The Mirror’s Pulse

Part 1

Shards of broken mirror floated beneath him.

Aoi opened his eyes—gasping.

The world around him pulsed with shifting light: grays, blues, and whites.

Voices whispered from nowhere.

Or maybe… from inside himself.

He pushed himself up slowly, standing on a platform made entirely of fragmented reflections.

This wasn't a dream.

It was too real.

Just ahead, a glowing figure watched him in silence.

Kureha.

—"Here, every wound becomes a reflection," she said.

—"And every reflection… can kill you."

Aoi looked around, heart racing.

—"Where is my reflection? What does it want from me?"

Kureha didn't move.

—"It doesn't want anything.

It only exists… because of you."

Aoi froze.

And in that moment, something deep inside him cracked.

---

Part 2

They were inside a dome.

Suspended. Weightless.

Mirrors curved along the interior walls like ribs of a breathing beast.

Thoughts—his own and others—echoed faintly in the air.

Aoi wore a black jacket.

It pulsed softly, in rhythm with his heartbeat.

—"Feel it," Kureha whispered.

—"In here, your heart is everything."

She placed a crystalline stethoscope over his chest.

A pulse.

A flash.

Yui laughing.

His reflection grinning.

The sensation of falling.

—"Listen to the resonance," Kureha said.

—"And face what you deny."

Before him, a shape emerged—

His own reflection, cracked and flickering.

His first Echo.

---

Part 3

The battle didn't begin with fists.

Each strike from the Echo sent memories slicing through him—

sharp, painful, real.

He tried to hold on.

But the doubt was louder than his breath.

—"Do you remember," the Echo taunted,

—"when Yui screamed your name?"

—"You did nothing."

Aoi collapsed to his knees.

The mirrored world grew darker.

Kureha didn't move.

—"You can't win…" she whispered.

—"…unless you accept."

FLASH—

Yui, standing in the rain.

The mirror pulsing behind her.

Aoi… closing the door.

—"I DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS!" he screamed.

A surge of pain.

The mirrored realm fractured.

The Echo staggered.

Aoi slowly stood, tears falling freely.

—"But I have to see it."

A white light bloomed from his chest.

His jacket shimmered—crystal spreading over his arms like armor.

He struck forward—

not with fists,

but with a resonant wave pulsing from his heartbeat.

The Echo shattered.

---

Part 4

Silence returned.

The mirror world reformed in slow motion—

fractures sealing themselves with whispers.

Aoi stood, wounded but alive.

Kureha walked toward him.

—"You survived your first Echo," she said.

—"But your true reflection…

will be far worse."

Aoi's voice trembled.

—"Why are you helping me?"

She removed a glove.

Dark, branch-like scars twisted across her hand.

—"Because I lost someone too," she replied.

—"And I never faced my Echo."

Aoi stared at the marks—etched deep, like roots of pain.

He said nothing.

---

Part 5

He woke with a jolt.

Back in bed.

Back in the real world.

His heart was pounding like a drum.

The mirror in his room stood still.

Normal.

Untouched.

But…

There, in the reflection—

something shimmered.

A shard.

Frozen.

Yui, trapped in a crystalline prison behind the glass.

Maybe… he thought,

she's still in there.

---

Preview of Next Chapter:

Aoi begins to feel the resonance in the real world.

His first encounter with a foreign Echo.

What if other people's reflections can cross over too?