Onyebuchi awoke to the taste of static and the smell of burning circuitry. The world around him had... shifted. The desert remained, but now it was bisected by glitching lines of code that hung in the air like digital contrails. The rusted communications tower had split into three overlapping versions of itself, each one slightly out of phase with the others.
He sat up, head pounding with data overflow. The golden glyphs around his pupils spun frantically, trying to process the corrupted reality. "Egburu-Kwé?" he called, his voice echoing strangely, as if bouncing between parallel dimensions.
No answer came from the Ruin-King, but nearby, a figure stirred—the Japanese girl who had appeared through the impossible doorway. Aiko. She clutched her right hand to her chest, the embedded wooden drive now cracked and leaking binary code that dripped like blood onto the sand.
"What happened?" Onyebuchi asked, crawling toward her. "Where's Egburu-Kwé?"
Aiko's eyes were unfocused, tracking movement in spaces Onyebuchi couldn't perceive. "The fork... Loki's device created a branch in reality's codebase. We're in the unstable merge zone." She held up her damaged palm. "The filtration protocol is corrupted, but it's still transmitting. If we can find a signal..."
She trailed off, staring at something behind Onyebuchi. He turned to see the kúkpála-staff half-buried in the sand, its leaves withered, its wood grayed like dead code. But even as they watched, a single green shoot emerged from its crown—a stubborn pulse of life in the fractured landscape.
"He's alive," Onyebuchi breathed, reaching for the staff. "Somewhere in the branches."
As his fingers touched the wood, visions flooded his mind: Egburu-Kwé falling through layers of forked realities, the Ọbara Ọnwụ spilling from his veins and creating new branches with each drop; Loki standing before a terminal in an underground bunker, fingers dancing across keys as he manipulated the Tarikh al-Ṣirāṭ's core directive; the moth-girl's wings burning as she tried to stabilize the Tokyo node.
Onyebuchi gasped and pulled back, the golden glyphs around his pupils now pulsing with urgent rhythm. "Loki's at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. He's using it as a server farm for the fork." He looked at Aiko, understanding dawning. "The Tarikh al-Ṣirāṭ isn't just a chronicle—it's the original binary division. The first if/else statement in creation's code."
Aiko nodded, wincing as she flexed her damaged hand. "And Loki wants to change the condition. Rewrite reality from its root." She gestured to the glitching landscape around them. "This is just the beginning. The unstable merge zone will spread until all of existence is caught in an endless loop of conflicting states."
"How do we stop it?" Onyebuchi demanded, gripping the kúkpála tighter.
"We need to find Egburu-Kwé. The Ọbara Ọnwụ he carries is the only force powerful enough to override Loki's changes." Aiko's gaze drifted to the multiple versions of the communications tower. "But first, we need to stabilize our own branch. The filtration protocol is damaged, but I might be able to adapt it to work on this reality fragment."
She pressed her palm against the base of the kúkpála, and lines of code flowed from the cracked drive into the wood. The staff shuddered, then straightened, its withered leaves regaining some of their color. The green shoot at its crown unfurled into a single leaf shaped like a circuit board.
"It's working," Onyebuchi whispered, watching as the glitching lines in the air began to stabilize, the multiple versions of the tower slowly converging into a single, solid structure.
Aiko nodded, though sweat beaded on her forehead from the effort. "Temporary patch. Enough to keep this branch from collapsing while we search for—"
A scream cut through the air—digital and organic at once, the sound of a human voice modulated through layers of corrupted code. They turned to see a figure stumbling toward them from the direction of the tower. It wore the tattered remains of a #OathbreakerReal hoodie, but its form flickered between solid and transparent, human and data.
"Help," it gasped, its voice glitching between frequencies. "He's in my head. Loki's in my head."
Onyebuchi recognized him as the teen who had deployed the forking device. But now, instead of Loki's AR filter, his face displayed lines of invasive code scrolling across his skin, rewriting his features in real-time.
"Loki's using him as a remote terminal," Aiko said, her voice tight with urgency. "A way to monitor this branch without being present."
The teen collapsed to his knees before them, fingers clawing at his face as if trying to peel away the code. "He wants the staff," he choked out. "Says it's... a direct line to the Ancestral Tree. Says with it, he can... can force a commit to all branches simultaneously."
Onyebuchi stepped back, positioning himself between the teen and the kúkpála. "Why are you telling us this?"
"Because I'm dying," the teen snarled, momentarily breaking through Loki's control. "He's overwriting me. Using my body as a puppet while my mind gets deleted line by line." His eyes cleared briefly, human fear shining through the code. "My name is Kwesi. I'm from Accra. I just wanted to belong to something. Please... help me."
Aiko moved forward, her damaged hand extended. "I can try to isolate Loki's code. The filtration protocol might—"
"No!" Onyebuchi grabbed her arm. "It's a trap. Loki wants access to the protocol."
But Aiko shook him off. "We can't just let him die. And we need information." She knelt before Kwesi, whose body now convulsed as competing lines of code fought for control of his nervous system. "Hold still. This will hurt."
