The stars were wrong again.
Kale stood atop the old watchtower, his fingers laced behind his back, cloak fluttering in the high wind. The sky was quiet—but the silence was sharp, electric, stretched too thin.
The constellations had shifted by a fraction.
A sign.
The divergence was near.
"I don't have much time. This version of the timeline collapses unless I kill Evan and remove the Seed."
"But that won't stop the true root. The world needs a catalyst. A breaking point. A sacrifice."
"This time… that'll be me."
Scarlet stopped in the hallway.
She had heard it.
Clear. Final.
Kale planned to die.
The air in the estate had changed. The maids whispered less. The guards stood closer to their posts. As if instinctively aware that something was wrong.
But Evan?
Evan smiled more than ever.
Scarlet watched him across the courtyard, laughing with nobles, charming with calculated ease.
But his eyes were always moving.
Measuring.
Calculating.
Waiting.
"If I die before the Seed activates, it breaks the cycle. I've confirmed it in four failed loops. Fifth should be stable."
Scarlet's hands trembled as she gripped the stone balustrade.
"No," she whispered aloud. "You can't."
But he wasn't there.
Just his thoughts.
"Scarlet's safer if I don't involve her. She always suffers most when she knows."
"Even when she tries to stop me… she always arrives too late."
Her vision blurred.
That night, it happened.
Kale confronted Evan alone.
No warning. No theatrics.
Just a hallway flooded with silence. Moonlight glinting on stone. The smell of storm in the air.
Evan turned, surprised—only for a second.
Then he smiled.
"So it's this version of you."
Kale didn't smile.
His golden eyes flickered silver.
"I let you live too long."
Evan raised a hand, something pulsing in his palm—black light gathering into a sigil Scarlet had never seen before.
But Kale was faster.
A blur of motion.
Steel in hand.
Light in his step.
And Evan—his heart pierced through with a soulblade forged across lifetimes—collapsed without finishing the spell.
There were no screams. No last words.
Just Kale.
And the thought that struck Scarlet like thunder:
"This was the version where I didn't hesitate."
She found him standing over Evan's corpse.
Rain had begun to fall. Blood mixed with the earth.
Scarlet didn't speak. She couldn't.
Kale turned to her slowly.
There was no rage in his eyes. No glory.
Just certainty.
And beneath it, pain.
"It's done. But now comes the real end."
"The sacrifice."
"The timeline collapses unless I follow it through."
She stepped toward him, breath shaking. "Stop. Please."
He closed his eyes.
"You were never meant to see this far. I'm sorry."
"No, Kale. You're not a sacrifice. You're not some cursed weapon meant to die for everyone else."
But he was already walking away.
The loop's end approaching.
And for the first time—
Scarlet realized that the only way to save the world…
…might be to save him.