When Kazuki opened his eyes, he wasn't in the Mirror Room anymore.
He was nowhere.
Floating in a white void—no sound, no ground, no gravity.
And yet, he could feel everything.
He looked down at his hands. They shimmered. No longer flesh—but something else. Something fluid, glitching, unreal.
Then, voices echoed around him. Hundreds of them.
> "Version K-01 has breached containment."
"Merge protocols failing."
"System error: Identity collapse imminent."
His mind cracked.
And then—
He saw them.
Twelve figures in a circle. Each one wearing a different version of his face.
The Clones.
One stepped forward. His eyes were hollow.
"You were never meant to wake up," he said. "We're the pieces of the original Kazuki. Fragments. Reflections."
Another one added, "When the real Kazuki vanished, they tried to recreate him. But every version turned… unstable."
Kazuki clutched his head.
"What am I then?"
"You're Version 13. The last. The closest to the original. But also the most dangerous."
Kazuki staggered. "Why?"
"Because unlike the rest… you're starting to remember."
Suddenly, the void shuddered. A crack of darkness split the white.
Kazuki saw images—memories—flash through:
A boy in a lab screaming as wires pierced his skin.
A girl clone sobbing as the reset chamber counted down.
A scientist whispering, "He's more than a mirror… he's the key."
He wasn't just a clone.
He was the containment vessel for the real Kazuki's consciousness.
But it was leaking.
Corrupting.
He fell to his knees as a final memory surfaced:
> The original Kazuki wasn't killed.
He chose to split himself into twelve parts…
...to escape the system that made him.
And now—
Kazuki was waking up.
As the void collapsed, the clones screamed, dissolving into light.
He stood alone in the nothingness.
And then…
A door appeared.
Unmarked.
He walked through.
---
TO BE CONTINUED