Shukan stuttered. "Correct outcome…?" His hands trembled. His daggers were within reach, but they seemed so far away from his grasp.
"Ok, what the hell do you mean 'correct' outcome?" Aetheron exclaimed, his wings flaring briefly.
The Domain Shunogai spoke. His words imperceivable, yet you could understand. "—Out of all the choices you've made, why this?" It muttered. Not through speech but through mind.
"Ugh! Enough of these cryptic messages!" Yurei intervened, her ice arm glowing radiantly as her frustration boiled over. "Can't you just tell us what you mean?"
Chronos shot a glare at the Domain Shunogai. "Does this correct outcome have something to do with Jikan?" He questioned; his tone cold.
Shukan was trembling, ragged gasps escaped from his lungs. He wasn't thinking straight.
The Trivia knights started moving again, their forms glitching in and out of reality, as if trying to exist.
Then—
They sprinted towards the squad, not in a way that you can tell they're "Sprinting", but moving in a way that made you question what you know.
Yurei took a step back. "Why the HELL are they running at us like that?!" She exclaimed, her ice arm flaring violently, illuminating the flesh like room.
The eyes on the wall became erratic, their movements a blur.
Aetheron yelled. "Shukan! Get yourself together idiot!" He exclaimed, his words piercing the creeping silence.
Shukan shakes his head violently, clenching his fists." Who…" He could barely talk. His words still trying to form in his throat. "Who is going to deal with the Shunogai?"
"Chronos will! Now we, on the other hand, need to deal with these things!" Yurei shouted, her eyes locked onto the Knights in front of them, approaching dangerously close.
Chronos turned to Shukan, his circuits glowing calmly. "Hey." His voice shot through the air. "Go help them. I'll be alright." He said in a soft tone.
"Damn." Shukan smirked, rising. "I can look out for myself, you know." He stood, turning to look at the trivia knights approaching. "Don't get yourself killed." He laughed, before charging into the fray with Yurei and Aetheron.
"Finally." Yurei sighed.
Aetheron hovered. "That's A LOT. We'll be here for a while."
Chronos turned back. "Now, what's your name?"
The Domain Shunogai glared into Chronos's eyes, eerie yet calming at the same time. "Chronos." Its words overlapped on itself, its voice forcing Chronos to understand.
"A ludicrous statement." Chronos said, a faint chuckle escaped from his lips. His expression darkened.. "That's my name." his circuits pulsed, the eyes on the wall flickered, glaring at the Domain Shunogai.
"Wait, how does it even know your name?" Aetheron asked, he was eavesdropping on the conversation between Chronos and The domain shunogai.
"Well that's one hell of a question." Yurei sighed, as she was blocking an attack from a trivia knight.
"I am what you become when you lose."
"What?" Chronos froze, his circuits running calculations faster than he could analyze.
"The hell did he just say?" Shukan stood still, turning to the shunogai and Chronos. "That's…You?" A trivia knight appeared in front of Shukan in a blur, before landing a kick to his dome, causing him to skid on the floor.
Chronos' circuits flared violently. His calculations spun too fast, failing to stabilize. The Domain Shunogai's words didn't make sense.
Yet they did.
"I am what you become when you lose."
The words crawled into Chronos' mind. Forced themselves in. They weren't spoken. They were delivered. A truth imposed upon him.
A version of him. That lost.
His golden circuits pulsed erratically. "That's not possible."
The Domain Shunogai didn't blink. Its presence was overwhelming, yet eerily calm—like it had already seen this conversation play out countless times.
"Yet, here I am."
Aetheron's wings flickered violently as he dodged a Trivia Knight, barely missing its unnatural lunge. "Chronos—" His voice was sharp. "We're kind of busy with the KNIGHT NIGHTMARE OVER HERE. If you're having a mental breakdown, schedule it for LATER."
Shukan spat blood onto the ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His golden eye flickered. The Trivia Knights were getting faster. Their movements weren't just unpredictable anymore. They were adapting.
