Devavrata Rathod did not arrive with urgency.
That was the first thing Arav noticed.
No sirens.
No escorts.
No visible escalation.
Just a quiet presence at the edge of the campus, standing beneath a banyan tree whose roots had cracked the pavement decades ago and been left that way because fixing it caused more trouble than leaving it alone.
Devavrata watched students pass without being seen.
Then he spoke.
"You let the fracture become visible."
Arav didn't turn.
"I didn't cause it."
Devavrata nodded. "No. You enabled it. There's a difference. The system cares about both."
Ira stood a few steps behind Arav, arms folded, eyes sharp.
"And what do you care about?" she asked.
Devavrata looked at her then.
Long enough to register her fully.
"Containment," he said. "And survival. In that order."
They moved to the empty seminar hall — lights off, windows open, air heavy with afternoon heat.
Devavrata didn't sit.
He never did.
"The fracture isn't spreading the way you think," he said calmly. "It's not rebellion. It's misalignment."
"People are remembering," Ira said. "Comparing."
"Yes," Devavrata agreed. "Which means they're improvising."
He turned to Arav.
"That's dangerous."
Arav met his gaze. "So is erasing people quietly."
Devavrata didn't deny it.
"That's Kalyuga," he said. "Decay managed well enough to function."
The word landed heavier than it sounded.
Devavrata gestured toward the window.
"Look outside. Campus is open. Classes running. No panic."
"And beneath that?" Arav asked.
"Conflicting memory threads," Devavrata replied. "Which means instability."
He stepped closer.
"You think fractures collapse systems. They don't. They force them to adapt."
"And what does adaptation look like?" Ira asked.
Devavrata's voice remained even.
"Restriction."
He raised his hand — not in threat, not in ritual.
Just acknowledgment.
Inside Arav's head, the system re-engaged.
Carefully.
Deliberately.
Visibility Protocol Updated
Operational Scope: Restricted
Intervention Clearance: Conditional
No punishment.
No apology.
Just limitation.
Arav exhaled slowly.
"So this is damage control."
"Yes," Devavrata said. "For all of us."
Ira's jaw tightened. "You're telling him to stop."
"I'm telling him to survive," Devavrata corrected. "Visibility invites consolidation. Consolidation invites purge."
He looked directly at Arav.
"You don't disappear anomalies anymore," he continued. "You isolate them. Slow them. Redirect them."
"And if I don't?" Arav asked.
Devavrata didn't raise his voice.
"Then the system stops pretending you're manageable."
Silence settled.
Not threatening.
Final.
Outside, a group of students laughed as they passed the hall.
Life continued.
That was the cruelest part.
Devavrata turned to leave.
"This fracture won't close," he said over his shoulder. "But it can be framed."
He paused.
"And frame determines outcome."
Then he was gone — leaving behind no authority, no reassurance.
Just boundaries.
Ira looked at Arav. "He didn't fix anything."
"No," Arav agreed. "He just told us what they'll break next."
Inside him, the system pulsed — present, attentive, narrowed.
For the first time, Arav understood the real cost of awareness:
Once seen, it could never be unseen.
And once framed…
It could be used.