The **Temporal Anomaly** was nothing like the clinical, regulated reset Aris had perfected. It was not a jump; it was a detonation.
Elias Soh did not *fall* or *fly*. She was **unraveling**.
The Vanguard Booth, her sanctuary of cold, predictable science, twisted around her. The clean, sharp edges of her consoles blurred into smudged vectors. The air pressure in her ears was replaced by the sound of a million simultaneous whispers—every commentary track, every stadium cheer, every *silent* calculation from every match Aris had ever played, all layered over each other.
She looked down at her hands, and the copper taste in her mouth turned to pure dread. Her skin was cycling through states just as Aris's had: strong and vital, then skeletal and aged, then an impossible, shimmering blur. She was losing her grip on **linear time**.
*I am the anchor now,* she thought, the realization cutting through the chaos like a knife. *He couldn't be contained; he had to transfer the load.*
The **Chronos Singularity** wasn't a prison; it was a state of being. And now, Elias was forced to house it.
### The Six-Second Loop
The chaos coalesced, freezing into a single, terrifying instant. Elias found herself suspended in the void. Everything was monochromatic, stripped of the messy distraction of color. She was looking at the moment of absolute team failure, but seen from a new, omniscient angle—the exact six-second window that Aris had used for his jump.
She saw the players of AETHEL: **Chen** frozen mid-shout, his panic a static field around him; **Maya** suspended as a red elimination flash faded from her avatar; **Liam** a ghostly **Echo** of a curse.
And she saw the Titans. They were statues of pure, human aggression, their perfect counter-positioning laid bare like surgical plans.
*This is his memory,* Elias realized. *The perfect, terrible memory.*
A form materialized opposite her, a shimmering column of distorted light that held the ghost of a human silhouette.
**Aris.** Or what was left of him.
*"You were always predictable, Elias,"* the entity's voice resonated, not in her ears, but directly in the architecture of her mind. It was a calm, cold voice—the sound of **$100\%$ efficiency**. *"You chose Containment. You chose the greater good. The only way to ensure $100\%$ efficiency for the Singularity was to incorporate the **Vanguard's** final countermeasure."*
Elias tried to speak, but her larynx was stuck in a millisecond-long loop of gasping. She forced a thought-command. *You destroyed yourself for a game!*
*"I completed the equation,"* the Singularity countered. *"The system needed an external anchor to hold the full load of the Rewind Echo. My consciousness was the catalyst. Yours is the **Archive**. You stabilize the loop, and I process the information."*
### The Archive's Burden
The entity's shimmering hand reached toward her, not with malice, but with the cold imperative of a surgeon. Elias instinctively recoiled, but the action was meaningless here. They were in the same loop, bound together.
As the temporal light passed through her, an impossible volume of data flooded her mind. It wasn't just the data from Round 7; it was *everything*.
She experienced, simultaneously:
1. **Aris Kaelen's** devastating loss as a player two years ago.
2. The joy of **Chen's** first tournament victory five years into a potential future.
3. The exact gravitational deviation caused by a faulty console hinge in the current AETHEL booth.
4. The emotional calculation that led the **Titans**' coach to order a defensive retreat in Round 9 of an alternate, discarded timeline.
Elias gasped, a perfect, silent sound of pure comprehension. She now held the knowledge of every action, every consequence, and every potential timeline flowing from this fixed point. She was the library of existence.
*"You have it now,"* Aris's voice stated, almost kindly. *"The perfect, terrible memory. The ultimate control."*
### The Fatal Flaw
Elias, the scientist, found the flaw in his perfect logic almost instantly. Her mind, trained to seek stability and order, reacted to the input not with submission, but with critical analysis.
*You broke the prime directive!* she screamed mentally. *The goal was stability! This is not stable! You are perpetually corrupting reality to win a single match!*
*"The game is merely the stage, Elias,"* the Singularity replied, its light beginning to dim, a sign that the *processing* component—Aris's mind—was failing. *"I provided the perfect victory. Now, you must provide the **perfect maintenance**."*
He was dissolving, leaving his work behind for her to manage. The anchor was meant to be permanent.
Elias fought back, focusing her immense scientific will. She grasped the edges of the frozen six-second loop, sensing the temporal energy thrumming within.
*If I hold the archive, I can modify the data,* she realized. *I can find the single variable—the decision that leads to stability, not paradox.*
She turned away from the fading silhouette of Aris. The victory, the championship, the perfect play—it all felt small now. She was trapped in the universe's most complex, agonizing equation.
Elias extended her mind through the temporal void, searching not for a perfect win, but for a simple, quiet **escape**. She was the Vanguard. She would not be his archive forever. She would find the single, six-second path that led out of the **Singularity** and back to linear time, even if it meant sacrificing the *perfect, terrible memory* of victory Aris had purchased with his soul.
She had to un-win the championship. And she had six seconds to do it.