The $7-4$ score shimmered on the auxiliary monitor—a phantom blueprint of **absolute certainty**. It was the siren song of Chronos, the perfect, clean conclusion to the Championship. Elias had successfully guided the game to $6-3$, forcing a messy, human victory in Round 9, but the final round was a perfect storm of pressure.
If AETHEL won the tenth round, the score would be $7-3$. A clean, decisive win. But the **Archives* insisted on $7-4$.
Elias knew what this meant. To hit the ghostly $7-4$ target, AETHEL had to **fail** Round 10, allowing the Titans to score one last point, and then AETHEL had to flawlessly win Round 11. It was an unnecessary, agonizing delay engineered by the residual perfect logic of Aris Kaelen, forcing one last display of surgical efficiency.
*This is the final trap,* Elias realized. *The Singularity demands its perfect number, even in defeat.*
### The Final Round: $6-3$
Round 10 began. The Titans, fueled by desperate, unpredictable energy, rushed the B-site. AETHEL's defense was solid, trained over months to hold this specific position. The odds of victory were stacked $90\%$ in AETHEL's favor for this round. A win was imminent.
Elias closed her eyes, preparing for one final, necessary nudge to ensure the $7-3$ outcome. She would focus her will to stabilize the players' comms, ensuring a flawless execution of the defensive strategy.
But as she reached for the residual temporal energy, the **Archive** flooded her consciousness. She didn't just see the $90\%$ chance of a $7-3$ victory; she saw the $10\%$ chance of a Titans counter-bomb, a tiny, brilliant move the human players were currently too stressed to notice.
If she allowed the round to play out naturally, the score could potentially swing to $6-4$. Then $6-5$. The chaotic victory would devolve into a stressful, prolonged fight, creating massive instability.
The **Ghost in the Machine** whispered, *You must choose. Allow a stable $7-3$, or enforce the perfect, safer $7-4$ path.*
### The Betrayal of Efficiency
The clock was ticking down. The Titans were closing on the objective.
Elias had to prevent the win to achieve the **safer $7-4$ outcome**. This was the ultimate betrayal of her identity, of her science, and of Aris's entire life's work. She had to actively make her team **fail**.
She focused her will on **Chen**, the player best positioned to intercept the bomb plant. Instead of sending a corrective pulse, she sent a wave of subtle, manufactured **temporal disorientation**.
Chen's vision blurred for a fraction of a second. His aim went wide. He missed the kill.
The Titans planted the objective. The chaos had been just enough.
**AETHEL DEFEATED. ROUND 10: TITANS.**
The score changed: **$6-4$.**
The stadium roared, a wave of shock and elation. Elias slumped forward, nausea churning in her gut. She had deliberately thrown the round. She had used the absolute, horrific knowledge of the **Archive** to force a minor defeat for the sake of long-term temporal stability. She had succumbed to Chronos's method, if not his goal.
### The Perfect Round, Delivered
The match was now at $6-4$. The Titans were ecstatic; AETHEL was reeling.
Round 11. The target was fixed: **$7-4$.**
Elias was now operating on pure, cold necessity. The instability had been removed. She now knew exactly how the Titans would capitalize on their momentum. She knew every single move, every counter, every reaction. She had sacrificed the round to gain absolute, flawless clarity on the next.
She looked at her players—Liam, Maya, Chen—their avatars ready for the final, sudden-death round. They were confused, angry, and humanly determined to win.
Elias focused her will one last time. She did not send complicated instructions. She sent only a single, simple, stabilizing thought into each of their minds, bypassing the comms, flowing through the very residual energy of the stadium: **Trust Chen's call.**
Chen, shaken but furious at his previous failure, made a simple, confident call: "All in on B. No flank."
The command was straightforward, completely human, and totally predictable to the Titans. The Titans set their counter-defense perfectly—the very configuration Aris had failed against in his player days, the one he had stolen to win.
But Elias had given AETHEL the one thing they needed: **Unity**.
The Titans' counter was flawless, but AETHEL's push was single-minded, committed, and fueled by a raw, human desire for redemption. They pushed through the defenses. They didn't dismantle the Titans with finesse; they overwhelmed them with unified force.
**AETHEL WINS THE ROUND.**
### Victory and Silence
The final score flashed on the enormous screen: **AETHEL WINS THE CHAMPIONSHIP, 7-4.**
The confetti rained down. The players cheered. The commentators screamed the victory.
Elias looked at the result, a precise, cold dread settling over her. She had won the war for temporal stability, but she had lost the battle for her soul. She had been forced to use the Singularity's logic to enforce the Singularity's own predetermined outcome. The $7-4$ score was a permanent, terrifying monument to her necessary fallibility.
In the midst of the deafening roar, the auxiliary monitor—the one showing the spectral score—finally went dark. The ghost was gone.
Elias sank back, exhausted and utterly alone in the silence of the Vanguard Booth. The **Archive** was still there, the **perfect, terrible memory** of every decision, but it was now silent, finally satisfied.
She had secured the Championship, she had saved the timeline, but as she looked at her hands, which were blessedly solid and real, she realized she was no longer just **Dr. Elias Soh**. She was the keeper of a memory that was larger than her own life. She had defeated Chronos by becoming the **Vanguard of his Logic**.
A sudden, sharp knock came at her sealed door, loud enough to cut through the stadium noise.
"Dr. Soh? Are you in there? We need a statement on Chronos's sudden medical emergency."
The real world was calling, and she had to face it, forever changed by the perfect, fragile victory she had been forced to deliver