Corrupted Bonds-Chapter 99: Inheritance

Lucian didn't hear it.

He lay crumpled against Rowan's chest, unmoving. Breath shallow. Blood seeping from his nose, lips, ears—searing rivulets cutting paths down pale skin. His chest barely rose under Rowan's trembling hands.

Rowan gripped him tighter, forehead pressed to Lucian's. Desperation etched every inch of his face. His voice trembled, too soft to hear. "Don't you dare... don't you dare leave me."

The Lucian Reflection stood over them. Silent. Expression unreadable.

For the first time, the arrogance was gone.

All that remained was something hollow.

Cold. Starved.

A half-step forward. A flicker of violet.

Then— A light. Not white. Not violet. Something... older.

A pulse surged across the floor like a heartbeat trying to restart time itself. The system breathed again. And the voice returned.

[SEQUENCE RESTORATION: AUTHORIZED.]

[TRANSFER INITIALIZING: SUBJECT VAUGHN_00.]

A wind rippled through the chamber, carrying not air—but memory.

Vaughn_00 appeared again.

Not summoned. Not conjured. He became.

He stood beside Rowan now. Eyes not focused on the Reflection. But on Lucian.

He knelt. A slow, reverent motion. And placed his palm gently to Lucian's chest.

Rowan flinched. But Vaughn_00 simply whispered:

"You broke yourself... to save them." "Even if they never knew."

Rowan's throat locked. Tears trembled on his lashes.

"You erased every corrupted thread." "You let them carve pieces of you away." "And still, you fought. Even in this dying breath."

A pulse of resonance lit beneath Vaughn_00's palm.

"That's not weakness." "That's what makes you worthy."

He turned his gaze to Rowan.

"Hold him steady."

Rowan nodded, voice cracking. "I'm here. I've got you."

Vaughn_00 exhaled—once. The air warped. Time curled inward.

"We are the same. Lucian and I." "The beginning and the breaking." "Which means... our power is limitless."

He stood slowly—hand still pressed to Lucian's chest. His body began to fracture. Not violently. But like a sculpture returning to dust. Each flake of light spun into Lucian's form.

"You are the version I never became." "So I give you everything."

More cracks. More flares of memory and resonance pouring into Lucian's body.

He turned his head—to Ren. And his smile softened.

"Keep him safe," Vaughn_00 said, voice quieter now. "He's... dear to me."

Rowan's eyes widened. Ren blinked in confusion.

But Vaughn_00 was already fading. Flesh to light. Light to thought. Thought to echo.

As more of him unraveled into light, Vaughn_00 turned once more to Rowan.

His expression softened—something quieter than fondness, deeper than sorrow. The kind of look reserved for what might've been, what once was, and what still lived in the person kneeling before him.

He reached out.

Fingers trembling not from weakness, but from the ache of remembrance.

And gently—reverently—he brushed the back of his hand along Rowan's cheek.

A caress that held the weight of every timeline.

"You always made us fight harder," he whispered. "Even when we forgot how to live."

His touch lingered for just a second longer—long enough for Rowan to lean into it without realizing.

Then he pulled away.

Eyes gleaming with the last shimmer of starlight.

"Remember him," Vaughn_00 said quietly. "But love this version."

And then he was gone.

Silence fell.

The kind of silence that pressed too deep, like the hush in a cathedral after a funeral.

The chamber, once roaring with resonance and pain, had stilled to an impossible hush. Not peace. But pause.

Rowan sat motionless, still cradling Lucian. His cheeks were streaked with tears.

One trembling hand remained cupped along his jaw, where the warmth of Vaughn_00's touch had passed. His breath hitched. His mouth parted. But no words came.

Ren stood frozen a few steps behind. His hands hung at his sides—shaking. Eyes wide. Unblinking. As if Vaughn_00's final words had reached a part of him even he didn't understand. He exhaled shakily, then pressed a hand to his heart. Not in a gesture of grief—but of memory.

Quinn's shoulders sank. He dropped into a crouch, elbows to knees, eyes lowered. His expression unreadable—too many feelings braided tight behind a calm front. But his chest was rising too fast. And his hands wouldn't still.

Zora leaned against the nearest wall. Sweat clung to his brow. His blade-hand flexed reflexively. He didn't speak. But his head dipped—just slightly. Like someone bowing at the end of a song they'd forgotten they were singing.

Mira holstered her weapon slowly, as though it weighed twice as much now. She glanced toward Rowan. Then Lucian. Then away. A rare crack in her steel composure. Her fingers twitched near the scorched side of her face—but she didn't reach for the wound. She just whispered: "...He was beautiful."

Vespera's hand trembled against her charm. She was whispering something beneath her breath. A prayer? A name? A memory? No one asked.

