We are not reflections

Training arcs are supposed to come with dramatic music, right? Some cool montage where the sad protagonist discovers he has god-tier powers, levels up, and everyone claps?

Yeah. Mine comes with nausea, weaponized sarcasm, and the creeping feeling that my own reflection is watching me die for sport.

The air in the underground training chamber was colder than it should've been. Maybe it was the mirrors—lined across one wall like silent judges, reflecting all of Kael's awkwardness back at him. Or maybe it was the fact that the second he looked at his reflection, he saw… nothing.

No movement. No flicker. No mirroring.

Just that cold stare. That expression.

"You left me behind," the reflection had whispered once. "And I haven't forgiven you."

So no, Kael didn't get to use his reflection as a power-up or shadow clone. It wasn't his weapon. It was his witness.

And damn, it was always watching.

Noelle tossed him a short staff. "Try not to overthink it. Your body already remembers what your head forgot."

"That's comforting," Kael muttered, catching it with a fumbling grip. "Real confidence boost."

Mara snorted from where she leaned against the wall, spinning a blade like it was a pencil. "If he gets his teeth kicked in, it'll come back faster."

"Thanks for the moral support."

Echo stood quietly by the farthest mirror, arms folded. He didn't speak, but Kael could feel him observing—measuring. Like every move Kael made was being tallied for some final verdict.

Ziv went first. He blurred in and out of reflections like a walking glitch, teleporting between polished surfaces without breaking stride. One moment he was crouched beside the mirror, the next he was kicking Kael in the back from a chrome pipe across the room.

Kael groaned. "How the hell am I supposed to fight someone who plays hopscotch with physics?"

Ziv grinned. "Dunno. Figure it out."

Then Mara. Her power was worse in a terrifying way. She could erase herself from Kael's awareness entirely. One blink and she was just gone. A shadow in his peripheral vision that refused to be pinned down. A blind spot.

She kicked his legs out from under him with a grunt. "Eyes up. All of them."

Noelle was the opposite. Calm. Focused. Her strength wasn't flashy—it was strategic. She read his body language through reflections. Every twitch, every clench of his jaw, every unconscious lean. She mirrored it back at him, countering with surgical precision.

"You're thinking too slow," she said. "Your reflection moves before you do."

"You're making me feel very safe, thanks."

Renji didn't fight—he ran Kael through simulated loops of past training sequences. Every time Kael made a mistake, the environment reset. Same scenario. Same pressure. Until he broke the cycle with a different choice. His power wasn't physical. It was memory.

Juno warped perception. She didn't just trick the eye—she wove hallucinations through the light in the room. Kael struck at her and hit nothing. Then turned and nearly punched Noelle, who hadn't moved. The world buckled under Juno's presence like reality was allergic to her.

Kael was dizzy. Overwhelmed. Bruised. But somewhere deep under the panic, something clicked.

He felt it in his teeth.

The air around him warped—just slightly. A mirror hummed behind him, though nothing touched it.

And then everything twisted.

The room shimmered like heat waves. Kael didn't feel his heartbeat anymore—he heard it. In the walls. In the mirrors. It echoed once. Twice. Then the reflections began to bend.

Noelle stepped back. "Kael—"

But he wasn't listening.

He wasn't standing in the room anymore.

He stood in a long black corridor of mirror-light, surrounded by looping reflections that weren't his own. They flickered. Shifted. Twisted into images that looked almost like people—but not quite.

He reached out instinctively, and the surface warped under his fingers like water.

Then—snap.

He was back.

Sweating. Gasping. Every reflective surface in the room had shifted toward him like metal pulled to a magnet. He wasn't floating—but he wasn't exactly on the floor either.

"What the hell was that?" Kael asked, voice shaking.

Echo's voice cut through. "You phased. You slipped through a mirror space. But that's not all."

Kael's skin itched. His fingertips shimmered slightly. Like glass catching sun.

"What can I do?" he whispered, not out of fear this time, but something between awe and unease.

Echo took a breath. "You don't just sense reflections. You anchor them. When a fracture occurs between this world and the Mirror Realm, you stabilize it. Like a living bridge. You can enter those spaces and redirect the energy pouring out of them."

"Redirect," Kael echoed. "Like how?"

"You absorb reflective feedback—light, motion, even emotion—and throw it back. Stronger. You reflect what the world sends, but twisted through your own intention. Like a rebound. Or a rewrite."

"Wait, I can rewrite reality?"

"No. But you can return it. And that can be just as dangerous."

Kael turned, noticing how the mirrors were still pulsing faintly.

His hands buzzed. His skin vibrated. He could feel glass and metal like extensions of his nerves.

He wasn't just some kid caught in a cosmic accident.

He was a conductor. A conduit.

He was the Echo the world forgot.

And now he was back.