They never found Hiroshi’s body.
No cursed fragment.
No echo residue.
No anchor glyph.
Only a torn piece of his jacket, wrapped around a broken charm that hadn’t activated.
And the red thread—still tied around it.
Sanctuary Memorial Wing – Night
Tenchi stood alone beneath the names etched in obsidian.
He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t bring flowers.
Just held a blank file in his hands.
On the front was a single word: “Reconstructed.”
"What are you doing?” Maya asked from behind.
He didn’t look up.
“There’s a reading in Layer 13-B. It matches Hiroshi’s energy frequency.”
“We’ve been over this,” Maya said gently. “That game collapsed. He’s gone.”
Tenchi tightened his grip on the folder.
“Then why is his spiritual signature waking up?”
Elsewhere, Elise examined the same data.
The red thread pattern they found wasn’t just spiritual. It was personalized. Each knot tied in the sequence Hiroshi used in training—his code for fallbacks.
She sent the message to Maya and Riku with one note:
“He’s not alive. But something wants us to think he is.”
Tenchi didn’t wait for approval.
He entered the Layer alone.
The world greeted him with a whisper:
“Tag—you’re it, Sensei.”
And the red threads began to form.
Part II – The Layer That Remembers
The world inside Layer 13-B wasn’t broken.
It was familiar.
That’s what made it worse.
Tenchi opened his eyes to find himself standing on the cracked asphalt of a residential street he hadn’t seen in years.
Dim streetlights flickered above.
Mailboxes rusted in silence.
And faintly… faintly, in the distance—
Laughter.
“Come on, Sensei!”
“Bet you can’t catch me!”
iroshi’s voice echoed—not as an echo, but as a memory.
It wasn’t distorted.
It wasn’t cursed.
It was perfect.
Tenchi drew his sword, blade low, breathing steady.
Red thread was coiled around his ankles, barely noticeable unless you looked close.
He stepped forward.
The road looped.
He stepped back.
The road looped again.
A child darted across the sidewalk—identical to Hiroshi at age 12.
But when Tenchi turned the corner to follow—
He found the real Hiroshi.
Or at least, the closest facsimile.
Standing in the middle of the street. Older. Wearing his full Sanctuary trainee uniform.
Eyes bright.
Smile crooked.
The red thread wrapped around his wrist pulsed once.
“You came,” Hiroshi said.
Tenchi didn’t move.
“You’re not him.”
“Maybe not.”
“But you didn’t stop me, did you?”
“You made your choice.”
“So did you. You stayed behind.”
Suddenly, the neighborhood shattered—
Buildings dissolving into floating shards of memory.
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Tenchi was standing in a black void.
The only light came from the red threads, now swirling like a cyclone above them.
The not-Hiroshi smiled wider.
His voice split—
One moment sincere.
The next, warped.
“Let’s finish our last game, Sensei.”
“Red Rover…”
“Send Tenchi over.”
And the void ripped open, revealing the true cursed Layer.
A battlefield made of concrete, rope, shattered childhood swings—
And the walls?
Lined with red string.
Tied to every failure Tenchi ever remembered.
Part III – The Game Replayed
The cursed Layer was a mockery of the old Red Rover field.
The lines on the ground weren’t chalk—they were veins of blood, pulsing faintly underfoot. Each swing creaked with invisible weight. The slide in the distance bent backward like a twisted spine.
And Hiroshi stood at the center.
Smiling.
Thread wrapped around his arms, stretching outward into the shadows like a web of guilt.
“Ready to play, Sensei?”
Tenchi’s voice was cold.
Flat.
Controlled.
"You’re not Hiroshi.”
"“But I’m close enough to make you hesitate.”
The cursed Hiroshi raised his hand.
Dozens of red threads burst from the ground like spears, arcing toward Tenchi’s feet.
He didn’t move.
Not yet.
Then—snap.
He vanished.
He reappeared mid-air, slicing three threads before they touched his boots.
Hiroshi didn’t react.
“Same footwork,” he said calmly. “You taught me that.”
“You died using it,” Tenchi growled.
The threads snapped together, forming mirror clones of Tenchi from different missions.
Each one with blood on their hands.Each one with failure in their eyes.
One held Saya. Another carried a broken version of Elise. One dragged Hiroshi’s body.
“How many have you let fall?” the cursed voice asked.
“How many walked beside you and disappeared the moment you blinked?”
Tenchi closed his eyes.
Inhaled once.
And opened them with fire.
“You can dress up my past in knots and guilt…”
“…but the real Hiroshi would never run from a fight.”
He slashed the air.
Skill: Severance Strike – Red Line Splitter
His blade ripped through the web of guilt.
The illusions staggered, twitching.
The cursed Hiroshi grinned.
“There he is.”
“Tag,” he whispered.
And charged.
The two collided mid-field.
Thread against steel.
Regret against resolve.
