Blue fire crackled at the edge of perception—winking first in the corner of Rudra's vision, then seething, bold, and unstoppable. The scorched multiverse battleground shuddered with the surge, as if all of reality itself took in a breath. Rudra staggered to his feet, heart thundering. Across the field of ruin, Kaaldev faltered, the staff of broken timelines suddenly heavy in his fist.
From the core of the rift, a new figure emerged—at first a silhouette, then, shape by shape, someone achingly familiar. At once impossibly old and heartbreakingly young, the figure seemed to shimmer between all possible selves. Her long hair floated in an invisible tide; her sari shimmered with every color of the cosmos.
"Savitri," Kaaldev hissed. His words rang with both fury and dread.
Rudra's breath caught. "Mother—?"
She stepped forward, blue fire trailing from her palms, her presence bending the flow of time itself. "Kaaldev, breaker of cycles, thief of futures. You have trespassed too far."
Kaaldev's eyes narrowed, fear and hubris wrestling in his gaze. "You are a remnant, a footnote! I have erased you in a thousand timelines!"
Savitri's smile was gentle, sad, and inexorable. "And yet, in every timeline, love leaves a mark that cannot be unwritten."
Kaaldev struck—his staff cracked open the earth, flinging the last remaining corrupted and rakshasas at her. Savitri raised her hand and space itself twisted; the creatures burned away in coils of blue fire, their echoes spinning harmlessly into the void.
"Mother, are you—real?" Rudra whispered.
Her gaze softened as she turned to him. "This moment is real, my son. And so are the choices you still carry. I am here because you dared hope beyond the end."
A cry of rage erupted as Kaaldev lashed out at Savitri, spinning his staff in wild, desperate arcs. With each pass, the world fractured—night became day, rain became fire, and ruins rebuilt only to shatter again. But Savitri countered with equal force, every gesture weaving light into the cracks.
Rudra, barely standing, felt the pendant pulse, drawing from his mother's impossible strength. He looked around—the battlefield was littered with the lost: Bunty's form, MG and Jessica's looping sacrifice, Roohi's stillness. All his allies, broken by the weight of eternity.
Rudra's heart begged for despair, but Savitri's words echoed: *Love leaves a mark.* He focused, channeling every memory, every bond, into the pendant. The blue fire responded, swelling with the sum of his grief and love.
The sky split as Kaaldev summoned his final weapon—a chain of time, binding past, present, and all futures, seeking to snuff Savitri and Rudra out forever. "If I cannot rule, then let nothing survive! Let every world fall to silence!"
Savitri met Rudra's gaze. Her next words were not command but invitation: "Will you stand with me?"
Rudra felt every broken memory burning in his heart. He stepped beside his mother, clasped her hand, and together their blue fire soared. The chain of time shattered in a thunderclap.
A burst of power radiated—blue and gold, the fire of hope and the courage of loss. Rudra felt the timelines swirl around him, picking up the fallen threads: Jessica's courage, MG's defiance, Roohi's fierce loyalty, Bunty's unyielding friendship. One by one, the fading sparks of their lives reignited in the blaze.
Kaaldev screamed as his form unraveled, fractured by hope he couldn't erase. "This cannot be! Nothing—*nothing*—survives the end of time!"
Savitri's voice was soft, yet it thundered across worlds. "Love survives."
With Rudra's last strength, he reached for Roohi, for all his friends, for every ally lost in every timeline. With Savitri's help, the fire flowed from their joined hands, washing over the battlefield, knitting souls back to bodies, memories back to minds.
Colors returned. The fractures in the world sealed stitch by stitch. The Veil-Walker, denied its feast, let out a mournful howl and shrank—drawn back into the rift as Savitri and Rudra sealed it shut with the fire of everything they had lost and gained.
The silence afterward was absolute. A breeze stirred the ruined field. Roohi gasped, blinking awake. MG and Jessica pulled themselves upright, dazed but alive. Even Bunty coughed and rolled over, confusion and disbelief on his bloodied face.
Savitri turned to Rudra, her form already growing translucent. "You must live, Rudra. This world needs you—and only you can shape what comes next."
He wanted to hold her, to beg her to stay. But he nodded, tears streaming down his face. "Thank you, Ma. For everything."
Her smile was radiant and eternal. "Remember, my son—there is always another thread."
She faded into starlight, leaving behind a warmth that filled every wounded place in Rudra's heart.
He turned to his friends, who gathered around, battered and changed but alive.
"Is it… over?" Roohi whispered.
Rudra looked at the healed rift, the returning sun, the infinite possibilities ahead.
"For now," he said. "But we decide what comes next."
High above, a last ripple shimmered in the blue sky, hinting that the story of time was not yet done.