The bullet missed her by inches, burying itself into a rusted pillar behind her. Aeris ducked, the air thick with electricity and disbelief.
"I'm not your enemy," she shouted.
But this Kael didn't listen.
This Kael moved like a machine—sharp, precise, without the wild heart she knew. His metal arm shimmered with built-in Rift tech, a brutal upgrade she'd never seen. This was a Kael forged for war, not love.
"You breached classified temporal ground," he growled, advancing.
"This reality is under Protocol Hades. Anomalies are to be eliminated."
Aeris backed up, her heart splitting.
He didn't recognize her. Not even a flicker.
And somehow, that hurt more than if he had tried to kill her out of hate.
The Spark watched from the fractured edges of the Rift, her voice threading into Aeris's thoughts.
"You loved him across every version. But what happens when he doesn't love you? When he sees you as threat instead of tether?"
Aeris turned inward, gathering her memory—a power deeper than weaponry. She summoned her Echoform, a translucent projection of her true timeline self. The vision of her wrapped around Kael's name like a forgotten vow.
"I remember us," she whispered.
She pushed the Echoform toward him like a flare—an offering, a scream, a memory sacrifice.
It hit Kael square in the chest.
And for one breathless second…
…he froze.
Images flooded him—flashbacks not his: dancing in the gravity fields of Ion-Vale, kissing beneath collapsing stars, holding her when their world ended.
He dropped the gun.
"Aeris?" he gasped, staggered. "Why do I know that name?"
She reached for him, tears in her eyes.
"Because even if they rewrote you a thousand times, I never stopped loving you."
But something was wrong.
His eyes went glassy. His body flickered.
Then the Spark screamed:
"Pull back! This isn't your Kael! This one was a ghost construct—a memory trap!"
Aeris felt it too late. The memory she'd given him was being ripped from her, absorbed by the Rift.
Not just that memory—others. All the moments she'd stored away in her soul like sacred keepsakes.
The first time he kissed her.The way he held her hand during collapse.His laugh in the face of paradox.
Gone.
"No—no, stop!" she screamed, trying to close the link.
But the Rift was hungry.
And Aeris realized the true cost of these trials.
Each Kael she tried to reach would cost her more.
More of him.More of herself.
She collapsed to her knees, the Echoform shattering.
The Spark knelt beside her, unfeeling.
"This Rift doesn't just remember. It feeds on memory. It only returns what you're willing to bleed."
Aeris looked up, shaking.
"If I lose all my memories of him… what's the point?"
The Spark tilted her head.
"Then you must ask yourself… was it love? Or was it just a beautiful lie you refuse to forget?"
The world went dark again.
And the next shard opened.