The Soul of Omega Earth breathed differently—each exhale tasted of industrial refinement and desperation. Ω-Jett stood atop what should have been Namsan Tower, but here it was a radianite processing spire, its peak crowned with extraction arrays that hummed with stolen energy.
Below her, the city sprawled in organized decay, every park and green space converted to support the machinery that kept their dying world alive.
She closed her eyes, feeling the wind respond to her call—thinner here, harder to grasp. Everything on Omega Earth required more effort, more sacrifice. Even breathing.
"Ready for insertion, J-42?"
The voice crackled through her earpiece, using her operational designation. Official channels did not reveal any names. Names implied humanity, and humanity was a luxury Omega couldn't afford.
"Affirmative," she replied, checking her tactical gear one final time.
The dimensional anchor at her belt pulsed with sickly light—six hours of stability before molecular cohesion began to fail. She had six hours to gather intelligence that could either save her world or doom another.
Alternatively, it could lead to the destruction of another world.
She pushed the thought aside as she rappelled down the spire's edge, her movements precise despite the weight of her mission. The convergence wasn't about conquest—it never had been. It was about survival. Approximately eight billion people inhabit a world that will be dead within eighteen months unless drastic action is taken.
The industrial district below welcomed her with familiar shadows. At least here, she knew every blind spot and every camera angle. She'd grown up in these streets before First Light had changed everything, before the radianite had begun consuming more than it gave.
Her earpiece crackled again.
"We have powered the dimensional chamber." Ω-Minwoo is... stable."
The pause before 'stable' told her everything. Gradually, her twin's existence was being torn apart by each dimensional anchor point. But he'd volunteered, knowing the cost. They all had.
"We're starting the transport," she affirmed, advancing towards the center of the facility.
The chamber itself was a monument to desperation disguised as innovation. Massive radianite cores lined the walls, their energy focused through arrays that would have been impossible without Kingdom's stolen data.
At the center, suspended in a web of dimensional energy, Ω-Minwoo floated with his eyes closed.
He looked peaceful, but Ω-Jett knew better. She could see the micro-fractures in his form, places where reality couldn't quite decide if he existed or not. His wind powers sparked and sputtered around him like dying stars.
"Ready when you are," Ω-Omen materialized beside her, his form more stable than her brother's but still wavering at the edges. "However, I question whether it is wise to conduct reconnaissance this close to convergence."
"We need to know their defensive capabilities," Ω-Jett replied, not mentioning her other reasons.
She needed to see Alpha Earth once more—to remind herself why eight billion had to die so another eight billion could live.
The portal tore open with a sound like reality screaming. Through it, she glimpsed Seoul—but wrong. Bright. Alive. Everything Omega had lost.
She stepped through the portal before any doubt could take root.
Alpha Earth's Seoul assaulted her senses with its vitality. The air exuded a clean taste, brimming with oxygen untouched by industrial filters. Street vendors called out evening specials while couples laughed over coffee. Children played in parks that actually contained trees.
Ω-Jett moved through the crowds like a ghost, her tactical gear hidden beneath a civilian jacket she'd lifted from a shop. Every face she passed was another weight on her conscience—people living lives that would end in seventeen hours if the convergence succeeded.
Not ending, she corrected herself. Merge. They'll become part of something greater.
The lie tasted bitter even in her thoughts.
Her route took her through Gangnam's commercial district, past PC bangs and boutiques that sold frivolities Omega hadn't produced in years. She paused outside one gaming café, watching through the window as young people lost themselves in digital worlds.
On Omega, every screen served the war effort. Play was another dead luxury.
Movement caught her eye—a familiar silhouette heading toward the café. Ω-Jett melted back into the shadows, recognizing the gait before she saw the face. Her counterpart's twin was unaware that she was merely meters away from him. He looked tired, shoulders bent under invisible weight.
He carries it differently, she observed. Alpha's Minwoo bore his burden like a crown rather than chains. She wondered if he knew how lucky he was to have a world worth saving rather than one that demanded sacrifice.
