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Nora knew she was dreaming.
That familiar sensation—the texture of the air turning unstable, sounds arriving as if filtered through a thin layer of water, the edges of her vision faintly warping—everything told her the same thing.
She had entered another dream.
Whose dream?
She didn’t even need to guess.
She didn’t need to search for that faint halo of light, either.
Because the person standing before her had already given the answer.
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Timothy Drake.
He stood there.
Not in a classroom, not in reality, but inside this constructed scene, his expression calm—too calm—like someone already accustomed to existing in a space like this.
The perspective of a dream was never fixed.
Sometimes it was first person, sometimes third, and sometimes it became something else entirely—a floating observer, without a body, only awareness.
The roles shifted too.
Dreams created people, distorted identities, even replaced someone who originally belonged there.
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And right now, it was obvious.
Tim had chosen to replace him.
That man.
The one whose memories had been altered.
The garbage collector who had been given a fabricated wife and child.
Nora stood to the side, watching what should have been a scene unfolding according to the plot.
She recognized it.
She had just seen it.
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But now, everything was different.
Tim wasn’t helpless like in the original.
There was no confusion. No collapse.
He stood in the interrogation room, hands restrained, yet his back remained straight, his eyes far too clear.
He looked at the officers in front of him.
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His tone was calm.
Even slightly proactive.
He didn’t ask, “Why is this happening?”
He didn’t question his own memories.
Instead, he went straight to the core.
He told them he had already realized everything was fake.
The memories. The life. The identity forced into his mind—
All of it fabricated.
He wasn’t here to verify.
He was here to investigate.
He said he wanted to find the one responsible.
The atmosphere in the room tightened.
The officers, who were supposed to be in control, hesitated for a brief moment under the pressure of his composure.
Tim didn’t look away.
He met their gaze directly and made a request.
He wanted his computer.
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Simple.
No excess emotion.
Like stating something inevitable.
But the officers clearly weren’t willing to cooperate.
Their expressions shifted—hesitation, caution, glances exchanged.
The answer was obvious.
No.
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Nora watched from the side.
She hadn’t interfered before.
She had just observed.
Watched this dream, which should have followed its script, slowly being rewritten.
She let out a quiet sigh.
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It carried no weight in the dream, but she heard it clearly.
Then she closed her eyes.
A natural motion.
Like something she had done countless times.
She reached out.
Her hand passed through the boundary of the scene, landing outside the interrogation room.
There stood Motoko Kusanagi.
The body remained still, like a vessel waiting to be activated.
Nora placed her hand gently against it.
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The moment of contact—
Kusanagi’s eyes closed briefly.
A flicker of darkness.
Then they opened again.
Nora had entered the body.
She became a cyborg.
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Her vision changed instantly.
No longer blurred or drifting, but precise, stable, with a mechanical clarity.
The artificial eyes adjusted their focus automatically.
She looked back toward the dream’s owner.
Toward Tim in the interrogation room.
Then she stepped forward and pushed the door open.
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Everyone inside turned their heads at the same time.
The slight scrape of chairs, the sound of fabric shifting, overlapped in the confined space.
“Major,” someone said instinctively.
Nora, now Kusanagi, didn’t stop walking.
Her steps carried a weight and precision she normally didn’t have—each one measured, calculated.
She stopped in front of Tim.
No unnecessary movement.
Then she spoke.
“Give him the computer.”
Her voice was flat.
Emotionless.
Like an order that didn’t require questioning.
The air froze for a moment.
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Tim looked up.
Blue eyes met hers.
Direct. Calm. Observing.
Not panicked. Not avoiding.
Watching her.
Nora understood.
She could feel the weight of that gaze, like it was peeling through layers, trying to confirm something.
She knew what she had to do.
She had to be Motoko Kusanagi.
Not just mimic the appearance—
But sustain the entire dream.
What she hated most was when dreams shattered abruptly.
That sudden collapse—images tearing apart, logic breaking, everything losing meaning like a badly written ending.
No closure.
No completion.
Just emptiness.
She didn’t want that.
So she held it together.
Maintained the role.
Maintained the world.
She didn’t look away.
She simply stood there, making the presence of “the Major” feel natural.
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The officers exchanged glances.
A moment of hesitation passed between them.
Then—
The door opened again.
Batou walked in.
He scanned the room once and said simply,
“Do as the Major says.”
