The mirrors beneath the Silent God's feet had started to pulse with more power, becoming more and more clear. The illusions started to become so much more prevalent.
The grew in size, their frames almost making up the ground itself, starting to cover up the walls in the reflections of what it was.
Of what it could have been.
If we wanna speed up this unravelling process, then I think having Kapaala work overtime into making those mirrors clearer, should piss it off.
The mirrors continued to grow in size, the reflections becoming borderline tangible.
The Silent God began to shriek, twisting and morphing further and further into despair, like a man gone mad.
It almost felt... human, to Riku.
The kaleidoscopic glass beneath the Silent God's feet trembled as Riku clenched his fists. The more the mirrors cleared, the more the deity's form frayed—like a painting washed in acid.
If it's fighting this hard to keep the reflections blurry… then that's where it's weakest.
He inhaled sharply, the thought blooming almost instinctively.
So that's it. Overwhelm it. Drown it in its own lies.
The only way he could think to do it was… ridiculous. He focused, hard, on the most absurd, chaotic visions his mind could conjure. He focused on risible jokes Tetsuya and he would exchange when they were kids—impossible cities folding into themselves, laughter echoing from headless chickens, the moon wearing a crown of melting clocks. Every nonsensical image he stacked into the mirrors felt like a stone hurled into a pond, ripples tearing through the deity's domain.
To his surprise… it worked.
The illusions sharpened. Reality inside the glass twisted into something jagged and undeniable.
Kapaala's voice, reverberating with a giddy timbre, rang in his head. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! YES! THIS is what I'm talking about! Push yourself and me to the limit, Riku!"
The spirit's excitement sent a shiver up Riku's spine, but he didn't falter. If Kapaala wanted him to lead, then he'd lead.
A strange satisfaction welled up in his chest.
It's working…
From the side, Mei's eyes widened. There was a glint there—surprise, maybe admiration—that he didn't notice but would have made him falter if he had.
Akio grinned, his body straining under the heavy load of the vow. His legs were shaking, and for an instance, Riku noticed sweat and some blood trickling down from his face.
Just hold on a bit longer, Akio. Give me some time to work!
Under the strain, Riku slowly, but surely, felt something leaving him. Like the energy in him had begun to ebb away from his body. But he didn't care.
Not when they were this close. Close to victory. Close to ending this nightmare of a day.
Close to getting Tetsuya back.
Then, he felt it.
A small trickle from his nose. Something warm. When he wiped at it, he discovered the back of his hand was covered in blood.
Damn... I'm feeling so tired. Where's this coming from?
He heard Mei's voice sound from a few feet away. "Riku! You need to stop! You'll keel over if you keep outputting your Mantra like this!"
"I'm fine! I could care less about whatever that means! Akio's been making sure we can stay moving! As long as we create a damn opening, after we make it unstable, then I don't give a damn how long this takes!"
He closed his eyes, his mind once again going back to those ridiculous thoughts, feeding off of them and pushing the jester to his limit.
"Tsk... idiot." Mei said, turning away from him. She continued to dodge and evade the erratic onslaught. Deflecting any attacks that could injure her, Riku, or Akio. But before she turned away, she did a double take, looking into Riku's eyes.
They were different. Coiled spirals spun endlessly inward.
Mei looked between Riku and Kapaala. They both had the same gait and stance, almost like they were synchronized.
Like they were one and the same.
But it was more than posture.
The air around them seemed to bend—not from heat, but from some vibrating tension that made the edges of the world shimmer. Kapaala's grin and Riku's own expression began to mirror each other perfectly, down to the faint tilt of the head, the way the shoulders rolled lazily forward, as if mocking the god before them.
Then she saw his eyes.
Coiled spirals spun endlessly inward, pulling at her gaze like a drain pulling down water. They weren't just eyes anymore—they were doorways. Looking into them was like leaning over the edge of a bottomless well, hearing echoes of laughter from somewhere far, far below. The colors in those spirals weren't natural; they shifted too quickly, fractal patterns blooming and collapsing in the space of a blink.
Riku's breathing matched Kapaala's strange rhythm, each inhale and exhale perfectly in sync. Even the small, imperceptible movements—flexing fingers, the twitch of a smirk—lined up as if controlled by the same impulse.
A faint pressure pressed against Mei's temples, a dizzying urge to laugh and recoil at the same time. The synchronization wasn't just something she could see—she could feel it, like a tuning fork struck somewhere inside her skull.
It was odd. And she felt a chill travel down her spine.
But before she could fully register the development, she heard The Silent God once more.
And this time, the sound that ensued was much different.
It wailed. The sound was as if someone had taken a great fall and shattered a bone. As if the pain it felt was indescribable. As if it wanted salvation from its torture.
