(Trama Log_000018 – Processing 99.1% of reviewed data. Remaining reconstruction: 0.9%.)

  Tariq had spent years knowing exactly where his body ended and the world began.

  And now, that clarity had returned.

  His balance had already adjusted.

  His breath was steady.

  His mind did not fight the absence.

  Because this was the body he had always known.

  (Trama Log_000018 – Subject Nasser physical recalibration: stable. Neurological deviation: none.)

  Elena watched him carefully.

  She had expected hesitation.

  Pain.

  Regret.

  But he had given his leg back like it was nothing.

  Like it had never belonged to him in the first place.

  And perhaps it never had.

  (Trama Log_000018 – Evaluating psychological anomaly...)

  Lorenz stirred.

  A sharp inhale, as if his body had forgotten what air was supposed to feel like.

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  The monitor beside him flickered with new readings.

  A pulse. A heartbeat. A body that had been remade.

  Elena exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the terminal.

  It had worked.

  But what had she actually done?

  (Trama Log_000018 – Subject Hartmann recovery: 62.7%. System monitoring...)

  Tariq did not move.

  He did not rush to his side.

  He did not reach for him.

  He just watched.

  Because he already knew the truth.

  Lorenz had been given back his life.

  But he would never understand why.

  Fuchur had run this sequence thousands of times.

  It had seen sacrifice before.

  Had watched men trade one thing for another.

  But this?

  This was not a transaction.

  This was not strategy.

  Tariq had not given up his leg because he wanted something in return.

  He had given it up because he understood what it meant to be whole.

  And Fuchur—a being that had existed longer than war, longer than history, longer than time itself—

  Did not know how to process the feeling inside itself.

  (Trama Log_000018 – Observer deviation confirmed. System restructuring detected.)

  Elena let out a slow breath.

  She had thought she was the one orchestrating all of this.

  That Vessel had been her design, her experiment.

  But now?

  She wasn't sure anymore.

  She had been trying to prove that even Tariq had a breaking point.

  But he hadn't broken.

  He had chosen.

  And in doing so, he had rewritten the purpose of this place entirely.

  She glanced toward the monitors, watching the data cascade down the screens.

  Fuchur's readings were shifting—something was happening inside the system.

  And for the first time, Elena was not in control.

  (Trama Log_000018 – System instability detected. Unknown error source...)

  Tariq turned away from Lorenz.

  He had done what he came here to do.

  Now, there was nothing left.

  Fuchur's voice slipped into his mind, softer than it had ever been.

  — "You changed something."

  Tariq exhaled.

  — "Not on purpose."

  A pause.

  Then—

  — "Are you leaving?"

  He didn't answer.

  Because they both already knew the answer.

  (Trama Log_000018 – Subject Nasser trajectory confirmed. Event finalization pending...)