The teddy spoke without moving its mouth.
That was the first mistake reality made.
Not a sound—no vibration of fabric, no shift of stuffing. The voice arrived fully formed, already inside the room, as if it had always been there and everyone else had simply failed to notice it breathing.
"You took too long."
Lucia screamed.
Not loud. Not dramatic. A short, broken sound that came from somewhere beneath language. Heaven was already moving, wings half-unfurled, but Sylence raised a hand—not in command, but recognition.
"Don't," he said quietly.
The teddy lay on the table where it had fallen earlier. Ordinary. Soft. One ear slightly torn. Its button eyes reflected the lighthouse light without depth.
AX-01 turned its head slowly.
"Source detected," it said.
Then paused.
Then corrected itself.
"Source… recognized."
The teddy tilted.
Just slightly.
"You're different now," it said to AX-01, voice mild, almost fond. "You can hear me properly."
Andy's throat worked. "That thing—" he stopped himself. "That object wasn't supposed to be capable of speech."
The teddy laughed.
It sounded like a memory of laughter. Something recalled incorrectly on purpose.
"I was never an object," it said. "I was a lock pretending to be harmless."
Sylence stepped closer. Every instinct he had told him not to. Every other instinct told him this moment had been waiting longer than he had been alive.
"You're a fragment," he said.
The teddy's head tilted again.
"I am the witness-fragment," it replied.
"The one that remembers what the others try not to."
Lucia whispered, "Others…?"
The temperature in the room dropped—not cold, but empty.
"There are six more," the teddy said calmly. "Six fragments that still refuse to be named together."
AX-01's chest singularity pulsed—once, sharp.
"Clarify," AX-01 demanded.
The teddy's button eyes reflected the black crystal perfectly.
"Septet cannot return to physical form through alignment alone," it said.
"Agreement creates intent. Intent requires vessels."
Andy shook his head slowly. "You're saying the seven fragments aren't just… concepts."
"No," the teddy replied. "They are roles."
The lighthouse groaned, deep in its bones.
"Witness," the teddy continued. "Execution. Continuity. Refusal. Mercy. Collapse."
A pause.
"And Choice."
Sylence felt something cold slide into place behind his ribs.
"And each fragment," he said carefully, "is anchored somewhere."
"Yes."
"Hidden?"
"No," the teddy corrected. "Distributed."
Andy laughed once—sharp, broken. "Of course they are."
The teddy's voice softened, almost regretful.
"Each fragment learned to survive by becoming necessary to a different kind of world."
Images bled into the air—not projections, not visions. Impressions.
A city that never sleeps because sleep would end it.
A battlefield that resets every dawn.
A world where death is optional but memory is not.
A place where gods are punished by being loved.
A reality that collapses itself every century to avoid boredom.
And one—
One that felt unfinished.
Lucia grabbed Sylence's sleeve. "Those places feel… far."
"They're not far," the teddy said gently. "They're incompatible."
AX-01 processed silently for a full second longer than usual.
"You are proposing parallel recovery operations," it said. "Simultaneous."
"Yes," the teddy replied. "Sequential attempts will fail. The fragments know how to hide from pursuit."
Andy looked around the room—at Sylence, Andrew, Lucia, Sony, Peter, Heaven, AX-01.
"Six fragments," he said. "Six teams."
Silence stretched—not empty now, but heavy.
"And if we don't?" Sylence asked.
The teddy's head straightened.
"Then Septet will still return," it said.
"But not to you."
That landed harder than any threat.
AX-01 spoke quietly. "Define physical return."
The teddy smiled.
"In flesh," it said.
"In limitation."
"In consequence."
Sony swallowed hard. "You're saying… he could come back wrong."
"No," the teddy replied. "He could come back complete."
The singularity in AX-01's chest darkened, swallowing light instead of reflecting it.
"That outcome probability is unacceptable," AX-01 said.
The teddy looked at it.
"Everything about Septet is unacceptable," it said. "That was the point."
Sylence exhaled slowly.
"Six teams," he repeated. "Six worlds."
"Yes."
"And us?"
The teddy's voice dropped—not louder, not sharper. Just closer.
"You will learn," it said,
"that fragmentation was never the curse."
The lighthouse light passed once.
Then stopped.
The mechanism jammed—not broken, not damaged. Deciding.
The teddy finished softly:
"Unity is."
And somewhere, across realities that had not yet been visited, six fragments of an impossible soul felt something they hadn't felt in a very long time.
Not fear.
Not hope.
Being hunted.