Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Recall Chain
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The humming began like a distant heartbeat a low, pulsing vibration that threaded through the morning air of Kyoto, Nairobi, Toronto, and São Paulo. It started quietly, barely noticed among the ambient sounds of the city but within minutes, it grew into a collective tremor that made the skin of buildings and citizens alike resonate.
Within homes, offices, and cafés, people paused mid-sentence. Car engines idled, passengers looked up from their screens. The hum rippled through subway tunnels, climbed scaffolding, and mutated as it passed through the collective feeling of millions of inhabitants. There was no central broadcast no warning, no announcement. It was as though the world was suddenly breathing the same psychic pulse.
In Kyoto's Gion district, a street pianist playing a mournful melody froze as his fingers began repeating unfamiliar chords. He looked at his hands and gasped, muttering syllables in an archaic dialect. Around him, other passersby halted some collapsing, eyes unflooded with expressions belonging to someone else's memories. In Nairobi, a street preacher's oration suddenly rolled into a two-thousand-year-old chant right out of Uchiha history, complete with shifting accent and poetic meter. He finished, silent. Then collapsed.
Global tech networks lit with alerts: "Shard Resonance Detected Global Grid Locking." Intelligence analysts were flooded with reports. Governments scrambled. Some saw an open invitation to worship. Others locked down entire districts, deploying riot squads to control the suddenly convulsing crowds. Religious cults surfaced overnight in São Paulo and Toronto, claiming the sigil as prophecy. Merchants hawked trinkets bearing it. Tech forums overloaded with subscriptions to "Shard Watch."
But underneath it all, there was a deeper resonance a psychic echo clouded by billions of frightened minds and ancient spirits stirring. The Recall Chain the analysts called it. A global psychic feedback loop, raising questions no one dared ask: Was humanity being drawn into memory… into judgment… into unity?
Back in the safehouse below Kyoto's center, Kiera stared wide-eyed at the feed. A key civilian they'd met before Jin, a quiet codebreaker was repeating phrases from Uchiha war hymns: "Ashes of the old, illuminate the new." His words crackled with clarity. She pressed her hand to the console. That memory stream it wasn't random. It was a call: Aiden's lingering flash, hidden, deeper than even he understood.
Alone in a dim chamber, Aiden woke. The room was silent. He blinked, reaching for light and found none. Bandages covered his eyes. His heart pounded. Every breath echoed through the room's concrete walls.
"Good," came Selene's soft voice from behind. "You woke."
He sat forward with difficulty, the shard talisman heavy against his chest.
"My eyes…" His voice trembled.
Selene held a modulation pad. "The chakra overload fractured the visual relay. Severed your sight. It's worse than I thought."
He closed his eyes beneath the cloth and exhaled. "I can still see."
"Yes." She paused. "Your senses are expanding. You're hearing memories in other hosts. But each one weakens your anchor."
Aiden shivered. He heard voices in his mind fragmented, foreign memories: a child's laughter in Korean, then an English lullaby, then Uchiha battle cries. He flinched.
Selene placed a hand on his shoulder. "I prepared a forbidden interface shard. It'll help isolate you preventing the psychic bleed-through."
"How?" Aiden asked warily.
"Inserting the interface will allow you to 'tune' your mind to frequency and admin control. It's dangerous if correct, it will seal your mind off. But if it fails… you could lose yourself." Her hesitation was brief, but present.
Kiera stormed in. "You can't do that!"
Aiden pressed a hand against her chest. "I need clarity. I need control to lead them."
Kiera drew back, her face pale. "You're risking yourself."
He met Selene's gaze. "Do it."
Selene nodded and began preparing the interface. Kiera, though protesting, stepped aside. Aiden lay back as the shard, shaped like a slender crystal blade, was brought to his forehead. His fingers closed around the talisman. And then everything went black, followed by an explosion of sensation.
Elsewhere, tucked beneath granite vaults, Echo lay in an isolation chamber. His breathing was ragged, his body recovering. The shard pulse from the Prague sufferer had hit his mind like a tsunami, leaving shards of their last reality still bleeding through his thoughts: city-wide sigil rain, people bowing silently to an unseen god, entire continents surrendering to a psychic command.
He blinked. The chamber lights flickered. Drey's voice crackled: "Echo, can you hear me?"
He coughed. "I'm… here."
Drey and Kiera entered. Echo sat up. "You have to listen listen to me."
They leaned in.
He described the vision. "It wasn't metaphor. It was… a possible future. A projection. They'll use Stage Four to broadcast en masse. They'll swallow cities whole."
Drey scrolled through data. "That's not a vision it's projection. We saw it in Prague's relay logs. They sent it directly into your mind."
Echo closed his eyes. "The sleeper cell I encountered they were beneath Vatican ruins. That's where Stage Five is planned."
Kiera's eyes widened. "Vatican. Religious center."
Echo nodded. "They're using faith to seed memory. They want willing hosts."
Drey traced lines. "Then Prague was the test. Vatican is the cathedral."
Echo stood. "I go there."
Kiera looked at Drey, who shook his head. "We need you stable."
Echo's tone hardened. "We don't have time."
Thousands of miles away, Mandara and the Berlin host stepped off the Tokyo–Kyoto relay shuttle. They were near the base of an ancient temple built over a Uchiha heritage shrine. The area was sealed, gray stones covered by moss. No one walked here.
As they ascended the steps, the Berlin host's steps faltered. His gaze flickered between Mandara's resolute face and the shadowed corridor ahead.
Mandara slowed. "You're safe with me."
The host's voice dropped twice, alternating: Calm… then rigid. "They chose me for one will."
Mandara ushered him to a resting alcove.
"I feel it," the host whispered then his voice sharpened. "I am it!"
Mandara touched his wrist. "You're two voices. You can choose."
The host closed his eyes. After a moment, he nodded. "I will."
They resumed their climb up to the sealed entryway etched with spirals, known only to the initiates of ancient Uchiha vigil behind them. Beneath the echo of their footsteps, the ground hummed softly.
Back in the recovery lab, Kiera sat in front of a console, her face pale. She had hacked into ARASHI's archive and uncovered Selene's hidden files.
Her brow furrowed as she watched the hidden footage: A tall woman in her twenties, emo bangs, surging with power. The footage labeled it "Kyoto Drift – 2009 Anomaly". The temple behind her glowed in red light. Then security personnel overrode a lockdown system. Selene's eyes flicked one tearing, one blazing.
The footage ended. Her hand hovered over the console.
"Something's off," she whispered. "She wasn't just a scientist. She was part of the first Mirror activation."
She pulled up recruitment logs. Selene's psychic profile was flagged as "Class Omega – Unregistered." Her clearance was revoked in 2012. She'd never been removed from field usage.
Kiera put her hand to her lips. "She helped build this."
In Kyoto, Mandara led the Berlin host to the base of the Vault. Their descent steps wound beneath the temple, into buried catacombs. The air grew cool, damp, electric.
In front of them, massive steel-clad doors bore no handles only a central sigil keyhole framed with red circuitry etched into stone.
Mandara cleared his throat. "It will open for you."
The Berlin host reached out, hand brushing the keyhole. The doors trembled. A soft grinding noise emerged they were unsealed from within.
The host stepped forward with Mandara, hesitated. Eyes flickered then he smiled, fused expression: calm and terrible.
They passed the threshold.
"One mind was never enough."
The doors closed behind them as a deep hum began.
Inside the Vault, something begins to wake and it knows Aiden's name.
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If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my Patreon at
" https://www.patreon.com/Its_Zack/ "
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want.