I was wondering all this time who could possibly be behind this. Who had the mind to pull something this complex together with this much smoothness.

I was certain I would figure it out eventually.

But this one had me completely blank.

Turns out. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

It was...

Me.

* * *

Leon finally let his hand fall from his face.

Irene was watching him with a smile that looked like something heavy had just lifted off her chest.

’Haru. I decoded it.’ Rumi said inside his head. ’Do you want to see the memories?’

Leon did not answer her right away. He was staring at Irene again. Or more precisely, at the screen behind her. The one still displaying the binary code.

Somewhere in that reflection he caught his own expression.

He was grinning.

He had not even noticed it.

When he first realised someone was behind Irene and her memories, he had felt genuinely excited. He had run through every major name he could think of. Heroes, villains, demons, anyone in this world operating at that level. Anyone with the reach, the patience, and the intelligence to design something this intricate and leave it running across hundreds of loops without a single person noticing.

None of them fit.

Not even one.

Because even S rank intelligence was not enough for this. Intelligence alone did not explain it. This required something else entirely.

"Leon." Irene stepped away from the monitor and moved toward him. She stopped just in front of him and looked directly into his eyes. "We are running out of time. I do not want to wait another loop."

She held his hand.

"Ask Rumi to transfer all my Astral Node Memories to you."

Leon did not even react to her knowing Rumi’s name. At this point it would have been stranger if she did not.

Fifteen minutes left before the new loop started.

"7305 days." Leon muttered. "That is twenty years."

He looked at her and asked.

"Was I the one who taught you how to store your memories using Astral Matter?"

Irene nodded.

Leon exhaled quietly.

He would not have figured it out at all if Irene had not shown him the binary code herself. Even now knowing who had done it, he still did not know why he did that.

There had to be a reason. A valid one, something that would make sense once he saw the full picture.

He pressed his hand against his forehead. He was sweating more than he had noticed.

Whatever it was, it had to be something catastrophic. For him to have gone this far.

"Rumi." He finally said it. "Show me."

Rumi did not answer him from inside his head this time.

Instead her consciousness drifted out of his body and materialised directly in front of him.

A figure as still and sharp as ice crystals. She wore an icy blue dress, she had shaped herself, black hair falling loose with strands that caught the light like frost. Those cold black eyes settled on Leon without blinking.

"This is twenty years worth of memories." She replied.

She needed to be outside his body for this. Direct contact with the Astral Matter around her was the only way to do it precisely.

Leon nodded.

"Here, sit." Irene pulled a chair toward him. "You also said this might make you unstable."

"Did I?" Leon said, sitting down and glancing between the two of them now both looking at him.

"Rumi." Irene turned to the ice spirit. "Leon had asked me to inform you that the memories are arranged in a Fibonacci sequence. I don’t know what that is, but according to him, it should give you the chronological order of my memories."

"Understood." Rumi said simply.

She moved beside Leon, placed one hand over his head, and extended the other open into the air.

The moment Rumi’s hand extended open, the air around her fingers changed.

A crack split through the empty space in front of her. It was thin at first, barely visible, but immediately it became alive with chromatic vibration. Different colour spectrums pulsed and bled out from the edges of it. The length of it was just wide enough for a newborn to pass through.

Rumi pushed her hand inside.

Crack... Crack... Crackle....

The crack began to expand.

From where Leon sat it looked like she was tearing the space apart with her bare hand. Which was not far from the truth. She was channeling directly from the Astral Spectrum. Only a spirit of her rank could do that without the connection destroying them from the inside out.

Leon watched her hand go translucent. Thin threads of different colours pulsed through her entire body, The Astral Matter began moving through her like current through a wire.

Then she pulled her hand back out.

The crack began closing behind it.

Her hand was wet. Covered in something dark and chromatic, thick like water but moving wrong, shifting colours as it caught the light. It pooled in her palm and floated free of her skin on its own, condensing into a shape that began to rotate slowly in the air.

It formed a sphere.

It cycled through colours as it turned. Red first, then blue... yellow, silver, green. Each one settling for a breath before shifting to the next.

Then finally it stilled into gold and stayed there.

Rumi looked at Irene.

"Can you."

Irene was staring at it with her eyes wide.

"Detective." Rumi said. "We are running out of time."

"O-oh. Right." Irene opened her palm. From it she condensed a small ice crystal out of thin air just like Rumi, and extended it toward her.

Rumi looked at it.

"Why an ice crystal?"

Irene smiled. "It is the only shape you ever taught me how to make."

Rumi’s lips parted. Then closed.

She took the crystal without another word and pressed it into the rotating sphere.

She turned to Leon.

"Your brain is not capable of processing this much information at once." She paused, then clenched the sphere once and let it dissolve into her body. "But."

"..?!" Leon startled.

Rumi’s entire form began going translucent.

"That is why I am here." Rumi said. "With our intelligence combined, this will be done without any pain."

The sphere was gone completely now. It was absorbed. Her body was barely solid anymore, light passing through her at the edges like she was made of frosted glass.

Leon started to rise from the chair.

Rumi did not let him. Her translucent arms came down on his shoulders and pushed him back firmly.

"...!"

His back hit the backrest.

Rumi leaned over him. Their foreheads touched.

Her eyes were looking directly into his.

"Haru." She whispered near his ear. "Let us do this together."

The connection was formed.

And both of them felt their consciousness begin to fade.