Anchor ∞.R6 — The Reversefall
They landed mid-scream.
Not theirs — the world's.
Everything in this Anchor was running backward.
Birds flew tail-first into nests. Rivers returned to glaciers. Explosions un-happened into idle sparks. People cried before breaking their hearts.
And Kael…
…was de-aging.
---
"Something's wrong with me," Kael gasped as his voice cracked higher.
Aren scanned him. "This Anchor is flowing in reverse. We're not meant to exist here in our current state. You're reverting — cell by cell."
Myra acted fast, weaving a temporary chronobubble around the team, anchoring their time direction. It flickered — unstable — but it held.
Ghost Ronin knelt beside a shattered statue and watched it rebuild itself, standing tall moments later.
"Beautiful… and completely screwed."
---
They discovered the cause within hours.
A ruptured bloodline.
In the heart of this Anchor stood a singular child, named Elior, whose very birth had reversed the temporal polarity of the world.
Why?
Because Elior was never meant to be born. His parents died before they met — a paradox-child created by a time heist gone wrong. Now his very existence was reversing causality to try and "correct" itself.
---
Kael approached Elior carefully.
"You're not a mistake," he said gently.
Elior looked up, eyes pure white — windows into yesterday.
"But yesterday never wanted me."
Kael knelt.
"Then maybe we teach time that it doesn't get to choose who deserves to exist."
Behind them, the entire timeline began crashing into reverse overload — turning day to dusk, dusk to dawn, then to non-existence.
Aren shouted over the noise, "If this hits zero… the Anchor will snap backward and delete itself from memory!"
---
Myra acted fast.
"Kael — you learned to speak time in the Tower. Use it."
Kael closed his eyes. Clutched the feeling-clock Tymbré had given him.
Let it tick.
Let it sync with Elior's heartbeat.
And then, in the language of clocks, Kael whispered one thing:
> "Stay."
---
Time flinched.
The reversal slowed.
Not stopped — but questioned.
That was enough.
Kael wrapped Elior in the chrono-bubble and looked into the stream of flowing-back time.
"You're not going to fix yourself by undoing him."
The timeline quivered…
…and began moving forward again.
Not completely. Not perfectly.
But enough for Elior to blink — and finally cry in real time.
---
Anchor ∞.R6 – PARTIALLY RESTORED
New Temporal Constant: Elior (The Reverseborn)
Future Paradox Probability: Delayed
---
Back in the Sanctuary…
Kael stared at the empty clock in his hand.
One number had returned:
12 – Hope.
Myra turned to him. "We've met or destroyed every version of you… but this time, we saved someone else."
Kael nodded. "Time's listening."
Aren leaned in.
"Then let's tell it something it'll never forget."