The Face Behind the Rift

Kael hit the ground with a force that cracked the sky.

But it wasn't ground — it was memory turned solid, a frozen battlefield layered in ash and fractured glass. All around him, the world pulsed like a wounded creature, bleeding moments from a thousand timelines. He groaned, rising to his feet, his limbs heavy with residual temporal distortion.

The wind was silent here. No birds. No stars. Just echoes — distant, hollow cries of versions of him that had died screaming.

He took one step forward—and the battlefield responded, shifting under his weight. From the fog, a figure emerged, tall and poised like a blade.

She wore silver armor that shimmered like tears in moonlight, and her eyes… her eyes were Aeris's. But they were wrong.

Too still.

Too cold.

Too ancient.

"Aeris?" Kael's voice cracked.

"No," she said, voice like cracked porcelain. "I was once. Before I watched you tear apart the timelines to save her — to save your Aeris. Now, I am Nullara."

Kael's blood ran cold.

Nullara stepped forward, lifting her hand. Threads of time unraveled from her fingertips, swirling into sigils that pulsed with dark power.

"I was the Aeris who died when you didn't choose me. The one erased when you fixed your 'mistakes.'" Her lips twisted into a smile that hurt to look at. "But the Rift brought me back. Gave me purpose. Gave me him."

Behind her, the corrupted Kael stepped out of the shadows, a temporal crown blooming above his brow.

"You chose her," Nullara spat. "Now I choose vengeance."

Kael shook his head. "You were never a mistake. I grieved for you—"

"Grief isn't justice," she snapped. "Now I rewrite the end."

The battlefield lit up with glowing runes as timelines collapsed inward. Kael's heart thundered. Every world was about to collapse into one singularity — ruled by Nullara and the Rift King.

Suddenly, a blade of violet light cut through the veil.

Aeris.

Bloodied, bruised, but defiant — she stepped through a tear in time, her boots scorched from the war-torn stream she had escaped. "You'll have to erase me to make that happen."

Nullara's eyes widened — just a flicker of recognition.

And then all three of them were in motion.

Kael leapt forward, colliding with his twisted self. Sparks of timefire lit the sky.

Aeris and Nullara clashed, their auras clashing — destiny against regret.

Time slowed. Then shattered.

And as the battlefield broke apart into fragmented mirror shards—

Kael glimpsed the final future… one where only one of them walks away alive.

Which Aeris will he save? Which Kael will rise? And when timelines break — who becomes the villain, and who becomes the sacrifice?