The Rift Nexus

The tunnel stretched before them, dark and pulsing with a sickly glow beneath its surface. The walls no longer felt like concrete or metal but something else entirely—smooth yet rigid, like a living nerve system encased in stone. The further they walked, the heavier the air became. A low, vibrating hum filled the space, barely perceptible but enough to set Leon's teeth on edge.

Kael walked ahead, his pace casual, hands resting lightly at his sides as if he had no reason to be tense. His golden eyes flicked toward Leon every so often, like a predator keeping tabs on its prey. Leon kept his guard up, his fingers twitching near the Temporal Regulator at his belt, but he knew better than to make the first move. Not here. Not yet.

Selene matched Kael's pace, but where he moved with arrogant ease, she was all sharp edges. Her shoulders were squared, her steps precise, every movement measured.

Mira's voice crackled softly in Leon's earpiece.

"I'm still tracking you, but your signals are starting to—shit. Hold on."

Leon frowned. "What is it?"

"Something's interfering with your chrono signatures. It's subtle, but it's there. I don't like this, Leon."

He exhaled slowly. "Neither do I."

Kael smirked. "You two whispering sweet nothings back there?"

Selene shot him a glare, but Leon ignored him. "Where are you taking us?"

Kael chuckled. "Relax, Chronos. We're almost there."

The tunnel suddenly opened into a vast underground chamber, its ceiling lost in darkness. Jagged platforms of obsidian-like stone jutted from the ground in irregular patterns, their surfaces veined with glowing lines of energy—the unmistakable blue-white pulse of temporal distortion.

In the center of the chamber stood the Rift Nexus.

Leon felt his breath hitch.

It wasn't a machine, at least not in any conventional sense. It was a mass of shifting, translucent structures, endlessly folding and unfolding upon themselves, like a broken prism caught in an eternal loop of motion. Fragments of time swirled within its core—distorted images blinking in and out of existence. He caught glimpses of places that no longer existed, faces frozen in lost moments, echoes of conversations never spoken.

"Leon…" Mira's voice barely registered. "That thing isn't just distorting time. It's feeding off of it."

Kael turned, watching Leon's reaction with something between amusement and curiosity. "Impressive, isn't it?"

Leon barely heard him. His heart was pounding against his ribs. The energy radiating from the Nexus wasn't just affecting time—it was alive. It pulsed in sync with something deep inside him, something familiar.

Something he had felt before.

"Leon, get away from it."

Mira's voice sounded far away.

"Now."

Leon staggered forward before he even realized he was moving.

And then—

The Nexus reacted.

A ripple of energy rushed outward, slamming into his chest like a phantom force. He gasped, his vision fracturing. The chamber around him twisted, snapping in and out of focus.

Selene shouted his name, but her voice was distant, fragmented.

Kael moved—his body lagging between frames, his smirk vanishing for the first time.

The Nexus dragged Leon in.

For a single, horrifying moment, he wasn't in the chamber anymore.

He was—

Somewhere else.

A ruined city under a sky split open with jagged streaks of energy. Buildings suspended mid-collapse, frozen between destruction and preservation. Figures trapped in loops of time, their bodies flickering between seconds.

And then—

A voice.

Soft. Familiar.

"Leon…?"

He turned.

And there she was.

Lira.

She stood at the edge of the distortion, her green eyes wide, her form flickering like a half-finished thought. Her face was younger than he remembered—fifteen, just as she had been the last time he saw her, before—

Before she died.

Leon's chest seized. "Lira…?"

She took a step forward. Her movement glitched—her body snapping from one position to another in the blink of an eye.

"You have to leave."

Her voice was layered, as if multiple versions of her were speaking at once.

"They know you're here."

The world lurched.

Leon was yanked backward—ripped out of the vision so violently that he collapsed to the chamber floor, gasping for air.

Selene was kneeling beside him, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

"Leon!" Her face was sharp with concern, her usually cold gray eyes burning with something dangerously close to fear. "What the hell just happened?"

Leon struggled to sit up. His entire body felt like it had been stretched across multiple timelines and violently slammed back together.

He turned to the Nexus, and his blood ran cold.

It was stabilizing.

That wasn't supposed to happen. The Rift Nexus was a constantly shifting anomaly, never settling on a single form. But now, its structure was solidifying, folding into a single fixed state.

And then, with a sickening realization, he understood.

The Nexus had reacted to him.

It had recognized him.

Kael swore under his breath. "What the hell did you do, Chronos?"

Leon pushed himself to his feet, his pulse hammering. "I saw her."

Selene's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

He swallowed, his throat dry. "Lira. She's alive."

The silence that followed was heavy, pressing down on all of them. Even Kael—who had spent the entire night smirking and throwing barbs—looked momentarily taken aback.

Selene's fingers tightened slightly on his arm. "Leon… are you sure?"

He met her gaze. "She warned me. Someone knows we're here."

Kael exhaled through his teeth, running a hand through his silver hair. "Shit."

Leon turned back to the Nexus, his reflection flickering across its surface like a thousand possible versions of himself.

Whoever—or whatever—was behind this, they had just made one thing very clear.

This wasn't just about Chrono Corp anymore.

Someone else was watching.

Waiting.

And Lira was the key.