"I came to offer you something else," he said, voice soft.
He held up the null-parchment.
"A page that was never used. A place where neither of us has to win. Or lose. Or even end."
His mirror stared at it.
His hand twitched.
Not in violence.
In longing.
"I… don't want to fade," the reflection whispered.
"Then don't," Jevan said. "But let's both be something else. Together."
The Core howled.
It rejected this.
A paradox un-resolved?
A question left open?
It surged.
It attacked.
But Jevan stood calm, eyes locked with his double. And together, they pressed their palms to the parchment.
And the paradox…
paused.
Then, impossibly…
…It rewrote itself.
Not into a resolution.
Into a relationship.
A bridge between two incompatible truths.
A living contradiction.
A paradox that no longer needed to be solved, only understood.
And in its center—
Jevan and his echo became one.
Not blended.
Not erased.
But mirrored.
Unified.
By mutual consent.