Tenchi parried every lunge, his blade carving through cursed lines that tried to bind his arms, his legs—his mind.
But cursed Hiroshi moved like the real one.
Fast.
Precise.
Unrelenting.
“Why didn’t you save me?”
“Why didn’t you reach?”
“Why didn’t you—”
“Because you asked me to trust you,” Tenchi roared.
And in that moment—
He stopped blocking.
He stepped forward.
Skill: Blade Form Seven – Final Echo Cut
One clean slash.
The cursed Hiroshi staggered, red thread unraveling from his limbs.
“You were supposed to live…” Tenchi whispered.
The cursed Hiroshi smirked faintly, one last time.
“So were you.”
And he crumbled into red ash.
ut as the field fell apart—
Something lingered.
A final knot, pulsing in the center of the broken playground.
Not a curse.
Not a trick.
A message.
Tied in the same sequence Hiroshi used when they were kids.
Tenchi opened it.
One word was carved into the thread: "RUN"
Part IV – Collapse Warning
Tenchi emerged from the dissolving Layer like a ghost crawling back from the edge of a nightmare. His boots hit the ground outside the gateway. His sword was sheathed. His hands were shaking.
But he said nothing.
Just held out the thread.
Sanctuary HQ – Emergency Briefing Room
The room went silent as Elise examined the knot.
Her pale blue eyes flickered, scanning the encoded pattern—One she knew well.
“It’s not a curse anchor,” she said softly.“It’s a manual override.”
“Manual?” Maya asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Elise turned to them.“This thread was tied inside the game after it was already corrupted.”
Riku’s goggles clicked as he flipped through his tablet’s spiritual residue logs.
“That’s not possible. No one can override a collapsing Layer from within.”
“Unless they weren’t trying to survive it,” Elise whispered.
She held up the message Tenchi recovered.
“RUN.”
“It’s a message to us. To the Sanctuary. From Hiroshi.”
Tenchi’s jaw tightened.
“He stayed behind… not to win, but to stall whatever was trying to break through.”
Maya stepped closer.
“Are you saying Hiroshi didn’t die by accident?”
Elise hesitated. Then nodded once.
“He sacrificed himself. So the Game wouldn’t reach us yet.”
The lights in the room flickered.
Then dimmed.
A faint hum rose through the floor beneath their feet.
Riku’s screen went white.
A single phrase appeared—typed by no one:
“He didn’t run fast enough.”
Silence.
Then a new warning.
Riku’s firewall lit up with dozens of pinged sectors across multiple Layers—simultaneous fluctuations.
Tenchi stared at the thread in Elise’s hand.
“He bought us time.”
“Then we’re out of it,” Maya said.
Part V – Field Report Entry
FIELD REPORT — ENTRY #10
? Game: Red Threads of the Forgotten
? Entity: Constructed Curse – Echo of Hiroshi (Layer-Evolved Soul Fragment)
? Anchor: Manual red-thread encryption sequence (Hiroshi’s fallback pattern)
? Operative Deployed: Tenchi (Solo)
? Layer Status: Dissolved
? Survivors: None present. Echo terminated.
? Anomalies:
-
Final knot encoded with non-cursed manual override sequence
-
Emotional imprint found in thread knot: “RUN”
-
Red thread protected final core, rather than acting as a curse—intended as barrier
Hiroshi's echo did not form naturally. The cursed Layer rebuilt itself using his final battlefield, mimicking memory to ensnare Tenchi. However, unlike other cursed reflections, this one did not seek to kill outright.
It tested. It remembered. It warned.
The red threads, typically used as tools of binding or control in cursed games, were reversed in structure—tied to interrupt Layer flow, not feed it. This suggests Hiroshi’s soul, or fragment of consciousness, manually restructured the Layer during collapse.
This is the first known case of a Game Ender turning a cursed Layer into a failsafe.
Maya’s Log (Personal Memo):
“I didn’t think he had the time. I didn’t think he had the power. But Hiroshi didn’t need time. He just needed a reason. And we were it.”
Riku’s Log (Encrypted Note):
“The red thread wasn’t just a message—it was an access gate. He built a firewall with nothing but memory and pain. That’s not cursework. That’s genius.”
Elise’s Log (Filed Observation):
“When I held the thread, it didn’t hum like cursed energy. It was quiet. Warm. Like it wanted to protect us… one last time.”
Tenchi’s Field Reflection (Classified Level-3):“He was always the first to move. The first to smile. The first to call me ‘Sensei,’ even when I didn’t deserve it. Hiroshi didn’t die because I failed him. He died because I believed in him—and he proved I was right.” “He made the call I couldn’t. And now… we don’t get to mourn. We get to fight.”
Multiple Layer anomalies have since spiked following the collapse of this game. Based on Hiroshi’s encoded warning and echo behavior, this was not a standalone incident. It was a delayed ignition, likely meant to stall something larger.
The red thread remains in containment.
Still glowing.
Still warm.