The obsidian skies above the Twilight Verge had never known dawn, yet tonight, something stirred—an ancient pulse, older than the Rift itself. Kael stood at the edge of a crumbling bridge woven from glowing veins of stardust, suspended between two colliding timelines. Behind him, fragments of memory swirled like echoes in a forgotten canyon. Ahead, the temple of the Aeon Mirror shimmered with impossible light—its spires spiraling in reverse, folding in and out of time.
He wasn't alone.
Aeris walked beside him, silent, her expression unreadable. The veil of calm she wore was fraying, and Kael could feel the dissonance in her presence—a current pulsing in two directions at once.
She'd barely spoken since the last battle with the Chrono Splicers. Since they lost Dray.
"Do you know what this place is?" Kael asked, his voice raw against the silence.
Aeris didn't answer at first. Then, in a whisper, "This is where I ended. And began. The first time."
Kael halted. "What?"
She turned to him, her eyes no longer glowing with chaotic fire—but reflecting pure mirrors. "The Mirror doesn't just show truth. It remembers it."
The temple doors creaked open, not by force, but by recognition. Kael stepped through with her into a chamber that defied reality. Infinity looped across the ceiling; stars blinked beneath their feet. Suspended in the center, spinning slowly, was the Aeon Mirror—a disk of polished time itself. As they approached, it reacted.
A vision burst forth.
Not a reflection. A revelation.
Kael saw Aeris—millennia older—standing alone in a shattered realm beyond existence. Her hair white, her face etched with timeless pain, her hands covered in the ash of entire worlds. She wept as she split herself into thousands of shards—creating the timelines they now fought to save.
"If I remain whole," future-Aeris said to no one, "everything ends. But if I scatter… maybe they'll find the right path."
Another vision followed—Aeris whispering into the heart of Kael's mind during the first Rift decision. It wasn't fate. It wasn't chance. She had planted the seed. He never had a choice.
Kael staggered back. "You… you made me choose to break the timeline."
"I had to," Aeris said, trembling. "The Ember was going to erase everything. There was no time left. So I became the Rift. I became the chaos. I guided you without knowing I was guiding you. Each version of me was a lock. You… were the key."
Kael's world spun. "You… You're the reason for all of this. The Veil. Null. Vaelen. The Echo. The Morning That Never Was. You were behind it all—trying to fix your own mistake."
"I was the mistake." Her voice cracked. "I was born to end time. But I loved you. That changed everything. Even if it hurt everything else."
Tears welled in Kael's eyes. The woman he fought for—loved—was not a victim of fate. She was its architect.
And worse—she had hidden it.
"I needed you to choose me," she said, stepping closer, voice trembling. "Not because I made you. But because… despite everything… you still wanted to."
The Aeon Mirror pulsed, fracturing into seven shards—each a timeline where Kael had made a different choice. In some, Aeris died. In others, she conquered. In one, Kael became Null.
But in only one timeline did they still stand together.
And that was this one.
Kael's hand trembled. "If you're the cause, how do we end it?"
"You don't," she whispered. "You accept it. You accept me."
A quake rocked the temple. The Mirror began to splinter.
Suddenly, a shadow peeled itself from the void—a version of Aeris with void-black eyes and crimson wings: The Final Fracture. The last remnant of the Aeris who tried to keep time unbroken—now twisted into a god of paradox.
"There are no happy endings," it snarled, hovering above the broken mirror. "Only loops that haven't closed yet."
Kael looked between the Aeris he loved and the one born of fear. He finally understood.
This wasn't a war of timelines.
It was a war within her.
And now, only one Aeris could remain.