The ground beneath Ren's feet pulsed like a living heart, each beat sending ripples across the fractured silver plains. The air wasn't just cold—it was sharp, slicing through the lungs with each breath as if it wanted to carve its way inside him. Beside him, the silver-haired girl stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky bled red through the cracks of a shattered moon. Her Shard-Wings glimmered faintly, each fragment of glass trembling as though aware that something immense was drawing near.
They were no longer alone.
Shapes began to crawl from the edges of the world—elongated silhouettes that moved wrong, bending in angles that should have broken them, their bodies shimmering like reflections on disturbed water. Each step they took left a smear in the air, a memory of their form lagging behind before catching up with a sickening snap. Ren's grip tightened on the mirrorblade in his hand, the weapon humming faintly, almost… eager.
"They're not just fragments," the girl murmured. Her voice was soft, but it felt as though the Mirror World itself leaned in to hear it. "They're the ones who didn't survive the Shard-Keeper's cage. What's left of them walks without names."
The nearest figure turned its head—not all the way, but enough to make Ren's stomach knot. Its face wasn't a face at all, but a jagged cutout in reality, showing only the darkness beyond. From that hole came a slow, ragged whisper: "Found… you…" The words scraped against the edges of his mind, dredging up memories he hadn't given permission to surface. He saw flashes—Airi's hand reaching for him, his own reflection smiling without warmth, the night he almost didn't return.
The girl moved forward, her wings shedding faint, glimmering dust that disintegrated before touching the ground. "Don't listen," she said, though her voice carried the tension of someone fighting the same pull. "They'll use what's in you. And you're already carrying too much."
Ren exhaled sharply, grounding himself in the blade's cold weight. "Then we cut through them before they get close."
A laugh—low and strangely human—echoed from somewhere in the haze ahead. It was followed by a sound like glass cracking under pressure, and then he saw it: the Shard-Keeper, stepping into view. Its form was draped in a cloak of mirrored plates, each one showing a different memory, some his, some not. Beneath the shifting reflection, its shape was too tall, too thin, the joints of its limbs bending in ways that defied the idea of bone.
The Shard-Keeper's voice was a chorus, hundreds of tones overlapping: "You've come far, Ren. But every step you take here is one step closer to forgetting which side you belong to." One of the plates on its cloak caught the light, revealing an image of Ren's own eyes—except they were empty, lifeless, as though belonging to a corpse.
Ren's heartbeat slowed, not from calm, but from a sharpened focus that felt almost like a predator's stillness. He wasn't sure if the world was leaning toward him, or if he was leaning toward it. "If you wanted me to turn back," he said, voice steady, "you should have kept my reflection chained."
The Shard-Keeper smiled—or perhaps the mirrored plates simply bent to imitate one. Around them, the nameless shades began to move faster, their bodies blurring into streaks of wrongness. The ground beneath Ren shifted like a rug being pulled, but he planted his feet and met the girl's gaze. Her Shard-Wings flared, scattering a thousand razor glints into the air.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Always," he said, though part of him wondered if the answer had always belonged to him—or to the reflection watching through the cracks.
The first shade lunged.
The battlefield twisted around Ren like a living nightmare—glass towers stretched, bent, and folded over themselves, forming spirals that shouldn't exist. The Shard-Keeper's whip of fractured light lashed out, slicing through the air with a scream that didn't sound human. Every swing left afterimages—faces, eyes, and mouths—trailing in its wake, each one whispering in a voice Ren almost recognized. Almost.
Ren's boots skidded over the slick glass ground as he dodged, the whispers crawling inside his head. They weren't just sounds—they were memories. His memories.
"Stop running," one hissed in his ear, in the exact voice of his mother.
"You failed them," another whispered, a tone dripping with venom—his own voice, but colder, harsher.
Ren gritted his teeth. "You think digging up my past is going to make me fall apart?" He lunged forward, summoning his mirror-blade, its surface rippling like water. The weapon wasn't entirely stable—it shivered, reflecting not just the Shard-Keeper, but distorted versions of himself, some smiling, some bleeding.
The Shard-Keeper's mask of shifting fragments tilted, the jagged grin widening. "I don't need to make you fall apart… I only have to make you remember what you've been running from."
A crack ran down the glass sky, splitting the moon in half. Shards rained down—not harmlessly, but each piece carried a memory like a frozen insect trapped in amber. Ren caught glimpses as they fell—his old school rooftop at sunset, the first time he saw the girl with shard-wings, and the day he looked into his mirror and saw it smile back at him. Each fragment that hit the ground pulsed once before fading, leaving an ache in his chest.
