The air split like glass under pressure.

Kael felt it first—the faint, nauseating drag of time reversing, tugging at his heartbeat. Every breath came out before it went in. His pulse thudded backward.

The gears above them spun faster, light bleeding through their seams. Eira clutched her head, grimacing. "Kael, it's—it's pulling everything!"

He reached for her instinctively, catching her wrist before she slipped toward the pendulum's pull. "Stay close. Don't fight it—just breathe."

"I am breathing!" she snapped, voice trembling more from fear than anger.

"Good," he said through gritted teeth. "Keep doing that. Dying twice in a week is bad for morale."

A faint, disbelieving laugh escaped her, even as the world tilted on its axis. "You really can't shut up, can you?"

"Not while someone needs distracting."

Then the clock struck.

A single note—low, metallic, alive—rolled through the tower. Kael felt it in his teeth, in the marrow of his bones. The sound didn't end—it bent, curling inward like an echo devouring itself.

The walls flickered. The frozen world outside began to move again, but not forward. Farmers unscattered their seeds. The baker's flour leapt back into the bowl. Laughter rewound into silence.

Eira's voice dropped to a whisper. "It's undoing itself…"

Kael stared up at the gears, eyes wide. "No. It's remembering."

---

Outside, Jorah stumbled out of the inn's shadow, eyes wide as he watched the air warp. The town wasn't just moving backward—it was unexisting. Buildings shrank. Trees ungrew. The cobblestone beneath his feet smoothed into dirt.

"Kael! Eira!" he shouted, but his voice warped, echoing out of order.

No response. Just the relentless tick, tick, tick that was now coming from every direction.

Jorah cursed under his breath, grabbed his staff, and sprinted toward the clocktower—only to slam face-first into a barrier of solid light. It rippled around him like water, humming faintly with power.

"Of course." He pounded on it, grimacing. "Of course you'd leave me out of the apocalyptic fun, you smug bastard!"

He could barely see them through the haze—two silhouettes framed in pulsing gold.

Jorah took a step back, exhaled, and muttered, "Alright, Kael. Guess it's my turn to save you for once."

---

Inside, Kael was fighting to stay upright. Every second now, the tower shuddered with memories—echoes of the countless timelines folding in on themselves. He saw flashes: battles he never fought, worlds he never built, faces he'd forgotten smiling, crying, dying.

Eira saw it too. She staggered toward him, catching his arm. "Kael! Focus on me!"

He did. Her face was the only fixed point in a world unspooling.

Her voice cut through the chaos. "What do we do?"

"Destroy the core," he said automatically.

"Which is?"

Kael tilted his head toward the pendulum, which now glowed with molten light. "That."

"Of course," she muttered. "Always something that wants to kill us."

They moved together, step by step, through a storm of light and memory. The air buzzed with whispers—voices of everyone they'd ever lost, looping fragments of the past like ghosts desperate to be noticed.

> "Kael…"

"Don't leave…"

"You promised…"

Eira's hand trembled against his. "Do you hear them?"

"Yeah." He forced a grin. "Ignore them. They're dramatic."

"Like you."

He glanced at her. "You saying I'm dramatic?"

She smirked faintly, even through the shaking. "Just a little."

The teasing broke something in the tension—a sliver of normal in the chaos. For a heartbeat, the ticking slowed.

Then Kael stepped up to the pendulum.

It wasn't metal anymore. It was light—condensed time, spinning in lazy circles. He could see his own reflection in it, but not as he was now. He saw versions of himself—young, old, broken, crowned, lost. A thousand Kaels staring back.

Eira whispered, "What are they?"

"Every mistake," he said quietly. "Every version of me that tried to make things right and failed."

She touched his shoulder gently. "Then maybe it's time to forgive them."

That simple phrase cut deeper than any blade. Kael looked back at her—eyes bright, steady despite the collapsing world.

"You always say things like that at the worst possible moment," he murmured.

"It's one of my charms."

He couldn't help but smile, small and real.

Then he raised his hand and pressed it to the pendulum.

The world screamed again.

Light erupted, searing through his veins. He saw the Chrono Blade—not shattered, not whole—but hovering in the light like an echo refusing to fade.

Eira's voice was faint. "Kael!"

He turned toward her. Time itself seemed to hold its breath between them. Her hair lifted in the golden wind, her hand half-reaching for him. For a moment—just one—he thought about all the times he'd avoided feeling anything.

"Eira…"

The word barely left his lips before the pendulum cracked.

Everything exploded outward in waves of white.

---

Outside, Jorah saw it happen. The barrier fractured, blinding him. He threw an arm up just as the clocktower imploded silently—no rubble, no sound, just light pouring upward like a sunrise made of fire.

When he opened his eyes again, the town was gone. Not destroyed—just gone. Nothing but empty field where it once stood.

He spun around. "Kael? Eira?"

Silence.

Then—a cough.

He turned, and there they were.

Kael, lying flat on his back in the grass, staring at the sky like he was trying to decide if it was real. Eira beside him, blinking against the light.

Jorah let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "You absolute maniac. You broke time again, didn't you?"

Kael grinned weakly. "Define 'broke.'"

Eira elbowed him lightly. "He saved us."

"Technically," Jorah muttered. "Or doomed us creatively. Hard to tell with him."

Kael sat up slowly, wincing. The field stretched endlessly around them. No sign of the town. No ticking. Just quiet.

Too quiet.

Eira noticed it too. "Where… are we?"

Kael looked out across the horizon. The air shimmered faintly, like heat haze, except there was no sun. Just a diffuse glow from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"I think," he said softly, "we're between."

"Between what?" Jorah asked.

Kael looked down at his hand. The Chrono Blade's hilt was there—flickering in and out of existence.

"Between the end," he said, "and whatever comes next."

Eira's eyes met his. For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. There was something fragile and unspoken in that look—relief, fear, and something else they both pretended not to name.

Jorah sighed loudly. "Alright, lovebirds, can we figure out how to get out before one of you starts confessing feelings in the void?"

Eira rolled her eyes. "You'd ruin a moment even at the dawn of creation."

"Someone has to," Jorah shot back.

Kael laughed—soft, genuine. It felt like the first real sound in ages.

"Let's go," he said finally. "If the universe is rebuilding, we might as well be around to annoy it."

He stood, brushed off the grass, and started walking toward the horizon—where light gathered like a pulse waiting to begin again.

And for the first time in what felt like eternity, none of them looked back.

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