. His Spiral shard was embedded directly in his skull—exposed, cracked, yet pulsing violently. Trails of memory-thread drifted around him like smoke.
> Minister One. Title: The Spiral Reaper. Power: Mnemos Reap – The Harvest of Personal Memory.
The air around them warped. Time slowed—not in motion, but in meaning.
The Reaper spoke.
His voice wasn't deep. It was absent. Like hearing silence with words carved into it.
> "This world spins with false names. You remember too much. It makes you defiant."
He raised one hand.
A beam of dark Spiral thread shot forward—
—and Kael vanished.
Just like that.
No explosion. No scream.
> "KAEL?!" Yumi yelled.
But her Spiral couldn't find him. His essence was missing from the realm.
Ren shouted, voice cracking. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
The Reaper calmly answered.
> "His memory has been unthreaded. His presence never arrived. To you, he was real. To me, he was unfinished data."
Yumi's knees hit the ground.
> Rei: "We fight him. NOW."
She charged—blade drawn.
The Reaper barely moved.
Her blade stopped inches away—shaking. Her arm froze. Her memories began burning.
> "You think I harvest pain," the Reaper said softly. "But pain resists forgetting. I harvest truths."
Yumi screamed. "STOP!!"
Ren rushed in next—drawing a spiral midair. But his creation line collapsed, fraying like broken tape.
Aki didn't move.
His hands were shaking.
> "Zenthros… do something."
But Zenthros didn't answer.
Until—
> Zenthros: "...I fear nothing. But this thing? This thing is not of this Spiral System. He predates your creators."
Aki whispered: "You're scared."
Zenthros: "I'm insulted. He took your pig-faced friend like crumbs. That's my job."
Ren's Spiral Pen trembled. "We have to anchor Kael's memory—if we forget him too, he's gone."
Yumi's eyes burned.
> "I REMEMBER HIM!"
She slammed both palms to the ground.
Her Memory Ink Spiral Form erupted.
Dozens of sketches spilled from her book—each one of Kael: laughing, arguing, fighting.
The Reaper paused.
> "Such noise. But even noise can be snipped."
He lunged—
Aki moved.
But not alone.
Zenthros moved with him.
In a blur of speed too fast to follow, Aki's body tore space open, twisted through dimensions, and caught the Reaper's arm.
> "You dare touch MY canvas without permission?"
It wasn't Aki's voice.
It was Zenthros. Speaking clearly. Dominantly.
Ren's eyes widened. "He's taken over again…"
Zenthros hurled the Reaper back—but his hand sizzled on contact. "Tch… His energy eats intention."
The Reaper stood again.
> "You bind yourself to parasites. You resist order. We harvest all. In the end, even names will rot."
Ren had heard enough.
> "NO!"
He closed his eyes—and for the first time, invoked the Dual-Paradox Weave fully.
Memories spilled out. Real ones. Laughing with Kael. Fighting alongside him. Losing to him in mock battles.
He wove them.
Not as defense.
As proof.
> "YOU CAN'T UNMAKE WHAT WE BELIEVE!"
The Spiral lit up—Ren's memory-weave forming a Thread Seal—a conceptual map of Kael's soul.
Yumi screamed.
> "KAEL! COME BACK—YOU OWE ME A SODA!"
The Reaper twisted.
His cloak unraveled.
His shard cracked deeper.
> "You cling to ghosts."
And then—light.
Kael collapsed into Yumi's arms, coughing, dazed, confused.
Alive.
Everyone froze.
The Reaper looked at his own hand—where Yumi's ink had stuck. Where Ren's Spiral had resisted.
He took a step back.
> "...Noted."
Then he vanished.
Gone, without sound.
---
Aftermath
Kael slept for a day.
When he woke, he remembered nothing of the Reaper.
Only the feeling of being "outside the Spiral."
Aki sat alone again. Zenthros muttered crude jokes every few minutes.
> "Well, the Reaper got his ass handed back. Kinda. You should thank me, dumbasses."
Ren sat with his notebook. Writing one name over and over.
Kael.
Kael.
Kael.
Because now… he understood.
> The Ministers weren't just powerful. They were erasers of meaning.
And worse—the Spiral System couldn't always protect against them.