His voice was low.
Final.
The hesitation disappeared.
Someone moved.
Then another.
They followed the order.
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Tim was practically thrilled.
He had stayed up late, and the moment he fell asleep, he found himself inside the very movie he had discussed with his classmates that day.
One of his favorites.
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The setting. The characters. Even that suffocating atmosphere—
All of it was there.
Not a blurry recreation.
A complete one.
Interactive.
Editable.
The protagonist—Motoko Kusanagi—stood in front of him and told them to give him the computer.
Exactly as he imagined.
Every movement, every tone—perfectly mechanical, precise, stable, without unnecessary fluctuation.
They brought the confiscated device.
Old.
Worn edges.
Signs of use.
They placed it on the table and pushed it toward him.
Tim’s eyes locked onto it instantly.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched it—
It felt real.
Not the slightly distorted sensation typical of dreams.
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He opened it.
The screen lit up.
The boot speed. The interface. The details—
He paused.
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This world was set in 2029.
But he wasn’t sure how strict the dream would be.
Dreams usually ignored details.
They simplified. Warped. Filled gaps lazily.
But this one—
Was different.
He scanned the system rapidly.
Uncertain how far the tech tree had progressed.
Uncertain of the limits.
Uncertain what might break.
And that uncertainty didn’t intimidate him.
It excited him.
He was an information specialist.
This was exactly his domain.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard—
Then began to move.
Testing the boundaries.
Seeing how far this dream could be rewritten.
Challenging it.
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Tim stared at the screen, the light reflecting in his eyes, deepening the blue.
He didn’t type immediately.
He knew about the Puppet Master.
So he observed first.
His gaze swept across the interface, system structure, file arrangements—effortless.
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Then he opened the backend.
Permission layers.
Hidden directories.
Residual caches.
One by one.
He searched for the original owner’s data.
Not to confirm identity—
But to gain credibility.
To prove he wasn’t just a victim.
His fingers began to move.
Each input precise.
No hesitation.
The room watched him.
Pressure in their gaze.
Suspicion—and expectation.
The tension thickened.
Only Kusanagi remained still, waiting.
No doubt.
No urgency.
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Tim glanced at her briefly.
Is this what confidence looks like?
That certainty that doesn’t need proof.
Like everything will unfold as expected.
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The corner of his mouth twitched.
But he had his own pride.
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He returned to the screen.
The data was incomplete.
Deleted traces.
Corrupted structure.
Broken timestamps.
But to him—
These were clues.
Soon—
He found it.
Fragments left behind.
Pieces hidden in overlooked corners.
He opened them, reading quickly.
Information assembling itself in his mind.
Seconds later—
He stopped.
Looked up.
“At least two years ago,” he said quietly. “That’s when the memory alteration happened.”
He glanced back at the screen.
“They used free internet access as bait.”
A brief distortion crossed his expression.
“…so he— I mean, I— chose to join.”
A slight frown.
Then he continued.
“I estimate over a hundred victims.”
He tapped the keyboard.
“Based on the numbering sequence—”
He looked up.
“I’m number eighty-nine.”
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Nora finally turned to look at the person who had spoken those pieces of information. Those inorganic eyes met his gaze—without warmth, without any fluctuation of emotion—like a form of pure observation and analysis. She spoke:
“Why do you think such a complicated narrative was constructed? Why give him a wife and a child within false memories?”
Her tone was flat. There was no sharpness of doubt, no room for probing—she simply cast the question out directly, as if confirming whether a certain structure was necessary.
Neither of them realized that their conversation was being conducted in the third person, as if they were discussing a “him” who was not present, and yet at the same time referring to themselves in that very moment.
Tim looked at her, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. The smile was faint, carrying a trace of understanding, and the ease of someone who had already thought through the question. He did not pause, answering directly:
“Because only deeper connections can drive motivation. Whether it’s love or hatred, I think whoever is behind this understands that these irrational emotions are the most powerful. Whether it’s sacrifice or revenge, both require a psychological readiness to pay with one’s life.”
His tone did not emphasize any particular word, yet the entire statement formed a clear line of logic, as if the reasoning had already been completed in his mind, and was now being delivered calmly.
After hearing this, Nora did not respond immediately. She gave a small nod, as if confirming that the answer held, then paused briefly in thought. After that, she issued an order:
“Place him under temporary assignment in the information division. He will require monitoring for now, but retain partial freedom.”
