The gate was a mathematical insult. They had walked for hours—or what felt like hours in a world where the sun refused to move—yet the shimmering gold structure remained at the exact same point on the horizon. It did not grow larger; the details of its ornate filigree did not become clearer. It simply existed as a fixed coordinate in a space that refused to be measured.
"We're on a treadmill," Ayame said, stopping abruptly. She wasn't panting. None of them were. The air in this place was so oxygen-rich it felt like a stimulant, artificially suppressing the body's natural signals of fatigue. "The scenery is moving, but the distance isn't. It's a loop."
Shin looked back. The clearing where Kaito had almost turned to stone was gone, replaced by an endless, undulating sea of lavender-colored hills. There was no path, no footprints. The grass simply stood back up the moment their boots lifted, erasing their history with terrifying efficiency.
"It's not a loop," Hiroshi corrected, kneeling to examine a cluster of flowers that looked like crystal bells. "It's a refusal. The world isn't letting us reach the gate because we haven't 'qualified' yet. We're still carrying too much of the outside."
Shin felt the weight Hiroshi was talking about. His right arm, the one that had wielded the blackened chain, was numb. It wasn't the numbness of cold, but an ontological void—as if that part of his body was being slowly unwritten. He kept his hand hidden in the folds of his white linen sleeve.
"Qualified?" Reiji asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He looked the most 'at home' here. His skin glowed with a health that bordered on the translucent. "What more does it want? We've abandoned the Trench. We've accepted the Nectar. We are clean."
"Are we?" Ayame's voice was a jagged blade. She stepped closer to Reiji, her eyes tracing the perfect line of his restored jaw. "You still remember the smell of the mines, Reiji. You still remember the sound of the collapse that broke your face. As long as you remember the pain, you're a stain on this canvas."
Reiji flinched. The mention of the old world seemed to physically hurt him. "Why would I want to remember that? That world was a mistake. This is the correction."
"A correction is a lie told to hide an error," Hiroshi muttered.
They reached a grove of weeping willows whose leaves were strands of spun silver. Sitting beneath the shade was a figure they hadn't seen before. It was a young man, perhaps younger than Shin, wearing a simple robe of pale blue. He was leaning against a tree, staring at a small wooden bowl in his lap.
This was Sora Minato. He didn't look up as they approached. He seemed caught in a profound state of atmospheric stasis.
"Another survivor?" Reiji stepped forward, his voice regaining its authoritative edge. "Hey. How long have you been here? Where does the gate lead?"
Sora slowly tilted his head. His eyes were a startling, unnatural violet, and they seemed to lack the jittery focus of a living person. He looked at them with a detached curiosity, as if observing a rare species of insect that was about to go extinct.
"Long enough to forget my mother's face," Sora said. His voice was melodic, yet it lacked any emotional resonance. "The gate leads to the center. But you can't go through the gate if you still have a shadow."
Shin stepped into the shade of the silver trees. "What are you talking about? Everyone has a shadow."
Sora pointed a trembling finger at the ground. Beneath him, the grass was perfectly lit from all sides. There was no dark patch, no silhouette. He was a being of pure light, or perhaps, a being who had lost the density required to block it.
"The shadow is the record of your sins," Sora whispered. "It's the weight of the things you refuse to forgive. This world… it's a giant filter. It's trying to strain the darkness out of you. If you fight it, you stay here, in the Surface. If you give in, you become part of the Deep. But if you hold on to your shadow and try to walk through that gate… it will tear you in half."
"Who told you this?" Hiroshi asked, his doctor's instinct flaring. He moved to check Sora's pulse, but the boy pulled away.
"The Luun told me," Sora said, glancing at a mercury-drop creature hovering near his shoulder. "They don't speak in words. They speak in certainties. Look at your leader." He pointed at Shin. "He's already rotting."
Shin looked at his hand. The numbness had climbed to his elbow. Under the white linen, he could see dark, vine-like veins creeping up his skin—the color of charcoal and old blood. It was the price of the 'Ather.' Using the chain hadn't just exhausted his body; it had invited the Trench to take root inside his flesh.
"It's not rot," Shin said, his voice hardening. "It's the truth. It's the only part of me this place hasn't been able to bleach yet."