Sloane was the last to move. He walked forward. Stopped beside Ren. Then quietly reached out—placed a hand on Ren's shoulder. No words. Just weight. Just anchor.

And in the middle of it all— Lucian breathed.

A gasp. A raw, shuddering pull of air. His chest arched—energy crackling white-hot around his ribs. His fingers twitched—then curled.

His eyes opened. No longer just violet. But burning with a white-laced glow.

Rowan's breath caught. Lucian's voice was hoarse. "...Rowan?"

"I'm here," Rowan said, choking. "I'm right here."

Lucian pushed himself up with trembling arms. He looked to the last Reflection—his Reflection. Still standing. Still smirking.

Until now.

Because something had changed.

Lucian rose. Slow. Shaking. But steady. Resonance bled from his body like gravity gone mad—bending the edges of space around his shoulders.

His hair lifted slightly, weightless. His coat rippled with a wind that had no source. His gaze locked on the other him.

And he smiled. Not cruel. Not mocking.

Just ready.

"Your turn," he whispered.

And the chamber pulsed again—this time, with war.

A shattering crack split the air. Lucian surged forward, time folding beneath his boots in rhythmic pulses—each step bending reality like a heartbeat. The Reflection countered, blade drawn, scythe sweeping wide—dimensional arcs fracturing through the air.

They collided mid-chamber.

Space ripped.

A scream of timelines echoing in reverse as Lucian twisted mid-air, spine arcing, then coiling back like a whip as he spun past the edge of a blow. He slammed his elbow into his Reflection's ribs. A burst of starlight fractured outward from the strike, the ground splintering beneath them like shattered ice.

The Reflection snarled, eyes gleaming. Violet glow sharpened into a blade that distorted the air around it.

Lucian ducked under the slash, dragging one foot through time—a trail of fire igniting in his wake. He reappeared behind his Reflection, landing low, and swept his leg out.

The Reflection staggered.

"You stole my face."

Lucian raised one hand—white-hot resonance swirling in his palm—and hurled it. The bolt hit his Reflection's shoulder, detonating on impact, blasting him back through a wall. Fractures split across the chamber, splintering space and leaving glowing fault lines.

The Reflection rose again, blood pouring down his cheek. A jagged smile split his face.

"You're still weak."

Lucian didn't respond. He reached behind him—summoned the Dimensional Scythe. It ignited in his grip, the blade humming with potential, singing with fractured time.

He lunged.

The scythe cut through the air, dragging ruptures of reality in its wake. A streak of starlight followed the arc—like history itself was bleeding.

The Reflection caught the blow—barely—and they locked. Face to face. Eye to eye. Every flicker in their gazes trembling like a war of truths.

Lucian's lips barely moved.

"I fought for him. What did you fight for?"

The Reflection blinked—just once. A twitch of doubt. And Lucian moved.

The scythe screamed.

Time fractured around them—shards of repeating moments, echoes of every death Lucian had ever endured, now burning like fire through his veins.

Time fractured.

Every scream, every death, every failed recursion Lucian endured exploded behind his eyes. He funneled it all into a second strike.

The scythe hit. The Reflection howled, flung across the floor, bouncing off the far wall with bone-snapping impact.

The Reflection crumpled. Lucian advanced slowly now, blood dripping from his mouth, his body nearly spent.

Each step melted the edges of space beneath him. He bled from the mouth, from the nose, but his body moved like it remembered something stronger than pain.

"You forgot the reason."

He lifted the scythe one final time—pointed it at the Reflection's chest.

And as light surged around them, the Reflection whispered:

"I... was afraid."

Lucian's grip tightened. His voice was a breath.

"So was I."

The scythe fell. And silence reigned.

—

A ripple of collapsing resonance shuddered outward, silencing every echo still clinging to the walls. Then... stillness.

Lucian remained standing. Barely. Shoulders heaving, face pale, eyes glazed from strain. His grip on the scythe trembled.

The weapon pulsed once more before disintegrating in a sigh of light. His knees gave out. He dropped.

Rowan caught him. Pouring guidance into his fragile frame.

The others didn't speak. Couldn't. Not yet.

The air was too thick. Their chests too tight. The sound of battle had vanished—but the aftershock still trembled in their bones.

Blood stained the floor. Craters marred the walls. Burnt metal, ozone, and static hung in the air like the breath of a dying god.

The silence was no longer peaceful—it was reverent. As if the chamber itself was mourning what had just transpired.

Somewhere near the fractured center of the room, light flickered along the glyph lines again. The system stirred.

[THREAD REFERENCE: ROOT_VAUGHN_00 TERMINATED]

[RECURSIVE ENTROPY: PURGED.]

[RESTRUCTURING PROGRESS...]

[NEWTHREAD: ACTIVE.]

The glow passed over Lucian's unconscious form.

Rowan's hand clenched over his heart.

They were alive. But forever changed.

