They emerged from the Chronos Carillon back onto the vibrating walkway. In Luka's hand, he held the Shard of Ending. It was cold and heavier than a star. The moment it left the temporal wound, the crack in the Carillon began, infinitesimally, to heal. The discordant chiming softened by a single, barely perceptible note.
Kael stared at the thing in Luka's hand. It didn't look like a weapon. It looked like a hole in the universe. "You have it. Now what? Do we… throw it at the Echo?"
The theory is unsound, the Truth fragment stated. Using the Hammer against the Echo would be like trying to extinguish a fire with gasoline. It would empower it, likely triggering an immediate, universal null-event.
It must be unmade, the Potential fragment proposed, its light weaving frantic, new patterns. But its unmaking requires a force greater than its own defining nature. A force that does not exist.
It does, the Will fragment countered, its golden light turning inward, focusing on Luka. It requires a sacrifice. A will that chooses to end, not for peace, but for the continuation of everything else.
The realization settled over them like a shroud. The Crystal, in its current form, could not defeat the Echo. But a Crystal that willingly sacrificed itself, that used its own immense power to trigger the Hammer's self-annihilation… that might create a counter-shockwave strong enough to push the Echo back into the nothingness from which it came.
Luka would have to die. Not just his body, but his consciousness, fused with the Crystal, would be the fuel.
He looked at Kael, and his friend saw the answer in his eyes.
"No," Kael said, his voice breaking. "There has to be another way. We just built all of this!"
"The scaffold is strong," Luka said softly. "It will hold. You will lead them." He looked down at the black shard in his hand. "This was never about finding a weapon. It was about finding the key to a lock only we can open."
The Crystal within him was silent. The three fragments had reached the end of their calculation. This was the only path with a non-zero success probability. The Will fragment, the part of the Crystal that had chosen to struggle, now had to make its final, ultimate choice.
It chose.