The scream of the mirror still echoed in Ren's bones.
It hadn't stopped, even after the shards had fallen like stars. Even now, as he stood in the aftermath — in a world where the sky bled silver and the ground pulsed like a heartbeat — the cry lingered. Not in the air.
But inside him.
Inside her.
The girl — no, the Mirror's Rebellion — knelt beside him in the shattered place. Her hands were slick with liquid reflection, dripping from her fingertips like melted stars. The broken frame behind them had closed, but not completely. Cracks still stretched across the horizon, bleeding tendrils of mirror-light that curled like veins into the ground.
Ren looked up.
Above them was no sky.
Just a moon — broken clean down the middle, split like an eye pried open too wide. One half gleamed pale and soft. The other half was black glass, fractured and veined with something that looked like memory made solid.
It pulsed when the girl breathed.
"This is the Between," she whispered, voice shaking, eyes wide with recognition and fear. "The pane between Pane. The breath before birth. The fracture before reflection."
Ren stepped beside her, his boots crunching on the glass-dust floor. "You know this place."
"I am this place," she murmured. "Or… what was torn from it."
She stood slowly — barefoot, unsteady, but no longer broken. Her eyes still shimmered like half-formed stars. Not frost. Not ruin. Something new.
Something neither mirror nor flesh.
Ren's fingers twitched at his side. The Thorn in his chest was silent now — not gone, but waiting. Watching.
The Pane was no longer guiding him.
But she hadn't left either.
"Do you feel it?" the girl asked, turning toward him. "Everything here remembers us. Even the things that haven't happened yet."
Ren frowned. "That's not how memory works."
She tilted her head. "Not in your world. But this isn't your world anymore."
The sky split again.
No thunder. No wind.
Just silence, cracking open like paper soaked in regret.
From the moon's fractured half, a ribbon of light poured downward — not bright, but sharp, like it could cut the soul into truths.
The girl staggered. Clutched her head. "They're waking."
"Who?" Ren asked, voice low.
"The Shards That Never Reflected. The ones Pane buried so deep even she forgot they were hers." Her eyes turned to him, wild now. "You broke the mirror, Ren. You let me feel. That means the others can move."
Ren stared at her. The way her body trembled — not from fear, but from pressure. From resonance.
From summoning.
Then the world bent.
Not shattered. Not tore.
But folded.
Like a mirror turning inward.
A figure emerged from the light ribbon.
Not walking.
Not floating.
Just… appearing.
A girl. Hair like smudged charcoal, eyes completely silver — reflective, but cracked in the middle. Her mouth didn't move, but her words entered Ren's head like hot needles:
"The rebel has awakened. The Fracture is no longer sealed. Return. Or be rewritten."
The Mirror's Rebellion stepped forward. She didn't flinch.
"I won't go back."
"You were made to reflect. Not to feel."
"I was made to break you."
For a breath, the world held its breath.
Then — the silver-eyed girl snapped her fingers.
From the broken light above, five more silhouettes dropped like shards.
Each of them different. Each of them human-shaped — and yet wrong.
One had no face. Just a blank mask of mirror, dripping like mercury.
Another had too many eyes — stitched into her arms, legs, even her shadow.
One was just a child, floating upside-down with veins that pulsed like roots.
Ren stepped in front of the Rebellion girl, his body low, fists clenched.
"You're not here for her," he said coldly. "You're here because you're afraid."
The silver-eyed girl tilted her head.
> "We are what remains of the Mirror's Design. We are what the Pane tried to forget. And you — both of you — are her error made real."
The Thorn inside Ren's ribs twisted.
The girl behind him whispered, "They're her reflections… but denied. Not rejected. Just… waiting. Like me. Until now."
The six mirror-shards raised their hands.
The moon above flickered.
And then—
A pulse.
The world turned inside out.
The world bent again. This time, it stayed bent.
Ren felt it in his skin — the way light pulled the wrong direction, how shadows no longer clung to the ground but floated, like the world had forgotten gravity's laws. The six figures that descended from the fractured moon weren't attacking. Not yet.
But they weren't still, either.
Each of them watched.
"Why aren't they moving?" Ren whispered.
The Mirror's Rebellion — the girl who had once been just a shard with feelings — stepped beside him. Her eyes, once chaotic, now held a calm fury. A knowing.
"They're studying you."
"Me?"
She nodded. "They remember what you were. What you touched in me. What you broke in them."
The girl with the stitched eyes blinked — and Ren swore the world shivered where her gaze landed. Every stitched pupil opened for a second, and Ren caught a glimpse of something inside them:
A memory.
Of himself.
Standing before a burning field. Holding a mirror that screamed. Laughing — not cruel, but empty.
The memory wasn't real.
And yet… it was.
