The sound wasn't just loud—it was alive. It threaded through the mirror world like a serrated blade through silk, cutting into everything at once. Ren staggered, clutching his ears, but the noise wasn't entering through sound alone—it was burrowing straight into his mind. The stitched ring of light overhead pulsed violently, each beat sending fresh tremors through the fractured ground.
The silver-haired girl flinched, her wings snapping open instinctively, shards scattering like sparks. "It's starting," she whispered, and her voice was so faint Ren barely caught it over the psychic scream. "What's starting?" Ren shot back, but she didn't answer—her gaze was fixed on the horizon, where the mirror sky was beginning to split. The fissure wasn't like before; it didn't just reveal darkness or more shards. This was a wound in reality, and through it poured… reflections.
Countless of them. They weren't still images or perfect copies—they moved on their own, twisting, smiling, crying, all detached from the originals they once mirrored. Some crawled across the ground like shadows breaking free from bodies. Others floated, their faces contorted into grotesque masks. And every single one was looking at Ren. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold air. These weren't enemies like the Shard-Keeper. They weren't guardians like the Vowbound. These were something else entirely—reflections that had been abandoned, left to rot without a counterpart. "The Hollow Reflections," the girl murmured, her wings trembling. "They shouldn't be here."
The closest one approached—a warped copy of a man Ren had never seen, his skin like cracked porcelain, his eyes pure static. It opened its mouth, and the scream intensified. Ren staggered back, teeth gritted, forcing his voice through the mental assault. "Why are they after me?" The girl's answer came sharp. "Because you're still whole. To them, you're everything they lost."
That was all the warning Ren got before the first Hollow Reflection lunged. He barely ducked under its clawed swipe, the air hissing where its fingers passed. Instinct took over; his hand moved to the shard-blade at his hip, the weapon's edge shimmering with ghost-light. He slashed upward, and the reflection split apart like glass under pressure—but instead of falling, its pieces floated, still screaming, before reforming into something even more misshapen.
"They don't die the same way," the girl warned, darting forward to intercept another Hollow that had leapt from the side. Her wing sliced through it, scattering shards that glimmered with faint, lingering emotion—fear, regret, longing. "You have to bind them."
Ren barely processed the words before two more Hollow Reflections swarmed him, their bodies moving in unnerving, jerky motions. He sidestepped one, but the other caught him across the chest, its touch sending a cold, alien pulse through his heart. The shard-thread from the Vowbound burned inside him in response, as if trying to fight off the intrusion. He could feel something in the Hollow trying to latch onto him—not just his body, but his sense of self. "Bind them… how?" he shouted.
The girl's eyes flicked to the shard-thread glowing faintly at his chest. "Use your vow."
The words hit him like a physical blow. The Vowbound had said the vow came with a price. Was this it? Ren hesitated—but hesitation was costly. One of the Hollows lunged, its mouth opening impossibly wide as it tried to engulf his face. Without thinking, he grabbed its head, and the vow-thread inside him surged. Words—not his own, but something deeper—rose to his lips. "By my vow, you belong to the end I've sworn."
The Hollow froze. The scream in his head faltered for a heartbeat, and the reflection's body cracked with blinding light before collapsing into shards that swirled around his arm, fusing into the blade in his grip. His breath came fast. It worked. But the cost was instant—he felt a part of himself go with it, like a thread from his own reflection had been cut and woven into the weapon. The girl was already moving, cutting down two more Hollows with precise, binding strikes, her shards capturing their essence before they could reform.
"Don't let them touch your shadow!" she called out, but too late—Ren felt something cold latch onto his feet, pulling. He looked down and saw his own shadow… smiling at him.
Ren's shadow wasn't still anymore—it rose like ink boiling in reverse, peeling itself off the ground. It took his shape perfectly, but the grin stretching across its face was wrong. Too wide.
Too knowing. The Hollow Reflections froze at its presence, as if recognizing something older, hungrier than themselves. "That's not one of them," the silver-haired girl said sharply, her eyes narrowing. "That's yours." Ren felt the tether between himself and the shadow stretch thin, like a string pulled taut to the point of breaking. "What the hell does that mean?" His shadow didn't answer—it just mirrored his stance, every twitch perfectly synchronized, until it stepped forward… without him moving at all. The tether shivered. Then snapped.
The psychic scream from the Hollows dulled, as if the whole mirror world was holding its breath. Ren's severed shadow tilted its head, studying him like prey it had been waiting to hunt.
