The first light of dawn was swallowed by a city that no longer remembered what morning looked like.
Sector 9 lay in ruins, buildings half-collapsed and coated in the fine dust of forgotten lives. The silence that hung over it was deceptive — the kind that hummed faintly with static, like the breath of something vast and unseen.
Reiji moved through the ruins, the fragment of the Spire's core strapped to his wrist like a silent pulse. Every few seconds, it flickered with faint black light, responding to something beyond human understanding. He didn't look back anymore. Not after Section 13. Not after the voice that had spoken to him through the recording.
Kaede's words echoed still.
> "Truth is heavier than weapons."
He wondered how much heavier it could get before it crushed him.
---
The air trembled as he approached the edge of the old transit bridge — a skeletal structure hanging over the abyss that divided the city. Below, the fog moved like a living thing, dense and swirling, veiling what lay beneath.
At the center of the bridge stood a figure — motionless, draped in a long, tattered coat that fluttered with the wind. Reiji stopped. His instincts screamed before his voice did.
> "You've been following me," Reiji said, voice low.
The figure turned, revealing a porcelain mask fractured across one eye. Behind the mask, two pupils gleamed — one blue, one black, both reflecting a light that wasn't from this world.
> "Following?" the masked figure replied, voice distorted, mechanical yet eerily calm. "No. I've been waiting."
Reiji's hand hovered near his weapon. "For what?"
> "For you to remember."
The wind howled. The bridge groaned. Between them, the air shimmered faintly, as though reality itself was uncertain whether it wanted this moment to exist.
---
The masked figure raised a gloved hand, holding a fragment identical to Reiji's — pulsing in perfect rhythm with his own.
> "You feel it, don't you? The resonance."
Reiji's expression hardened. "Who are you?"
> "Names don't matter here. You lost yours once, too. The Court wrote you out of history, then rebuilt you in the image they wanted. You're not Reiji to them — you're an experiment that learned how to walk."
The words cut deeper than the cold air.
He had heard it before — in whispers, in fragmented memories that surfaced like cracks in glass. But hearing it now, spoken aloud, gave it form.
> "You're lying," he said quietly.
> "Am I?" The figure tilted its head. "Tell me, Shinomiya — when you close your eyes, whose voice do you hear? Yours… or theirs?"
The fragment on Reiji's wrist pulsed violently, synchronizing with the other. The bridge around them began to hum, the very air splitting into thin, translucent layers of mirrored reflections. Each layer showed a version of Reiji — some alive, some dead, some holding weapons he'd never seen before.
The masked figure stepped closer.
> "The Mirror's Edge — the point where reflection and reality merge. Every version of you ends here. Every truth you've avoided waits beneath the glass."
Reiji raised his weapon. "Then let's find out which one of us is real."
---
The world shattered.
The sound was not of glass but of memory — collapsing, rewriting itself, becoming something else. The bridge transformed into an expanse of fragmented mirrors floating in an endless void. Gravity meant nothing here.
The masked figure moved first — fast, gliding across the mirrored platforms as blades of reflection erupted from beneath its feet. Reiji fired, each shot splitting into echoes of light that struck a hundred reflections but not the one that mattered.
The figure reappeared behind him.
> "Too slow."
A strike.
Reiji blocked it with the fragment, sparks of black energy bursting between them. The force sent him backward, but he regained footing on a drifting shard.
> "You've improved," the masked figure said. "But you're still bound by fear."
Reiji's eyes burned with defiance.
> "Fear keeps me alive."
He fired again — not at the enemy, but at the mirrors surrounding them. Each shattered surface distorted the reflection field, causing the figure's form to flicker erratically. Taking the moment, Reiji leapt forward, plunging the fragment into the figure's chest.
A blinding flash tore through the void.
When the light faded, both of them were on their knees, gasping.
The fragments pulsed together in unison — then merged.
---
Reiji reached out instinctively, gripping the mask. He tore it away.
Beneath it was a face he recognized.
His own.
The reflection smiled weakly, eyes dimming.
> "You see it now, don't you? I'm what you left behind — the conscience you buried when the Court remade you. Every sin, every lie, every command you obeyed without question."
Reiji's breath caught.
> "You're not real."
> "No," the reflection whispered, fading. "I'm what's left of what was real."
The mirrored void began to collapse, the fragments breaking apart, dissolving into dust. The last thing he heard before everything turned white was his own voice — from the reflection — murmuring:
> "Find Kaede… before they do. The Hollow Monarch is waking."
---
Reiji jolted awake on the broken bridge. The city skyline flickered in and out of focus as if reality struggled to stabilize. The fragment was gone — or rather, it had fused into his wrist, its glow faint but alive.
He stared at the horizon, where the fog began to part for the first time.
Beneath it, an enormous shape stirred — a tower of glass and flesh intertwined, breathing with mechanical rhythm.
The Hollow Monarch.
Reiji stood slowly, blood dripping from his hand, and whispered to the empty air:
> "Kaede… if you can hear me — the past isn't done with us."
The rain began again, heavy and relentless, as if the world itself wept for what was about to begin.