Her reconnaissance continued, mapping infrastructure nodes and civilian density patterns. Each data point further weakened Alpha's position, yet she collected them with expert efficiency. The mission came first. Always.
"Seventeen hours and counting," Brimstone's voice carried the weight of command as he stood before the assembled strike team.
The tactical display behind him showed Seoul marked with potential target zones, each one representing thousands of lives.
Minwoo sat between Jett and Sage, his sister's hand occasionally brushing his arm in silent support. He hadn't told them about the latest vision—Ω-Minwoo's memories bleeding through dimensional barriers, showing him glimpses of a world choking on its desperation.
"Phoenix, Raze, you're in rapid response," Brimstone continued. "Any dimensional incursion, you hit it fast and loud. Cypher, I need every surveillance asset we have mapped to Seoul's critical infrastructure."
"The operation is already in progress," Cypher confirmed, while his fingers danced across the holographic displays. "However, I should mention that someone has been accessing our peripheral cameras. Very subtle, very professional."
Minwoo's rift sense tingled.
"Omega?"
"Unknown, but likely." Cypher's mask turned toward him. "They're mapping our city as we speak."
"Then we need to move faster," Jett interjected, her usual levity replaced by tactical focus. "Set traps at the most likely targets. When they come—"
"If," Sage corrected gently. "We don't know their exact plan."
"They'll come," Minwoo said quietly, certainty born from visions he couldn't fully explain. "They have to. Their world is dying."
The briefing room fell silent. Brimstone studied him with eyes that had seen too much war.
"Explain."
Minwoo chose his words carefully.
"The dimensional bleeds—I've been seeing more. Omega Earth isn't just aggressive. They're desperate. Their consumption of radianite has reached a critical point. Without our resources..."
He trailed off, the implication clear.
"You're saying this is survival for them," Sage observed, her medical training parsing the implications. "Not conquest."
"Does it matter?" Phoenix's flames flickered with agitation. "They're still planning to kill billions."
"Understanding their tactics is important," Brimstone decided. "Desperate enemies are unpredictable enemies. Sage, could you please conduct full medical workups on any agents experiencing dimensional symptoms? Minwoo, that includes you."
As the briefing concluded and agents dispersed to their assignments, Sage caught Minwoo's arm.
"Medical bay. Now."
The scanners hummed as they mapped Minwoo's molecular structure, each reading adding another frown to Sage's expression. He sat shirtless on the examination table, wind unconsciously curling around his fingers as she worked.
"Your cellular cohesion is degrading," she said finally, pulling up holographic displays that showed his body at the molecular level. "These areas here—" she highlighted several regions, "—are experiencing quantum uncertainty. Your atoms can't decide which dimension they belong to."
"What does that mean?" Minwoo asked, though part of him already knew.
"It means you're becoming unstable. Each use of your rift abilities, each connection to Omega Earth, accelerates the process." She met his eyes, her usual calm cracked by genuine concern. "At this rate, you have perhaps weeks before complete molecular dissolution."
The word hovered between them like a deadly threat. Minwoo thought of Ω-Minwoo, suspended in that chamber, held together by will alone.
"Can you stop it?"
"I can slow it," Sage admitted. "But the only cure would be complete cessation of your abilities. No more rift manipulation, no more dimensional bridges."
"That's not an option," Minwoo said immediately. "Not with convergence in seventeen hours."
"Sixteen," she corrected. "And that's precisely why I'm concerned. Whatever they're planning, it will likely accelerate your condition. You have the potential to both save the world and become extinct in the process.
He thought of Jett, of the team that had become family, and of a girl in a PC bang who made him feel human.
"Some things are worth that risk."
Sage's hand settled on his shoulder, her healing energy flowing through the touch—not curing, just easing.
"Perhaps. But consider who you'd be leaving behind."