Then, in a voice that sounded exactly like his own, it said, "Finally free." The girl's wings snapped open, shards glinting. "Ren, don't let it speak—" Too late. The shadow blurred forward, impossibly fast, and slammed into him. It wasn't just physical; it hit inside his mind, ripping through memories, snatching fragments. He saw flashes of his own life, not from his eyes, but from the shadow's. Watching. Waiting. It had been there all along, bound under him, learning everything he was. Now it wanted more—it wanted to be him.
Ren gritted his teeth, forcing himself to hold onto something real. The shard-blade in his grip burned hot, reacting to the invasion. The vow-thread inside him flared again, the same words rising unbidden: By my vow… He cut the thought short.
If he bound this thing the same way he did the Hollows, what part of him would it take? The girl was already engaging it, her wing slicing where its chest should be, but the strike passed through like water. "It's made of your absence!" she shouted. "You can't cut it like glass—you have to fill it!" Ren understood instantly. This wasn't about destroying the shadow—it was about reclaiming it. The danger was, if he failed, he wouldn't get it back. Ever.
The shadow turned its attention from her and lunged for him again, this time bypassing his blade entirely and diving straight into his chest. Cold flooded him instantly, his heartbeat skipping like a stone across ice. The mirror world around him blurred, the Hollows fading into pale smears. He was somewhere else now—standing in a void of silver fog, facing his shadow directly. Here, it wasn't shapeless. It had his body, his scars, his voice… but every detail was sharper, darker, perfected in a way that made Ren feel unfinished by comparison. "You can't keep pretending," it said calmly, the grin gone now, replaced by quiet certainty.
"You're in this world because you wanted to be. You stayed because you liked it. I am the part of you that doesn't lie about that."
Ren's hands tightened into fists. "You're the part of me that would burn everything just to see the reflection." The shadow's eyes gleamed. "And you're the part of me that's afraid to admit you'd enjoy it." The air between them thickened. The girl's voice cut faintly through the fog—she was trying to reach him from the outside, but it was distant, muffled. He realized that if he didn't win here, she couldn't pull him out.
The shadow stepped forward, lifting its hand. A blade formed there—identical to Ren's shard-blade, but black as the space between mirrors. "If you're going to take me back," it said, "then prove you can carry me without breaking." Then it lunged.
The first clash was deafening—not from sound, but from the impact inside Ren's head. His shard-blade met the black blade of his shadow, and the moment they connected, memories fractured around them like shards spilling into the void.
He saw himself running through rain, fists clenched, chasing something—or someone—he couldn't reach. He saw the girl with the silver hair standing in the reflection of his window, her lips forming his name. And then, behind all of it, he saw the shadow watching. Always watching.
Ren staggered back as the black blade grazed his arm—not cutting flesh, but slicing away a memory. The heat of a summer day. A laugh he couldn't remember the source of. They just… vanished. "You're weaker without me," the shadow said, advancing. "Every time you push me down, you cut off the part that's willing to do what's needed." Its tone wasn't mocking now.
It was patient, like it believed it was right. Like it knew. Ren's teeth clenched. "You're not the part that does what's needed. You're the part that forgets why." The shadow tilted its head, as if weighing his words, then attacked again—this time faster, each strike aiming not for his body, but his mind. Memories tore away in flashes—faces blurred, voices faded, moments slipped like water between his fingers.
He fought back with everything he had, letting his blade meet each strike with sparks of silver light. The vow-thread inside him pulsed harder with every block, the words rising in his chest again. He didn't resist this time. By my vow… I reclaim what is mine. The thread exploded outward, wrapping around the shadow's wrist mid-swing.
The tether burned, and for the first time, the shadow's perfect calm cracked. "You think you can bind me?" it hissed. Ren pulled, the tether tightening, and with every pull, fragments came back—his mother's voice calling him for dinner, the sound of Airi's laugh in the school courtyard, the feel of rain on his skin.
They rushed into him, each one hitting like a breath after drowning. The shadow struggled, but the tether wasn't just magic—it was will. "You're not my enemy," Ren said through gritted teeth, dragging it closer. "You're my weight. And I carry you." Their blades locked again, the void shaking under their feet.
The girl's voice was clearer now, cutting through the fog like breaking glass. "Ren—now!" With one final pull, he yanked the shadow forward and drove his blade—not into its chest, but into his own. Light and darkness exploded together, collapsing the fog into a single point. When Ren opened his eyes, he was back in the mirror world. The Hollows were shrieking, their voices warped by the surge of energy rolling off him. The girl stood before him, wings folded, her gaze sharp but relieved. "You took it back," she said softly.
Ren looked down. His shadow was where it belonged, moving with him perfectly, no delay, no distortion. For the first time since he entered this place, he felt… whole. "Yeah," he said quietly, tightening his grip on his blade. "Now let's finish this."