—Some things are too broken to unbreak. Others were never whole to begin with.
Location: The Verge — Centerpoint of Unwritten Time
Kael stood in a void that didn't echo. Not because it was empty — because it refused to acknowledge sound at all.
He was alone.
Or… he should've been.
A figure stood in the distance, pale as ash, cloaked in unraveling threads of golden time-light. Its face was smooth. No eyes. No mouth. But Kael knew it.
He was it.
This was the God That Forgot Itself — the end state of any Chrono-Splice user who lost their identity while walking the Verge too long.
A warning.
Or a prophecy.
Or both.
"You took too much," the entity whispered without moving."You forgot too well. Now you are the debt."
Kael stepped back. "I didn't ask to be this—"
"You asked to forget. That is the same thing."
The Verge cracked. Reality bent around Kael's spine. Every breath pulled pieces of broken futures into his lungs. He saw…
Lira, curled in an alley, stabbing herself to anchor her remaining time to her heartbeat.
Finn, whispering to a relic that wasn't awake yet, begging it to lie for him.
Aelira, watching a timeline where Kael kissed her before she betrayed him.
All the paths. All the possibilities.
They screamed in unison.
Flashback Surge: Kael's First Reset (10 years ago)
"You will forget your name," the Clocktower Elders had said."And the world will forget what you were supposed to destroy."
But Kael wasn't supposed to forget everything.
Especially not her.
Aeris.His first bond.His first anchor.The first person the Epithet Engine erased.Because he fed her name to it — willingly.
"Take her," he had begged."If it stops the timeline collapse, take her. Erase her. Even from me."
And it had.
Now he understood:
Kael had killed his own god.To buy a future that would only destroy him in return.
Scene: Cult of the First Timeline — Echo Core Reactor Chamber
The acolytes swayed as the Epithet Engine activated.
One name per beat.One soul erased.The world beginning to warp around the growing void.
They chanted:
"No beginning. No end. All returns to the first breath."
Until something cut through the chant.
A sword of static time.Held by a girl made of splinters and rage.
Lira.
Alive.Wounded.And carrying her dead sister's timeprint, etched into her skin like a brand.
"You erased her. But I remember.""And you don't get to unwrite me."
She raised Oathbreaker — now fused with Elene's echo — and cut the chant in half.
Acolytes screamed.
Time bled.
But it wasn't enough.
Final Scene: Kael vs. The Forgotten God (Within the Verge)
Kael faced himself.Or the version that time had turned into a grave of identity.
"You were supposed to end the timeline," the God rasped."You chose to loop it. You chose pain."
Kael gritted his teeth. "I chose people."
His hand tightened on Rustbrand.
"I'm not the reset. I'm the reminder."
He plunged the blade into his own chest.
Time shattered.
The Verge howled.
And Kael — for one moment — became everyone he had ever been.
All his memories returned.
So did his sins.
And with them, a new ability unlocked.