The giant moved.
Its hand—a grotesque fusion of claw and glass—swung down like a guillotine. The air itself bent under the force, the sound of shattering mirrors echoing across the endless hall.
Ren leapt aside, dragging the girl with him as the blow slamd into the floor. A shockwave rippled outward, sending shards of liquid glass raining across them. The Thorn humd violently, as if craving to pierce the monster’s hide, but Ren could already tell—this wasn’t like the fragnts.
This thing wasn’t weak enough to shatter.
The girl steadied herself, hair clinging to her face, her silver fla flickering like a second heartbeat. "It’s not just a monster. It’s the Pane’s answer to you. Every ti you resisted, every ti you broke sothing it tried to control—it collected those pieces. And now it’s wearing them like armor."
Ren snarled. "So it’s , but wrong."
Her eyes darkened. "No... it’s you without choice. You without rebellion. You as the Pane wants you—obedient, still, silent."
The giant’s face twisted into an unholy grin, its many eyes locking on Ren. And when it spoke, its words tore the air apart:
"RETURN."
The command wasn’t just sound. It was force. Ren staggered as if invisible hands were dragging him backward, pulling his reflection toward the walls. His chest burned. His lungs felt like they were caving.
The girl caught his arm, her silver light flaring against the pull. "Fight it!"
Ren gritted his teeth, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He forced his boots into the mirror-flesh ground, carving deep gouges with each step. "I don’t return to anyone!"
The Thorn roared, sprouting black veins of ruin along his arm, countering the command with sheer rebellion. The girl pressed her palm to his, silver fla wrapping around his ruin like silk around steel. Together, their power sparked violently—dark ruin laced with piercing light.
The giant hesitated, its grin faltering.
Ren smirked through the pain. "Yeah. You feel that? That’s not your reflection. That’s ."
The girl’s eyes glimred. "Then let’s give it sothing it can’t rewrite."
They moved as one. Ren charged, Thorn glowing like a blade forged from defiance itself, while the girl’s fire arced outward, etching sigils into the air that chained themselves around the giant’s limbs. It roared, struggling, faces across its body screaming as one.
But the chain didn’t break.
For the first ti, the cage’s monster staggered.
Ren leapt, Thorn raised high. His reflection—the one it wanted to consu—clashed against the Pane’s giant, and when his blade struck its shoulder, the impact cracked not just flesh, but the very heartbeat of the cage.
The walls scread. The heart skipped a beat.
And for the first ti—
The giant bled.
Not glass. Not silver.
But sothing black, thick, and ancient.
The girl’s eyes widened. "That’s... not the Pane’s blood."
Ren landed hard, Thorn humming in his grip, his chest heaving. His lips curved into a half-mad grin.
"Good. That ans this thing isn’t just theirs."
He pointed the Thorn straight at the towering monstrosity.
"It’s mine to kill."
The giant reeled backward, its fractured body groaning like collapsing glass towers. From the crack in its shoulder, that black ichor spilled, thick as tar and pulsing with a rhythm that didn’t belong to the Pane’s sterile order.
Ren tightened his grip on the Thorn, chest heaving. His instincts scread danger, but his grin only widened. So this thing bleeds. That ans it can die.
But the girl’s expression told a different story. Her silver fla faltered, dimming like a lantern starved of oil. She stared at the ichor pooling across the mirror ground, her lips parting in horror.
"No..." her voice trembled. "That... that blood doesn’t belong here. Not in the Pane. Not in any mirror."
Ren frowned, glancing at her. "Then whose is it?"
Her eyes locked onto his, and for a mont her fla reflected like a prison. "Yours."
The words hit harder than the giant’s roar.
Ren staggered, his pulse stuttering as if the black ichor mirrored the pounding of his own heart. He rembered the Thorn’s whispers, the ruin creeping up his arm, the way mirrors shattered around him long before he ever understood why.
The girl’s voice cracked. "That giant... it’s not just made from reflections. It’s carrying your fragnts, Ren. The pieces you’ve lost, the pieces you’ve thrown away. The Pane’s been feeding on them this whole ti—twisting them into this thing."
The Thorn shivered violently in his grip, its ruin veins spreading farther up his wrist, drinking in the sight of that blood like it was ho. Ren’s teeth clenched.
"So you’re saying..." His voice was low, dangerous. "...that thing is ."
The giant scread, a chorus of faces warping as if to confirm the truth. Each face bore his features—distorted, mutilated, drowned in silence. So were him as a boy, others older, broken, carrying griefs he didn’t even rember.
And all of them howled one word together:
"RETURN."
The girl snapped her chains tighter, silver light burning against the command. "Don’t listen! If you give in, the Pane takes everything—your freedom, your rebellion, you! This blood proves it’s not theirs yet. That ans you still have a choice."
