Kazuki needed a break.
A real one.
So he did the unthinkable.
He took a bath.
They'd found an inn on the edge of a blessed spring. Real beds. No cultists. No prophecy graffiti. Just warm water, privacy, and a faint hope that maybe—just maybe—the narrative would take a breath.
Spoiler: it did not.
Kazuki eased into the bath, steam rising around him like a badly lit dream sequence.
"This," he sighed, "is peace."
Then he looked into the mirror.
And the mirror looked back.
Not at his reflection.
At him.
"Hey," said the mirror version of Kazuki.
Kazuki blinked. "No. No no no. Not again."
[System Alert: Echo Boundary Breach – Passive Self-Contact Detected]
Mirror-Kazuki smirked.
"I'm the you that didn't stop. The one who accepted the Broken Path."
"You're a reflection!"
"I'm a warning."
Mirror-Kazuki showed flashes.
Kazuki as a soldier. Kazuki as a prince. Kazuki as the godslayer. All lives cut short, corrupted, rewritten.
"You keep trying to not be what you are," the mirror said. "That's why the system keeps punishing you."
"I'm not here to play their game," Kazuki growled.
Mirror-Kazuki leaned closer.
"Then break the board. Stop hesitating."
Suddenly: movement.
Kazuki turned just in time to see a monk assassin burst through the window—loofah in one hand, glowing dagger in the other.
"You bear the sin of delay! REPENT!"
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Kazuki yelled, flinging a bucket at the guy.
Fight scene: Wet, slippery, ridiculous.
Kazuki blocked a dagger with a wooden bath tray. Kicked the assassin into a towel rack. Mistral entered halfway through and knocked over a bottle of lavender oil.
Darin burst in wielding two washcloths. "I got your back!"
Vera, outside the door: "I AM NOT ENTERING THAT ROOM."
Kaelith calmly shot the assassin through the window and muttered, "You can't even bathe without existential peril."
[Quest Complete: Survive the Holy Assassination Attempt (Naked Edition)]Reward: +3 Constitution, +1 Towel of Blessing (Drying Efficiency 300%)]
Kazuki collapsed back into the tub.
"I want a class that lets me be boring. Is that a thing? Can I multiclass into mediocrity?"
Mistral perched on the sink.
"You are chaos incarnate. Accept it. Dry off. And for god's sake, stop talking to mirrors."