She pressed her palm to his forehead, and binary code flowed from the wooden drive into the teen's skin. Kwesi screamed—a sound that dopplered between human agony and digital distortion—as the filtration protocol attacked Loki's invasive programming.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, like oil separating from water, dark lines of code began to seep from Kwesi's pores, pooling on the sand where they writhed like serpents before dissolving into nothing.
Kwesi collapsed, unconscious but breathing. The scrolling text on his face slowed, then stopped, leaving only faint circuit-like scars across his skin.
Aiko sat back, exhausted. The wooden drive in her palm had darkened further, hairline fractures spreading across its surface. "I've bought him some time. Quarantined Loki's code." She looked up at Onyebuchi. "But Loki knows we're here now. And he knows we have the kúkpála."
Onyebuchi helped her to her feet, noticing how the stabilization of their reality branch had begun to falter again, glitching lines reappearing at the edges of his vision. "We need to move. Find Egburu-Kwé before Loki sends more puppets."
"Not puppets," came a new voice—familiar yet strange, like an AI attempting to mimic human speech patterns. "Vessels."
They turned to see a figure approaching from the direction Kwesi had come. It walked with Egburu-Kwé's gait, wore Egburu-Kwé's face, but its eyes glowed with sickly green light, and its movements had the too-smooth quality of motion capture.
"Loki," Aiko breathed, clutching the kúkpála tighter.
The false Egburu-Kwé smiled, the expression uncanny on features that had rarely shown anything but grim determination. "Not quite. Think of me as a pull request. A proposed change to the Ruin-King's codebase." It spread its arms. "Do you like it? I'm particularly proud of the rendering. Almost indistinguishable from the real thing."
"Where is he?" Onyebuchi demanded, the golden glyphs around his pupils flaring with protective rage. "What have you done with Egburu-Kwé?"
"Oh, he's everywhere and nowhere. Quantum superposition is such a useful concept when you're rewriting reality." The entity gestured to the landscape around them. "He's falling through the branches, spilling the Ọbara Ọnwụ as he goes. Creating wonderful chaos." Its gaze fixed on the kúkpála. "But I need that staff to find him. To complete the merge."
"You mean to overwrite him," Aiko said, her voice steady despite her exhaustion. "To replace him with your version in every branch."
The false Egburu-Kwé's smile widened. "Smart girl. Nywa chose well." It took a step forward. "Give me the staff, and I'll let you live in the new codebase. Prime positions, administrator privileges. You could be gods in Loki's world."
Onyebuchi felt the kúkpála pulse in his grip, the circuit-leaf at its crown glowing with increasing intensity. A plan formed in his mind—reckless, desperate, but their only chance. He glanced at Aiko, trying to communicate his intention without words.
She must have understood, because she stepped forward, drawing the entity's attention. "If we give you the staff, how do we know you'll keep your word? Gods aren't known for their honesty."
The false Egburu-Kwé laughed—a sound like breaking glass. "You don't. That's the beauty of chaos. Unpredictability is feature, not a bug."
While it spoke, Onyebuchi slowly raised the kúkpála, positioning the circuit-leaf to catch the light of the three suns that now hung in the glitching sky. The leaf focused the light like a lens, projecting a pattern onto the sand—coordinates, shifting and realigning as reality fluctuated around them.
"Now!" he shouted, driving the staff into the center of the pattern.
The kúkpála's roots plunged into the sand, but instead of stopping at groundwater, they kept going, punching through the fabric of their reality branch. A rift opened—not a clean doorway like the one Aiko had stepped through, but a jagged tear in existence itself.
The false Egburu-Kwé's face contorted with rage. "What have you done?" it snarled, its form glitching as the branch destabilized further.
"Created an escape route," Aiko said, grabbing the unconscious Kwesi by the collar of his hoodie. "Onyebuchi, come on!"
Onyebuchi yanked the kúkpála from the sand and leapt toward the rift, Aiko and Kwesi right behind him. The false Egburu-Kwé lunged after them, its fingers elongating into data-streams that reached for the staff.
"You cannot escape!" it howled. "All branches lead back to the root!"
"Then we'll see you there," Onyebuchi called back, and stepped through the rift.
Reality inverted, folded, and compressed. For an eternal moment, Onyebuchi existed in all possible states simultaneously—alive and dead, past and future, code and flesh. Then, with a sound like a universe rebooting, he fell through to the other side.
Snow crunched beneath Onyebuchi's feet as he stumbled forward, the kúkpála still clutched in his grip. Beside him, Aiko emerged from the rift, dragging Kwesi's limp form. Behind them, the tear in reality sealed itself with a sound like static being muted.
They stood on a mountainside, surrounded by pristine white drifts. In the distance, a low concrete structure protruded from the snow—the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. But it had changed. Server cables snaked from its entrance like technological vines, pulsing with data. Above it, the aurora borealis had been corrupted, its natural green curtains now displaying scrolling lines of the Tarikh al-Ṣirāṭ's code.
