C-Team: From Here To The Multiverse

Haru was in a dream.

The sky stretched out in every direction. Vast, endless, painted in hues of silver and pale blue.

Clouds floated like islands, soft and slow, suspended in an ocean of light. Stars shimmered above them, too many to count, too close to be real. They didn't flicker — they glowed, steady and strange, like memories that refused to fade.

Beneath it all, the world was water.

A vast, crystal sheet of it — perfectly still, perfectly clear. Not cold. Not warm. Just… there. So flawless it reflected the sky like a mirror, until it was impossible to tell where heaven ended and the sea began.

He stepped onto it like it was glass — and somehow, it held. No splash. No ripple. Not even the smallest tremble beneath his feet.

He didn't feel afraid here. Or confused. Or even curious, really. Just still. As if every breath here came easier.

It was… peaceful.

Not the kind of peace that comes and goes but the deep kind. The kind that made his shoulders relax without realizing. The kind that made him feel like nothing was expected of him. Like he could just be.

He noticed something shimmering in the distance.

A light.

Different from the others.

Not cold like the stars or soft like the clouds. This one pulsed. Beckoned.

So, without a word — without even knowing why — Haru took a step toward it.

He didn't know how long he'd been walking.

Time didn't seem to move here. The sky never darkened. The stars never changed. And the water — still as ever — reflected everything except himself.

But then he saw it.

Floating ahead.

Suspended just inches above the surface of the water, yet casting no reflection was a clock without a shadow.

The face was carved from something pale and ancient — not quite stone, not quite metal. The color of old clouds before a storm. Intricate patterns curled along its edges like vines of frozen wind, each one etched with impossible precision — and unmistakably angelic. Wings, feathers, halos, spirals too perfect to be manmade. It felt divine.

And it was huge.

Taller than a house. Wider than a street. It hovered silently, unmoving, yet somehow... it seemed alive.

At its center, golden hands spun with mechanical grace — elegant, thin, impossibly long. The symbols around its rim weren't numbers. They were… faces. Dozens of them. All unique. All watching.

He couldn't look away.

Something about it felt holy, not in the way of temples or prayers — but in the way of truths too big for language. Like this was something that had always been here. Always would be.

He noticed the time.

The long hand had just ticked past the seventh face.

His breath caught.

Because it was moving fast.

It swept toward the next marker, the eighth face, with unnatural speed. As if whatever rhythm it once obeyed had been either abandoned or broken.

And the moment the hand struck eight—

The sky, the clouds, the stillness beneath his feet — all of it twisted, warped, rippled like paint dragged through water. The stars above blinked out, and the sea below began to pull him in.

And then Haru sank — downward — into the depths below.

And when he opened his eyes again—

Everything was gone.

Now there was only ruin.

The air was thick with heat and ash. The kind of heat that didn't just burn — it suffocated.

Fire raged somewhere in the distance, or maybe all around. It was hard to tell. Everything bled into everything else — smoke, screams, silence.

What once had been sacred was now unrecognizable.

Structures, symbols, even legacies, reduced to dust and flame. Haru was in The Mivtzar of Einaim.

The very order that had held the multiverse together for so long had cracked open at its seams, and all he could do was watch as it unraveled.

This was a collapse.

A thing that was supposed to be good was now broken beyond repair.

He didn't need anyone to say it.

Didn't need to ask what happened.

He knew.

Somewhere, somehow — this was his doing.

Haru ran.

Debris crashed down around him — slabs of scorched marble, shattered glass, burning fragments of something ancient.

He weaved through them without knowing how, without knowing why — only that if he stopped, he'd be swallowed whole.

The screams didn't stop, they were everywhere.

They weren't just cries of pain — they were cries of betrayal. Like existence itself was mourning.

His lungs burned. His heart pounded.

Haru froze mid-step, breath catching.

Something was watching.

There, far ahead, just beyond the smoke — a dark silhouette.

It stood on the edge of broken stone, high above the wreckage, unmoving as firelight flickered behind it.

Its presence swallowed the space around it, the kind that crushed the air in your chest. That made everything else seem small in comparison.

Tick.

His head snapped up and there it was.

The clock.

The same one from before — but not floating now. Not hovering peacefully above the water.

It was above everything.

Colossal, unfathomably vast — it spanned the entire sky, its edge vanishing into the horizon.

Its circular frame was no longer just carved, it was alive with burning etchings, angelic symbols glowing like constellations at war.

Its hands were longer than cities, gliding in impossible precision, each movement echoing with sacred finality.

Its sheer presence made the world feel like it was holding its breath. Like time itself was kneeling before it.

Even the silhouette looked up, as if it too understood what this meant.

And together, they watched as the golden hand moved.

Not forward but back.

Ticking in reverse from eight to seven and as it struck—

The world unraveled.

Flames collapsed inward. Smoke folded into light. Screams twisted into echoes and vanished. The ground beneath his feet turned weightless. The silhouette above disappeared into blur.

Everything collapsed into motion — backward, impossible, inevitable.

And then—

He woke up.