"It recalculated." — Kabe
Ken hurtled down the invisible stairs of the Mugenkyou, the twin Pillars clutched so tightly they felt like extensions of his own bone. The descent was no longer a structured walk through conceptual space; it was a conceptual freefall.
The Archival Scripts, disturbed by the Pillar of Memory's abrupt extraction and the forceful clash of the Pillar of Dreams against the Chronographer's Will, were in open revolt. The walls of the ascent shifted violently, flickering between pure white data streams, solid obsidian, and blinding static.
Each step Ken took was a gamble. The steps beneath him sometimes dissolved mid-stride, forcing him to leap across voids where the very idea of footing had failed. The weight of the Pillars was overwhelming. The Pillar of Dreams felt like an engine of pure, restless energy—hot, light, and driving him forward with reckless optimism. The Pillar of Memory, however, felt like a dense, drowning anchor of pure, heavy truth.
The two forces constantly fought inside his grip, generating a conceptual dissonance that ripped through his consciousness. He saw flashes of Kabe's happiest childhood moments mixed with the final, horrifying image of his brother being shredded by the Rift entity.
The 87.4% is not a calculation; it is a feeling, Ken thought, breathless. It's the sheer force needed to hold these two concepts—the wish for a life and the true memory of a life—in synthesis.
He forced himself to channel the white Pillar's power, using its raw hopeful intent not just as a light source, but as a conceptual shield. I'm not trying to reconstruct him; I'm reminding him of the Anchor I already set.
He burst through the final layer of script distortion and landed hard on the floor of the staging area, scattering dust and attracting immediate attention.
Evalia, who had been sitting watch near the exit portal, shot to her feet, her hand flying to the hilt of her twin blades. Her gaze, however, was fixed not on Ken, but on the raw, vibrating energy he radiated.
"Ken! What in the… you took the Memory Pillar," she stated, her voice tight with disbelief and alarm. "And you used the Dream Anchor to force it out. You're conceptually unstable."
"I had to," Ken gasped, taking a moment to suck air into his lungs. "The Chronographer made a conceptual buffer—a peaceful fake. I had to tear it down before I could bring the truth back."
"You tore it down?" Evalia's eyes widened, a look of genuine horror crossing her face. "Ken, that was the only thing holding his fractured structure together. You didn't just defeat the Chronographer's calculation; you took away the foundation it was calculating against."
Before Ken could absorb the full weight of her warning, he felt the conceptual shift. The air in the staging area had grown cold, and a sickening, high-pitched whine began to reverberate in the silent chamber.
"Kabe," Evalia whispered, already spinning toward the corner where Kabe had been resting. "We have to go. Now."
Ken followed her gaze. Kabe was still sitting against the smooth obsidian wall, seemingly asleep, but the picture of peaceful stability was gone. His outline was no longer solid. Where his physical body should have been, the light of the Mugenkyou was struggling, creating a shimmering, distortion-filled halo around him.
He was flickering.
Kabe's hand, resting innocently on his knee, vanished completely for a split second, only to return with a visible, painful pop of conceptual alignment. His features were washing out, his skin tone fluctuating between its natural color and the stark white of the underlying script.
He was actively destabilizing, the 87.4% collapse probability beginning its countdown.
Ken dropped to his knees beside his brother, placing the Pillar of Memory gently on the ground, but keeping the Pillar of Dreams—his anchor—firmly in his hand.
"Kabe. Kabe, look at me," Ken urged, shaking his brother's shoulder.
Kabe's eyes fluttered open. They were still that calm, clear blue, but there was confusion in them now, a dawning horror that was rapidly replacing the manufactured peace. He wasn't looking at Ken; he was looking at his own hand, which was fading out again, turning transparent.
"I… Ken? What is… I don't feel right," Kabe stammered, his voice weak and distorted, like a radio signal losing its frequency. "I feel like I'm forgetting how to be."
"You're fine," Ken lied, swallowing the metallic taste of fear. "You are more than fine. We're going to fix this. We are going to make you whole again."
Evalia hovered nearby, her blades half-drawn, scanning the perimeter, ready to fight anything—including the Archive itself—but Ken knew there was nothing she could fight here. This was a battle against probability and conceptual collapse.
Ken lifted the Pillar of Memory and pressed the Pillar of Dreams deep into the palm of his other hand. He had the two opposing forces in balance: the unbearable truth of what Kabe had lost, and the sheer, focused intent of Ken's will to bring him home.
He looked Kabe in the eyes, which were now wide with pure terror as his leg began to fade from existence entirely.
"I need you to remember one thing, Kabe," Ken said, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "The first lesson you ever taught me. When the world is shifting, and the enemy is everywhere, you don't fight the illusion. You find the single, unshakable point of truth, and you hold onto it with everything you have."
Ken knew what that truth was. It wasn't the Pillars. It wasn't the Trails. It was them.
With a deep breath, Ken placed the Sapphire Pillar of Memory onto Kabe's chest, directly over his heart, and simultaneously drove the White Pillar of Dreams into the ground beside him, creating a closed circuit.
The two Pillars—Memory and Dreams, Truth and Hope—ignited.