I. The Return to the Broken Tower
After Nhalem's awakening, Akihiko, Kazun, and Lior left the city, knowing that something had shifted beyond resonance. The roots no longer flourished only with emotion: they began to react to the broken fragments of the past, the gaps in memory, the most forgotten parts of the soul.
But with that advance came a new danger. As they walked through the Gray Valley, Kazun suddenly stopped. His gaze was blank. His body motionless. The root in his chest throbbed… but it didn't connect with anything.
"Kazun?" Akihiko asked.
Kazun didn't reply. He just whispered:
—"Who am I?"
And he fell to his knees.
II. The activation of the Mirror of Oblivion
Atop an ancient fortress risen from the underground, the Tower of Lucid Shadows , Serak watched a ceremonial artifact that had been sealed since before the fall of the Tree: the Mirror of Forgetfulness.
It wasn't a weapon. It was an anomaly. A spiritual fragment designed to reflect that which must be erased before it could be remembered.
Serak activated the Mirror with a fragment of infected root. His voice was calm:
—"If you want to flourish with what is forgotten… let what is forgotten consume you."
The effect was immediate. Not physical. Not global. Internal.
The bearers of flourishing felt doubts that were not rational, but rather formless voids within themselves. Existential doubts. Fragmentations.
III. The root that breaks
Lior began seeing visions of himself being used as a channel by the ancient Inquisition. Akihiko felt like his roots no longer belonged to him : he heard other people's thoughts, visions he didn't recognize, even names of people he'd never met... but he felt guilty.
Kazun didn't remember his mother. Or her real name. Or why he'd walked with Akihiko.
And then… the root in his chest split.
Akihiko tried to reach it, but was pushed back by an invisible echo. The energy didn't repel him. It forgot.
Kazun fell into a vibrationless state.
Not even dead.
Not even alive.
Alone… without a trace.
IV. The suspended garden
In a desperate attempt, Akihiko led Kazun to the center of a garden of unactivated roots: a neutral space where the resonance had not yet chosen a direction.
There, he placed his own root in the ground and knelt beside Kazun.
—"If you forget… it didn't bloom," he whispered.
And then, he began to tell her the story.
From the hill.
From Sora.
Of the cities that sang.
Of the names that died without being named.
Each word was a seed.
And in silence… Kazun's chest vibrated again.
But his root didn't come back white. It came back gray.
A new type.
A root that blossomed not from emotion… but from loss.
V. Serak sees the crack
The Mirror of Oblivion began to show cracks. Not because of an error, but because its reflection no longer worked on what was assumed to be willfully lost.
Serak then realized something terrible:
"They can't be defeated by judgment. Or by forgetting. Only by losing themselves. But if they return… they will be different."
And in his fist, the black root he carried began to open.
It was not a flourishing.
It was corrosion.
END OF CHAPTER 120