"It will try," Sora warned. "The Paradise doesn't like competition. It's currently calculating how to break you, Shin Kurosawa. It's looking for the one memory you can't afford to lose, and it's going to turn it into a weapon."
Reiji stepped between them, his face pale. "Don't listen to him. He's lost his mind. He's been out in the sun too long."
"There is no sun here, Reiji," Sora said with a ghostly smile. "There is only the Eye. And it's looking right at you."
Suddenly, the silver trees began to vibrate. The melodic chime they had heard earlier returned, but this time it was distorted, layered with a low-frequency growl that made the ground beneath them feel unstable. The lavender hills in the distance began to fold in on themselves, the geometry of the landscape collapsing like a paper model.
From the shifting grass, a shape emerged.
It wasn't one of the elongated creatures from the Trench. It was something far more disturbing. It was a perfect, crystalline replica of a woman. She was made of the same liquid glass as the stream, her features blurred but recognizable.
Shin felt his heart stop. The silhouette, the way she tilted her head—it was a memory he had buried under a thousand tons of rock.
"Mina?" Shin whispered.
The glass figure didn't speak. It didn't have to. It moved toward them with a grace that was both beautiful and predatory. As it walked, the ground it touched didn't turn to ash; it turned into a mirror, reflecting the group's deepest fears back at them.
"It's a projection," Hiroshi shouted, stepping back. "Don't look at it! It's tapping into your neural pathways!"
"It's the test," Sora said, his voice fading as he leaned back into the silver bark. "The Paradise is asking for your payment. Who are you willing to kill to keep your peace?"
Reiji drew his sword. The blade hummed with a golden light, a stark contrast to the glass woman. "It's a demon. It's trying to keep us from the gate."
"No," Shin said, stepping forward, his numb arm twitching. "It's not a demon. It's a mirror."
The glass woman raised a hand. As she did, Shin's shadow erupted. The blackened chain didn't manifest in his hand this time; it burst from his skin, tearing through the white linen, wrapping around his chest like a constrictor. The pain was absolute—a cold, grinding agony that felt like his bones were being turned into scrap metal.
The 'Ather' was reacting to the Paradise's intrusion. The two realities were colliding inside Shin's body, and he was the anvil.
"Shin!" Ayame moved to help him, but the glass woman turned her gaze toward her. Ayame froze, her obsidian shard falling from her hand. In the reflection of the glass entity, Ayame didn't see a warrior. She saw a terrified girl hiding in a dark corner, clutching a dead bird.
The Paradise wasn't attacking their bodies. It was attacking their definitions of themselves.
"Kill it, Shin!" Reiji roared, lunging forward with his golden sword. "Destroy the memory!"
Shin looked at the glass woman. He saw the face of the sister he had left behind in the collapse, the one he had promised to protect. The Paradise had taken her likeness and turned it into a gatekeeper. If he struck her, he was striking the only thing that made him human. If he didn't, the chain would crush his heart.
He reached out with his left hand, the one that still felt warm, and touched the glass face of the entity.
"You aren't her," Shin whispered, his voice thick with blood. "She died in the dark. And I won't let you use her light to lie to me."
He didn't swing the chain. He didn't use force. Instead, he pulled the 'Ather' inward. He accepted the weight. He accepted the guilt of her death, the crushing reality of the Trench, and the darkness of his own soul.
The chain tightened, then shattered.
Not the glass woman, but the chain itself. The blackened links exploded into a cloud of grey soot, coating the emerald grass and the silver trees. The glass woman shivered, her form losing its cohesion, dissolving back into a pool of clear water.
Shin fell to his knees, gasping for air. The dark veins on his arm had reached his shoulder, but the numbness was gone. It was replaced by a sharp, searing pain.
He was hurting. He was bleeding. He was exhausted.
He was still real.
Sora Minato watched from the shadows of the willow, a flicker of something resembling hope crossing his violet eyes. "You didn't choose the peace. You chose the scar."
The golden gate on the horizon shifted. For the first time, it looked closer. But it no longer shimmered with a holy light. It looked like heavy, gilded iron, and the path leading to it was no longer lined with flowers, but with the jagged shards of broken mirrors.
"We move," Shin said, coughing up a spray of crimson that stained the white grass like a prayer. "We move before the world tries to apologize."