The air in the crypts had turned viscous, every breath laced with the metallic tang of the mirrors' bleeding sap. Marya's mist curled uneasily around her boots as she led Charlie and Vaughn deeper, the Consortium's notes crumpled in Charlie's shaking hands. They'd avoided Judge's patrols, but the crypts themselves were hunting them now—walls shifting, reflections whispering, frost climbing their limbs like shackles.
Then they rounded a corner, and the shadows moved.
Reiju stood silhouetted against a fractured mirror, her Poison Pink gauntlets cracked, her Germa cape torn. Behind her, Yonji slumped against the wall, his Winch Green arm sparking, hydraulic fluid pooling at his feet. Both turned, eyes narrowing.
"Identify yourselves," Reiju said, her voice glacial. Yonji's intact fist clenched, the wall denting behind him.
Marya's hand drifted to Eternal Night's hilt. "Travelers. We're leaving. Move."
"Travelers, here," Reiju countered, nodding to Vaughn's gear. "Your weapons worth a kingdom's treasury." Her gaze lingered on the blade's crossguard—too similar to Mihawk's.
Vaughn, protectively stepped forward, Light Bringer humming. "And princesses don't lurk in ruins. Let's skip the drama."
Yonji lunged, winch arm screeching. Marya's mist hardened into a shield, deflecting the blow. "That's new," Vaughn smirked, axe flaring. "Stay down."
"Enough!" Charlie shouted, voice cracking. "The crypt's collapsing! Look—"
The mirrors shivered. Black sap erupted from the walls, coalescing into humanoid figures—clone soldiers, but distorted, their armor fused with mirror shards. They moved jerkily, voices overlapping: "Failure. Disgrace. Replaceable."
Reiju froze. Yonji's reflection in the ooze showed him broken, discarded in a Germa waste chute.
"Illusions," Reiju hissed, poison swirling at her fingertips.
"No," Charlie breathed. "They're real. The crypt… it's repurposing Judge's lost clones."
The clones attacked.
Marya's mist sliced through a clone's neck, but two more took its place. Vaughn's axe blazed, shattering mirror-fused flesh, but the shards reformed. Yonji roared, ripping a clone's arm free, only to be swarmed.
"The sap!" Charlie yelled, dodging a jagged blade. "It's binding them! Target the pools!"
The clones surged forward, their mirror-fused bodies glinting like fractured obsidian under the crypt's pallid light. Each step they took echoed with a discordant clink-clank, their movements jerky, as if puppeteered by the crypt's malevolent will. Reiju's poison arced through the air, virulent green tendrils spiraling from her gauntlets, while Marya's mist coiled like living ether, tendrils sharpening into serrated edges.
When they collided, the reaction was visceral—a hissing, spitting maelstrom of acid and vapor. The corrosive cloud swallowed the front line of clones, their mirror-plated armor dissolving into slag. The air filled with the stench of burning ozone and molten glass, the clones' distorted screams cut short as their forms liquefied into black puddles that seeped into the crypt's hungry floor.
Reiju didn't flinch. Her eyes, cold and calculating, flicked to Marya. "You're no travelers," she repeated, louder this time, her voice slicing through the chaos. A clone lunged at her; she sidestepped, fluid as mercury, and drove her poison-coated fist through its chest. "Travelers don't fight like this."
Marya's mist lashed out, decapitating two clones mid-leap. Their heads shattered like dropped crystal, scattering shards that skittered across the ice. "And princesses don't skulk in ruins," she shot back, parrying a jagged mirror-blade with Eternal Night. "Yet here we are."
Reiju's laugh was razor-thin. She pivoted, her cape whipping as she unleashed a volley of needle-like poison darts. They peppered a clone's torso, its body convulsing before collapsing into a sizzling heap. "You wield that sword like it's a chain," she pressed, relentless. "Precision, but no purpose. Who trained you? Who do you serve?"
A clone's fist grazed Marya's ribs, the mirror-edge slicing through her coat. She hissed, mist thickening into a shield. "I serve myself."
"Liar." Reiju's gauntlet flared, venom pooling at her fingertips. She gestured to Charlie, who crouched behind a frost-encrusted pillar, frantically recalibrating the transmitter. "The scholar. The technician. You're a cell—a team. But for what? Revolution? Knowledge? Revenge?"
