The Academy library was quiet at night. Too quiet.
Aki pushed open the iron doors, their hinges groaning like old bones. Dust clung to the air, glittering faintly under the moonlight spilling in through tall stained-glass windows.
"Perfect," he muttered. "If I get murdered in here, at least it'll be poetic."
Whiskerdoom's tail flicked against his shoulder from his perch.
"Poetic, yes. Smart? No. But then again, you're you."
Aki ignored the cat and moved deeper inside. The library was endless — shelves stretching into the dark, books stacked like towers of secrets. But he wasn't here for books. He was here because the diary had flickered.
Not written. Not guided. Just flickered.
And when it did, one line appeared for a heartbeat:
"The save file is buried where silence lives."
Which, apparently, meant this place.
"Silence lives here, alright," Aki whispered, running his hand over the spines of ancient tomes. "And probably a few ghosts."
He searched for hours, following instincts instead of clues. Then — his fingers caught on something wrong. A book that wasn't really a book.
A hollow spine. A hidden latch.
He pulled.
The shelf shuddered. Stone grumbled. A hidden door slid open, revealing a narrow staircase spiraling down into the dark.
Aki's throat went dry.
"…Okay, that's not creepy at all."
Whiskerdoom hopped off his shoulder.
"Congratulations, you've officially found the one place even I don't want to go."
"Too late now," Aki muttered, lighting a candle.
The stairwell descended into a small chamber — circular, bare, carved with glowing runes. At the center stood something impossible: a crystal orb, pulsing faintly with red light, set atop a pedestal.
Aki's heart pounded. He stepped closer.
Inside the orb swirled images — flashes of battles, voices, faces. Not his memories. Not even the Aki who now lived as Riel. These belonged to the original.
Riel Arkwood.
And it looked like… a save file.
Words shimmered across the surface in jagged system script:
"Save Point: Arkwood – Final Route
Status: Corrupted
User Detected: ???"
Aki reached out before he could stop himself. His fingers brushed the orb.
Light flared.
Suddenly he was standing in a broken version of the Academy courtyard. Everything was twisted — cracked statues, fire in the sky, shadows of people screaming without voices.
And in the middle of it all stood Riel Arkwood.
Not him. The real one.
Silver hair, crimson eyes, same coat. But his expression was cold, sharp — not Aki's panic, not his sarcasm. This was the villain as the game had always painted him.
"You shouldn't be here," Riel's ghost said. His voice echoed, layered like static.
Aki staggered back. "You're— you're me. Or I'm you. Or… look, I don't even know anymore."
"You don't belong in my role," the ghost said, stepping closer. "This world… it isn't yours to rewrite."
Aki's jaw clenched. "Yeah? Well, it keeps trying to kill me for crimes I didn't commit. So maybe it needs rewriting."
Riel's ghost smirked faintly — that same smirk from the mirror on his first day here.
"Then you'd better be ready to pay the price. Because the more you stray… the more it will erase."
Before Aki could ask what that meant, the vision shattered.
He gasped and found himself back in the chamber, hands shaking. The orb had gone dark.
Whiskerdoom's eyes glowed in the shadows.
"…What did you touch?"
Aki swallowed. "The past." He stared at the blackened orb, heart hammering. "And it hates me."