And the war inside them was far from over.

Mira lowered her rifle slowly. Zora wiped a line of blood from his brow, jaw tight. Vespera sank to one knee, eyes unfocused. Sloane just exhaled, long and slow, gaze turned toward the place the reflection had stood.

Ren blinked hard, like trying to reset a vision he hadn't meant to see.

Quinn's hands trembled once before he steadied them against his knees.

The chamber was still. But the echoes of what had happened clung to the air—thick as fog.

Rowan didn't say anything. He just held Lucian.

Lucian, whose breathing was steadying. Lucian, whose blood still stained his lips. Lucian, whose fingers, even now, reached faintly for Rowan's wrist.

They were alive. But forever changed.

And the war inside them was far from over.

—

Zora was the first to move, shifting with a quiet grunt as he pushed off his knee. His coat hung uneven, sliced open at the side where blood had long since dried into stiff, dark patches.

He glanced at the cracked floor, then at the empty space where his reflection had been.

"Remind me," he muttered, rotating his shoulder with a soft pop, "to never fight myself again. I'm a smug bastard."

Ren made a strangled sound from where he lay sprawled on his side, one arm thrown dramatically across his chest. "Please, I was fabulous. Smug? Yes. Bastard? Maybe. But look at this face—" He turned his head and winced. "Actually, don't. I think I broke a cheekbone smiling too hard."

Jasper coughed weakly into his elbow, dragging himself upright with a wheeze. "You're just mad your Reflection had better hair."

Ren gasped—then coughed harder. "Betrayal. I'll remember this, Jasper Hale."

"Good," Jasper croaked. "Means you're alive."

On the far side, Vespera gently steadied Quinn as he sat up. His gloves were stained and shredded, and his resonance brace flickered in erratic bursts along his forearm. Blood matted one side of his hairline, but his eyes found hers with a faint curve at the corner of his lips.

"Hey," he murmured. "Did we win?"

Vespera's breath hitched—not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. She leaned in, rested her forehead briefly to his, and whispered, "Still deciding."

Mira dropped her sniper rifle with a dull clank, then leaned back against the closest wall and slid to the ground in one long, exhausted motion. Her chest heaved. One eye was swollen. Her hands shook faintly as she rubbed the heel of her palm over her face.

"Never again," she said flatly. "If anyone suggests visiting another underground vault with glowing death-chambers, I'm putting a bullet in the map."

"Fair," Ari groaned from across the chamber. She was bent over with her hands braced on her knees, breathing hard, one arm clearly dislocated.

She straightened with a wince, then shuffled toward the main console.

Her boots scraped across the fractured floor, leaving faint trails of blood and dirt.

With the same grace as someone punching a vending machine, she slammed her palm onto the comms.

"Zarek HQ, this is K6 field team. We're alive. Barely. Covered in pieces of our own reflections. Pretty sure I inhaled part of mine. Send a mop and a priest."

The comms crackled again.

"...Copy that. We're reading stabilization across all Site anchors. Recovery team is prepping coordinates now. Sit tight."

Rowan barely heard the exchange. He was still on the ground, cradling Lucian's half-conscious body like something irreplaceable. His thumb traced slow circles over the blood-smeared edge of Lucian's jaw.

Lucian's lashes fluttered weakly. His chest rose, shallow but steady.

"You're still here," Rowan whispered. "You're still you."

Lucian blinked once.

"...unfortunately."

Rowan huffed a breath—a laugh soaked in relief and too many tears. "Shut up."

A few feet away, Sloane adjusted the tightness of the bracer around his forearm. His coat was torn across one sleeve, mist still lingering faintly around his shoulders.

He watched the others silently, then finally muttered, "I didn't know I could be that sarcastic."

Zora smirked. "That wasn't sarcasm. That was spite wrapped in geometry."

Sloane blinked, then exhaled—just a little sound—but it might've been a laugh.

"Ren," Ari called out, turning toward him and nudging a fractured shard of glyphstone with her boot, "on a scale of one to ten, how screwed are we if you time-burped us out of here again?"

Ren groaned from the ground, raising a limp hand. "I could try. You'd all age five years. Rowan might become a tree. And I'd probably implode."

Ari raised an eyebrow.

"...so six?"

"Five and a half, if I eat something first."

A chuckle spread through the group like a ripple. Quiet. Raw. But real.

Vespera looked around—at the wounds, the blood, the bruises. Then to the light overhead.

It no longer pulsed with danger. Just... softness.

"We're still breathing," she said softly.

Mira leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. "Not sure how."

Lucian, weak but lucid now, stirred in Rowan's arms.

He rasped, "Because of him."

Rowan blinked, brow furrowing. "Who?"

Lucian didn't answer. He didn't have to.

The chamber remembered.

And outside, for the first time since they'd arrived, the wind above Site K6 began to blow again.