The One Who Returned

The world was... wrong.

Not broken—no fires, no screams, no anomalies tearing through the sky.

Just quiet.

Too quiet.

Kael stood beneath the glowing skies of the stabilized Nexus, where timelines once bled into each other like oil on water. Now, the skies were still. Clean. Empty. But inside him, chaos surged like a second heartbeat.

His hands trembled as he pressed them against the obsidian mirror standing at the center of the Chrono Core—a monument built after the Paradox War ended. The mirror reflected everything.

Except Aeris.

"She's gone," he whispered. "Gone for good…"

Then why did he feel her?

It wasn't a memory. It wasn't grief. It was something alive, something pulsing just beyond perception.

The mirror flickered.

And there she was.

Aeris.

But not the Aeris who had sacrificed herself. No braid, no soft gaze. This version wore a skin-tight battle suit woven from living metal, etched in shifting runes. Her silver hair was jagged, cropped at her jaw, and her eyes… they weren't green anymore.

They were violet. Burning with stormlight.

"Kael," she said softly, stepping through the mirror like it was made of mist. "You kept the world safe. How sweet."

Kael stepped back. "You're not her. You're—"

"Aeris. Just not your Aeris."

His heart pounded. "Then who are you?"

The air shimmered. Time rippled.

She tilted her head. "The one you left behind. The one who watched you fall in love with her while I rotted in the timeline you abandoned."

The ground cracked beneath her feet—not from power, but from emotion. Fury. Heartache twisted into something weaponized.

Kael's eyes widened. "You're… the Aeris from Timeline Omega."

"Bingo," she smirked, eyes gleaming. "The one you saved… and then forgot."

Suddenly, the sky above them tore open, revealing a scene from her past—a desolate timeline, where Kael died saving civilians while she screamed, helpless. She had clawed through reality, searching for a way back.

But what came back wasn't the girl who loved him.

It was a woman shaped by vengeance, silence, and abandonment.

"I burned every version of myself until I became the one who could survive," she said, stepping closer, her breath cold against his cheek. "And now I want what she stole."

Kael whispered, "My heart?"

"No," she said, eyes glinting. "My future."

Before he could speak, she kissed him—but it wasn't soft. It was desperate, claiming, layered with pain.

Then she pulled away and vanished into the time stream—leaving behind a message burned into the air:

"Meet me at the Last Echo. Or lose me all over again."

Kael staggered back, his fingers brushing his lips, mind racing.

Two Aerises. One who sacrificed herself.And one who returned with vengeance in her veins.

But who was the real threat now?