Senti's POV
Vale hadn't changed.
The air still smelled like cold metal and smoke. The streets still hummed with the same rhythm — fast, uncaring, endless. The only thing that changed was me.
The blood from the tunnels was long gone, washed away by rain and time, but I still saw it. Every time I blinked. Every time I closed my eyes.
Every time the reflection smiled.
I stayed in motion because stopping meant listening.
And lately, listening meant answering.
The voices didn't come one by one anymore. Not like they used to. They layered now — a whisper under a laugh, a calm beneath a scream.
—careful—
—don't stop—
—you liked it—
—we told you so—
It was like breathing beside a thousand versions of myself. All of them watching. All of them waiting.
The White Fang hadn't stopped moving either.
A new cell had taken root in the south district — old factory lines turned into safehouses. They were building something bigger this time.
I found them through whispers in the worker quarters — too many missing Dust shipments, too many people asking the wrong questions.
It didn't take long to track the scent of gun oil and ozone.
By the time I reached their hideout, it was raining — thin, cold rain that slid down the cracks in my coat.
The factory doors were unlocked. Sloppy.
Inside, it smelled like rust and burnt Dust. The kind of smell you never forget once it's mixed with blood.
Four of them.
Two guarding the main floor, one on the catwalk, one counting crates.
No masks tonight. Just tired faces, Faunus like me — people who once thought this fight would mean something.
I watched them from the shadows. The same scene played out every night in Vale — desperation pretending to be revolution.
I could have walked away. I should have.
But then I heard it.
A voice from the catwalk.
"Adam says we hit Atlas supply lines next week. This time, no survivors."
The words stopped me cold.
No survivors.
Something inside me twisted — slow, deliberate, like a wound being reopened.
Cruelty whispered first: They'll kill again if you let them.
Logic followed: You can't stop the war, but you can slow it.
Joy laughed, sharp and bright: You already know how.
Charm said nothing.
And then the reflection answered — not a whisper, but a clear, layered voice that sounded like all of them breathing together.
Do what you're good at.
I didn't remember moving.
One blink and I was there, stepping into the light, blades drawn.
The first guard didn't even have time to shout. His rifle hit the floor before his body did.
The second spun, shouting my name — no, not my name. The name they'd given me.
Wolf.
The echo of it hit harder than his weapon.
Shots cracked through the air. I moved without thought, a blur of silver and red, the rhythm automatic.
One swing deflected a round into the catwalk, shattering the railing.
Another cut sent a weapon flying.
When the noise stopped, three were down. Not dead. Not yet.
The fourth — the one who said the words — crawled back across the floor, clutching a shattered arm. His mask had fallen, revealing a boy's face, younger than I expected.
I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the light. "Where?"
He spat blood. "You're one of us."
"Not anymore."
He laughed — weak, but real. "You think killing us changes anything?"
Cruelty hissed, It changes him.
I didn't move. My grip tightened without meaning to.
The boy's laughter turned into coughing. "You don't even know what you are anymore."
And the reflection answered for me, its voice coming from every direction — from the walls, the steel, the rain outside.
She's the one keeping the world from bleeding out.
The boy froze. "What—"
He didn't finish.
When I blinked, he was still.
I didn't feel the moment I crossed the line. Only the silence afterward.
I stayed there, crouched beside him, waiting for the Echo to stop talking.
It didn't.
Instead, it hummed quietly — a sound too human to be mechanical, too calm to be comforting.
You did good work tonight, it said.
I stared at my hands — slick, trembling, still red. "No. I didn't."
He would have killed more.
"That's not your call."
It's yours. We just help you make it.
I stood up, backing toward the door. The rain hit my face and for a second it looked like I was crying.
But I wasn't.
When I returned to the warehouse, the mirror waited.
Cracks webbed across it like veins, glowing faint gold around the edges.
My reflection smiled — and this time, it didn't bother to move in sync with me.
"You're getting worse," I said.
The reflection tilted its head. No. You're getting efficient.
"Efficient?"
You don't hesitate anymore. That's all that matters.
I stepped closer. "You sound like him."
Adam? The reflection's grin widened. He learned it from you.
The glass flickered. For one second, I saw my reflection with his mask — black and white, the symbol burned into it like a brand.
I threw the knife.
The mirror shattered.
The pieces didn't fall. They hovered for a heartbeat, suspended in the air like fragments of thought — each one showing a different piece of my face.
Red. Gold. Silver.
Then they dropped, clattering across the floor, ringing like chimes.
When morning came, I was still sitting in front of the shards.
The reflection was gone.
But I could still hear it — faint, layered, breathing in the back of my skull.
It didn't need the mirror anymore.
It had me.