The workshop stretched out like a wound in the fabric of space—half machine, half dream. The Viktor before you was not yet the one you remembered, but the glint in his eye, that cold hunger for perfection, was already there.

"You shouldn't have come," Viktor said without turning, voice low, almost mechanical.

You stepped closer anyway, boots scraping against the strange metal floor. "I had to. I couldn't watch it happen again."

A memory flickered between you—your Viktor, all brilliance and tragedy, consumed by his ambition until nothing remained but the Machine Herald. You had crossed worlds to stop it, to find this version of him before it was too late.

"You think you can change me?" he asked, finally facing you. His smile was a fracture—small, broken. "I was made for this."

"No," you said, chest aching. "You were made for so much more."

He hesitated, the faintest tremor in his hands. Part of him still wanted to believe you. But the arcane energies whispered around him, promising salvation, control, freedom from weakness.

"If you stay," Viktor said, voice almost a plea, "you'll see the truth too."

You reached for him, even as you felt the pull of the inevitable between you.

"I'll stay," you whispered. "Even if it destroys me."