The sky cracked.
Above the battlefield, the fractured moon pulsed with a violent rhythm, veins of silver light crawling across its surface like fissures about to split open. Each pulse sent a tremor through the mirror world, shaking the ground, rattling the broken coffins of memory, and bending the cyclone of shards into jagged, spiraling patterns.
The Shard-Keeper tilted its cracked mask upward, voice trembling with both fury and awe.
"It awakens…"
Ren barely heard it. He was still clutching the girl in his arms, her shard-wings now little more than splinters of dim light. She was cold, too cold, her breaths shallow against his chest.
"Stay with me," Ren whispered, his vow-thread dimming but still pulsing faintly, the last ember of his defiance. "You're not leaving me in this place."
Her lips parted weakly, forming a soundless word. He didn't need to hear it—he knew. Promise.
He laid her gently down and stood, his blade trembling in his grip, his body screaming from exhaustion. The vow-thread had burned through his veins like fire, leaving him raw, but his eyes were steady.
The ground ruptured as a jagged column of glass speared upward. Then another. Dozens. They twisted into an arch, pointing toward the fractured moon.
The Keeper's distorted voice broke into the silence.
"You've broken my storm. But you have no idea what you've set free."
Ren narrowed his eyes, the vow-thread tightening on his wrist as if answering for him. "Doesn't matter. I'll cut through whatever comes."
The moon split.
It didn't shatter all at once. Instead, a jagged crack opened down its surface, and from within, light poured out—not silver, not white, but a bleeding red glow that spread across the sky like spilled ink.
The mirror world bent under it. The ground warped, mirrors melted into rivers of glass, and the cyclone of shards disintegrated into dust. Whispers filled the air, thousands of them, layered atop one another: Names. Pleas. Cries of those who had been lost to the fracture.
Ren staggered as the sound drilled into his skull. He clutched his head, gritting his teeth. "Shut up!"
The girl's weak voice reached him, trembling but lucid.
"The moon… it isn't just the sky. It's the core of this place. Every fragment… every soul the fracture has devoured… it's inside there."
The Shard-Keeper raised both arms, its mask flaring with cracks that bled the same red light as the moon. "Yes… and now it will devour you too."
From the broken moon, something began to descend.
At first, it was only light—streams of crimson weaving into shapes. But as it lowered, the light hardened into chains. Enormous chains, glowing red, descending from the heavens. Each slammed into the ground with a thunderous impact, anchoring themselves deep into the fractured earth.
Ren braced himself, his blade ready, but the pressure in the air nearly drove him to his knees. His vow-thread flared desperately, struggling against the suffocating weight.
"What… the hell is this?" he growled, sweat dripping down his brow.
The girl's silver eyes widened, her voice breaking. "Those are the Chains of the Fracture. They bind every lost memory… every broken truth… everything this world has stolen."
The Shard-Keeper's voice turned reverent, almost worshipful.
"And now they will bind you."
One of the chains snapped toward Ren, faster than lightning. He barely managed to raise his blade, sparks erupting as steel clashed with the impossible weight of memory. The impact sent him sliding back, carving trenches into the fractured glass ground.
His arms shook violently. His vow-thread burned against his skin, but it was enough to keep the blade steady.
Gritting his teeth, he forced a roar past the suffocating air.
"You think chains are going to hold me?!"
The chain writhed, pulling tighter, pressing his blade down inch by inch. His knees buckled.
But then—he felt it. A second warmth, faint but real. The girl's hand, gripping the vow-thread that tethered him. Her silver eyes, weak but unbroken, met his.
"Don't fight it alone…" she whispered.
Ren's breath hitched. Then his vow-thread surged, a second pulse flaring through it, no longer just his vow—but theirs.
With a roar, he pushed back. The chain snapped apart, exploding into shards of red light.
For a moment, the whispers hushed. Even the fractured moon seemed to falter.
Ren stood, panting, his blade glowing faintly with the vow's fire. He looked up at the moon, at the bleeding red chains descending by the dozens, and bared his teeth.
"Bring them all. I'll break every last chain you throw at me."
The fractured world held its breath. Then the chains began to move again, writhing like serpents, filling the sky.
And the real battle for the mirror world had only just begun.
The battlefield no longer felt like ground.
The fractured glass plains writhed and shifted beneath Ren's boots, pulsing in rhythm with the bleeding moon above. Every impact of a falling chain sent shockwaves through the mirror world, distorting the landscape into jagged waves of reflection.
The Shard-Keeper's voice echoed across the storm, reverberating like a thousand throats speaking at once.
"The Chains do not break… They only bind again."
Ren's grip tightened on his blade. Sweat stung his eyes, his chest heaved, but his stance did not falter. He looked to the girl at his side—her shard-wings flickering weakly, her body fragile, yet her silver gaze unwavering.
"Stay close," he muttered.
Her lips curved into the faintest smile. "As if I'd let go now."
The ground convulsed. Four chains coiled upward, rising like serpents, their crimson light searing across the battlefield. They moved with unnatural precision, not just aiming for Ren's limbs—but his memories.
He felt it the moment one lashed toward him: a sharp, invasive pull at the back of his mind. Images flickered—his mother's laugh, the scent of rain on his first day of high school, the faint smile of a girl who once sat by his window. Each chain wanted to steal them.
Ren staggered. "Tch—"
The girl's voice cut through his haze, urgent. "They bind through what you've forgotten, what you've buried! Don't let them take it—hold on to who you are!"