For a second, Riku felt pity.
Pity? For a God? The thought was farcical to him, and yet he couldn't help but feel that way.
The form continued to unravel and twist grotesquely, becoming more and more unstable. The sound so perverse and repulsive, Riku couldn't help but grimace.
The Silent God staggered, its form splitting in places like wet paper tearing in the rain. Each fracture spilled fragments of mirrored light, shards that didn't just fall—they bled. Every piece that cracked away from its body carried a warped reflection: a memory, a prayer, a whisper of something once-believed. The air reeked of incense and rust.
The shriek rose higher, warping into something not meant for human ears. Walls of the domain quivered like liquid glass, collapsing into a spiral around the deity. The mirrors beneath its feet convulsed, their kaleidoscopic surfaces distorting until they no longer held reflections at all, but doorways into nothing.
Then—suddenly—its chest split.
Not a wound of flesh, but a fissure of concept. A jagged crack opened across the torso, radiating light that was neither holy nor profane but nauseating in its purity. Through the gap pulsed something that looked like a heart and a prayer wheel fused together, rotating with frantic rhythm, spraying sparks of mantra-script like dying embers.
Riku's breath caught. "There… that's it."
The Silent God clawed at the fissure with trembling hands, trying to force the crack closed, but the mirrors betrayed it—dozens of them converged, refracting the wound over and over until the weakness couldn't be hidden. Each reflection widened the tear, until the god's entire chest seemed hollowed by an endless, spinning cavity.
Kapaala's laughter rattled the very air. "An open ribcage of chaos! Delicious! Go on, Lotus girl—rip out that heart with what you do best!"
The opening pulsed, unstable, like a mouth gasping for breath. And for the first time, the deity staggered back—not with pride or wrath, but with fear.
Mei stared down at the core, her eyes boring into it. "So, that's it, huh? Great. All we need to do is destroy it."
"Easier said than done." Riku said, his voice sounding even more fatigued.
Akio staggered to one knee, his hand pressed against the ground as if sheer will alone kept the vow binding him intact. The veins in his arms burned faintly with crimson glow, scripture etching across his skin like brands seared by a merciless fire.
Riku's breathing came heavy and uneven. Every laugh, every ridiculous vision he shoved into the mirrors was taking more out of him than he expected, draining him like water spilling through a cracked vessel. His limbs trembled. His nose bled freely now, drops spattering the mirrored ground and vanishing before they even landed, absorbed into the domain.
The Silent God, fractured and staggering, howled again. The fissure in its chest gaped wider, the frantic, rotating heart-wheel visible to all. It tried to clutch itself together, but the mirrors betrayed it relentlessly, multiplying the weakness, reflecting its unraveling until the cracks could not be ignored.
Riku swayed, steadying himself with a deep breath. "Well, unless you've secretly been hiding a jetpack under that uniform, how exactly are you planning to get up there?"
Mei shot him a glare. "Then think of something, idiot."
Riku barked a short laugh despite the pressure crushing his chest. "Right. Sure. Just invent aerial transport in the middle of a fever dream! That's completely fair!"
She caught his look instantly. Her stance was rigid, shoulders tight, the petals glowing faintly with scarlet light, surround her hands. "That… thing's not going to stand still while I waltz up to its heart."
Kapaala chuckled, a sound like glass cracking in reverse. "Catapult her."
Both Riku and Mei turned toward him. "Excuse me?" Mei's voice was incredulous.
"Catapult," Kapaala repeated, tilting his head with exaggerated patience. "Launch the little lotus into the air and let her dive right through the chest cavity. Quick, clean, beautiful." His skeletal hands twirled as if sketching the arc of her flight.
Mei glared at the jester. "Okay, wise guy. How do you propose we do that? Last time I checked, you and your wonderful 'boss' over here don't have anything to work with!"
Riku pressed a hand to his knee, legs trembling. "Catapult… right. Like that's a thing I can just conjure out of nowhere."
Kapaala's hollow eyes glimmered with delight. "Oh, but it is. You've already bent the mirrors to your will, boy. What is a mirror but a surface? A surface can be a spring. A spring can be a lever. Bend the lie until it becomes truth—then fling her into destiny."
Riku grimaced. "That… doesn't even make sense."
"Exactly!" Kapaala's laugh burst like shattering glass. "Sense is your prison. Nonsense is the key."
Mei ground her teeth, scarlet petals vibrating faintly at her shoulders. "You two sound like lunatics. And you're suggesting I let myself be used like a stone in a slingshot?"
Riku glanced at her. His lips twitched into a tired half-grin. "That's what I'm getting from him, yeah."
