The silence in the ruined cathedral was thick—like the air before a thunderclap.
Kael stared at the man in front of him. The same face. The same stance. But everything else…
Off.
The eyes that mirrored his own were hollow, like black holes carved from centuries of regret. Scars mapped the right side of his face like lightning burned into skin. His jacket was shredded, the crest of the Rift Vanguard barely visible, caked with ash.
Future Kael stepped forward, boots crunching over shards of broken stained glass.
"I used to dream about this moment," he said, voice low, gravel-thick. "A version of me untouched by the burden. Still whole."
Kael held his ground, confusion and fury boiling under the surface. "Who are you really?"
The older man chuckled bitterly. "The you that survived when Aeris didn't."
Kael flinched.
"I've seen the collapse," Future Kael continued. "I've lived through it. Timeline after timeline, all unraveling the same way. We try to save her. We fight the Architect. We believe in love. And every time, it ends the same."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Not this time."
"You're wrong," Future Kael snapped. "This is the last iteration. The Final Fork. There's no do-over left. No Timekey can rewind what comes next. The Future Architect—your corrupted daughter from the Rift's final breath—will devour everything."
He stepped forward again. "Unless we erase the source."
Kael's blood ran cold. "You mean Aeris?"
The older version didn't blink. "Her DNA is the anchor point. She's the key the Architect used to write herself into eternity. If she dies now—before the convergence—the chain breaks. The future never forms."
Kael stared at him, heart pounding.
"That's murder."
"That's mercy," Future Kael said, voice trembling for the first time. "You don't know what it's like. Watching her die a thousand different ways. Hearing her beg you to end it. Realizing you're the reason she became the Architect."
Kael staggered back as if struck.
The broken windows flickered—images forming in the glass like ghost reflections.
—Aeris screaming in a crumbling lab.
—Kael cradling her burnt body in a field of white sand.
—A version of Aeris morphing into the Architect, eyes glowing, her voice no longer human.
Kael gasped.
"Stop," he whispered.
"You still think you can save her," the older Kael murmured. "But you'll only damn her. You'll make the same mistake I did."
Kael's fists curled. "You don't get to decide that. She's not your Aeris. She's mine."
Future Kael's expression shifted—somewhere between pity and anger.
Then he drew his weapon.
A blade forged of crystalline time energy. It shimmered with every moment of their shared existence—first laughter, shared pain, stolen kisses, blood and betrayal.
"She won't suffer if I do it," he said.
Kael's heart exploded in his chest.
But before he could move, the air fractured again—and she appeared.
Aeris.
Not the corrupted version. Not the Architect.
His Aeris.
Blood streaked her face. Her breathing was ragged. Her body looked burned by the time jump. But her eyes locked onto him—and something inside Kael realigned.
She ran forward, crashing into him with desperate arms, like gravity itself had waited to pull them together.
"You're here," she whispered, trembling. "You're really here."
Kael held her close, his fingers weaving into her hair. "Always."
But the moment shattered.
Aeris' eyes widened—too late.
Future Kael moved like lightning—his blade thrusting forward—
Straight toward her heart.
Kael spun around, throwing his entire weight between the strike and Aeris.
The blade pierced flesh.
But not hers.
Kael gasped, pain exploding through his side as the blade slid deep into his ribs.
"No!" Aeris screamed, catching him as he staggered.
The older Kael stood frozen, eyes wide with shock and… horror.
"I—I didn't mean—" he whispered, stepping back.
Kael gritted his teeth, blood pouring from the wound, hand pressed against it. "You... always were me... too stubborn to see the truth."
Aeris touched his face, tears streaking her cheeks. "Stay with me. Don't you dare leave me, Kael."
He smiled weakly. "Wouldn't dream of it."
The older Kael looked down at the blood on his blade. His own blood. His own mistake.
"I… remember this," he whispered, voice cracking. "This is the moment I became him."
He dropped the blade.
A bright pulse lit the cathedral—the Timekey, glowing anew, reacting to the paradox.
Future Kael looked at them, eyes full of grief. "I failed to save her. But maybe I can save you."
He raised his hands—and vanished into light.
The Timekey pulsed again.
Kael collapsed into Aeris' arms.
Everything around them began to tremble. The glass exploded outward, the architecture distorting into fractals of reality. They were being pulled into the convergence point.
Aeris held the Timekey in one hand. Kael's blood in the other.
"I have to make the jump," she whispered.
Kael barely nodded. "Find the core. Stop the final collapse."
Their eyes met—pure, endless love forged in catastrophe.
Aeris kissed him.
Then hit the Timekey.
The world exploded in light.
Aeris is now alone, flung into the heart of the collapsed timelines, where the Architect's true core sleeps. But it isn't what she expects—because within the Architect's core is a piece of her own soul, still trapped in a memory she never lived.
What is the secret the Architect has hidden deep within Aeris' forgotten past—and why is it rewriting reality itself?