Marya's jaw tightened. The mist around her writhed, betraying her agitation. "You talk too much."
"And you don't talk enough." Reiju's gaze dropped to Eternal Night's hilt—the intricate crossguard, the faint Mihawk crest etched near the pommel. Recognition flickered. "Ah. Him. The World's Greatest Swordsman." Her lip curled. "But you're no Marine. No warlord. So what are you? A runaway? A disappointment?"
The barb struck deeper than Marya wanted to admit. Her mist surged, a whip-crack of vapor slicing through three clones at once. "You don't know anything."
Reiju stepped closer, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "I know what it's like to be forged by someone else's ambition. To have your veins pumped full of someone else's poison." Her gauntlet brushed Marya's blade, the metal sizzling faintly. "But you're not here for your father's approval, are you? You're here to erase him."
For a heartbeat, Marya faltered. The mist wavered, thinning enough to reveal the faint tremor in her hands.
Then Vaughn's axe slammed down beside them, light erupting in a blinding nova. "Save the therapy session!" he barked, yanking Marya backward as a clone's mirror-claw swiped at her throat. "Signal's almost live! Move!"
Reiju lingered, her eyes locking with Marya's. In that moment, the Germa princess wasn't just an enemy—she was a mirror, reflecting every doubt Marya had ever swallowed.
"Legacy is a cage," Reiju said softly, "but the key is yours to wield."
Then she turned, poison arcing in her wake, and left the words hanging in the acid-riddled air.
The space crackled with pent-up energy as Vaughn reared back again, Light Bringer humming like a struck tuning fork. The axe's blade glowed white-hot, resonating with the trapped soundwaves of a hundred clashes. With a roar, he drove it into the frozen ground.
The detonation was deafening.
Soundwaves erupted in a radial starburst, tearing through the chamber. Clones froze mid-lunge, their mirror-plated skin fracturing like overstressed glass. Crystalline shards rained down, each fragment reflecting a distorted sliver of the chaos—Vaughn's snarling face, Charlie's wide-eyed terror, Reiju's poison arcing through the air like emerald lightning.
Yonji didn't hesitate. His Winch Green arm whirred, gears screaming as he launched forward, a missile of spite and Germa engineering. The metal fist collided with the central mirror pool, submerged beneath a film of black, viscous liquid.
The impact was seismic.
The pool's surface screamed, a high-pitched wail that vibrated in their teeth. Jagged fissures spiderwebbed across the floor, ice and glass splintering into a kaleidoscope of ruin. For one suspended moment, the clones stood paralyzed—a grotesque gallery of half-dissolved soldiers and oozing mirror-flesh.
Then the crypt howled.
It wasn't a sound—it was a force. The walls convulsed, vomiting geysers of black sap. The ceiling buckled, glacial stalactites plunging like spears. Vaughn barely yanked his axe free before the ground beneath him split, swallowing a clone whole.
"Move!" Reiju grabbed Yonji's sparking arm, hauling him backward as a slab of ice crashed where he'd stood.
Marya's mist coiled around Charlie, yanking him clear of a falling mirror. "The tunnel! Go!"
But the crypt was faster.
With a final, thunderous groan, the chamber collapsed. Ice and glass crashed down in a glittering avalanche, sealing the exit. The survivors dove for cover, Vaughn's axe flaring in a desperate shield of light.
Silence.
Charlie's lantern flickered to life, its frail beam cutting through the dust-choked dark. The air was knife-cold, every breath scraping lungs raw. Around them, the crypt had reshaped itself into a jagged coffin—walls of ice veined with pulsing black sap, jagged glass shards jutting like teeth.
Reiju leaned against Yonji, her Poison Pink gauntlets cracked, one knee buckling. Neon-blue hydraulic fluid oozed from Yonji's severed winch cables, pooling around his boots. His smirk was gone, replaced by a grimace of pain—or perhaps Germa programming straining to mask it.
Marya pressed a gloved hand to her cheek, her fingers coming away smeared with blood. The cut mirrored her father's scar—a cruel joke etched by a clone's mirror-claw.
Vaughn slumped against an ice wall, his dreadlocks crusted with frost. "Well," he rasped, Light Bringer dimming at his feet, "this sucks."
The lantern's light trembled over their faces:
Reiju's mask of icy control fractured, revealing exhaustion—and something darker, a germ of doubt. Yonji's bravado stripped bare, eyes darting like a caged animal's. For the first time, he looked his age—a boy welded into a weapon.
