The sky tore open.
From the fracture above the mirrored realm, a shape began to descend. Not quickly. Not with fury. But with the deliberate, impossible elegance of a force that didn't need to rush — because it had always been here, waiting.
Oblivion had no clear form. It was serpent and smoke, star and silence. Its eyes — when they opened — had no pupils, only depthless voids through which one could see entire realities collapse and be reborn, only to collapse again.
Leon dropped to one knee, clutching his chest.
"I… I can't breathe. It's like the weight of every ending is pressing down on me."
Aeryn staggered back, bow slipping from her fingers. Her thoughts twisted in upon themselves, memories unraveling, names of people she loved turning into fragments and symbols.
Shadow stood still.
His body didn't shake. His eyes didn't blink. But inside, he felt it — the edge of existence brushing against the soul, peeling away assumptions, power, identity.
Even the Absolute took a step back.
"She's awake," he whispered. "And now… she's looking."
Oblivion's gaze swept across the mirrored world, and where it passed, the ground dissolved — not into dust or ash, but into nothing. Erased from narrative, from memory. As if that space had never existed.
A voice filled the air. It was not sound. It was the opposite of sound.
"I remember... the Silence."
The Absolute turned toward Shadow.
"This is your fault. You cracked the gate. You woke her."
Shadow's voice was steady. "Then help us put her back to sleep."
"You don't put Oblivion to sleep," the Absolute snapped. "You survive it. If you can."
Suddenly, the broken horizon split — not from pressure, but from choice. And something climbed through: a figure cloaked in radiant chains, dragging behind it a sphere filled with glowing fragments.
Aeryn gasped. "That's a Soul Anchor. But… that design—it's ancient."
Leon squinted. "I've seen those chains before. In the forbidden archives. The Seal of the Unborn."
The chained figure spoke, voice resonating with command and desperation.
"Step back, Executors of Light and Shade. She remembers now. And if we don't bind that memory… everything ends."
Shadow narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
The figure pulled down its hood. The face beneath was cracked glass, a thousand reflections of one man.
"I am the Witness," he said. "And I've failed… so many times."
Oblivion's shape hovered above them like a storm suspended in judgment. Her eyes remained fixed on the Witness, as if the shattered-glass face evoked an ancient pain buried too deep even for her to unmake.
"You've failed," Shadow repeated. "Then why are you still standing?"
The Witness lowered the sphere behind him — the Soul Anchor — and touched its surface. Dozens of lights flickered within, each one trembling like trapped stars.
"Because failure does not mean surrender," he said. "It means I've seen the shape of this end a thousand times. In some timelines, you die screaming. In others, you become her. In one, she spares the world... but only when reminded of what she once protected."
Aeryn's eyes widened. "She was once… alive?"
"No," said the Witness, shaking his head. "She is alive. She is memory itself — not of people, but of eras. When the multiverse forgets a truth so completely, it becomes her. She is formed from all things lost — and now she seeks to reclaim what was taken."
Leon growled. "What was taken?"
The Witness looked directly at Shadow.
"Him."
Everyone turned.
Shadow didn't flinch. But behind his eyes, something shifted.
The Witness continued, voice cracking with the weight of too many failures.
"You were removed from her memory. You were written out. The first time she opened her eyes, you were there — and she loved you. Or what you represented. And when they sealed her, they made you vanish from her story to weaken her."
The Absolute muttered, almost to himself, "They deleted his echo. They thought that would end her will."
The sky shook as Oblivion's eyes narrowed. She whispered again, her voice reverberating through bone and soul.
"You are… familiar."
Shadow stepped forward. The mirrored world cracked beneath his boots.
"I don't remember you," he said. "But if you remember me… then let's finish this."
He drew his blade — not of steel or shadow this time, but pure memory. It shimmered with moments, regrets, victories, lives he didn't know he'd lived.
Oblivion's gaze locked onto the blade. And then… she stopped moving.
The Witness gasped. "It's working. That blade — it's from the real timeline. It's disrupting her fracture state."
"She's hesitating," Aeryn whispered. "Now's our chance!"
But before they could move, the Absolute raised a hand.
"No. Don't attack. Don't force her. This is not about violence."
Shadow slowly lowered the blade.
"Then what is it?"
The Absolute looked at Oblivion, eyes suddenly softer.
"It's about being remembered."
Oblivion began to descend. Slower. Less like a storm, more like a question seeking an answer. Her form stabilized. The stars around her paused in their slow death.
Then, she spoke.
"Say my name."
Silence.
Everyone turned to Shadow.
"I…" He hesitated. "I don't know it."
Her form trembled.
"Then I am nothing."