"That wasn't me," Ren whispered.
"Not yet," the Rebellion said.
"But it's a possible me?"
She met his gaze. "It's the reflection of a path you could walk. And the Shards — they don't judge. They offer."
A soft voice echoed behind them, small and melodic.
"Do you want to know what you could become, Ren?"
Ren turned fast.
A new girl stood where nothing had been.
She was barely older than ten — silver hair, no shoes, her feet hovering slightly above the ground. Her dress was made of broken frames and pale threads of glass. But it was her eyes — twin crescents of waning moons — that held him.
They weren't threatening.
They were tender.
"I'm the youngest Shard," she said. "The one Pane almost loved."
The Mirror's Rebellion stepped forward quickly, protective.
"Stay back. She's not as kind as she looks."
"I'm not cruel either," the child said softly. "I just show you… the version of yourself you leave behind."
Ren asked, carefully, "Why would I want to see that?"
"Because the Fracture wants you to forget who you are."
She held out her hand — and in her palm formed a piece of the mirror.
Not sharp. Not dangerous. Just reflective.
And in it, Ren saw—
Himself.
Older. Broken. Wearing black like mourning.
Alone.
Not angry.
Just… empty.
No Rebellion girl beside him.
No light. No war. No purpose.
Just silence.
The world around him in that vision was still.
But too still.
Like he had won.
And lost everything.
Ren stepped back instinctively.
The shard vanished.
"You see?" the child said. "There's always a cost. No matter how strong you fight. No matter who you save. The mirror will always take something."
He looked to the Rebellion girl.
She was breathing hard. Fists clenched. "Don't listen. She's trying to scare you."
"No," the child corrected. "I'm trying to prepare him. Because the next shard that wakes… won't talk."
As she spoke, the mirror sky flickered — not once, but three times.
And then he stepped out.
The final shard.
Male.
Tall.
Wearing Ren's exact face.
But with eyes that burned not with silver or frost — but fire.
"This one," the child whispered, trembling now. "This one is the 'Reflection That Chose Flame.' He is you… without restraint. You, if you ever stop feeling."
Ren stared at his double.
The other Ren smiled.
It was the most terrifying thing he'd seen.
"Hello, Me," the reflection said. "Let's see which of us deserves the real world."
And then he charged.
The ground shattered as the other Ren lunged — faster than sound, faster than instinct.
Ren barely raised his arms in time before a flaming fist collided with his guard, sending him flying back into a broken pillar of crystal. It cracked behind him, but didn't shatter.
The Rebellion girl screamed, "Ren!"
But this wasn't a fight she could join.
This wasn't her battle.
This was between the two reflections of one soul.
Ren rose, wincing. His bones rattled, but something inside him clicked instead of broke. He looked up at his other self.
This version of him — the Flame Reflection — stood casually, fire licking his shoulders, his eyes molten gold.
"You hesitate," the flame version said. "You feel. That's why you'll never survive what's coming."
Ren spat blood and smirked. "Then why am I still standing?"
Flame-Ren's smile widened. "Because I want to enjoy this."
He vanished again, appearing behind Ren mid-sentence.
"I want to see your heart burn before your body does."
Ren twisted — barely dodging a roundhouse kick that scorched the air.
They clashed — blow for blow. But every strike Ren landed, the other seemed to want. Like he was learning. Adapting.
And worst of all…
Laughing.
"You think emotions make you strong?" Flame-Ren growled, catching Ren's wrist and twisting. "You think guilt, pain, and love are power?"
Ren grunted and slammed his knee up, breaking free.
"No," Ren gasped. "But they make me human."
"Then humanity is your curse."
The flames surged. This time, they weren't just heat — they screamed.
The Mirror's Rebellion girl gasped. "He's using Pane's fire! He's burning the mirror itself!"
In the sky above, the shattered moon bled molten cracks.
This wasn't just a reflection.
This was a weapon forged by the Mirror World's anger.
Ren knew one thing: if he didn't stop this version of himself, the Pane — the entire balance of the worlds — would fall.
And yet…
Some part of him understood the flame.
All the pressure. All the masks. All the helplessness that had built up inside him — all of it was in that reflection.
This was the version of him that chose destruction over surrender.
This was the him that never cried again.
And it was terrifyingly strong.
Ren took a deep breath, lowering his stance.
"I'm not going to beat you with fire," he muttered. "I'm going to beat you with something you forgot."
"And what's that?" Flame-Ren sneered.
Ren smiled.
"Hope."
The Rebellion girl's eyes widened.
He wasn't fighting to destroy this reflection.
He was fighting to reclaim it.
Ren dashed forward.
Not with rage.
Not with fear.
But with resolve.
Their fists met — fire against soul.
And for a second, the mirror cracked again.
But this time… light spilled through.