The scream still echoed when Kael's eyes snapped open.
Shards of crimson glass floated in the air around him, suspended as if time itself had frozen. The world trembled — the candles bent backward, their flames flowing toward the mirror's ruin.
Serah was on the ground, her dagger drawn, her face pale with shock.
"Kael… what did you do?"
He could not answer.The air itself had changed — thicker, alive, breathing. From the shattered mirror, a sound rose, deep and low, like the first heartbeat of creation.
Then the light bled out of the room.
The shadows stretched upward, coalescing into a shape — tall, almost human, crowned with fire that flickered gold and black. The same eyes Kael had seen in the reflection stared back at him, gleaming with impossible calm.
"You," Kael hissed.
The figure smiled.
"Me."
It stepped forward, its feet not touching the ground. Where it passed, the stone cracked and turned to ash.
"You carry my name, my fire, my hunger. You think yourself a man, Kael, but you are my echo — the last breath of a god who refused to die."
Kael raised his sword. His heartbeat was a drum of rage and terror.
"Then I'll kill what's left of you."
The shadow laughed — soft, almost kind.
"You cannot kill the voice that speaks through your veins."
It thrust its hand outward. The air folded. Kael flew backward, slamming into the wall. The pain was distant, muted by the roar inside his skull.
He saw flashes — the world burning, towers falling, his own hands drenched in light. A battlefield that spanned eternity. He saw gods kneeling before him, their bodies dissolving into dust.
You were the unmaker, whispered the voice. You ended their war. You ended everything.
"Lies!" Kael roared. His sword burst into flame — golden, furious, alive. The fire burned not around the blade, but within it, as if the weapon remembered what it once was.
He swung — the flame cleaved the air, striking the shadow across the chest. It staggered backward, hissing. The smell of burned divinity filled the room.
"You fight well for something half-awake," it said. "But when you remember, you'll beg to return to sleep."
It raised its hand again — and this time, the mirror's shards rose from the floor, swirling around them like a storm. Each fragment showed a different Kael — thousands of him, in different worlds, all burning, all crowned.
Serah shouted his name, but her voice sounded far away.Kael's vision fractured. He saw the Sanctuary melting, the world unraveling. His body was no longer his own.
And then — silence.
The Hollow Between Moments
He awoke in darkness.No fire. No voice. No Serah.
The world was empty, as if someone had erased it. He stood on a plain of black glass, the sky an endless void. His own reflection stared up from beneath his feet — the same golden eyes, but older, colder, infinite.
"Where… am I?"
The answer came from everywhere.
"Between heartbeats. Between breaths. Between what you were and what you will be."
From the void rose pillars of light, each showing fragments of memory — a city of white towers, a woman cloaked in stars, a battlefield where gods fell screaming.
Kael fell to his knees.He remembered her — the woman. The first one who called him Kael. The goddess who gave him fire.
Her voice reached him through the void:
You were meant to guard creation, not destroy it.
He clutched his chest, feeling something twist inside. "Then why did I—"
Because you loved it too much to let it suffer.
The light dimmed.And through the haze, the shadow returned — his mirror-self, eyes burning brighter than suns.
"You see now?" it whispered. "You were never mortal. You were mercy twisted into ruin. I am not your enemy, Kael. I am your memory."
Kael rose slowly, trembling, sword in hand.
"Then I'll carve you out of me."
The shadow smiled, almost tender.
"You can't. Because when you kill me…" — it leaned close — "…you kill yourself."
The world shattered again.
The Return
Kael awoke gasping, back in the Sanctuary. The storm had ended, but everything was covered in ash.Serah knelt beside him, shaking his shoulders.
"Kael! Gods, I thought you were gone—"
He blinked, dazed.
"How long…?"
"Hours. Maybe more. The Keeper is gone. The mirror's gone. It just— exploded."
He looked down at his hands. The gold glow was gone, replaced by faint black veins crawling beneath his skin — pulsing softly.
Serah saw them too, but said nothing.
"We can't stay here," she said finally. "If that thing finds you again—"
Kael interrupted quietly.
"It won't need to."
"What do you mean?"
He looked at her, eyes darker than before — no longer gold, but the color of dying embers.
"Because it's already inside me."