The sky above the Rift cracked like glass under pressure, bleeding hues of crimson and obsidian. Thunder didn't rumble—it screamed, echoing across realities that had never known sound. In the heart of the shattered multiverse, Kael stood alone, his boots sinking into a surface that wasn't ground but frozen memory—glinting fragments of moments that once mattered.
His breath fogged, not from cold, but from the weight of everything he carried.
Aeris was gone. Again.
But this time… he hadn't lost her to death, to corruption, or to time. No—she had chosen to walk into the Chrono Abyss, sealing the gateway behind her. To protect him. To protect their child. To stop the unnamed force waking in the cracks between timelines.
Kael's fists clenched, veins glowing with streaks of violet as the remnants of timeline essence rippled under his skin. He felt her in every vibration of the universe. Not dead. Not erased.
Hidden.
Suddenly, the sky split with a violet spear of light.
A pulse.
Then another.
Then—her voice.
"Kael... if you're hearing this, it means I've failed. Or... maybe I've given you the only chance we have left."
The voice came not from the air but from inside him. Her memory—encoded in a fragment of Riftlight embedded in his chest. He tore open his coat, fingers trembling, and touched the shard humming against his heart.
The world blurred. The Rift peeled away.
And then he was standing inside her memory.
Aeris. Barefoot on stardust. Hair longer now, loose and wild, eyes no longer glowing but burning. She turned, and even though she wasn't real—not really—his knees nearly buckled. She was beautiful in the way galaxies must look just before they collapse. Tragic. Infinite.
"The Chrono Abyss is more than a prison—it's a mirror. Every version of me... of you... they're alive in here, screaming. I hear them all. Some hate me. Some… envy what we had."
"But I remember one version, Kael. The one where we never met. The one where I never fell for you."
She paused. The memory cracked.
"That version of me died lonely. Powerful. And utterly hollow."
"I won't let that be our fate."
Kael fell to his knees.
This wasn't just a message.
It was a map.
The Riftlight pulsed again, scattering into fractal echoes—coordinates, ancient sigils, keys to a place deeper than the Abyss. A realm beneath unmade time, where the source of the Chrono Abyss waited: The Harrowed One—a being Aeris had discovered but never faced.
Until now.
His vision snapped back.
Kael stood, breathing hard.
"I'm coming," he whispered. "Through every echo, every broken self. I will burn the Harrowed One to dust if that's what it takes."
The Rift around him responded. The world trembled.
And in the distance, cloaked in lightning, a silhouette stepped forward—a figure with Aeris's voice, but eyes like the Abyss.
Not her.
Not exactly.
But something wearing her face.
"Kael," she said softly, "would you kill me... if it meant saving her?"