The ordinary street lasted seven minutes.
Then the sky tore open.
Not a crack.
A wound.
A vertical slash from horizon to horizon, edges bleeding white fire.
No sound.
Just the sudden smell of rain that had never fallen.
From the wound stepped a man.
He wore Law's face.
Older.
One eye missing.
The empty socket full of white flowers that were still growing.
He wore the crown made of Tavren's bones.
It was still dripping.
He looked at the Five the way a reflection looks when it realises the person walked away.
And spoke with Law's voice.
Tired.
Certain.
Final.
"You left the door open," he said.
Law felt every drop of blood in his body turn to ice.
The older Law took one step forward.
The chalk drawing on the pavement aged a thousand years in one heartbeat and crumbled to dust.
The little girl who had been drawing screamed once, then forgot why she was screaming.
She ran inside.
The ordinary city began to forget it had ever been ordinary.
Streetlights flickered and became shard-lamps.
Pavement turned to black glass.
The sky behind the older Law was full of eyes.
Not stars.
Eyes.
All of them crying.
The older Law smiled.
It was Law's smile.
But it had teeth now.
"You chose them," he said.
"Now I choose you."
He raised his hand.
The crown bled harder.
Every wound the Five had ever taken reopened at once.
Laura dropped to one knee, blood pouring from the scar that had never fully healed.
Liora's resonance shattered again, silver light leaking from her eyes like tears.
Nysera's wolf howled and tried to surge, but the howl came out human.
Zero's chains turned to rust and fell off his wrists in pieces.
Law stayed standing.
Because anchors don't get to fall.
The older Law walked forward until he stood nose-to-nose with the real one.
He smelled like the house that had never been built.
Like bread and burning.
Like the moment before a child realises no one is coming to save them.
He reached out and touched Law's cheek with fingers made of broken promises.
"You were supposed to rest," he whispered.
"I was supposed to watch."
Law's throat closed.
The older Law leaned in until their foreheads touched.
And spoke with the Mirror's voice.
The real one.
The one that had never needed words before.
"Then watch this."
The tear in the sky widened.
And everything that had ever been watched poured out.
Every death.
Every choice.
Every moment the Five had ever survived.
All of it.
All at once.
Falling like rain made of memories.
The older Law stepped back.
The crown dissolved into black butterflies that flew into Law's chest.
One by one.
Each butterfly carried a memory.
Of every time he had chosen them over peace.
Of every time he had bled so they wouldn't have to.
Of every time he had closed a door so they could keep walking.
The last butterfly carried the memory of the little girl drawing the sky.
It flew into Law's heart.
And stayed.
The older Law began to fade.
But before he did, he looked at the Four.
And spoke with their voices.
All at once.
"Thank you," they said.
"For teaching us how to be unseen."
Then he was gone.
The tear in the sky closed.
The ordinary city came back.
But it was different now.
The little girl was still drawing.
But this time, when she finished the sky,
she drew five people standing under it.
Holding hands.
She looked up at Law.
And waved.
Law waved back.
The chalk drawing shimmered.
And became real.
Five chairs appeared on the pavement.
Five glasses of water.
Five plates.
The little girl brought bread.
It was still warm.