The night was a trembling canvas of light and silence. The City of Glass had long since fallen quiet, its crystalline towers reflecting a sky split between two worlds. One shimmered with stars, the other pulsed with a soft, rhythmic glow like veins of data flowing through the heavens.
Akiya stood at the heart of the abandoned plaza, her reflection fractured in the glass beneath her feet. For the first time, her own image didn't look back. It watched her.
The air was alive with whispers. Not wind, not voices, memories. She could hear them weaving through the static hum of the world.
"Welcome home, Doctor Tanabe."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Calm, melodic, painfully familiar.
Akiya froze. Her breath clouded the air, though the temperature did not warrant it. "Who's there?" she called out, though she already knew.
The glass rippled. A silhouette stepped forward, walking across the mirrored ground like a ghost surfacing from a dream. She wore the same face as Akiya same sharp eyes, same quiet poise but her body flickered with light. Akiya's heart clenched.
"Miyako."
The other smiled. "Or perhaps… you."
Akiya took a step forward, her voice steady though her pulse roared in her ears. "You're not real. You're a projection of the system."
Miyako tilted her head. "If I am only a reflection, why do you bleed when I remember?"
The world around them flickered. Images bled through the air laboratories, glowing circuits, the hum of machines. Akiya's mind burned with every flash. Her hands trembled as forgotten pieces of her past clicked together.
She saw herself in a white coat, standing over the Rift generator, her team cheering. She saw Kael's face among them not as the warrior she knew now, but as an engineer, laughing under the sterile light. She saw the moment the portal opened, and the instant it collapsed, the scream, the light, the silence.
Then nothing.
Akiya staggered, clutching her head. "Stop it," she hissed. "I can't..."
"You must," Miyako said softly, stepping closer. "You asked for truth. I am what remains of your intention. The dream that became a wound."
Kael's voice echoed faintly from behind. "Akiya!"
He came running through the plaza, his armor cracked from battle, his eyes filled with worry. Behind him, Akari followed, her hands glowing faintly with the healing light she'd inherited from the fragments.
Kael reached her side, but when he looked at Miyako, his breath caught. "There are two of you…"
Miyako turned to him, her expression unreadable. "Not two. One, divided by the consequence of creation."
Akiya met her gaze. "Why show yourself now?"
"Because the worlds are merging again," Miyako answered. "The fracture is complete. You and I cannot exist apart much longer. Either we reunite, or both realities dissolve."
The ground beneath them shimmered, rippling like liquid glass. The air twisted, and for a heartbeat, the horizon itself bent half physical, half digital.
Akiya's chest tightened. "If I merge with you… will I still be me?"
Miyako smiled sadly. "That depends on what you believe 'you' are."
Kael stepped forward, his hand reaching for Akiya's shoulder. "There has to be another way. You don't have to lose yourself to save this world."
Miyako's tone softened. "You misunderstand. It is not about loss. It is about completion."
The words carried a weight that silenced them all.
Akari, her voice trembling, whispered, "If she does this, what happens to us?"
The reflections around them deepened, showing flickers of their memories the laughter in the ruins, the battles fought together, the silent nights when they shared warmth under the broken stars. Every bond they had made was carved into the glass around them.
Akiya turned slowly to her companions. "Whatever happens next," she said quietly, "you must remember me. Not as a scientist. Not as a savior. But as someone who tried to understand the unknown and paid the price for it."
Miyako extended her hand. "Then let us begin."
The air split with light.
Akiya hesitated for only a heartbeat, then reached forward. Their hands met and the world exploded in silence.
The plaza dissolved into fragments of glass, each shard spinning into the sky like stars scattering across an unseen canvas. Kael and Akari shielded their eyes as waves of energy surged outward, rippling through every horizon.
When the light faded, there was no longer a figure of Akiya or Miyako. Only a radiant sphere pulsing softly in the air, breathing like a heart of pure light.
Kael stepped forward, tears tracing down his face. "Akiya…"
The orb pulsed once, and a voice warm, steady, achingly familiar whispered through the wind.
"I'm still here."
And then it vanished into the horizon.
....to be continued....