Marya's grip on Eternal Night white-knuckled, the blade's dark edge dimming. The mist at her ankles churned restlessly, thinning under the crypt's draining influence. Charlie, clutching his shattered transmitter, his glasses cracked, face pale with the realization that even knowledge has limits.
Somewhere in the walls, the clones stirred—a wet, skittering sound. The crypt wasn't done with them. The crypt's laughter echoed in the dark—a cycle beginning anew.
In the cold silence, the tension simmered like a barely contained storm. Each breath was a ghostly plume, punctuating the stillness with the weight of unspoken fears and resentments. The crypt's oppressive atmosphere amplified the thudding of their hearts, a reminder of their fragility in the face of this relentless darkness.
Vaughn forced himself upright, shaking off the frost. "We need a plan," he muttered, breaking the silence. His voice was a lifeline, drawing their scattered thoughts back into focus.
Reiju's gaze hardened, her mind already racing ahead. "Agreed. But we can't waste time licking our wounds. We need to find a way out, or at least a way to survive until help arrives."
Charlie adjusted his cracked glasses, the gears in his mind turning despite the bleak outlook. "The sap… it's more than just a conduit. We might be able to manipulate it, if we can figure out its properties."
Marya's eyes flicked to the walls, her grip tightening on Eternal Night. "And if the clones attack again?"
Yonji's bitter laughter echoed. "Then we fight them off. Not like we have any other choice." His bravado was a thin veneer over the stark reality.
The group exchanged looks, a fragile alliance forming out of necessity. The crypt's sinister ambiance seemed to pulse with anticipation, as if it were aware of their every move. The clones' wet, skittering sounds grew louder, a reminder of the ever-present danger.
Reiju took a breath, her voice steadying. "We need those codes, Yonji. It's our best shot."
Yonji's eyes were hard. "And if we get out of this, what then?"
Marya's mist swirled, a silent promise of retribution. "We survive first. Then we figure out the rest."
With resolve hardening like the ice around them, they turned their attention to the task at hand, united by the faint glimmer of hope in the suffocating darkness.
"Allies?" Yonji spat. "You're rats. When Father—"
"Your father is not here," Marya said coldly.
Reiju's eyes flashed. Charlie intervened, desperate. "The crypt's sap—it's a conduit. We can use it to send a distress signal, but… we need Germa's frequency codes."
Silence.
Reiju studied Marya's blade again. "You're no Marine. No pirate. Who are you? How did you come to be here?"
Vaughn tensed. The Consortium's existence hinged on secrecy.
Yonji laughed bitterly. "Doesn't matter. Judge's codes won't work. We're… obsolete."
The admission hung in the air. Reiju straightened. "But yours might." She nodded to Charlie's gear. "If you share them."
Marya's mist coiled defensively. "No."
"Then we all die," Reiju said simply. "And whatever you protect dies with you."
The mirrors showed their futures again—Marya's mother's notebook buried in snow, Reiju's corpse in a Germa lab, Vaughn's axe rusting in darkness.
Charlie exhaled. "...We need a hybrid signal. Germa's frequency, plus ours. It's… possible."
Yonji's fist clenched. "Traitors."
"Survivors," Reiju corrected, voice hollow. "Input the codes."
The air in the crypt was thick with the acrid scent of molten mirror-sap and the metallic tang of blood. Charlie hunched over the fractured remains of the transmitter, his fingers darting between wires and circuitry, each click and spark punctuating the heavy silence. Across the cramped chamber, Marya knelt, methodically cleaning Eternal Night with a cloth. The blade glinted faintly, its edge catching the dim light like a sliver of trapped moonlight.
Reiju leaned against the icy wall, her posture deceptively relaxed. Her Poison Pink gauntlets dripped faintly, venom pooling in the crevices of her armor. Her eyes, sharp and calculating, tracked Marya's movements—the precise strokes of the cloth, the way her fingers lingered on the sword's crossguard, a subconscious tic.
"Your swordmaster," Reiju said, her voice cutting through the static hum of dying machinery. "He'd hate seeing you here."
Marya's hands stilled. The cloth froze mid-swipe along the blade. For a heartbeat, the only sound was the distant groan of the crypt's collapsing corridors. When she spoke, her voice was steel wrapped in silk. "You don't know me."
