I would just like to preface this chapter by saying: I was having a pretty good day. I'd only been mildly humiliated in public once, my Spoon hadn't threatened regicide in at least an hour, and Belladonna had accidentally called me by my actual name without sneering. That's practically character development.
So, naturally, the universe took that as a challenge.
"The Hall of Reflected Sins is active again," said the monk who definitely moonlighted as a cryptic prophecy vending machine. He bowed so low, I feared for his spinal integrity.
"That sounds like a place we should immediately not go," I said.
Belladonna, who was now contractually obligated to join me in every life-threatening mistake, raised an eyebrow. "If the Echo Monks think it's important, it probably is."
Spoon piped up. "Or it's a trap designed to break your fragile psyche like a tea set thrown by an angry duchess."
Spoiler: It was both.
We arrived at the Hall just past twilight. The air smelled of old incense and unspoken regrets. Columns of obsidian ringed a vast mirror pool that didn't reflect light—it absorbed it, like trauma in liquid form.
I took one look and said, "Nope. My therapist is on vacation, my emotional support cat is illiterate, and I'm emotionally constipated. We are not doing this today."
Unfortunately, the Mirror Pool had other ideas.
With a wet, glitchy hum, the water rippled—and my reflection climbed out.
Yes. Climbed. Out. Like it had better things to do than be metaphorical.
Echo-Kael Version 2.0 stood before me in full dramatic glory: cloak swirling, hair better than mine, glowing with that smug emotional stability I could never achieve.
He smiled. "You left me here."
"That is not how reflections work!" I yelled.
Belladonna stepped in with the casual grace of someone who read too many cursed grimoires before breakfast. "It's a manifestation. He's part of your fractured Echo self. The more you deny him, the stronger he becomes."
"Oh goodie, it's a therapy boss fight."
Spoon muttered, "Punch him in the unresolved childhood."
We fought.
But not with fists. Oh no.
This was Echo combat—which, apparently, meant trading traumas like Yu-Gi-Oh cards in a shadow duel.
He opened with: "You still blame yourself for your mother's death."
I countered with: "At least I don't secretly want to be loved by people I keep pushing away."
"You hide behind sarcasm because sincerity scares you."
"You monologue like a first-year drama student who found a psychology textbook!"
We were glowing. Shouting. The hall echoed with every broken version of myself that had ever whispered, You don't belong here.
Belladonna tried to interfere. A mirror version of her appeared and yanked her into her own nightmare flashback. Great. Now it was a couples' therapy dungeon.
Ten minutes later, Mirielle, Seraphina, and even Fluffernox had joined us. Yes. Even the cat had a trauma twin. It hissed at its reflection, then sat on it like a queen asserting dominance.
Mirielle whispered, "You never say what you feel."
Seraphina said, "You pretend you don't care, so no one sees how much you do."
"Why does everyone keep trying to out-therapy me in the trauma mirror?!" I shouted.
Spoon was floating nearby eating spectral popcorn.
"This is great character development," it said. "You're finally confronting the emotional rot in your soul garden."
"I liked my soul garden overgrown with denial vines and petty resentment shrubs."
The climax came when the reflection turned into me as a child.
Eight years old. Scared. Alone. Still holding onto the belief that if I was clever and useful and funny enough, maybe people would stop leaving.
"You can't fight me," he said softly. "You are me."
And I finally—finally—knelt down and said:
"I know. And I'm sorry. You didn't deserve to grow up thinking pain was the price of being loved."
He smiled.
He vanished.
The hall quieted.
Spoon clapped with the solemnity of a holy rite. "Congratulations. You just leveled up in emotional intelligence. Only took seventy-four chapters."
We left the Hall of Reflected Sins at dawn.
Belladonna took my hand. No words. Just warmth.
And I, Kael of House Nobody, certified emotional disaster, glitch-borne Echo vessel, with a Spoon as my life coach, felt—
lighter.
Still broken. Still sarcastic. But maybe...
better.
Next Time on Yes, I Was Reborn. No, I Don't Want a Harem. Stop Looking at Me Like That:
Chapter 75: "Fluffernox Ascends (and Possibly Starts a Cult)"
The Spoon gets jealous. Kael gets glamoured. Someone kisses the wrong person again. And Fluffernox delivers a sermon with interpretive dance.
You know. Tuesday stuff.