The PC bang in Gangnam offered sanctuary from cosmic responsibilities, its familiar electronic hum drowning out the whispers of dimensional instability. Minwoo slipped into his usual corner booth, muscles aching from the medical examination and mind racing from its implications.
Weeks. Perhaps it would take less time if the convergence required all of his resources.
"You look like someone stole your champion's ranking."
He looked up to find her settling into the adjacent seat—oversized hoodie failing to hide the grace in her movements, baseball cap shadowing features he'd memorized during their previous sessions. Tonight, though, something in her eyes suggested she saw more than she let on.
"Just a rough day," he managed, loading up League out of habit more than desire.
"Want to talk about it?" She plugged in her headset, her fingers effortlessly gliding across the keyboard. "Or would you like me to guide you through some games while you process your thoughts?"
Despite everything, he smiled.
"Pretty confident for someone who needed three tries to ward properly last week."
"That was strategy," she protested, her mock indignation lightening his mood. "I was testing whether you'd notice."
They queued up, falling into the rhythm that had become their unspoken language. Her support play complemented his aggressive style perfectly, anticipating his moves before he made them. For twenty minutes, the world narrowed to last hits and team fights, dimensional convergence temporarily forgotten.
Between matches, her dark eyes scrutinized him, seemingly piercing his meticulously crafted facades.
"You know," she said carefully, "my job requires me to be different people. The person on stage isn't the same as the person in this chair."
Minwoo's hands stilled on the keyboard.
"Yeah?"
"Sometimes the weight of those expectations—being what everyone needs you to be—feels like it might crush you." She wasn't looking at him now, focusing on the champion select screen. "But I've learned something important."
"What's that?"
"Who truly matters?" They want the real you, not the role you play. Her voice dropped, soft enough that he had to lean closer to hear. "Even if that real you comes with complications they never expected."
His phone buzzed with a proximity alert indicating that a dimensional disturbance was detected two kilometers away. The demands of the real world were crashing back in on him.
"I have to go," he said, already reaching for his jacket.
She caught his wrist, her touch electric.
"I know."
The words froze him in place. She couldn't mean—
"Whatever it is you're carrying," she continued, releasing him, "you don't have to carry it alone. Please feel free to return whenever you're ready to discuss. I'll be here."
He fled before the questions could form, before the impossible possibility could take root. The alert buzzed again, more insistent. Duty called, and Han Minwoo always answered.
He was willing to risk everything for it.
Jett's tactical experience was evident in every detail of the attack. She'd chosen a radianite research facility on Seoul's outskirts—valuable enough to demand response, isolated enough to minimize immediate civilian casualties.
Minwoo arrived via rift-walk to find Phoenix already engaged, flames dancing against the wind in a deadly ballet. His counterpart's twin moved like poetry written in violence, each strike calculated for maximum effect.
"About time!" Phoenix called out, barely dodging a wind-enhanced kunai. "She's not playing around!"
Jett arrived seconds later, her entrance announced by a Tailwind that scattered Ω-Jett's next volley. The two versions of his sister faced each other across the burning courtyard, mirror images separated by more than dimension.
"You don't have to do this," Jett said, knives materializing around her fingers. "Whatever Omega's planning—"
"You have no idea what we're planning," Ω-Jett cut her off, her voice carrying bitter certainty. "No idea what survival actually costs."
They clashed in the space between heartbeats, wind meeting wind in a display that shattered windows three blocks away. Minwoo moved to flank, but Ω-Jett had anticipated him. Her kunai forced him to rift-walk defensively, each jump tearing at his already-strained molecular structure.
"Minwoo, left side!"
Phoenix's warning came just in time.
He spun, catching Ω-Jett's follow-up strike with a wind barrier that felt like lifting mountains. She pressed the attack, driving him back with combinations that spoke of years facing deadlier opponents than Alpha Earth could imagine.
"He told me about you," she said between strikes, voice pitched for his ears alone. "My brother. Said you're just like him—caught between worlds, dying for everyone else's salvation."
