The elevator doors parted with a slow metallic groan, as if even the steel resisted taking them any deeper. A rush of cold air greeted Reiji—sterile, still, too clean, like a room that had never been touched by life. The corridor ahead stretched in a perfect line of white, illuminated from nowhere, without shadows.
He hated it instantly.
Akari stepped beside him, expression tightening. "This whole place feels… wrong."
"It's not meant for people," Reiji said, voice low. "It's meant for control."
The elevator slid shut behind them with a final, echoing click.
And then there was only silence.
Reiji began walking, each step echoing like a heartbeat in a mausoleum. His wounds still throbbed beneath the bandages—bruised ribs, cuts, the deep burn across his shoulder—but adrenaline kept him steady. He'd endured worse. He had no intention of falling here.
Akari walked beside him, quieter than usual, her gaze flicking from wall to wall. "Reiji… What do you think he wants?"
"Everything," he answered. "He always has."
"But why—"
"Because men like him never learned to live without taking."
They reached the first door. A glass window stretched across its length—frosted, distorted. Beyond it, faint shapes shifted. Not human. Not entirely.
Akari took a breath. "Are those—"
"Failures," Reiji said.
They moved on.
The corridor unnervingly mirrored itself: each panel identical, each light perfectly spaced. But then Reiji noticed something wrong—
His reflection didn't follow perfectly.
The next time he passed a panel, he stopped sharply.
"So you noticed," a voice whispered behind the glass.
Akari stepped back, hands rising defensively. "Reiji—"
He lifted a hand. "I see you."
Behind the transparent pane, a silhouette leaned forward, smiling with a face almost identical to his—except the eyes, which were too calm, too precise.
A Mirror Unit.
One of the Director's earliest experiments in replicating him.
"I wondered how long it would take you," it said, lips moving with unsettling smoothness. "The Director calls this floor The Hall of Crowns."
Reiji frowned. "Crowns?"
"Reflections," the Mirror said. "Every king needs one. Or many."
Reiji stepped closer, fists tightening. "Open the door."
The Mirror tilted its head. "Why? So you can kill me?"
"You're not alive."
"Don't say that." Its fingers pressed the glass. "If I know I exist, do you still get to decide I don't?"
Akari whispered, "Reiji… let's go."
He wanted to. He truly did.
But the Mirror smiled wider. "He's waiting for you. In the throne room. The Glass Crown sits upon his head tonight."
Reiji's chest tightened.
"The what?"
The Mirror leaned forward, breath fogging the glass like a living person. "A crown built from the memories you left behind."
Reiji froze.
"Memories…?"
"Yes," it said, eyes narrowing with something like pride. "Everything you forgot. Everything he took. They built a crown out of them."
Akari grabbed his arm. "Reiji—don't listen. It's trying to weaken you."
The Mirror continued anyway. "He said you'll break the moment you see it."
Reiji's voice dropped to a low growl. "Watch me."
He stepped back, turned—
But the Mirror whispered, soft and cold:
"Do you even know which parts of you are still yours?"
Reiji didn't look back.
He walked.
---
The doors to the throne room were impossible to miss: black, heavy, carved with intricate sigils that glowed faintly like veins filled with moonlight. As he approached, each symbol pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
Akari swallowed. "This is it."
"Yeah."
"Reiji… before we go in—"
He stopped, turning slightly.
Her eyes softened. "No matter what he took from you… whatever he stole… it doesn't change who you became."
He didn't trust himself to answer. His throat ached too much.
For the first time since his childhood, someone believed in him without conditions.
He placed a hand on her shoulder—brief, steady.
"Let's end this."
Akari nodded once.
Together, they pushed open the doors.
---
The throne room was enormous—an empty void of white polished stone, with a single raised platform at the far end. Atop it sat a throne made entirely of jagged glass shards, held together by invisible force. It shimmered like frozen starlight.
And on it—
sat a man.
The Director.
His posture was relaxed, almost regal. He wore a fitted black coat, immaculate as always. His gray hair was combed neatly back, his face unlined, his expression cold enough to freeze oceans.
And on his head—
was a crown of transparent crystal.
But Reiji felt it before he understood it.
His chest constricted.
His vision flickered.
Each shard of the crown glowed faintly—each one pulsing with something painfully familiar. Not light. Not energy.
Memories.
His memories.
His childhood.
His mother.
The night of the fire.
His first kill.
The orphanage.
The training facility.
The moment he first held a gun.
The moment he was broken.
Everything.
Reiji staggered forward, the air punching out of his lungs.
Akari caught him. "Reiji!"
The Director rose slowly from the throne.
"Welcome home."
Reiji's hands shook. "Give it back."
The Director smiled. "Oh, Reiji… You don't understand. I kept these memories safe. You were… fragile. Weak. I removed what could break you."
"You stole from me."
"I refined you."
Reiji's stare hardened, turning lethal. "You turned me into a weapon."
"And look at what you became," the Director said proudly. "My masterpiece."
Akari stepped forward, fire in her eyes. "He's not yours."
The Director glanced at her lazily. "Ah yes. The failed asset. The one who clings to him like a leash."
Reiji's jaw clenched. "Say that again."
"Why? So you'll kill me?"
The Director chuckled softly.
"You've tried before."
Reiji froze.
"…Before?"
"Yes." The Director tapped the crown. "You don't remember because I removed it. You came to kill me once. You failed. You begged to forget."
Reiji's eyes widened.
Akari whispered, horrified, "Reiji… that's not true, right?"
Reiji could barely hear her over the roaring in his head.
"You're lying."
The Director stepped down from the platform.
"Then let me show you."
He lifted a hand.
Light burst from the crown.
Reiji dropped to one knee as a tidal wave of memories crashed into him—images, screams, fire, betrayal, metal restraints tightening around his arms, his own voice begging—
Please… please take it away… please—
"No—" Reiji clutched his skull, throat choking on a raw sound. "Stop…!"
Akari ran toward him—
The Director moved faster.
She was flung back into a glass pillar, cracked it, fell to the floor.
"AKARI!" Reiji roared, crawling toward her—but the memories kept slamming into him, each one a knife reopening old wounds he never knew he had.
"You see now?" the Director murmured, crouching before him. "Without me, you drown."
Reiji's vision blurred.
His breath broke.
Tears streamed before he realized it.
Not from weakness.
From the pain of recognizing a version of himself he never had the chance to remember.
"You belong to me," the Director said gently. "Stand, Reiji. And kneel properly."
Something inside Reiji snapped.
Not violently.
Quietly.
A small sound.
Like the last thread holding a man together finally breaking.
He lifted his head.
And smiled.
It was the kind of smile that didn't reach the eyes. The kind that meant something dangerous.
"You're wrong," Reiji whispered.
The Director paused.
Reiji rose—slow, unsteady, bleeding from the memories tearing through him—but standing.
"You think stealing my pain makes you my owner?"
The Director frowned. "Reiji—"
Reiji looked up.
And for the first time—the crown began to crack.
A faint hairline fracture snaked across one shard.
Reiji took another step, breathing hard. "You thought breaking me made me yours?"
Another crack.
He wiped blood from his lip, straightened.
"You don't understand something, old man."
The entire crown pulsed violently.
"I survived everything you took."
The room trembled.
"I survived YOU."
The Glass Crown shattered with a deafening scream of psychic force.
The Director stumbled back, eyes wide with disbelief.
Reiji stepped forward—shadowed, shaking, furious, and utterly alive.
"I am not your masterpiece."
He clenched his fist.
"I am the mistake you should've never made."
The Director's shock turned to rage.
And the throne room erupted into war.