Chapter 16 — When Mirrors Breathe
The door closed behind her with a faint click.
Then, silence.
Echo stood alone in the dim café — or what was left of it. The world shimmered faintly, as though it were remembering how to stay still.
He exhaled and touched the cracked counter Rimuru had leaned on. The surface felt… warm. Still carrying her presence.
"She really doesn't get it," he muttered.
He turned toward the window. The glass was no longer reflecting the street outside. Instead, it showed him — and behind him, hundreds of other reflections.
Each one a fragment of a different time.
In one, Rimuru was younger, her eyes both innocent and hollow.
In another, she stood in a storm, surrounded by faceless figures made of smoke.
In yet another — she wasn't human at all.
Echo's hands clenched. "You promised you buried that part of you."
A voice answered — soft, distorted, echoing from everywhere at once.
> "Promises are fragile things, Echo."
The lights flickered. The reflections smiled — but not in sync.
"Not now," Echo warned. "She's finally stabilizing. Don't—"
> "Stabilizing?" the voice mocked. "Or repeating?"
The mirrors pulsed once, like a heartbeat. The café's air grew heavier, vibrating faintly with unseen energy. Echo could feel the Static crawling closer — the same force that had once devoured entire worlds between dimensions.
He stepped back, his form flickering slightly. Being in this place was already draining him.
"You shouldn't be here," he said to the shadows in the glass. "You shouldn't exist."
> "And yet, you called us when you first tried to save her."
The reflections blurred — then aligned into one figure.
Rimuru's silhouette.
But it wasn't her.
Her posture was wrong — too sharp, too still. The eyes that looked back were empty, their blue and red glow replaced by colorless void.
"Rimuru…?" he whispered.
The thing smiled with her mouth.
> "Not anymore."
Echo's energy spiked — the mirror cracked. "Get back!"
> "You can't protect her forever," the shadow said. "Every time she laughs, the seal weakens. Every time she remembers love, the memory of what she once was stirs."
The glass trembled violently now — fractures spreading outward like veins. Echo could barely maintain his shape.
He forced his voice steady.
"She's not yours anymore."
> "She was never yours either."
The crack exploded — shards flying through the air, each one showing a different image of Rimuru: laughing, crying, fighting, breaking.
Echo covered his face as the storm of reflections passed through him like smoke. When the room finally stilled again, only one mirror remained — unbroken.
In its center, faint letters formed.
> "The Static remembers."
Echo's voice was barely a whisper. "So do I."
---
He turned toward the door Rimuru had left through, the dim light outside spilling faintly in.
"She thinks she's outrunning her past," he murmured. "But it's not chasing her anymore."
His reflection looked back with grim certainty.
"It's waiting."