Ayame stared at the Custodian as if she hadn't heard her correctly.
"The Gate that ends everything?"
The Custodian didn't speak right away. Her silence was heavier than words, settling across the stone chamber like a second shadow.
Kael's voice was low. "You mean the Collapse."
"No," the Custodian said. "I mean something far worse."
The glyphs floating around them dimmed, flickering as if disturbed by an unseen tremor. Ayame moved closer to Kael instinctively, the warmth of his presence her only anchor in the storm of rising dread.
"The Gate," the Custodian said, "was forged in the heart of the First Collapse. Before the timelines diverged, before the Echoes were born. It was meant to seal away the raw Source—pure creation, pure destruction."
Ayame's breath caught. "And I'm the key to it?"
"You're more than that. You're *linked* to it."
Kael frowned. "How? She's never opened a Gate."
The Custodian gave a thin, bittersweet smile. "She already has. You both have."
---
Ayame's knees gave out.
Kael caught her before she hit the floor.
"I don't remember—"
"You wouldn't," the Custodian said softly. "It happened before this lifetime. The two of you have met before. Lived before. Every Collapse is a reset… but your bond keeps surviving it. Rewriting the rules."
Kael stared at Ayame, heart hammering. "We're... reliving this?"
"Yes. In every timeline, you find each other. And in every one, something pulls you apart. But this time, the Warden is closer than he's ever been. This time, if the Gate opens again—he won't let it close."
Ayame's voice was a whisper. "Then we can't let him find it."
"You don't understand," the Custodian replied. "He *already has.*"
---
The domed ceiling trembled.
For a moment, the stars above flickered into view—then twisted into symbols neither Kael nor Ayame could read. Not language. Not even magic. Something more *fundamental.*
Reality folding in on itself.
"We have to go," the Custodian said sharply. "He's using your presence here to backtrack your path. If he finds the original breach, he'll collapse the whole field."
Ayame stood, determination firm despite the shaking in her limbs. "Where do we go?"
"The Hollow Horizon," the Custodian said. "Where your first life ended."
Kael blinked. "That doesn't sound like a nice place."
"It isn't," she replied grimly. "But it's where this cycle began. And it's the only place we can break it."
---
The journey to the Hollow Horizon began in silence.
They stepped into a corridor of floating mirrors—each one reflecting different moments of their lives. One showed Ayame laughing with her mother. Another, Kael training alone under moonlight. And some… some showed things that never happened.
Kael with a scarred face.
Ayame wearing armor made of crystal.
One showed them holding hands, but in a city that burned with blue fire.
Ayame paused at that one. "Is that our future?"
"No," the Custodian said. "It's a *possible* one."
Kael squeezed her hand. "Let's make sure ours ends with something better."
Ayame smiled faintly. "Like us… not burning?"
"Exactly."
---
They emerged onto a cliff that overlooked nothing.
Not sky.
Not sea.
Just… void.
The Hollow Horizon.
The air shimmered strangely. It felt wrong to breathe, as if the atmosphere didn't belong to this world. Or any.
Here, the stars hung lower—close enough to touch, but somehow far more dangerous. They pulsed like warning lights in an endless dark.
"This is where time broke," the Custodian said, walking toward a fractured pedestal at the cliff's edge. "This is where you made the first choice."
Kael frowned. "What choice?"
"To love each other," she said quietly. "Even knowing the price."
Ayame stepped forward, drawn toward the pedestal like gravity was pulling her. The stone was etched with symbols—her own handwriting, though she couldn't remember ever carving them.
"I wrote this," she whispered.
Kael touched the stone beside hers. "So did I."
And then the ground shook.
---
A rift tore open across the cliff.
And from it stepped *them.*
But not the twisted Echoes from before.
These versions were *calm.* Controlled. Powerful. Eyes glowing with pure light.
"Back away," the Custodian snapped. "These are Prime Echoes. Not just fragments—*fully realized iterations.*"
The Echo Ayame smiled at them, and it was the most terrifying thing Kael had ever seen. "It's almost time."
"Time for what?" Kael growled, drawing his blade.
The Echo Kael answered, voice too serene. "To merge."
The real Ayame stepped back. "You're not us."
"No," the Echo said. "We're what you could be. Without fear. Without restraint. The versions of you that can survive what's coming."
Kael raised his blade. "We've survived plenty."
"You've *barely scraped by*," the Echo answered.
The Prime Echoes moved as one—no attack, no violence, just a step forward and the world *warped.*
Ayame clutched her head. "They're inside my thoughts—!"
Kael rushed forward, but the Custodian threw up a barrier. "Don't touch them! They'll overwrite you!"
The Echo Ayame's voice echoed in the dome of Kael's mind. *You can't stop what's already started. We are you. And soon… you'll be us.*
---
Ayame dropped to her knees, light sparking wildly from her skin.
Kael knelt beside her, pulling her close. "Stay with me. Ayame, *stay.*"
"I don't know what's real anymore," she gasped. "I can feel them—what they've done. Who I was. Who I *could be.* It's like fire in my veins."
Kael leaned in, his forehead against hers. "Then let it burn through *me,* too."
Their lips met—not soft and slow like the kiss before, but desperate. Grounding. Fire against fire.
The moment shattered the Echo's pull.
Ayame gasped, the link broken.
The Echoes reeled back—just slightly.
The Custodian's eyes widened. "That's it. *That's the divergence.* You broke their path."
Kael looked at her. "Then we can beat them?"
The Custodian hesitated.
"Maybe. But there's something you don't know yet."
Kael's heart sank. "Great. Of course there is."
The Custodian turned to Ayame. "The Gate… isn't a place."
Ayame blinked. "What?"
The Custodian's voice dropped to a whisper.
"It's you."
---