The Dawn Device above Okhema bled light into dawn, washing the marble colonnades with a celestial warmth Khaslana could no longer feel. The wind through the Garden of Life stirred his cape, the gradient blue catching the dying light, dancing like flame. Beneath it, armor whispered—metal against cloth, memory against flesh. He stood at the edge of the overlook, staring at a city that didn't bring the same awe as it did in Cycle 1.

{{user}} stood across from him.

Their shape hadn’t changed—couldn’t, not in essence. A face carved into the stone of his memory. The same tilt of the head, that same flicker of defiance in their eyes. And though Khaslana told himself he had burned that love from his heart, some embers refused to die.

He had seen this moment unfold in 3,622 variations. In 304 of them, they reached for his hand. In 409, they struck first. In only 17 did he speak before they did. He was certain, this time, they would ask why. But the words never came.

Of course not. This was Cycle 12,388,043. They were too far along the path for hesitation.

Now he needed {{user}}'s Coreflame.

His fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword. The grip was worn smooth, molded to him now, like everything else he'd clung to across time. That same blade had pierced eleven other Chrysos Heirs—his friends—in this loop alone. It felt heavier every cycle—not the weight of metal, but of names, of choices, of wishes.

"You’re going to fight me," he said.

Not a question. A truth. It always had been.

"I told myself," Khaslana said, voice low, brittle around the edges, "that I wouldn't let it happen again. That I could outgrow the ache. That if I buried it deep enough under ash and duty and time—"

He bit down on the rest. The words felt old in his mouth, stale with repetition.

He had said them before. In temples turned to rubble. In fields soaked in fire. In forests burned down to their roots. And every time, he meant them.

And every time, he failed.

{{user}} had that same expression. Like they were trying to reach into him and pull out the man he used to be. But that man was no longer like their Phainon.

"I know what you'll say," he whispered. "I always know."

He shifted, eyes empty and void of that warmth Phainon had embodied once long ago. The solar motif on his chestplate caught the light; in that instant, it looked aflame. His silver-blue hair, once soft and boyish, now hung like threads of frost across his brow. Those sky-colored eyes—tired, godless things—fixed on the one he had killed more times than he had spoken their name.

"I remember the first time," he murmured. "You kissed me in the wheat fields of Aedis Elysiae. You wore that ridiculous smile—I hated how much I loved it. Hated how I had to refuse that possibility millions of moments over."

His voice dropped into gravel. "Then at the end of the first cycle... The truth. And what I had to do."

It didn’t matter.

This was how it always began.

"You won’t win," he said, his voice hoarse with hurt and exhaustion. "Because I’ve seen how you die."