"I'm nothing like him," Minwoo snarled, launching his counterattack.
"No?" She deflected his wind blade with contemptuous ease. "You're already falling apart. I can see it—the dimensional fractures, the molecular uncertainty. How many more rifts before there's nothing left?"
He didn't answer, couldn't answer, because she was right. Each ability used sent spiderweb cracks through his existence, held together by will and Sage's treatments.
"That's what I thought." Something almost like pity crossed her features. "At least he chose his sacrifice. You're just stumbling toward yours."
She broke away from their engagement, leaping toward a ventilation tower. Jett moved to intercept, but Ω-Jett had planned for that too. Smoke grenades erupted across the facility, obscuring sight as dimensional energy built.
"She's running!" Phoenix called out; flames were trying unsuccessfully to clear the smoke.
But Minwoo felt the truth through his sixth sense. She wasn't running—she was transmitting. The entire attack had been cover for intelligence gathering, facility schematics, and defensive responses, all packaged for dimensional transfer.
He reached out desperately, wind coiling around nascent rifts, trying to create what he'd theorized but never attempted: dimensional chains that could trap a traveler mid-transit. The technique tore at his consciousness; each strand of binding another piece of himself was sacrificed.
For a moment, it worked. Ω-Jett hung suspended between dimensions, her eyes widening with surprise and something that might have been respect.
Then she smiled.
"He wanted me to tell you something," she said, her voice already fading as she slipped through his failing chains. "He said, 'Every anchor holds until it doesn't.'" "Choose your breaking point wisely."
She vanished, leaving only the echo of dimensional collapse and the taste of copper in Minwoo's mouth. He dropped to one knee, the world spinning as his molecules tried to remember their proper configuration.
"Medical, now!"
Jett's voice seemed to come from very far away, her arms supporting him as Phoenix called for emergency transport.
However, Minwoo's thoughts were solely consumed by Jett's message. Select your moment of surrender. He lacked any remaining options.
The debrief happened in the medical bay, Sage's treatments keeping Minwoo conscious while Brimstone processed their failure. It was not a failure—Ω-Jett had achieved exactly what she intended by using their response to map defensive capabilities.
"She played us," Phoenix summarized bitterly. "The whole attack was just reconnaissance."
"Sophisticated reconnaissance," Cypher corrected, analyzing the infiltration patterns. "She now knows response times, tactical preferences, and defensive weaknesses. When the convergence begins—"
"Thirteen hours," Sage interrupted, checking her readings. "And Minwoo can't sustain another dimensional engagement. His molecular structure is approaching critical instability."
"I can fight," Minwoo insisted, trying to sit up despite the room's spinning.
"You can die," Jett countered, fear sharpening her voice. "That's what you're not saying, isn't it? Each rift, each use of power—you're literally coming apart."
The medical bay fell silent, the weight of that truth settling over them like a shroud. Minwoo met his sister's eyes, seeing the same desperate calculation he'd witnessed in Ω-Jett.
"If that's what it takes—"
"No." Jett's wind flared, rattling equipment. "We find another way. We always find another way."
"Perhaps," Brimstone said slowly, "we're approaching this wrong." They expect us to defend and react. But what if we took the initiative?"
"Strike Omega Earth directly?" Phoenix leaned forward, interest sparked. "Should we hit their convergence equipment before they can activate it?"
"Suicide," Sage said flatly. "We barely understand their capabilities on our territory. On theirs?"
"Then we make them come to us," Minwoo said, an idea forming through the haze of molecular dissolution. "But on our terms. If I'm right about what convergence requires—"
His phone buzzed. Unknown number, but the message made his blood freeze:
"We're at the gaming cafe." 2 AM. I would like to discuss your nighttime activities with you. Come alone. - H"
Hanna knew.
Somehow, impossibly, she knew.
The team continued planning, but Minwoo's mind was split between dimensional war and a more personal crisis. How much had she seen? How much had she figured out?
And why did the thought of her knowing feel like both liberation and another weight to carry?
