She didn't remember his name.
Matt stood outside the ruins of a chapel in what used to be Serenity District—a name that now felt like a cruel joke.
Mailane Minari—fire-born, joy-giver, anchor of his past—was looking straight through him. Not with fear. Not with hate.
With absence.
"Do I… know you?" she asked, voice barely louder than the ash-draped wind.
The world was unraveling. People spoke in loops. Laughed at names they forgot. Cried for cities that didn't exist. And Mailane—her light was dimming fast.
Grey had tried. Sam had begged the monks of the Mind Spire. But even gods couldn't fix memory rewritten by force.
Matt stepped closer.
"Mailane… it's me."
She blinked. Winced. "...Matt?"
Then her eyes turned white.
And she screamed.
The world broke.
---
Location: Rift Zero – The Abyss Below Mercy
There was no gravity here. No time.
Only memory, breaking.
Matt fell into a realm built of his regrets—floating shards of laughter, refracted agony, the whisper of ghosts saying his name like a warning.
Here, Void didn't feed on rage.
It fed on remembrance.
"You should have died," it hissed.
"You let Amiya burn."
"You'll let her fade, too."
He hit the ground—if it could be called that.
A chapel of memory stood before him, twisted from guilt and grief. At its altar was Mailane…
Or something wearing her face.
"You love me?" the mimic asked. "Then prove it."
Behind it, the real Mailane hovered in glass. Her soul was shattering.
---
The fight was not of fists. It was of truths.
The mimic moved like her. Spoke like her. Knew every moment he tried to bury.
Every strike it made took something—
Her first smile.
The taste of morning tea.
The way she whispered his name after war.
He bled memory.
But his corruption stayed low. The Void wasn't breaking him.
His heart was.
Until he dropped the blade.
"I don't fight to forget," he said. "I fight to remember."
He stepped into the mimic's blade—
Took the wound—
And reached through it—
Into the mimic's chest.
Where her light still flickered.
It burned him. But he held on.
---
The chapel shattered.
The mimic screamed.
And Mailane collapsed into his arms, weeping.
"…Matt?" she whispered, eyes clearing.
He nodded. "Always."
A golden glyph ignited beneath them.
Soulflare Sigil Acquired.
Void Memory Lock: Unsealed.
Emotional Rift Access: Stabilized.
---
Outside, Grey staggered as a radiant pulse rippled through Serenity.
From the ashes rose two silhouettes—one of them glowing like a vow.
Mailane was back.
And in the Celestial Watchtower, high above Earth's last memory sanctum…
Analice shrieked.
"HE BREACHED THE ABYSS?!"
Monshin just smiled.
"The Reincarnate has chosen his tether."
Now, they couldn't erase him.
So they would try to end him.