Her glare deepened. But after a beat, she exhaled sharply. "Fine. If that's the fastest way to end this, I'll do it. But if you screw this up…" She pointed at him, the glow intensifying. "I'll carve your damn clown in half before the God even gets the chance."
Kapaala bowed dramatically, skeletal fingers pressed to his nonexistent heart. "Oh, you flatter me, sweetheart."
Riku shook his head, blood dripping from his nose. His voice rasped. "Okay. Okay… mirrors. Catapult. How do we even—"
The ground answered before he could finish. The mirrored surface beneath them rippled, bending as if acknowledging his scattered thoughts. With effort, he pictured it like a springboard, something elastic, tension coiled within it. His vision blurred. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to focus through the haze pressing down on him.
Don't pass out. Not yet. Just… hold it together.
From the corner of his eye, Akio staggered, still kneeling, the vow's script scarring brighter across his arms. The light flared and dimmed erratically, as if the vow itself was eating him alive.
"Riku!" Akio barked through clenched teeth, voice hoarse. "Don't… overdo it—"
"Not really in the mood for lectures!" Riku snapped back, though his tone lacked bite. His chest heaved, his whole body shaking from the drain of pouring absurdity into the domain. He tried to lock eyes with Akio, but seeing his bleeding temples almost made him falter.
Focus. Don't think about it. One shot. That's all we need.
The mirror-spring beneath Mei began to pulse, gathering tension. Each shimmer of light trembled as though waiting for permission to snap.
"This is insane," Mei muttered under her breath, bracing her stance. She crouched slightly, her limbs swarmed with scarlet petals. "If this fails, I swear—"
"Shut up and jump already," Riku said, voice barely more than a croak.
Kapaala's grin widened, his voice booming inside Riku's skull. "NOW!"
The mirrored ground beneath Mei snapped upward like a bowstring let loose. Scarlet light streaked as she shot skyward, petals exploding around her in a cyclone. The fissure in the Silent God's chest widened, the frantic heart-wheel thrashing as if sensing what was about to happen.
For an instant, victory seemed certain.
Then the deity howled, its form convulsing. From the collapsing walls of the domain, jagged projectiles—shards of blackened mirror—shot out like arrows, screaming through the air in impossible trajectories.
Riku's vision slowed. He saw it—one shard, spiraling like a spear, aimed directly at Mei's back mid-flight. Too fast. Too sharp. Too precise.
His voice broke. "MEI—!"
She twisted instinctively, but not enough. The shard was a breath away from impaling her.
And then reality cracked.
Kapaala's skeletal hands clapped together with a sound like thunder reversed. The air folded inward, mirrors turning like gears. In that instant, space itself swapped—Mei's position and the projectile's inverted with a nauseating lurch.
The shard hurtled into empty air. Mei, in its place, spun forward—perfectly aligned with the gaping fissure in the Silent God's chest.
Her eyes widened in shock, but there was no hesitation. She raised her hand—scarlet petals spiraling, fist coiled with raw power.
"Scarlet Lotus—Blooming Whirlwind!"
The cyclone of petals roared, a storm of crimson tearing across the deity's torso. Her fist drove deep into the exposed heart-wheel, piercing through rotating scripture. Sparks of energy
burst in every direction like fireworks, scripts unraveling into ashes that bled light instead of smoke.
The Silent God shrieked. The sound tore through the air, rattling the domain's collapsing frame. Its limbs flailed, the form unraveling further, each movement more grotesque and desperate than the last.
Riku collapsed to one knee, vision doubling. His chest felt hollow, lungs dragging for breath. But he forced his head up, watching Mei drive her hand deeper, petals penetrating with relentless force.
Mei screamed, her voice echoing with the cyclone's fury, and the Scarlet Lotus detonated in a cascade of petals. The explosion of scarlet light pierced straight through the Silent God's core.
The deity convulsed once more, then shattered—its form dissolving into cascading shards of mirror, each one burning into nothing before they hit the ground. The domain screamed, walls collapsing inward like glass melting into a singular point.
Kapaala's laughter rattled the collapsing world. "Ahhh! Beautiful! Beautiful!"
Riku tried to laugh, but the sound came out as a dry cough. Blood ran freely down his face, and darkness nipped at the edges of his vision. He could barely hear Mei land lightly on the mirrored ground, her fist still glowing faintly, petals fading one by one into silence.
The Silent God's core was gone. The domain shook with the final death throes of a shattered prayer.
And Riku, for the first time, let himself fall onto both knees, a weary smile cutting through the exhaustion.
In Riku Shinsora's darkest hour, chaos hadn't left his side. And for once, he was glad it didn't.