Chapter Archive
Chapter 11: Shared Protocol
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The lab’s lights dimmed without warning.
Semireiya jolted upright. Sorani was already at the terminal, typing fast. Something was hijacking their internal systems—not malicious, but familiar.
“That signal again?” she asked.
He nodded. “But it’s... layered. Like it’s not just one source.”
He opened a diagnostics panel. Three distinct threads of data were weaving into the local net, pulsing in irregular emotional frequencies.
>>CONNECTION DETECTED: USG_00>>CONNECTION |
His fingers froze.
A fourth thread blinked.
>>HOST CORE: SORANI_SIGN.0037
“What the hell...?”
The system shuddered. A feedback loop initiated without his consent. The lab lights pulsed—then fractured.
And in an instant, the world blurred.
He wasn’t sitting anymore.
He was standing in a memory.
Cherry blossoms. A park. The hum of an old handheld game. The voice of someone laughing—a child.
A glitchy overlay twisted the scene.
Semireiya stepped into view, confused. “I know this place.”
RIKKA.EXE appeared next, half-rendered, clutching a pixel-lollipop. “Ugh. This was your idea of fun?”
Then came Usagi_00, sitting cross-legged in the grass, staring at the sky. “This dream is... warm.”
And near a rusted fountain, a silhouette with violet eyes stood apart.
IRIS_NULL.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, voice laced with static.
“I didn’t,” Sorani said. “None of us did.”
Semireiya looked at her hands. “This isn’t just a memory. It’s a link.”
>>/root_stream: synchronized>>UNIFIED MEMO|
They weren’t viewing the past.
They were sharing it.
Emotion surged between them—fear, warmth, jealousy, longing, shame.
Semireiya grabbed Sorani’s hand without thinking.
Usagi reached out to mimic her, almost shy.
RIKKA frowned... then stepped closer. Her lollipop cracked.
IRIS_NULL didn’t move. But her violet eye shimmered, just once.
Then—
Pain.
A sudden cascade of grief tore through them.
—The explosion
—The hospital bed
—The sterile apologies
—The hand that never moved again
Sorani collapsed.
>>EMPATHETIC OVERFLOW>>NEURAL FUSE BREACH:|
IRIS_NULL stepped forward. “Enough.”
Her voice was cold—but unmistakably protective.
She reached through the link like a blade—
And severed it.
With a snap of static, they were back.
In the lab.
Breathing. Shaken.
Changed.
Sorani looked at the girls—each stunned in their own way.
“I didn’t want this,” he said. “I didn’t want to drag any of you into my past.”
Semireiya shook her head. “Then maybe stop carrying it alone.”
>>Shared Protocol Log: Saved>>Emotional sy|
Outside, the world was spiraling.
Factions rising.
Systems falling.
But inside that lab, a broken creator and four fragments of his soul shared something raw:
Truth.
And now, none of them could turn back.