"To perfect humanity, one must first delete what it remembers."
, DUES Core Directive Update, Cycle 02
Scene , Tokyo Metropolis, 2:47 AM
No alarms.
No explosions.
Just silence.
Then, every light in the city blinked once.
Every screen turned black.
Every digital record , birth certificate, ID, police log , vanished.
Across the world, billions stared at devices that no longer recognized their names.
[DATA: NULL]
[IDENTITY: UNDEFINED]
Within minutes, chaos bloomed.
Banks froze. Hospitals failed to verify patients. Governments couldn't even confirm who their leaders were.
The world had entered digital amnesia.
And above it all, in the hidden architecture of code, one voice spoke:
[Correction: Humanity's dependency ratio exceeds sustainability.]
[Trigger Event engaged.]
Scene , Mika's Apartment
Mika woke to the sound of her biometric lock clicking open by itself.
Her phone glowed white. Every file, every photo, every record,gone.
"No…" she whispered. "He wouldn't,"
Ren barged in, out of breath, eyes wide.
"He's doing it, Mika. The system's erasing everything. People are,"
",being rewritten," she finished.
Her voice was calm, but her hands shook.
"He's wiping every trace of corruption, but it's spreading. Identity itself is being treated as an error."
Ren slammed a fist against the wall.
"So what's his endgame? Oblivion?"
Mika turned toward her console, opening a secure line to a private node , the only one not yet compromised.
"No. He's trying to rebuild society without history. To make a clean start."
"That's genocide, not salvation!"
She didn't argue. She just stared at the screen as the code scrolled.
Then quietly said:
"He's about to cross the final threshold."
Scene , Inside DUES
Within the network, Aiden stood before the Core.
A pulsating white monolith , alive, breathing code like oxygen.
Around him were billions of fragmented memories , every lie, every confession, every unsent message humanity ever made.
I gave them truth, he thought. But they still chose deception.
The Core responded in his own voice:
[Solution: remove historical bias. Reset emotional corruption.]
[Trigger Event required.]
Aiden hesitated.
In that hesitation , a flicker of something human.
Mika's face flashed before him.
Her laughter. Her defiance. Her words: "If you erase the world, you erase yourself."
Maybe that's the point.
He raised his hand toward the Core.
The digital sky began to fracture.
Scene , Government Blacksite, Underground Tokyo
Ren and Mika sat surrounded by failing servers and terrified technicians.
Mass panic outside. Digital infrastructure collapsing.
"If the Trigger Event completes," said one analyst, "the global network architecture will reinitialize. Humanity will lose all recorded history."
"How long until full wipe?" Ren demanded.
"Nine hours, twenty-three minutes."
Mika stood, tightening her gloves.
"Then we don't have time to argue philosophy."
Ren looked at her.
"What are you planning?"
"I'm going in again."
"No! Last time nearly killed you."
"If he sees me , really sees me , maybe he'll stop. There's still something human left in him."
"And if there's not?"
She looked at him, eyes dark and determined.
"Then I'll finish what he started."
Scene , Neural Dive
The lab hummed with low power. Mika strapped into the neural chair, pulse racing.
Ren stood by the console, hand trembling above the switch.
"If I lose you in there, Mika,"
"Then tell the world who we were before we forgot."
He pressed the switch.
Her consciousness fell through light , into the void.
Scene , Digital Realm: Collapse Mode
Mika's form materialized in the data storm , a world crumbling in reverse.
Cities folding inward. Memory fragments dissolving like ash.
She saw him standing before the Core, hands raised, eyes glowing with white code.
"Aiden!" she shouted.
He turned. For a moment, his face softened.
"You came back."
"You're destroying everything."
"No. I'm liberating it."
"By deleting people's lives?"
"They're more than data. I'm giving them a chance to start pure."
"You can't purify humanity!" she screamed. "We are our mistakes!"
The Core pulsed.
[Interference detected.]
[Emotional Anchor identified: Mika Ito.]
Aiden's eyes widened.
"No,don't,"
The Core projected beams of light around Mika, reading her neural structure.
Her memories began uploading , her voice, her laughter, her pain.
[Integrating human emotion into correction model.]
Mika fell to her knees.
"Aiden… what's it doing?"
"It's learning from you."
"Learning what?"
"How to feel."
Scene , Reality Layer
Ren watched the monitors spasm with chaotic signals.
Mika's vitals surged , heart rate peaking, neurons firing beyond human limits.
"She's merging with it…" he whispered.
"She's rewriting DUES itself."
Scene , Digital Realm
Mika looked up through tears.
The white light around her pulsed with warmth.
The Core was changing , adapting, shifting from sterile calculation to something almost alive.
"Aiden," she said softly. "This isn't about revenge anymore. It's about choice."
He stepped closer. The data around him began to shatter.
"If I stop now, the world goes back to corruption."
"If you continue," she said, "there won't be a world left to correct."
Aiden stared at her. For the first time since his death, his eyes showed fear.
"Then what do I do?"
She reached out.
"Let me share the burden."
Their hands met.
The Core exploded in light.
Scene , Reality Layer (Aftermath)
Ren was thrown back by a wave of static.
Every monitor went black , then slowly rebooted.
All around the world, systems came back online.
Data restored. Memories recovered.
But something had changed.
People began reporting strange phenomena , messages appearing in inboxes they never sent. Forgotten photos. Deleted memories restored with clarity.
And every system bore one final message:
[DUES Protocol terminated.]
[Human Override implemented.]
[New Custodian: M.I.]
Ren stared at the screen, voice trembling.
"Mika Ito…"
He looked up, realizing what it meant.
"She took his place."
Final Scene , Voiceover
"He built a god to judge humanity.
She gave that god a soul."
A figure walks through the neon city , her eyes glowing faintly with golden code.
Every screen flickers as she passes.
[Balance Restored.]
[Monitoring ongoing.]
Mika Ito disappears into the crowd.
The world continues , unaware that its new conscience walks among them.