Yurei wasn't breathing.
Not because she couldn't.
Because she didn't trust the air.
It felt wrong now.
Too cold in places it shouldn't be.
Too warm in others.
Like the wind didn't know what season it was anymore.
Across from her, the mirror was still smiling.
Not a grin.
Not evil or smug.
Just polite.
Like it was holding open the door for her.
Waiting.
"So…" Shukan said, low. "Anyone else getting super haunted family photo vibes? Or just me?"
No one laughed.
Chronos was watching the ground beneath them.
He wasn't blinking.
He wasn't breathing either.
That meant one thing: calculating.
Aetheron stepped to the left, slowly.
His halo was dim. Too dim.
"She's still matching Yurei's stance," he whispered.
"Not just the stance," Chronos said.
"What then?"
Chronos finally looked up.
"Every microexpression. Every twitch. It's not a copy—it's a feedback loop."
Shukan frowned.
"English, Chronos."
"It's not mimicking her.
It's reacting as her.
Like it's learning what to be from her just by standing there."
Yurei exhaled once.
Finally.
And the mirror exhaled with her.
But its breath didn't frost the air.
It corroded it.
Like the cold wasn't temperature—it was rot.
She took one step forward.
The mirror didn't move.
But something behind it twitched.
The shape from the slit.
The crawler.
Still on all fours.
Still glitching like reality couldn't quite decide if it was allowed to exist yet.
"You brought friends," Yurei said quietly.
The mirror tilted its head.
And spoke.
In her exact voice.
"You needed someone to talk to."
"Cute," Yurei muttered. "But I'm not that lonely."
"Aren't you?"
That stopped her for half a second.
But just half.
She raised her frost-arm.
And this time—
her mirror didn't copy.
Instead, it lifted its own hand.
Fingers made of frost.
Skin that wasn't skin.
A reflection wearing her shape like a memory someone tried to glue back together.
"Shukan," Aetheron said suddenly. "Get her out of there."
"On it."
Shukan took a step forward.
"Yo, snow queen. Let's move—"
He didn't even finish the sentence before a glyph snapped under his foot.
Not Chronos' glyph.
Not Yurei's.
Something older.
It lit up—red, gold, frost white.
And then it spoke:
"Replacement in progress."
The air shattered.
Shukan flew back like someone had reversed gravity just for him.
His body twisted mid-air, flipped twice, hit the ground hard.
Chronos was already moving—arm raised, symbols flashing.
"It's starting the overwrite!"
Aetheron's wings flared.
"On Yurei?!"
"No. With Yurei."
Yurei didn't move.
But she could feel something pulling.
Not her body.
Her presence.
Like the mirror was trying to download her entire being.
"It's copying me," she whispered. "Down to my thoughts."
"Then shut them down!" Shukan snapped, coughing as he pushed himself up.
"Not that easy."
She took a deep breath.
Slid one foot back.
"I'll handle it."
Chronos moved beside her.
"You won't last long in the tether field. It's reacting to you specifically."
"Then help me before it finishes stitching."
The mirror moved.
Just one step.
But the moment it landed—
Every frost pattern on Yurei's arm turned black for a second.
Just one second.
But that second hurt.
She didn't scream.
She clenched her teeth, dropped to a knee, and slammed her hand into the dirt.
The frost exploded outward—crystals, sharp like razors, blooming from the ground.
The mirror flinched.
Just slightly.
"Got you," Yurei hissed.
Chronos dropped both hands.
And the glyph field around her collapsed.
Like it had been holding its breath, and he just punched it in the lungs.
The crawler behind the mirror screamed—
but no sound came out.
Just static.
Then it backed into the slit like something had yanked its leash.
The mirror didn't follow.
It just stared at Yurei.
And this time, it looked…
angry.
No smile.
No words.
Just a shift.
Its hands cracked open.
Not like breaking fingers.
Like unzipping a lie.
And underneath?
Nothing.
Not ice.
Not skin.
Just a mess of white glyphs trying to remember how to be human.
Yurei stood back up.
The frost-arm looked burned at the edges.
Her veins were glowing too hot.
But her eyes?
Sharp. Focused.
"You think wearing me gives you the right to replace me?"
No answer.
The mirror raised both hands.
And time skipped.
Not for everyone.
Just for them.
Chronos saw it first.
Yurei was still standing.
But now her mirror was behind her.
Hand already raised.
Already falling.
"YUREI!"
Too late.
The mirror's frost-arm slammed into her spine.
Yurei gasped.
And then—
The mirror froze.
Not paused.
Frozen.
From the inside out.
Her real frost-arm surged, flaring so bright it lit the entire fracture like a flashbang.
The mirror shattered—
Mid-attack.
Falling apart in midair
And just like that, it was gone.
No scream.
No glitch.
No goodbye.
Just pieces.
Yurei stumbled forward, breathing hard.
"That's twice now something's tried to wear my body like a coat."
She turned, eyes burning with frostlight.
"Next one's not getting a warning."
Aetheron stepped beside her.
"You okay?"
"No."
