The infirmary lights flickered like dying stars.
Dim. Silent. Cold.
Riven lay still on the diagnostic slab, eyes half-open, watching the ceiling pulse with faint golden light — the same light that now flowed through his own bloodstream. It wasn't painful. It wasn't warm. It felt… wrong. Like someone else's memory had been poured into his skin.
His Arsenal interface was still glitching.
> [CHAOS FRAGMENT – ACCEPTED]
> [Origin-Tier Emotion – Classification: Unstable]
> [Mutation: Ongoing | Sync Drift: 18%]
> [User Identity: Elyon | Status: Fragmented]
The asterisk next to his name didn't go away.
He didn't know what it meant.
But he knew it wasn't good.
---
Across the room, Lyra sat in silence, knees drawn up on the bench near the wall. Her hands trembled in her lap, wrapped in gauze even though she hadn't bled.
Her skin glowed faintly.
Mirrorlight.
And inside her eyes… something shimmered.
Not tears.
Not madness.
Something watching her from the inside.
---
"She hasn't spoken," Kael said quietly. He stood beside Riven, arms crossed, gaze heavy.
"She was fine before the match," Riven said.
"She was linked to you before the match," Kael corrected. "And then you… weren't you."
---
Riven tried to sit up. The shard pulsed in protest — a silent throb just under his ribcage.
"Don't," Kael said. "You're not stable."
"I wasn't stable before."
Kael didn't smile.
---
Outside the infirmary window, the academy skyline flickered — the artificial sun sputtering slightly. That had never happened before. Aether's systems were designed to mimic perfection. A breach in Arsenal stability meant a breach in reality itself.
The chaos fragment wasn't just affecting him.
It was spreading.
---
"I felt it," Lyra said suddenly.
Both men turned.
Her voice was soft — like someone speaking from behind a glass wall.
"I felt him. Not just you. Him."
"Who?" Riven asked, heart already racing.
Lyra looked up. Her pupils were wrong — spinning, faintly, like slow galaxies.
"The version of you that stood above a world of ash and smiled when everything broke."
---
Kael's voice sharpened. "What did he say?"
Lyra blinked.
Then whispered:
"He asked if I remembered burning."
---
Riven stood.
Pain flared through his back — ignored.
He crossed the room, knelt in front of her.
"Lyra. You have to tell me exactly what's happening to you."
She reached out slowly.
Touched his chest — just above the shard.
And said:
> "I think your fire is trying to wake up inside me."
---
[Reflective Anchor Cross-Sync Detected]
[Emotion Arsenal Mutation: Class Unknown]
[New Trait: Mirrorbound – Host Lyra Vex]
---
"Kael," Riven said. "This isn't a coincidence. What's really happening to her?"
Kael hesitated.
Then, for the first time, he looked… uncertain.
"She's becoming something new," he admitted. "And I don't think the Arsenal was designed to control it."
---
Suddenly, every light in the room died.
Not flickered.
Died.
The emergency generators kicked in.
A low siren echoed in the halls.
Then, from Riven's Arsenal:
> [⚠ ENCRYPTED MESSAGE RECEIVED]
> [Sender: O.A.]
He opened it.
The message was just one line:
> "The fourth Anchor is waking. And it is not yours."
---
He looked up at Kael.
"What does that mean?"
Kael's voice was grim.
"It means the Chaos shard didn't just remember you…"
He turned toward the dark window.
"It called something back."
---
The academy entered internal lockdown within an hour.
Non-essential systems were halted. Certain simulation chambers sealed. Students above Tier Zero were recalled to dorm protocols. Arsenal syncing was limited to emotionless templates — preprogrammed for meditation and system neutralization.
But none of it worked.
The network was still bleeding.
---
Riven stood alone in Arsenal Archive Sector C — one of the original wings of the academy, long unused, mostly dust and silence now.
The walls were lined with old data screens, some of which still flickered with life.
And deep within the sealed server nodes, something pulsed.
A hidden record.
He opened it.
> [FORBIDDEN FILE ACCESS GRANTED: CHAOS.LOG-07]
> "Subject: Elyon. Memory Level: Redacted.
> Witnessed in Year Zero of Arsenal Genesis.
> Codename: Ember Crown."
---
The screen showed a figure.
Hazy. Tall. Not human.
Not anymore.
A crown of fire.
A cloak of shifting emotion.
Eyes that did not reflect light — they devoured it.
Elyon.
---
> "He created the first unbound Anchor," the log said. "Then burned it out from the inside."
> "We locked his memory in the Arsenal tree."
> "We erased the name."
> "We failed."
---
Riven backed away.
The log ended with a single phrase:
> He will return when the emotions begin to feel themselves.
---
Suddenly, his Arsenal glitched again.
Another message.
Not O.A.
Not from within.
> [UNKNOWN ORIGIN — INTERCEPTED LINK]
> "I remember you, Thief of Flame."
> "You were not meant to rise alone."
---
Riven staggered.
His hands were shaking.
Then — footsteps.
Behind him.
Slow. Measured.
He turned.
Kael.
But not alone.
With him walked a woman in silver robes. Her face veiled. Her wrists bound with golden chains that floated instead of clinked.
Kael spoke first.
"This is Ariya."
"She was your priest once."
---
Riven blinked.
"What?"
"I served you," Ariya said. "Before you fractured. Before the gods of emotion fell. Before the Arsenal tried to rewrite you."
"You have no idea what you are waking up."
---
She stepped closer.
And pressed her fingers to his forehead.
In that moment—
He saw a field of glass.
A sky split by color.
And four thrones — one for each Anchor.
The fifth throne stood empty.
Until he sat in it.
---
The vision ended.
Riven gasped for breath.
"You're still incomplete," she said. "And that's the problem. You're waking up… too slowly."
---
Back in the infirmary, Lyra screamed.
Not from pain.
From clarity.
---
Kael spun. Riven ran.
The doors burst open. The walls around her were cracking — mirrors forming midair, memories leaking through the glass. Her Arsenal was no longer Reflective. It was becoming something else.
---
> [Anchor Shift: Sorrow + Guilt → Regret – Tier Drift Imminent]
> [Warning: System Fusion Breach — Emotional Paradox Forming]
---
Lyra's voice echoed — not hers. But someone through her.
"You loved this world once," she said, her voice glassy.
"You bled for it."
"And then you burned it because no one said thank you."
---
Riven dropped beside her.
Held her trembling shoulders.
And for the first time, she looked at him and asked:
"Who am I if I'm made from your mistakes?"
---
He had no answer.
Only silence.
And the burning truth that her Anchor had become his reflection.
Literally.
---
That night, he stood beneath the academy in a sealed chamber he didn't remember unlocking.
A black door.
Gold veins through obsidian stone.
And an inscription:
> "When the fifth throne stirs, the flame will remember.
> And everything else will try to forget."
---
Riven touched it.
And the Arsenal didn't block him.
It bowed.
The door opened.
---
Inside was a memory chamber.
But the memories weren't his.
They were his 'enemies'.
And every one of them had a piece of him inside.
---
End of Chapter Thirteen