"Not every step forward looks brave from the outside."
The Heart erupted.
Not upward.
Not outward.
Inward.
Light spiraled into the hollow like a vortex being pulled through a needle's eye. The walls peeled into ribbons of memory and resonance, spinning around the group with impossible speed. The ground shifted beneath their feet, stabilizing only because the Vale chose not to drop them into oblivion.
Aarav's vision split.
Literally.
Two frequencies pulsed inside his skull—
his own erratic, human rhythm,
and the older version's steady, tempered hum.
They collided, sparks of resonance crackling across the air.
Meera grabbed Aarav's shoulder, shouting something he couldn't hear. Her voice was drowned under the roar of the fracture above them reopening like a wound torn the wrong way.
Amar threw his arm around the boy to keep him from being flung into the swirling light.
Arin planted his staff into the ground, resonance rippling outward in protective waves.
But the hollow wasn't reacting to them anymore.
It was reacting to Aarav.
To both Aaravs.
The older one—
gritting his teeth, hands clenched at his sides—
looked like he was holding back an entire lifetime.
"Aarav!" he shouted through the vortex. "Listen to me—"
Aarav staggered toward him. "What are you? How are you here?"
"I told you," the older version said, voice strained. "I'm what happens when you win. And that's the problem."
The fracture burned brighter overhead—
a jagged tear of white-blue light,
pulsing like something behind it was pushing through.
"You winning," older Aarav said, "brings him closer."
The King.
Even hearing the word unspoken made Aarav's pulse spike.
Meera dragged the boy behind a fallen pillar of light. "Aarav! Stop talking to… yourself and MOVE!"
But the two Aaravs couldn't move.
They were locked—
frequency to frequency—
the Heart trapping their resonances like magnets forced together.
Older Aarav's voice trembled. "You were never meant to see me. Not this timeline. Not this ending."
"Ending?" Aarav shouted. "What ending?"
The older version hesitated.
And that hesitation cracked the realm.
The fracture above them tore wider—
and a **second arm** slid through.
Not shadow this time.
Not hollow echo.
This arm was carved from fractured light, edges pixelating like it was glitching between realities. Every pulse it emitted distorted the Heart, bending space and time around it.
Arin screamed something—
the first time Aarav had heard him scream.
"HE'S COMING THROUGH—MOVE, ALL OF YOU!"
Amar shoved Meera and the boy behind a growing ridge of resonance. "Down!"
But the King's fragment wasn't reaching for them.
It was reaching for **Aarav.**
Both Aaravs.
Older Aarav's breath caught. "He sees two Anchors. Two possible outcomes. Two paths."
Aarav whispered, horrified, "That's not possible."
"It wasn't," older Aarav said. "Until you changed something."
The light-arm surged—
faster, louder, sharper—
locking onto their combined resonance.
Older Aarav braced, raising both arms to block the incoming strike.
The arm slammed into a barrier of shimmering frequency—
older Aarav's—
the impact shaking the hollow so violently cracks appeared along the walls.
Aarav stared in shock.
"You just… stopped that?"
Older Aarav didn't look at him. His voice strained. "I've survived the King's reach more times than I can count."
Another strike.
Older Aarav groaned, dropping to a knee.
Aarav lunged forward. "Let me help!"
"NO!" the older version snapped. "If our resonances merge, he'll trace us both."
The arm pulled back—
building momentum.
Arin's voice cut through the chaos.
"Aarav! Listen to him! If your frequencies overlap entirely, the King will know which of you is real—AND CLAIM IT."
Aarav paled. "Claim…?"
Meera's voice cracked, "He means you, Aarav! He'll pull YOU through!"
The arm lunged again—
aimed not at older Aarav,
but at the younger.
Aarav froze.
Too slow.
Too close.
Too exposed.
Older Aarav roared, hurling himself into the strike—
taking the blow meant for the younger.
Light slammed into him.
The impact echoed across the realm like a bell being hit by lightning.
Older Aarav went flying—
crashing against the heart-wall,
dropping to the ground,
one knee, one hand, breath shredded.
Aarav screamed, "STOP!"
The King's fragment paused—
just for a heartbeat—
responding instinctively to the Anchor's voice.
Older Aarav lifted his head, pain etched into every line of his face.
"Aarav… listen carefully…"
Aarav knelt beside him. "Don't talk like—like you're—"
"A future can die," the older whispered, "if it saves its past."
Aarav's breath stopped.
"No," he said. "I'm not letting you—"
"Aarav," older said, voice shaking, "you don't understand yet. The only reason _I_ survived… is because _you_ didn't."
Aarav's mind blanked. "What—?"
Older Aarav looked him in the eyes.
"I am the version of you that the King broke… and kept alive."
Silence.
Sharp.
Hollow.
Suffocating.
The older Aarav continued, voice trembling:
"I'm the Anchor he didn't finish.
A remnant.
A survivor.
A warning."
The fracture overhead screamed open.
Meera cried out.
Arin shouted for them to move.
Amar dragged the boy back.
Older Aarav gripped the younger's wrist with shocking strength.
"You are the first version of us who can win without becoming him."
The light-arm surged one final time—
a killing stroke aimed at both Aaravs.
Aarav stood.
For the first time, the hum in his chest didn't shake.
He stepped in front of the strike.
Older Aarav gasped, "Aarav—NO!"
Aarav lifted his hand—
and resonance burst outward,
meeting the King's fragment head-on.
"For once," Aarav said,
voice steady,
eyes sharp,
identity whole—
"I'm choosing my future."
The impact detonated across the Heart.
Light swallowed the world.
The Convergence
had arrived.
"He moved anyway, and the world shifted as if that choice mattered."