The sentence was clean and precise, with no unnecessary explanation, as if the position and its boundaries had already been decided.
Batou made a slight sound from the side—something like a quiet question—but the thought never left his mouth. He glanced at Nora, then withdrew his gaze, ultimately offering no objection. The other officers simply responded with a brief “Yes,” then turned and left, beginning to arrange the follow-up procedures.
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The rain poured down heavily, as if the entire sky had been torn open, cascading without pause. The sound of water was so dense it almost drowned out everything else, striking against twisted steel wreckage, shattered ground, and human bodies, forming a continuous, low, unbroken hum. This scene—the final moment of the film—was being recreated in full, with absolute clarity. The city lights stretched and blurred within the rain, reflecting across the soaked ground, like another inverted world.
Tim was holding the upper half of Motoko Kusanagi’s body. It was not light—it was a real weight pressing down on his arms—so he held her with both hands, his arms tense, his knuckles faintly whitening. To maintain balance, he adjusted his posture slightly, making sure the broken body would not slip from his grasp on the slick surface. Rain continued to fall over him, his clothes already soaked through, clinging to his skin, cold and heavy.
He moved through the chaos—not in blind escape, but with precision—avoiding surveillance and lines of sight, his steps landing along a path he had already calculated in his mind. He followed that route here, without hesitation, without pause, until he reached this endpoint.
The air still carried the lingering scent of the explosion. One of Batou’s arms had been blown apart, the severed section brutal and real, while the other blond cyborg had just been destroyed by a fighter jet, its form no longer intact, leaving only fractured remnants slowly being washed away by the rain. Everything was converging toward its conclusion.
Nora had originally felt relieved. This scene was nearing its end. As long as it held, the dream would close properly, without collapsing. The fight just now had cost her a great deal of effort—both her arms had even been torn off. It didn’t hurt, but the sensory distortion was still unpleasant. Just as she was waiting, expecting the bullet to arrive and blow her head apart—
In the moment before the explosion, a pair of hands pulled her away.
She lifted her head and looked at Tim, who was holding her. Her gaze moved from below upward, stopping at his face. She spoke, her voice not loud, but clear.
“Why are you stopping this?”
Tim lowered his eyes, meeting her gaze. The rain had soaked his hair, pressing it against his forehead. Water streamed down along his face, gathering at his chin before falling, making it look as though he were crying. And yet his expression remained unnaturally calm. When he spoke, the entire passage came out with almost no pause, as if it had been simulated countless times in his mind:
“Some people say that once offspring are produced, DNA’s responsibility is fulfilled, and the body becomes a useless vessel, simply waiting for death—but that’s not true. That’s a misconception. It’s like a program—once written, it can run, it might be modified or expanded, but we don’t go back and overwrite the core. Even if that core writes another core, it remains an independent one—why would it cause itself to disappear?”
He didn’t look away. His tone was steady and clear, as if he were dismantling a flawed line of reasoning step by step. Tim was trying to convince her. In his mind, this whole situation resembled the Riddler’s habit of using words to mislead people toward death—he believed the Puppet Master’s logic carried the same kind of fallacy.
In his thoughts, if an independent entity was already complete, then allowing other selves to merge into it would be like a virus rewriting the core—was that death, or immortality? He didn’t know. But he didn’t want that. Taken to an extreme, it would mean merging all selves together, merging all of humanity into one, creating some kind of perfect unity—then what meaning would remain?
The Puppet Master was nothing more than a different kind of fraud, trying to lure the protagonist in and take everything for free. It paid no cost, suffered no loss—the cost was entirely absorbed by Motoko. Her identity, her profession, everything that made her who she was—gone in an instant.
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The sound of the rain still had not stopped. Water struck down layer upon layer, the ground already washed into a murky reflective surface, where light and shadow stretched, shattered, and were trampled into disorder.
Nora’s gaze slowly lowered. She no longer looked into Tim’s eyes, but instead stared at the water sliding down his face. She had no hands now—this body consisted only of the upper half being held—she could not move, could not reach out, and yet that thought surfaced clearly. She wanted to lift her hand, to wipe away the water resting on his face—whether it was rain or something else. That impulse existed quietly, with nowhere to go.
Her voice rose within the rain, not loud, yet not drowned out.