Reiju's lips curved, a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She held up a vial of poison, its contents swirling like liquid night. "I know legacy," she said, rolling the vial between her fingers. "The way it carves itself into your bones. The way it… simplifies you." Her gaze flicked to Yonji, slumped nearby, his Winch Green arm sparking uselessly. "To Germa, I am a weapon. To your father, you are… what? A shadow? A disappointment?"
Marya's knuckles whitened around Eternal Night's hilt. The blade trembled, not from fear, but from the strain of memory—Mihawk's cold critiques, Elisabeta's whispered encouragements, the weight of two legacies pulling her in opposite directions. "This sword isn't my prison," she said, forcing steadiness into her voice.
"No?" Reiju tilted her head, the vial catching the light. "Then why clean it here? Now? In the dark, surrounded by enemies?" She stepped closer, her boots crunching on shattered glass. "You polish that blade like it's the only thing holding you together."
Marya rose, Eternal Night humming at her side. The mist at her ankles thickened, tendrils coiling like serpents. "And you cling to your poisons," she countered, nodding to the gauntlets. "Judge's perfect soldier, dripping venom instead of blood. Which of us is more trapped?"
Reiju's smile faded. For a moment, her mask slipped, revealing the ghost of a girl who once bandaged her brother's wounds in secret. "The difference," she said softly, "is that I chose this prison. You… you're still fighting yours."
The crypt shuddered, ice splintering from the ceiling. Charlie cursed as the transmitter sparked, its holographic display flickering like a dying star.
Marya's mist surged, wrapping around Reiju's wrist—not attacking, but holding. "You don't know me," she repeated, but the defiance had bled from her voice.
Reiju glanced at the mist, then at the sword. "Don't I?"
The crypt's walls pulsed like a dying heartbeat, the black mirrors weeping sap that pooled and hissed at their feet. Charlie's hands trembled over the makeshift transmitter, its wires spliced into a Germa clone's corroded circuitry. Sweat dripped onto the keys as he typed, the Consortium's encrypted codes mingling with Germa's frequencies in a desperate symphony.
"It's not working," he muttered, voice fraying. The holographic display flickered, spitting static. "The signals—they're canceling each other out. The crypt's interference is too strong…"
Reiju watched, her Poison Pink gauntlets dripping corrosive venom onto the ice. "Adjust the harmonics," she said coolly. "Germa's systems prioritize—"
"I've tried that!" Charlie snapped, slamming his fist against the device. Sparks erupted, singeing his gloves. "The encryption algorithms are incompatible. It's… it's impossible."
The admission hung in the air, sharp and final.
Marya's mist coiled tighter around her, tendrils fraying at the edges. "So we dig. Vaughn—blast a tunnel."
Vaughn stared at the ceiling, where cracks spiderwebbed through the ice. "With what? My axe'll bring the whole damn place down on us."
Yonji laughed, a raw, broken sound. His Winch Green arm hung limp, wires sparking. "Pathetic. All of you. Father was right—weakness deserves to die here."
Reiju's gaze snapped to him. "Quiet."
But the crypt amplified his words, the mirrors echoing: Weakness. Die. Deserve.
Charlie slumped against the wall, his glasses fogged. "It's over. The Consortium… no one's coming."
The chamber groaned. Ice shards rained down, and the clones outside redoubled their assault, mirror-fused fists pounding the barricaded door.
Reiju seized Charlie's collar, her gauntlet sizzling against his coat. "Fix it."
"I can't!" he screamed, tears freezing on his cheeks. "Don't you get it? The crypt wants us trapped! It's feeding on our failures, our—our legacies!"
Marya's reflection flickered in the glass—a version of her holding Elisabeta's notebook, its pages blank. Finish it, the vision mouthed, before dissolving.
Vaughn hefted Light Bringer, his jaw set. "Fine. New plan: we die fighting." He nodded to Yonji. "You in, scrapheap?"
Yonji bared bloodied teeth. "You first, glowstick."
Reiju released Charlie, her voice lethally calm. "The pool. The central chamber's mirror pool—it's a conduit. If we overload it…"
Marya's head snapped up. "It could destabilize the crypt. Or kill us faster."
"Or both," Reiju said. "Your choice."
The clones burst through, mirror-shards screeching.
"Go!" Vaughn roared, axe flaring.