The walls of the white room pulsed like the inside of a heartbeat.
Kael sat motionless on the edge of a curved, metallic bench, staring at the girl in front of him—no older than twelve, with storm-gray eyes too ancient for her age and hair like starlight threaded with shadows.
"Say it again," he rasped.
The girl tilted her head, her voice soft but sure.
"You're my father."
Kael shook his head slowly, heartbeat thundering in his ears.
"That's impossible. I would've remembered. I never had a child."
"Not yet. But you will. You already did." She stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back like a little soldier. "Mom always said you never liked linear time."
A console flickered behind her—dozens of fractured timelines streamed like veins across a curved screen. Kael rose to his feet, slowly circling her. His instincts screamed to scan for illusions, traps, mental projections.
But her presence was real.
Too real.
"Who's your mother?" he asked.
"You know the answer," she said. "But you're afraid to say it."
Kael's breath hitched. The answer clawed up from his gut like a scream.
"Aeris…"
The girl nodded.
"You loved her. You still do. And after the Rift Wars ended, you tried to build something that would last. Me."
Kael's knees gave out. He sat heavily, staring at his hands like they belonged to a stranger.
"I wasn't built to last. I was made for war."
"So was I." Her voice cracked for the first time. "But war finds us anyway."
Suddenly, sirens blared across the white chamber. The timeline interface behind her turned blood-red. A single word flashed:
NULL BREACH DETECTED.
"They found us," the girl whispered. "She found me."
Scene Shift: Aeris – Time Abyss
Aeris fell through a hallway of shattering realities. Each shard showed a version of herself:
One crowned Empress, burning worlds with a flick of her hand.
One curled in a corner, broken and bloodied.
One kissing Kael in a sun-drenched field.
Then—impact.
She slammed into a crystalline ground with a grunt, rising to find herself standing in a courtroom made of mirrors.
At the center sat Null, cloaked in regal darkness, her eyes burning like dying suns.
"Welcome home," Null purred.
Aeris's pulse spiked.
"You died. I watched you fall."
"Did I?" Null gestured to the courtroom. "Or did you simply bury me so deep you forgot where the rot began?"
The mirrors around Aeris began to flicker—showing moments she never remembered:
Her killing Kael.
Her standing beside the Architect.
Her whispering commands to a broken army of paradox-born.
"These aren't real," Aeris hissed.
"They are possible," Null whispered. "And one of them will happen. Unless you make the right choice this time."
A black blade formed in Null's hand—shaped like Aeris's old chronosword but pulsing with reversed entropy.
"I'm giving you mercy," Null said, offering the hilt. "Kill the Kael who breaks the future. Kill your love—save your daughter."
Aeris froze.
"Daughter…?"
"Oh, Aeris." Null smiled like a dagger unsheathed."You really thought you could change fate… without creating something worse?"
Scene Shift: Kael – Collapsing Timeline Facility
The walls began to melt around Kael and the girl. Sirens grew distorted, like whales screaming underwater.
"What's your name?" Kael asked, grabbing her hand as the console exploded behind them.
"Lyra," she said. "Lyra Sol Aren-Kael."
"Named after…?"
"Both of you. I'm proof you won, Dad. That love wasn't a weakness."
The ceiling split, revealing a storm of black strings—Null's temporal corruption.
Kael pulled Lyra close.
"Then let's win again."
A final red flash appeared in the sky above:
Architect Ascending. Paradox Core Active.