“It’s not that bleak. If my consciousness enters the network, then I will exist everywhere, forever.”
As she spoke, her gaze remained fixed on those traces of water, as if she were looking at some kind of evidence, or confirming some kind of future. There was no hesitation in her tone, as though it were already a conclusion she had accepted.
Tim did not respond immediately. He simply looked at her, then gently shook his head. The movement was small, but unmistakable. He spoke in a low voice:
“Don’t be convinced. The people around you love you because of who you are, and hate you because of who you are. Those emotions exist because of you. Even if everyone forgets you—as long as I remember you, then you exist. There’s no need to question that.”
His voice was pressed beneath the sound of the rain, yet it did not disappear. Instead, it fell more clearly between the two of them.
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Nora lifted her head and looked once more into those blue eyes. Nearby, Batou—who had been caught in the explosion—finally steadied himself, his body still slightly unbalanced as he moved toward them, his footsteps mixing into the rain, one step at a time across the soaked ground.
So this was how Tim thought.
She considered it quietly.
Watching a movie, and still he would dissect the logic, look for flaws, even continue the reasoning inside a dream—forcing an ending that should have resolved to hold together, and speaking as if the Puppet Master were some kind of scumbag, insisting that none of this made sense, telling the protagonist not to be deceived.
What a strange person.
Nora looked at those serious eyes. That seriousness wasn’t something that floated on the surface—it extended inward like a line, carrying a kind of persistence she couldn’t quite understand.
And in that moment, she suddenly found it amusing.
A faint trace of laughter surfaced quietly from within her.
Soundless.
But unmistakable.
She decided… to toy with him a little.
She shifted slightly.
In his arms.
She stretched her neck, leaning closer to his ear, the distance closing until she could feel the warmth and rhythm of his breathing. In that instant, the sound of the rain seemed to recede into the distance. Her voice dropped low, spoken almost against the curve of his ear:
“Then what if I reject the Puppet Master… and choose you instead?”
The moment those words fell—
The blue eyes widened suddenly.
As if something critical had been struck.
Cracks began to appear along the edges of the dream.
Not small fractures, but something collapsing from an unseen point, like fine cracks spreading across glass, rapidly extending, eroding inward from the edges toward the center.
The sound of rain stopped.
The entire world felt as if it had been muted.
In the next second—
The image began to shatter.
Light and shadow fractured.
Space broke apart.
Nora was pushed away by a force.
Weightless.
Directionless.
Rejected by the dream itself—
And thrown out.
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Wayne Manor.
Tim opened his eyes.
For a brief moment, his breathing fell out of sync.
He had not fully pulled himself out of the dream yet.
The sound of rain still seemed to linger in his ears, layer upon layer overlapping, without a source, yet unmistakably present.
His hands were still held in the same position as before.
As if he were still holding something heavy.
The muscle memory had not faded.
He lowered his gaze and looked.
There was nothing.
Only air.
His watch suddenly began to beep—sharp, rhythmic, and piercing.
He paused for a moment before realizing it was an alert, triggered by an elevated heart rate.
He reached out and turned it off.
Almost instinctively, as if he didn’t want the sound to carry.
He didn’t want to alert Bruce.
The room fell silent again.
Only his own breathing remained.
He sat up.
There was still a faint sense of disorientation lingering.
He walked to the window and pulled the curtains open.
Light seeped in from outside.
Dawn had just arrived.
Not white.
But a shade close to blue.
Like the eyes in the dream.
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The moment Nora returned to reality, just as her consciousness settled back into her body, her chest suddenly dropped—something massive and heavy was pressing down on her entirely, the weight crushing her breath. She couldn’t inhale. Her lungs felt compressed, as if flattened, her chest unable to expand properly. Her vision darkened briefly, and only one direct thought remained in her mind—
She was suffocating.
She began to struggle reflexively. Both hands pushed forward with all her strength, her shoulders bracing hard, her body twisting to the side. She used nearly every bit of strength she had, her fingertips turning pale, muscles tightening. She didn’t even know how she was generating the force—only that she couldn’t stop. With everything she had, she forced that weight off her, little by little—pushing it, lifting it, prying it away.
Finally.
The weight lifted.
Air rushed back into her lungs.
