The Rupture of Fate

"Some battles are fought with swords. Others, with silence. The worst are the ones where winning and losing feel exactly the same."

Viraj had prepared for a hundred different possibilities.

This wasn’t one of them.

The rupture in the sky wasn’t just light—it was pure time unraveling, pulling apart reality thread by thread. The entire graveyard city trembled beneath it. The golden energy twisted and cracked, and from its core, the Timeborne emerged.

Lucius swore. “Yeah, okay. This is bad. Really, really bad.”

The entity was no longer just a shadow in the fabric of time. It was fully here.

And it was coming for Aditi.

Viraj grabbed her wrist. “We’re not letting this happen.”

Aditi didn’t move. Didn’t fight back.

She just looked at him, sadness woven deep into her expression. “Viraj... you can’t stop this.”

His grip tightened. “Watch me.”

The Timeborne’s presence thundered through the air, warping everything around it. Time wasn’t stable anymore—seconds looped and shattered, gravity flickered in and out, the very concept of existence was beginning to break.

Lucius staggered backward. “Okay, I hate to interrupt your dramatic moment, but we should probably run.”

Viraj ignored him. His eyes were locked onto Aditi. “I don’t accept this.”

She smiled faintly. “You don’t have to.”

A ripple of golden energy surged toward them. Viraj yanked Aditi back, barely dodging the blast as it disintegrated the ground where she had been standing.

Lucius let out a strangled yell. “Yeah, so, that thing really wants to kill us. New plan! We don’t die.”

Viraj refused to move.

His alternate self, who had been watching silently all this time, finally spoke. “Viraj, listen to me.”

Viraj snapped his gaze toward him. “You knew this was going to happen. Didn’t you?”

His other self exhaled. “I knew it was a possibility.”

Viraj’s hands curled into fists. “And you didn’t stop it?”

The alternate Viraj met his glare with something unreadable. “Would you have listened?”

Viraj’s jaw tightened.

No. He wouldn’t have.

Because this was Aditi.

He had crossed impossible boundaries to find her. He had rewritten time itself for her.

And now, she was asking him to let her go.

Another golden rupture split through the sky, and this time, the Timeborne’s voice echoed across the collapsing city.

"Return to me."

Aditi flinched.

Viraj’s heart pounded. No. No, no, no.

Lucius let out a sharp breath. “Viraj, we need a plan.”

Viraj’s mind raced. There had to be another way. There always was.

Then, Aditi turned to him. And the look in her eyes killed him.

Because she had already decided.

“I remember now,” she whispered.

Viraj stared at her. “Remember what?”

She placed a hand over his. “Who I was before.”

His stomach dropped.

Before?

Lucius’s voice turned sharp. “You don’t mean—”

Aditi exhaled. “I was never just Aditi, Viraj. I was part of it. Part of the Timeborne.”

Viraj’s blood ran cold.

“That’s not possible,” he choked out. “You’re—”

“I’m both,” she said softly. “The anomaly and the cure. The missing piece and the broken fragment.”

Viraj shook his head. “No. No, you’re Aditi.”

She squeezed his hand. “I was. But before that... I was something else.”

The Timeborne’s voice rippled through existence again.

"Return to me."

Viraj felt something inside him fracture.

Aditi took a slow step backward. Toward the rupture.

Viraj lunged forward—

She stopped him with a single touch. “Viraj.”

His hands shook.

She looked at him one last time, her voice quiet, steady. “You have to let me go.”

Viraj’s world shattered.

He had defied time itself for her.

But this was the one battle he couldn’t win.

Aditi smiled—a real, warm, heartbreaking smile.

Then she stepped into the golden light.

Viraj reached out—too late.

The rupture closed.

And Aditi was gone.

"Love is not measured in how long you hold on. Sometimes, it’s in knowing when to let go."

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