Beside him, the girl with shard-wings stepped forward. Her voice was soft, but her eyes burned with defiance.
"Memories aren't yours to twist," she said, her wings unfurling. Each feather gleamed like a blade, etched with scenes—moments she had lived, and maybe moments she had stolen back from others. "And if you think pain makes us weaker… you've never met someone who fights because of it."
Her wings slashed through the falling shards, scattering them into harmless dust. The Shard-Keeper moved to counter, but Ren was already there, blade to mask.
"For once," he said, his reflection meeting the creature's in the rippling steel, "you're the one who needs to break."
The impact sent a shudder through the entire mirror world. Somewhere deep in the distance, something massive stirred, and the ground beneath them cracked—not with glass, but with darkness.
Ren's breath was ragged, his reflection in the fractured mirror trembling along with him. The Shard-Keeper's presence still lingered like a lingering toxin, its whisper gnawing at the edges of his mind. The battlefield was quiet now—too quiet. Not even the whispering ground dared to speak, as if the world itself was holding its breath. The silver-haired girl, her shard-wings now dimmed to faint glimmers, stepped closer. "It's not over," she murmured, her voice low but steady, as if she already knew what was coming next. Ren met her eyes, but before he could reply, the broken sky rippled. The fragments above began to realign—not back into a whole moon, but into something stranger. A ring of jagged light floated where the moon once was, like a wound stitched shut with glass. "This place… it's sealing itself?" Ren muttered. But no—he realized a heartbeat later—that wasn't the place repairing itself. Something was entering.
A pulse of cold energy surged through the mirror world, rattling the very bones of its existence. The ground beneath Ren's feet cracked open in a perfect, mirror-smooth line. From it, a figure emerged—tall, robed in layers of glass that shimmered like oil on water, their face hidden behind a shifting mask that showed dozens of expressions at once. The girl stiffened, her wings flaring despite their dim glow. "A Vowbound…" she whispered.
Ren didn't recognize the term, but the weight of it pressed down on him like a chain. The masked figure tilted its head, and voices—not one, but many—spoke at once, overlapping in perfect, haunting harmony.
"Ren. You have trespassed where you should not. You have broken what should not be broken. You have taken what should not be yours."
Ren's pulse quickened. "I've done what I had to," he shot back, though he felt an unsteady edge to his voice.
The Vowbound took a slow step forward, glass fragments blooming like flowers in their wake. "The Shard-Keeper was only a sentinel. I am the keeper of vows—promises that hold worlds together. You have undone one. Now you will make another."
Ren gritted his teeth. "And if I refuse?"
The masked figure's dozens of expressions froze, aligning into a single, perfectly blank face. "Then your reflection will be erased. And with it—every part of you bound to this world."
The silver-haired girl stepped between them. "You can't," she said fiercely. "His existence is already entangled with the fracture. Erase him, and the wound will spread."
The Vowbound turned its faceless gaze toward her, tilting its head again. "And yet, child of shards, you stand in his defense. Perhaps you wish to take his place?"
Her wings flared wider, shards scattering the faint light into dazzling patterns. "If it comes to that," she said without hesitation.
Ren's eyes widened. "No. Don't even think about it."
The masked figure reached into the air, and a long thread of glass unspooled from nothingness, curling toward Ren like a leash. "Then speak your vow, Ren. Speak it, or I will take from you what you will never reclaim."
Ren felt the weight of both their gazes—the impossible authority of the Vowbound, and the unshakable faith of the girl beside him. His throat tightened. A vow… here, in the mirror world, wasn't just words. It was a binding. A chain. A promise that could outlive him. He swallowed hard, his mind racing, every instinct telling him that whatever he said now would change everything—not just for himself, but for the fracture, for the girl, for the war he didn't yet understand.
Slowly, he stepped forward, meeting the Vowbound's glassy mask head-on. "Then hear me," he said, voice low but steady. "I vow… to end the one who shattered this world. And I'll tear apart every lie that keeps it broken."
The thread of glass coiled tighter, then snapped into his chest—not piercing, but sinking into him, fusing with the light in his veins. The Vowbound's mask shifted again, countless expressions rippling across its surface. "So be it. But know this—every vow demands its price. And yours… will be unbearable."
With that, the figure dissolved into a storm of shards, vanishing into the ring of light above. The silence that followed was suffocating. Ren felt the glass thread pulsing faintly within him, like a second heartbeat. The girl's gaze lingered on him, unreadable.
"You've just tied yourself to something you don't understand," she murmured.
Ren gave a humorless smile. "Story of my life."
Above them, the stitched ring of light shivered once—and somewhere in the distance, a sound like a mirror screaming split the air.