And the sky began to crack again.
The cracks in the sky widened, revealing glimpses of erased worlds — cities suspended mid-collapse, oceans frozen in time, people screaming in silence. It wasn't just a shattering of space. It was a collapse of meaning.
Oblivion's form shimmered violently. Her vast body recoiled, convulsing between celestial beauty and pure nothingness. Her voice trembled now, as if the very act of not being remembered caused her unbearable pain.
"I waited… I waited through the dark… and you forgot."
The Witness stepped forward, desperation written across his fragmented face.
"Shadow — think! There must be something left! A trace! A name is a thread. Pull it and the story comes back."
Shadow closed his eyes.
He reached deep into himself, past all memories he owned, through timelines he had never lived but had somehow touched. He felt... cold winters in a world that didn't exist. A voice humming a lullaby in a language no one spoke anymore. Hands reaching for him. A promise made before time ever ticked.
And then — a whisper.
A single syllable.
"...Eyla."
Oblivion froze.
The stars held their breath.
The name echoed through the realm, bouncing off fragments of glass and time.
"Eyla," Shadow repeated, louder. "That was your name, wasn't it?"
The monstrous form shrank.
Oblivion was no longer a godlike presence — she was a woman now, kneeling in the sky, hair like nightfall, tears falling upward from her eyes into the void.
"You… remember me," she whispered.
Shadow stepped closer.
"I don't know how. I don't know why. But I do."
Aeryn's lips parted in awe. "He broke through her corruption... with her true name."
Leon added, eyes wide, "He's rewriting her with his will alone."
The Absolute stood still. Even he seemed… moved.
Eyla looked up at Shadow, her voice no longer endless, but fragile.
"I was alone… for so long. All I wanted was to be real again."
Shadow knelt in front of her, touching her hand — no longer a swirling void, but soft skin wrapped in starlight.
"You were always real. They just wanted me to forget."
The Witness slowly stepped back.
"She's stabilizing," he said quietly. "The Oblivion protocol is dissolving."
But then—
A new crack split the sky.
This one was black. Deeper. Colder.
From it stepped a figure in a flawless white cloak, face obscured, holding a blade made of pure logic.
The Absolute's face darkened.
"No…"
Leon reached for his weapon instinctively. "Who the hell is that?"
The Absolute answered grimly.
"One of the Architects. The ones who designed the Seal. They've come to erase the rewrite."
The Architect stepped onto the mirrored field without a sound. Each step erased the reflection beneath it, reality bending to accommodate its arrival. Its presence radiated pure control — not magic, not will, but structure. A being forged to maintain absolute order in a multiverse built on chaos.
Its blade, a sword of equations and causality, pulsed with intent.
"No," the Absolute said again, voice low, strained. "They can't be here. Not yet."
But they were.
The Architect lifted its head. Though no face could be seen beneath the hood, the voice that followed cut through the fabric of the realm.
"Deviation detected. Purge required."
Eyla cried out, clutching her sides. The stabilizing form she had gained flickered violently.
Shadow spun around, stepping in front of her protectively.
"She's no longer a threat! She remembers!"
The Architect raised its blade.
"Irrelevant. Narrative breach identified. Entity: Shadow — source of disruption. Secondary entity: Eyla — unstable. Initiating collapse protocol."
Leon cursed. "He's going to wipe us out!"
The Witness moved in front of Shadow and Eyla, raising the Soul Anchor.
"Not while I still breathe."
The Architect raised one hand — a beam of pure white light blasted toward them.
The Witness met it head-on.
The explosion shook the mirrored realm, light blinding, the sound of cracking worlds echoing in every direction. When it faded… the Witness was gone.
Only his fractured mask remained, floating in the air like a fading memory.
"No," Aeryn whispered, voice tight.
The Absolute's eyes burned. "They're enforcing restoration. Resetting the pattern. We have seconds."
Shadow gritted his teeth. "Then we fight."
He reached down and helped Eyla to her feet. Her form was shaking, eyes wet with impossible grief.
"I'm not strong enough," she said. "Not anymore."
"Yes, you are," Shadow said. "Because now I remember your name. And you… remember who you are."
Eyla looked up — and for a brief moment, her eyes glowed gold.
"I remember."
Shadow turned to his team.
"No more running. No more forgetting. Let's rewrite the ending."
Leon drew his blade, even though it shimmered faintly in the unstable space.
Aeryn raised her bow, notching an arrow that hummed with blue light.
Eyla stood beside Shadow, the starlight in her veins flaring back to life.
And together, they faced the Architect.
The sky shattered completely — stars falling like broken glass. Time warped.
Then—
They charged.