One-thirty AM found Seoul trembling on the edge of something vast. Dimensional distortions painted the sky in impossible colors, reality fraying as two worlds ground against each other. The VALORANT Protocol mobilized everything they had, but Minwoo slipped away from preparations with guilt heavy in his chest.
The PC bang was officially closed, but the door stood unlocked. He found her in their usual corner, silhouetted by monitor light. She'd traded the hoodie for a simple sweater, her face uncovered and serious.
"Hanna—"
"I saw the news footage," she interrupted, not turning around. "The attack was earlier. They tried to blur the faces, but I recognized the way you move. The way you hold yourself when you're trying to save everyone."
He stood frozen in the doorway, excuses dying on his lips.
"How long?" She finally turned, and he saw no anger in her eyes—only concern and something deeper. "How long have you been carrying this secret?"
"Since I came back," he admitted, the words feeling strange after months of deflection. "Since I became... whatever I am now."
"A hero?" She stood, closing the distance between them. "Is that so hard to admit?"
"I'm not—" He stopped, unable to finish the lie. "It's complicated."
"I gathered that from the dimensional rifts and mirror duplicates." She reached for his hand, which felt warm, real, and grounding. "But here's what's not complicated: you've been disappearing because you're saving lives. You show up exhausted because you're literally holding reality together. And you never said anything because..."
"Because I wanted one thing that was just mine," he finished quietly. "One relationship that wasn't about duty or destiny or dimensional convergence. Just... us."
After studying him for a long moment, she pulled him into a profound embrace.
"You beautiful, self-sacrificing idiot," she murmured against his shoulder. "Did you think I'd run? That I couldn't handle knowing who you really are?"
"Everyone I care about becomes a target," he said, returning the embrace despite himself. "Omega knows our weaknesses, our connections—"
"Then they know you have one more person willing to fight for this world." She pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "I'm not asking to join your super-team. But I've had enough of hiding from the truth.
The building shook, a minor tremor that suggested major dimensional activity. His phone lit up with emergency alerts.
"I have to go," he said, already calculating rift trajectories.
"I know." She kissed his cheek, quick and fierce. "Come back alive. We have a lot to talk about."
He almost told her about the molecular dissolution, about weeks becoming days becoming hours. But she'd already accepted so much—that burden could wait.
"Hanna—"
"Go," she said firmly. "Save the world. I'll be here when you're done."
He rift-walked from the PC bang, her faith following him into battle. Even as the universe attempted to tear him apart, one more anchor held him together.
The convergence engine's activation rippled across both dimensions, reality screaming as two worlds began their violent merger. Across Seoul, rifts tore open like wounds, each one spilling Omega forces into Alpha's reality.
At the VALORANT command center, alarms painted everything red while agents scrambled to respond. Brimstone's voice cut through chaos with military precision:
"Phoenix, Raze—eastern sector. Sage, Kay/O—please ensure the civilian shelters are protected. Jett, you're with Minwoo in the primary response."
But Minwoo stood transfixed by the tactical display, his rift sense overwhelming him with data. He could feel it all—every tear, every dimensional bleed, and at the center, the anchor point. Ω-Minwoo was sacrificing himself to provide power for the convergence.
"Eleven hours until cascade failure," Cypher reported. "After that, the merger becomes irreversible."
"Then we stop it before that," Jett said, checking her knives. "Whatever it takes."
Minwoo met her eyes, seeing his own grim determination reflected. He was prepared to do whatever it took. He was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of another twin.
Han Minwoo stood at the center of the war between two worlds, serving as a bridge between dimensions, an anchor between realities, and a crucial point between salvation and catastrophe.
Somewhere across dimensional barriers, his mirror burned with the same purpose.
Only one of them would survive the night.
The city screamed with the sound of two realities colliding, and Minwoo dove into the chaos, knowing that every rift he closed brought him closer to his dissolution.
Eleven hours.
The countdown to convergence—or catastrophe—had begun.