Aoi hovered in the center of the twelve mirrors, suspended in a glass-like aura that shimmered with unreal time. Around her, reflections twisted and looped, each one showing a different version of her—each more broken than the last.
Renji stepped closer, the weight of it all hitting him at once.
> "She's not just trapped," he muttered.
"She's splintering."
Kuro turned pale. "The Crackwalker… it's not just feeding on people. It's replacing them. Copying them in mirrors. Trapping the real ones inside."
> "And she's the biggest target of all," Renji added. "Because she remembers the Spiral."
---
The Mirrorborne Spiral
Suddenly, the room trembled.
One of the twelve mirrors cracked with a screech, and Aoi let out a faint gasp—her body twitching in midair. Then a voice echoed through the chamber.
> "You broke the Spiral once.
Now the Spiral breaks you."
The mirrors lit up in sequence, forming a slowly rotating pattern—a spiral made of reflections, turning against gravity itself.
Kuro backed away. "It's building a new loop. One where no one remembers who they are… because their reflections take over."
Each turn of the spiral seemed to drain Aoi further. Her memories flickered through the mirrors:
Her first meeting with Renji
Laughter in the shrine
The moment she gave up her life to stop the Spiral
And—
—a flash of her as a Crackwalker.
---
The Inversion Begins
The mirrors groaned as they began turning inward. The spiral was collapsing, trying to rewrite itself, erasing Aoi from every version of reality. If it succeeded, her existence—her real self—would be lost.
> "We have to break the spiral," Renji shouted.
"But if we shatter the wrong mirror, we lose the piece of her inside it."
Kuro's eyes narrowed. "There's another way."
He pulled out the talismans from before—the ones Emiko had enchanted when they faced the Time Spiral. Only now, the runes glowed with fractured light.
> "These were made to anchor a soul…
But if we flip their polarity—they can pull a reflection back in."
> "You're saying we merge the fragments?"
Kuro nodded. "It's dangerous. If we get it wrong, we might merge the wrong version of Aoi. One that's not fully her."
---
The Heart Mirror
Renji stepped forward.
He closed his eyes, blocking out the whispering voices of the false mirrors—the temptations, the lies, the possible versions of Aoi that had fallen.
He listened.
And then he heard it.
Her heartbeat.
Soft. Steady. Real.
One mirror—smaller than the rest, half-hidden behind two others—glowed faintly red, like the dying ember of a fire.
> "That's the one."
Without hesitation, Renji placed the talisman against the frame.
> "Let truth flow. Let memory bind. Let the self return."
The mirror pulsed once… twice… and shattered.
---
Aoi Returns
The shards of glass didn't fall—they flew into the others, one by one, like magnets being reversed. Each reflection flickered and twisted before collapsing inward.
The remaining mirrors burst into silver mist, and Aoi fell from the air.
Renji caught her just before she hit the ground.
She was cold. Pale. But her eyes opened slowly.
> "Renji…?"
> "You're back," he whispered. "The real you."
A smile touched her lips. "Took you long enough."
---
But the Spiral Isn't Done
But their relief was short-lived.
Behind them, the last mirror—the center of the twelve—rippled, not with Aoi's reflection, but with something else entirely.
A girl.
With silver eyes.
No face.
And hair made of glass.
She stepped out slowly, barefoot, the mirror closing behind her.
> "You found her," she said softly. "But can you find yourselves?"
The chamber shook violently.
Renji raised his arms protectively as the world around them began to fold again—only this time, it wasn't a Mirror World.
It was every reality starting to collapse into one.
---
End of Chapter 70
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To Be Continue