The clock did not tick.

It tightened.

Compulsory Closure manifested as a slow, invisible constriction around both sides of the sealed door. On the multi-life battlefield it felt like the air itself growing heavier, denser, less willing to permit unfinished things. On the living side it felt like the mansion’s walls drawing inward, every black-vein syllable of the bloodline name beginning to heat toward a critical point. The process had given them a window. It had not given them a generous one.

Zelda’s wounded shoulder burned with completed finality. The older version’s strike had left more than torn flesh; it had left a thin, cold certainty that tried to spread,...