The crater wasn't natural.
Seismic reports said it was a meteor strike.
Local legends said it was a cursed scar — nothing grew near it. Birds never flew over it. Phones lost signal.
But Ji-Hyuk knew better.
It wasn't a scar.
It was a womb.
A Fold birth site — where identities weren't stolen, but forged.
They descended in silence.
Yuna walked beside him, small hand in his.
She wasn't afraid.
But Ji-Hyuk was.
Not for himself.
For what she might see.
And what it might try to make her choose.
The entrance to the Fold site shimmered like oil in moonlight — visible only through sigil-laced lenses. The cave twisted downward in ways Euclidean geometry didn't allow.
Maeryn, floating just behind, muttered, "This was built by memory, not stone."
Yuna stopped.
"I can feel someone inside," she said. "He's… waiting."
Ji-Hyuk's hand clenched around his blade.
"I know."
At the center of the Fold cavity stood a stone chamber — shaped like an inverted heart.
Inside: mirrors.
Dozens of them.
Not made of glass, but compressed thought.
Reflections didn't show truth.
They showed possibility.
And at the center of the mirrors—
Stood him.
Or rather, a version of him.
Same height.
Same voice.
Same scar above the right brow.
But his eyes…
Were calm.
Too calm.
"Hello, Ji-Hyuk," the doppelgänger said.
Yuna stepped behind Ji-Hyuk.
The reflection tilted its head.
"I'm what the Fold believes you could be. Refined. Sharpened. Perfected."
Ji-Hyuk didn't flinch.
"You're not me."
"No. I'm better. You fight from rage. From guilt. I fight from clarity."
Maeryn's eyes narrowed. "You're a construct."
"I'm a candidate."
The chamber pulsed.
Fold code ran through the walls like veins — throbbing with ancient echoes.
The doppelgänger raised his hand.
And every mirror lit up.
In each one: a different Ji-Hyuk.
One laughing. One burning. One kneeling. One dead.
And one standing behind a throne of Fold glyphs, smiling down at a shattered Earth.
Yuna gasped.
The reflection turned to her.
"You could rule beside that one," he said gently. "No pain. No fear. No death. Just dream."
Ji-Hyuk stepped between them.
"Touch her," he growled, "and I break this world."
The clone smiled.
"You already have."
Then he moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
His blade struck Ji-Hyuk's in mid-air, sparks erupting like memory flashbacks.
They fought like mirrored storms — every attack matched, every parry flawless.
Ji-Hyuk bled.
So did the clone.
Each wound mirrored on both.
But Ji-Hyuk smiled through the pain.
Because he felt every second of it.
And the clone did not.
"You're not better," Ji-Hyuk snarled. "You're just cleaner."
He drove his knee into the clone's ribs and shattered a mirror with the hilt of his blade.
Another scream echoed — not from the clone, but from the chamber.
Each mirror was a node.
Each image, a thread.
And Ji-Hyuk had just snapped one.
Yuna raised her hand.
Not to fight.
To choose.
"I want my own reflection," she said, voice trembling but firm.
And for a moment… the entire chamber paused.
A mirror formed behind her.
Not of power.
Not of war.
But of peace — her holding a paintbrush, smiling in a sunlit room.
She looked at Ji-Hyuk.
"I don't want to become a weapon."
He nodded.
"Then don't."
The chamber rejected her.
Fold energy crackled.
But Ji-Hyuk threw his blade — straight into the heart of the final mirror.
The construct screamed—
And shattered.
The code burned.
The clone fell.
Dissolving into memory ash.
Yuna collapsed into his arms, sobbing quietly.
"I'm still me."
Ji-Hyuk held her close.
"And you always will be."
Outside, Maeryn waited under the stars.
"Is it over?" she asked.
Ji-Hyuk looked back at the crater.
"No."
He sheathed his blade.
"But that was the last version of me they'll ever get to build."
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