The Warden didn't move like a person.
It flowed—each step erasing the ground it touched, like time itself recoiled from its presence. The clock embedded in its chest spun violently backward, hands twitching, skipping whole hours in single ticks.
Milo raised his gun.
"No good," Juno said sharply, holding the journal close. "That thing's built to erase memories, not bodies. Bullets won't work."
"Then what will?" Idris asked, already circling wide.
The Warden's arm unfurled into something jagged—half-scythe, half-clock hand—and it swung.
Time bent.
The entire hallway blinked forward five seconds.
And suddenly, Idris was on his back, a bleeding gash across his shoulder.
"IDRIS!" Milo shouted.
Juno stepped forward, pressing the timekey into the side of the journal. It clicked. The pages fluttered, glowing symbols spiraling across her arms like living ink.
"You built this thing," the voice inside her whispered.
"You just forgot how to break it."
"I remember enough," Juno muttered.
She slammed the journal shut.
A pulse erupted outward—like a sonar burst—but instead of echoing sound, it echoed memory. The Warden staggered. Its body shimmered, glitching between forms.
Juno saw flashes:
A younger version of herself.
A lab underground.
Seth Vire smiling, handing her the timekey for the first time.
The Warden howled. The journal had pierced its shell.
"Now!" Juno shouted.
Milo leapt, tossing a magnetic sync grenade. It latched onto the Warden's chest. He pulled the trigger.
The clock's hands stopped—just for a moment.
And in that moment, Idris lunged up, slicing through the Warden's head with a temporal blade made from his own Divider.
The Warden crumbled—into ash, then dust, then nothing at all.
The silence afterward was sharp and unnatural. The walls were still flickering, the vault still unstable. But for now, the threat was gone.
Idris winced, holding his wound. "Tell me that's it."
Juno shook her head, eyes still glowing faintly. "No. That was the welcome mat."
She opened the journal again.
"Next Vault: Ten. Location unknown."
Milo groaned. "We're doing this again?"
Juno looked up at him, something unreadable in her expression. "We have to."
Idris nodded. "Then we find it. And we finish what they started."
Behind them, Vault Nine began to seal itself—its memory preserved, but forever changed.