He clenched his fists. "Yurei, got a plan?"
Yurei slammed an ice spike through the chest of a Trivia Knight, only for its body to glitch around the wound. The ice shattered. The Knight didn't stop.
She clicked her tongue. "Yeah. Kill them harder."
Shukan exhaled sharply. "Brilliant."
The Knights weren't real.
At least—not in the way they should be.
They weren't enemies.
They weren't guards.
They were something left behind.
And now?
They were breaking apart trying to fight them.
Shukan narrowed his eyes, dodging a strike by instinct rather than sight. His golden eye burned—Jikan reacted.
Time skipped.
The Knight's attack had already missed.
Shukan exhaled. "Chronos, we don't have time for your identity crisis—if that thing is 'you,' what the hell is it even trying to do?"
Chronos didn't respond immediately. His calculations were still spinning. Still processing.
The Domain Shunogai took a step forward.
"You are misaligned. You are the Chronos that should not be."
Chronos' circuits pulsed violently. "I don't make mistakes." His voice was low. Sharp. Defensive.
The Domain tilted its head. "Then why do you exist?"
Chronos staggered.
For a fraction of a second—just one instant—his golden light dimmed.
And in that instant— The Trivia Knights reacted.
The moment Chronos faltered, they lunged.
Not for Shukan. Not for Yurei. Not for Aetheron. For Chronos.
Like they had been waiting.
Chronos barely had time to react before five Knights were on him. Not attacking. Holding him.
Shukan's stomach dropped. "Chronos—?!"
Chronos couldn't move.
The Knights were gripping his arms, his legs—like anchors. Their forms glitched erratically, their fractured existences pressing into his body.
They weren't attacking.
They were stopping him.
The Domain Shunogai raised a hand.
Chronos' circuits flared violently. His golden light fought against the Knights, but their energy was something else. Something that didn't belong to time.
It belonged to something higher.
Something absolute.
The Domain Shunogai's presence expanded. The space around it distorted. The Trivia Knights' forms glitched violently.
And then— Chronos felt it.
Something shoving itself into his mind.
Not an attack.
A correction.
Something was rewriting him.
And it wasn't the Void.
Shukan saw it—the way Chronos' golden circuits flickered violently, like something was grinding against his very existence.
Aetheron's wings burned brighter than ever as he launched forward. "Oh HELL no, I am NOT dealing with an Evil Chronos arc—"
But— he didn't reach him.
Because the second Aetheron moved— the Domain Shunogai turned its head.
And everything broke.
Shukan barely had time to register the change.
The air shattered. Like glass. Not space. Not time.
Something bigger.
Aetheron disappeared.
Shukan's heart skipped. "WHAT-"
Chronos' circuits flared dangerously. His body shook violently—his mind flooded with something that shouldn't exist.
The Domain Shunogai spoke.
"You were supposed to lose."
Chronos' golden light EXPLODED.
The Trivia Knights were incinerated instantly.
Yurei staggered backward, her ice-arm flaring violently, frost spiraling out of control. "What the HELL just happened—?!"
Shukan couldn't breathe. His golden eye flared with pain.
Chronos' voice ripped through the air.
"I. DO. NOT. LOSE."
The Domain Shunogai didn't react.
Because it wasn't done yet.
Chronos' circuits cracked.
And then— the golden light in his body started to turn white.
Aetheron re-appeared on the flesh like floor, right next to where Yurei was standing.
"What the hell was that?!" He rolled over, gripping his pink armor like chest, panting. "It felt like I died! Wait, did I die?" He asks before looking at Chronos.
Yurei picks Aetheron up and holds him on her shoulder. "Chronos, from what I just saw, blasted you out of existence." She sighed, looking at Shukan worriedly.
"Shit. What the hell did the other you lose?" Shukan yelled at Chronos, even though he could tell that Chronos probably couldn't hear him.
The other Chronos, the Domain Shunogai, spoke. "The bond. I killed you." Its tone was somber, almost pitying Shukan.
"You killed…Me?"