Ren spat black onto the ground. "Choice, huh? Then I’ll choose to tear it apart."
He charged again, Thorn glowing with ruin so fierce the ground beneath him cracked open. But this ti, the giant raised its arm—and from its wound, black ichor erupted into tendrils, writhing like serpents. They lashed out, wrapping around the Thorn, around Ren’s arms, chest, throat.
The ichor was heavy, suffocating, alive.
And when it touched his skin, mories bled into him.
A classroom filled with laughter. A hand reaching out to him that he never took. The reflection of his own eyes the first ti he realized mirrors weren’t just glass, but doors.
The ichor whispered in all those voices at once. We are you. You are us. Stop fighting. Co back.
Ren roared, thrashing against the pull, the Thorn screaming in rebellion with him.
But even as he fought, the girl stepped forward, her silver fla igniting into a burning torrent. She pressed her hands together, whispering words in a tongue Ren had never heard.
"Ren—listen. That blood will keep dragging you under unless we strike it at the source." Her fla expanded, forming a bow of light in her hands, an arrow of pure fire notched and aid at the giant’s heart.
Ren choked against the ichor’s pull. "Then shoot it!"
Her voice shook, though her aim was steady. "If I do, it won’t just wound the Pane’s giant. It’ll wound you too."
Ren’s eyes widened, ichor already crawling across his chest like veins of tar. His breath ca ragged, but his smirk didn’t fade.
"Then don’t hold back. If it kills —" He raised the Thorn, black ruin blazing in defiance. "—then I’ll just kill my way back."
The girl’s silver eyes burned.
And the arrow loosed.
The silver arrow left the girl’s bow like a falling star—silent, rciless, inevitable.
The giant roared, every one of its faces contorting at once. The ichor surged outward to block, tendrils twisting into a shield of writhing black.
But Ren was already moving.
With the ichor still strangling him, he pushed forward, Thorn blazing like a brand of rebellion. The ruin spreading up his arm shimred, threads of red-black fire lashing against the ichor serpents.
"Don’t you dare block it—" Ren snarled, his voice cracking like thunder. "—because it’s mine too!"
He slamd the Thorn downward, shattering the tendril-wall. Black ichor exploded like shards of oil-soaked glass, opening the path.
The silver arrow scread past him, its light blinding as it found its mark—straight through the giant’s chest.
The sound wasn’t an explosion.
It was a scream.
A hundred faces—each his own—shattered at once. The giant staggered backward, its form collapsing like broken towers. Silver fire ate away at its chest, and from the wound poured not just ichor, but mories.
Fragnts spilled into the air like falling glass shards—images of a boy laughing, crying, bleeding, vanishing. All of them Ren. All of them forgotten.
Ren staggered, his vision consud by the storm of selves. Each shard that touched him burned into his skin, searing mories that weren’t his... but should have been.
The Thorn pulsed violently in his grip, as though drinking them, claiming them, devouring them.
But even as his body buckled, Ren forced himself to stand. His grin was ragged, blood streaking his mouth, eyes wild with clarity.
"Yeah... I see it now. These fragnts... they were mine all along."
The girl rushed to his side, fla still burning around her hands. Her silver eyes widened at the sight of him, half-wrapped in ichor, half-lit by ruin. He looked less like a boy and more like sothing caught between man and monster.
But he was still Ren.
And Ren raised the Thorn one last ti.
"I won’t let them bury again."
He leapt into the collapsing chest of the giant, Thorn blazing. The ichor tried to smother him, the fragnts tried to pull him apart, but his roar cut through it all:
"—Break!"
The Thorn pierced the giant’s heart.
Black ichor erupted, spraying into the air like night itself had been slain. Silver fire entwined with the ruin’s blaze, the two forces clashing, rging, tearing the Pane’s creation apart.
The world scread. The ground cracked. The air split like broken glass.
And when the light faded, the giant was gone.
In its place lay only shards of black glass—and Ren, kneeling in the wreckage, the Thorn buried in the ground beside him. His arm was almost completely consud by ruin now, glowing faintly, trembling like a beast straining its chains.
The girl fell to her knees beside him, her fla flickering weakly. She reached for his face, her voice breaking.
"Ren... you... you struck through your own heart."
Ren coughed, a laugh tearing through his chest. He wiped the blood from his lips with his ruined hand, black streaks saring across his skin.
"And I’m still here. Guess that ans it wasn’t theirs to take."
He looked up, silver fla reflecting in his eyes, Thorn humming in his grasp like it had feasted on sothing it would never let go of.
The Pane itself trembled above them, cracks spreading wider than before.
For the first ti, Ren felt it—
The cage was afraid.
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