"Cool. You sound normal."
Shukan limped over with dirt all over his jacket.
"So we're not gonna talk about the phrase 'replacement in progress?'"
Chronos was already scanning the glyphs.
They weren't stable anymore.
The slit was still open.
But now the crawling thing was gone.
And the pressure?
Worse.
"It wasn't trying to copy her," Chronos said.
"Then what was it?"
Chronos looked at them.
Eyes serious.
"It was trying to become her."
"...Why?" Shukan asked.
"Because something's building an army."
The sky above flickered.
Not with light.
With silhouettes.
Too many.
All blank.
All unfinished.
Like copies that hadn't been told who to be yet.
"I think," Chronos muttered, "it's been collecting pieces of people for a long time."
"And now it's stitching."
"Aetheron?" Shukan called.
No response.
He walked over, waved a hand in front of his face.
Nothing.
"Bro, say something before I slap you back to color."
Still nothing.
Chronos stepped up fast.
He placed two fingers on Aetheron's temple.
And immediately flinched.
"Shit. His signature's… looping."
"The hell does that mean?"
Chronos looked at him.
Eyes hard.
"He's being scanned."
Aetheron blinked.
His pupils weren't right.
They weren't glowing like usual.
They were… fragmented.
Like tiny shattered stars frozen mid-supernova.
"Whatever was looking at Yurei," Chronos said, "moved on."
"To him?"
"No. Through him."
Aetheron suddenly gasped.
Stumbled back like someone yanked him out of sleep mid-nightmare.
He looked at Chronos, eyes wide, voice shaking.
"There's something behind the slit."
"We know," Shukan said.
"No, no—I was there."
"Wait—what?"
"I saw the other side. Just for a second. I wasn't in my body."
He took a deep breath.
"It's not a world. It's a process.
A place where everything's unfinished."
Yurei stood up now.
"You saying the fracture is building something?"
Aetheron nodded.
"Yeah. And it's almost done."
The sky above them cracked.
Not just the slit now.
All of it.
A web of golden fractures rippled outward like lightning with no thunder, stretching across the clouds like spiderwebs of memory.
And through those cracks—
figures.
Some tall.
Some warped.
Some moving wrong.
All of them looking down.
"We're not supposed to be here," Chronos muttered.
Shukan turned.
"Finally, he says it."
"No—I mean it literally."
Chronos raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The glyph under his palm flashed.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Nothing.
He looked at them.
"This place doesn't register us anymore."
"Meaning…?"
"We've been overwritten."
No one spoke.
The wind stopped again.
And then—
A sound.
Like something massive dragging its claws across the edge of the sky.
"We need to leave," Aetheron said.
"And go where?" Yurei snapped. "There's nowhere to go."
"Then we fight."
Chronos didn't flinch.
"No. We don't."
"The hell you mean no?" Shukan barked. "We've fought worse!"
"Not like this," Chronos said. "Not in a system that already erased our place in it."
Another pulse hit.
The ground didn't shake.
The light did.
Color drained from everything for half a second.
Like the world blinked without closing its eyes.
Then—
They heard footsteps.
But not from the woods.
Not from the sky.
From… below?
Shukan stepped back instinctively.
"Yo. Tell me I'm not hearing boots under the dirt."
Suddenly—
the ground split.
A hand reached up.
But it wasn't a monster.
It was a person.
Wearing Aetheron's face.
"WHAT THE—"
The figure pulled itself out, breathing ragged.
Not glitching.
Breathing.
Just like them.
Same face. Same build. Same eyes.
Only difference?
No glow.
No wings.
No halo.
No Shunogai presence.
Just a hollow version of Aetheron… like he'd been built wrong.
"Don't touch it," Chronos warned.
But it looked up anyway.
And said:
"You're not supposed to be here."
"YEAH, WE GOT THAT," Shukan yelled.
The fake-Aetheron lunged at Chronos.
Chronos vanished.
No motion.
Just gone.
And reappeared behind it, hand raised, golden symbols locked.
He hit it point-blank.
But it didn't scream.
It just—
Split.
Right down the middle.
And spilled more of those white glyphs.
"They're test prints," Chronos said. "Prototypes."
"Of us?" Yurei asked.
"Of everyone."
They all stepped back as more figures started clawing out from cracks.
Some with Shukan's hair.
Some with Chronos' eyes.
Some half-finished—melting as they moved.
"Okay," Shukan muttered. "New plan. We blow it all up."
"We can't," Chronos said.
"Why not?!"
Chronos looked up.
At the sky.
"Because we're inside the next version."
Yurei clenched her frost-arm.
"Then what do we do?"
Chronos blinked slowly.
"We don't fight the copies."
"Then?"
"We find the original.
The core fracture.
Before it finishes compiling us into its code."
The slit in the sky widened again.
One of the watchers leaned forward.
Closer now.
A hollow version of Shukan.
Grinning.
But the eyes?
Alive.
Just… not his.
"We're on a countdown," Chronos said.
Shukan cracked his knuckles.
"Then we better break the clock."