The chain wrapped around his wrist, and suddenly he was drowning in visions. A version of himself, younger, isolated, gazing at a mirror that refused to show his reflection. Loneliness pressed against his ribs like iron.
The Keeper's mask cracked wider, whispering:
"Give them up. Memory is pain. Let the chain carry it away."
Ren's vision blurred. The world tilted.
But then—heat surged around his wrist. The vow-thread flared, silver entwined with ember-red, and another pulse ran down his arm. He felt her hand again—her will tethered to his.
He tore the chain apart with a roar, shards of crimson exploding outward. The stolen memory snapped back into him, burning but alive.
"Not yours to take," Ren growled. "Not anymore."
The Keeper hissed, voice warping. "You defy the fracture itself—then drown in it!"
Six more chains dropped from the moon, faster, heavier, rattling the ground. One slammed into the glass near Ren, blasting him back. Another whipped across his shoulder, searing into his skin with the weight of stolen grief.
The girl stumbled, clutching her chest as a chain angled toward her. Ren's instincts flared—he was in motion before thought. His blade sliced upward, intercepting the strike, sparks screaming as steel clashed against the crimson link.
The impact hurled him backward, pain lancing through his arms. But she was safe.
Her voice reached him, steady despite the chaos. "Ren… You can't cut them all. Not alone."
He spat blood, forcing himself upright. "I'm not asking to fight alone."
The vow-thread pulsed brighter, extending from his wrist toward hers, glowing stronger with each heartbeat. For a moment, their lights merged into one.
The ground around them quaked. A circle of glass cracked outward, forming an arena. The chains above writhed violently, as if agitated by their defiance.
Then, the Keeper spread its arms wide, mask splitting open to reveal a void of endless red inside.
"Then let the two of you be tested… together."
Dozens of chains shot downward all at once, a storm of crimson that filled the sky like falling stars.
Ren planted his feet, his blade humming with the vow's fire. His eyes burned—not just with rage, but with clarity.
"Then we'll break them together."
The girl stepped forward, her fractured wings sparking with shards of light, fragile yet radiant. Her silver eyes met his, a vow unspoken yet undeniable.
And as the chains descended, the battlefield lit up with the clash of vow and fracture.
The sky was no longer a sky.
The fractured moon above wept crimson light, each drop forming into a chain that screamed as it descended. The battlefield itself warped under the weight of the storm—glass plains splitting into rivers of reflection, shards floating upward like lost memories.
Ren stood at the center of it, blade trembling in his grip, his chest heaving with every ragged breath. Beside him, the silver-haired girl raised her hand, her shard-wings scattering fragments of pale light. Their vow-thread pulsed between them, a lifeline of silver and ember, binding their resolve together.
"Ren," her voice cut through the roar of chains, clear and certain. "Don't resist the vow. Let it move through you."
He turned to her, blood at the corner of his mouth. "You mean—fight with you as one?"
She nodded, her expression calm despite the storm. "Exactly. If we hesitate, the chains will devour us both. But if we merge our strength…" Her wings flared, shards vibrating like struck glass. "Even the Keeper won't be able to hold us."
The Keeper's mask split further, exposing a widening void. Its voice thundered, layered and distorted.
"Pathetic sparks. You cannot burn what was forgotten."
Dozens of chains fell at once, the air howling with their descent.
Ren gritted his teeth. His instinct was to swing wildly, to cut, to survive—but this time he didn't. He let the thread burn through him. He let her presence fill the cracks in his will.
And then—something clicked.
When he moved, she moved. His blade swept upward, her shards followed, forming a crescent of mirrored light that cleaved through three descending chains in a single stroke.
The impact thundered across the battlefield.
They spun together. His strike cut horizontally, her wings fanned outward, scattering silver blades that intercepted every crimson lash from above. For a moment, the storm broke, light and steel carving a path through the impossible.
Ren's heart pounded. It wasn't just strength—it was synchronization.
He felt her emotions as if they were his own: her quiet resolve, her unspoken sorrow, the warmth she had hidden beneath the fragments of herself. And she felt his: his fury, his stubbornness, his desperate will not to lose.
The vow-thread between them blazed brighter, no longer a single line—but weaving into a luminous pattern, threads splitting and reconnecting, forming an unbreakable lattice of light.
The Keeper recoiled. Its chains shuddered violently.
"This is not possible…!"
Ren tightened his grip, fire in his eyes. "Get used to disappointment."
They surged forward together.
Every chain that descended was shattered—not by his blade alone, not by her shards alone, but by their combined resonance. His sword arcs burned with her silver, her wings gleamed with his ember. Each strike was mirrored by the other, seamless, unstoppable.
The battlefield itself trembled as if unable to contain the rhythm they had forged.
But the Keeper did not falter—it adapted.
The chains twisted mid-air, fusing into grotesque shapes. Four massive constructs rose from the ground, each a towering figure of bound links: a faceless knight, a coiled serpent, a winged beast, and a childlike phantom with hollow eyes.
The Keeper raised its void-mask, its voice like a breaking world.
"Let your vow shatter upon the weight of what you refuse to remember!"
The constructs lunged at once.
Ren stepped forward, his blade igniting with silver fire. The girl floated above, her wings spread wide, shards orbiting her like stars.
"Ready?" she whispered.
Ren smirked despite the blood on his lips. "Always."
They leapt together into the storm.
The vow-thread tightened, blazing like a constellation across the fractured battlefield.
For the first time since stepping into the mirror world, Ren wasn't just fighting to survive—he was fighting with someone who moved as if she had always been there by his side.
And the fracture itself quaked under the resonance of their vow.