Her body collapsed to the side, her chest rising and falling violently as she gasped for breath, each inhale large and desperate. Her throat burned with dryness, her heartbeat so fast it made a faint ringing in her ears. Sweat covered her forehead and back, her clothes clinging to her skin. For a moment, she didn’t even have the strength to get up.
She stayed there, breathing.
Letting her breath slowly recover.
Only after the suffocating sensation began to fade did she push herself up, her hands still trembling slightly, her vision finally steady enough to look—
To see what it was.
She lifted her head.
Her gaze fell onto the bed.
Her entire body froze.
Nora’s green eyes widened.
As if something had locked her in place.
She snapped her head to the side, looking at her roommate’s bed.
Empty.
No one there.
Good.
At least they weren’t here.
Slowly, she turned her gaze back.
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On the bed—
The Major.
Motoko Kusanagi.
The elite operative of Public Security Section 9.
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That cyborg body lay there quietly on her bed, almost identical to how it had been in the dream, eyes closed, completely unresponsive. The skin carried a texture that did not belong to a human being, and from the back of her neck extended a thin cable—like some kind of interface, or a connection that had not yet been removed—hanging off the edge of the bed.
The entire scene was too real.
So real it could not be denied.
Nora’s expression completely broke.
She grabbed her hair, fingers digging in, almost as if she were about to tear her scalp off, her mind in chaos.
“…What is this…” she muttered, her voice trembling with suppressed collapse. “What the hell is this…”
She stared at the body.
Then looked again.
Still there.
Not a hallucination.
She closed her eyes once, then opened them.
Still there.
She took a deep breath—
And immediately gave up on trying to stay calm.
“Throw it away, I have to throw it away…” she muttered rapidly, her words speeding up. “This can’t stay here, it absolutely can’t stay here, this is way too much…”
She stood up, then sat down, then stood again, pacing in place, her eyes scanning the room over and over, as if searching for a solution that didn’t exist.
Why was what she brought back this time so big?
Before, it had always been small things.
Keys. Notes. Strange little objects.
Things that could just be shoved into a drawer and ignored.
But this—
This was an entire person.
And not just anyone.
Motoko Kusanagi.
Her hand went back to her hair again. She crouched down, her forehead almost hitting the edge of the bed.
“…Does Tim really like this character that much…” she muttered, her tone carrying a complicated mix of reluctant understanding and complete mental breakdown.
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Alfred was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. The knife made clean, rhythmic sounds against the cutting board. The toast slowly browned inside the oven. The entire space carried the quiet order of a morning just beginning.
Today, unexpectedly, someone appeared early.
He paused slightly in his movement, turning his head to glance at the sky outside. Dawn had just broken, tinged with a faint bluish hue. He took a moment to confirm—
Yes, the sun had indeed risen from the correct direction.
“Good morning, Master Tim. You’re up quite early today. That’s rather rare—I recall you don’t have class today.”
His tone, as always, was steady, with just the right amount of light teasing.
Tim ran a hand through his hair, slightly damp strands slipping through his fingers. He didn’t turn back immediately, only stepping forward a few paces.
“Don’t tease me, Alfred,” he said, his tone still carrying a trace of half-woken casualness.
He walked to the coffee machine, operating it with practiced ease. From the cabinet, he took one of his most frequently used mugs—printed with the words “Best Robin.” He set the cup in place and pressed the button. Coffee began to pour, the dark liquid slowly filling the bottom of the cup, the dripping sound unusually clear in the quiet kitchen.
He stared at it.
As if waiting.
Or as if lost in thought.
The sound fell steadily, drop by drop.
But his mind slowly drifted elsewhere—
To that whisper by his ear in the dream.
Too close.
Alfred watched him.
The man standing before the coffee machine was clearly not just waiting for coffee—there was even a faint, poorly concealed smile on his face.
Alfred raised an eyebrow slightly.
“It seems my young master has encountered something pleasant?”
There was a hint of curiosity in his tone, but no overstepping—just a gentle question placed in passing.
Tim snapped back to himself.
He reached out and picked up the cup.
Steam rose slowly.
He lowered his head slightly and took in the scent.
Familiar.
Bitter.
Warm.
Carrying a clarity that sharpened the mind.
“Perfect,” he murmured, as if confirming something.
Then he looked up at Alfred.
His tone was casual.
“I just had an interesting dream.”
ns216.73.216.217da2
and then Add to home screen.