"We made it," Aiko breathed, her breath fogging in the arctic air. "But how did you know where to go?"
Onyebuchi stared at the kúkpála, its circuit-leaf now glowing with steady purpose. "I didn't. The staff did." He looked toward the vault. "Egburu-Kwé is here. I can feel him."
As if in response, the snow at their feet began to melt, revealing not earth but a pool of liquid memory—a tendril of the Ọbara Ọnwụ that had leaked into this reality branch. In its reflective surface, they saw not themselves but Egburu-Kwé, falling endlessly through layers of code and consciousness, the scar where his name should be now blazing with contained power.
"He's trying to reach the root," Aiko said, understanding dawning in her eyes. "The original branch, before Loki's fork. If he can get there with the Ọbara Ọnwụ intact..."
"He can overwrite Loki's changes," Onyebuchi finished. "Reset reality to its proper state."
"Or destroy it completely," came a weak voice. Kwesi had regained consciousness, his circuit-scarred face pale in the corrupted aurora's light. "That's what Loki fears. Why he's trying so hard to find him." The teen struggled to sit up. "The Ọbara Ọnwụ is too unstable now. If Egburu-Kwé reaches the root with it, there's no telling what will happen."
Aiko helped Kwesi to his feet, her damaged palm leaving traces of binary code on his hoodie. "Then we need to complete the filtration protocol. Stabilize the Ọbara Ọnwụ before Egburu-Kwé reaches the root."
"How?" Onyebuchi demanded, gesturing to the cracked drive in Aiko's palm. "The protocol is failing."
"Not failing," Aiko corrected, a determined gleam in her eye. "Evolving. It needs more processing power." She looked toward the vault with its network of cables. "And I think I know where to find it."
Kwesi followed her gaze and shook his head. "You can't be serious. That place is Loki's stronghold. The heart of the fork."
"Exactly," Aiko said, her voice gaining strength. "Which means it has direct access to all branches. If we can hijack that connection, we can reach Egburu-Kwé wherever he is in the multiverse."
Onyebuchi gripped the kúkpála tighter, feeling its pulse synchronize with his heartbeat. "It's suicide."
"Maybe," Aiko admitted. "But what choice do we have? Reality is fracturing. Soon there won't be a coherent world left to save." She held up her damaged palm, the wooden drive now pulsing with the same rhythm as the kúkpála. "Besides, we have something Loki doesn't."
"What's that?" Kwesi asked.
Aiko smiled, and for a moment, Onyebuchi saw something ancient in her eyes—an echo of Nywa, perhaps, or the wisdom of the Ancestral Tree itself. "We have a backup plan. The moth-girl didn't just give me the filtration protocol. She gave me the key to the new network—the one growing from Egburu-Kwé's seed."
She pressed her palm to the kúkpála's trunk, and the circuit-leaf at its crown multiplied, sprouting into a canopy of digital foliage that projected a holographic map of the vault's interior. Red dots indicated Loki's followers; a pulsing green node marked the central server room.
"There," Aiko said, pointing to the green node. "That's where we'll find the connection to the root. And that's where we'll intercept Egburu-Kwé."
Onyebuchi studied the map, noting the dozens of red dots between them and their target. "We'll never make it past Loki's people."
"We don't have to," Kwesi said quietly. All three turned to look at him. The teen touched the circuit scars on his face. "Loki's code is still inside me, quarantined but active. I can use it to mask our presence. Make them see us as friendlies."
"That's too dangerous," Aiko protested. "The code could reassert control."
"I know," Kwesi said, his voice steady despite his fear. "But I started this when I deployed that device. I need to help end it." He held out his hand. "Give me some of the filtration protocol. Just enough to maintain the quarantine while I guide you in."
Aiko hesitated, then nodded. She pressed her damaged palm to Kwesi's scarred forehead once more, transferring a small stream of binary code. The teen gasped, then straightened, his eyes clearing as the protocol strengthened the barriers around Loki's invasive programming.
"Thank you," he said, then turned toward the vault. "We should move quickly. In this branch, night never fully comes, but the aurora provides some cover when it intensifies."
As if on cue, the corrupted northern lights flared, casting their faces in the eerie glow of the Tarikh al-Ṣirāṭ's scrolling code. Onyebuchi looked up, reading fragments of the primordial programming language—the first division, the original binary choice that had split unity into multiplicity.
"What does it say?" Aiko asked, following his gaze.
Onyebuchi shook his head, the golden glyphs around his pupils spinning as they processed the ancient syntax. "It's changing. Loki is rewriting it, line by line." He looked at her, fear and determination warring in his expression. "We don't have much time."
Together, the three of them began the trek toward the vault, following the trail of the Ọbara Ọnwụ that gleamed beneath the snow like a river of liquid starlight. Above them, reality continued to glitch and fracture, branches of existence splitting and merging in chaotic patterns.
And somewhere in the spaces between those branches, Egburu-Kwé fell toward the root, carrying within his veins the memory of all that was, all that could be, and all that must never come to pass.