Kael staggered back as the figure stepped into the light—his own face twisted into something both divine and monstrous.
Where Kael wore pain like armor, this version wore it like a crown.
His eyes gleamed not with empathy, but entropy.
His voice was Kael's—but smoother, colder. "Strange, isn't it? How every path eventually leads to me."
Aeris stood at Kael's side, her stance tense, one wing poised defensively. "What are you?"
"I am the outcome you abandoned," the figure said. "The version of you that did not doubt, did not hesitate, did not fail. I killed Null. I inherited his throne. I became the convergence."
The Time Vault trembled. The Forgotten Heart, once a radiant symbol of choice, pulsed erratically in Kael's hand.
A mirror cracked on the wall behind the corrupted Kael—revealing glimpses of other realities. In one, Kael ruled over ash-covered cities. In another, Aeris was chained beside his throne. And in all of them, the light had died long ago.
"You're not me," Kael said, voice firm.
"No," the reflection replied. "I'm what you could have been if you chose perfection over people. Logic over love."
He drew a blade made of fractured timelines, serrated with regrets. "And I am the only Kael that can save tomorrow."
Without warning, he lunged.
Kael met the strike, steel-on-steel, the impact exploding into shards of displaced seconds. Around them, the Time Vault fractured like glass dropped from eternity's table. Each blow sent the surrounding mirrors flashing—alternate versions of their battle, looping, rewinding, breaking.
Aeris joined, her energy weaving in and out of Kael's rhythm like starlight. She targeted the fracture points in the reflection's armor, forcing him to adapt—but he didn't bleed. He remembered.
Every attack they used, he countered—because he had once made those very choices.
"You can't beat yourself," he sneered, pinning Kael to the cracked vault wall. "You can't outfight destiny."
But Kael wasn't trying to fight.
He was remembering.
A moment. A look. A name.
"Aeris," he whispered, eyes locking with hers. "That's what he doesn't have. He's alone."
Aeris's expression hardened. "Then let's remind him what love changes."
She unleashed her power—not as a weapon, but as a connection. A tether. Her aura reached into the shattered mirrors, waking the dormant versions of Kael who had chosen love. Who had chosen to change.
From every reflection, those Kaels turned—not toward destruction, but unity.
And the corrupted Kael faltered.
"No—no! I severed those ties! I ascended!"
But it was too late.
Kael stepped forward, unarmed. "You're not my enemy. You're my wound. And I'm ready to heal you."
He extended his hand.
The corrupted Kael shrieked, the final vestiges of his power burning in a storm of broken time. The mirrors cracked fully—then dissolved.
Silence fell.
Then—
A hum.
The Forgotten Heart floated between them, whole. Pure.
And for the first time since the journey began, it accepted them.
Not for who they could be.
But for who they chose to become.
Kael turned to Aeris, breathing hard. "We're not done."
"No," she whispered. "Now the real battle begins."
The Time Vault began to reconstruct itself—not as a prison, but as a beacon.
Somewhere, far away, Dray awakened from his exile. Veyra felt the shift in the cosmic tide.
And deep in the void, something even darker than Null… opened its eyes.