The metallic walls of Sub-Level 3 trembled under the tension as Serin stood across from Jae-Won, the silence between them sharp enough to draw blood. They had faced monsters, betrayal, and time itself — but this moment cut deeper than any of it.
Serin didn't reach for her weapon. She didn't need to. Her voice alone carried the weight of a thousand buried truths.
"You're not the only one who lost everything, Jae-Won."
His jaw tightened. The glitches around his arms pulsed erratically — time flickering in shards, trying to respond to his fractured emotions.
"You lied to me," he said, stepping forward. "You made me believe you cared—made me believe we were in this together."
"I did care," Serin whispered. "That's why I did it."
Jae-Won paused, mid-step. His expression hardened. "That's not an answer. That's an excuse."
Serin's eyes flickered with something old — not guilt, but a pain that had clearly festered for too long. She walked toward a broken console embedded in the wall. It buzzed with dying sparks, its surface cracked like the trust between them.
"Do you remember the mission to Gwanak Archives?" she asked quietly.
Jae-Won did. They had infiltrated the ruins of the Timekeeper facility, a relic from the Lost Era. It was the first time his glitch had nearly killed them both.
"There was a file there," she continued. "One we never shared with the rest of the squad. It was classified—locked behind chrono-encryption."
Jae-Won's eyes narrowed. "You decrypted it?"
Serin nodded. "I decrypted it after you were taken by Aether Corps. I had to know why your ability… felt different. Why time itself responded to you."
The glitch surged around him now, lashing at the air. "And?"
Her gaze didn't waver. "Because you weren't chosen by accident. You're not just a byproduct of tech gone wrong, Jae-Won. You were designed. The Glitch Protocol was a failsafe — a prototype created by the original Chrono Engineers. You're not the hero of this story. You're the weapon."
Jae-Won felt the ground shift beneath him, as if time had staggered. "You knew all this… and you used me anyway?"
"I thought I could stop it," she said. "I thought if I got close, I could redirect the outcome. But the more I saw you evolve, the more I realized I couldn't. I didn't betray you to hurt you. I betrayed you… to try and save you."
He stared at her, every memory now dripping with doubt.
"Why didn't you just tell me the truth?"
"Because the truth would've broken you. And because I didn't want you to know that I was ordered to eliminate you after your third temporal surge."
Silence.
Jae-Won didn't move. The glitch slowed, folding inward, like it too was stunned.
"You came back in time," she said, stepping closer. "But I wonder if you ever considered what I would've done with a second chance."
A tear slid down her cheek, catching the glow of his glitch as it shimmered faintly between them.
Jae-Won looked away. "Then maybe this time… you tell me everything. No lies. No orders. Just truth."
Serin took a breath. "Then you'd better be ready for what comes next. Because the glitch inside you? It's waking up. And it doesn't just bend time. It devours it."
She handed him a data chip. "This will tell you everything. The origin of the Glitch Protocol. The ones who created it. And what they plan to do with you… again."
Jae-Won looked down at the chip.
And for the first time since returning from the dead, he didn't feel rage.
He felt terror.