The corridor of the Mirror Ascent was narrow and curved, unlike the wide, spiraling staircases of the descent. Its walls were made of mirrored obsidian, but not perfectly reflective—each surface shimmered with slight delay, as if the reflections had to think before responding.
Lucia stepped through first.
The moment her foot crossed the threshold, her reflection twisted. Not a mirror image, but a version—slightly younger, softer around the eyes, less grief carved into her shoulders.
It looked at her.
And smiled.
> "You could've stopped after Naomi. You didn't have to become this."
Lucia stopped.
Eren bumped into her from behind. "What is—?"
Then he saw his own reflection.
He staggered back.
The Eren inside the mirror stood proud, defiant, dressed in gear he never wore in this cycle, carrying weapons that didn't exist. A general. A leader. A version of him who had never fractured.
The corridor pulsed.
> MIRROR ASCENT INITIATED ECHO INTEGRITY UNDER ANALYSIS WARNING: PERSONAL VARIANCE EXCEEDS THRESHOLD
Kayla gasped behind them. "They're not just mirrors. They're offers."
Lucia nodded grimly. "Alternate selves. Versions of who we could have been. Who we wanted to be."
Quentin reached toward his reflection. "But… if this is me, why does it feel like it's trying to replace me?"
Lucia pulled his hand back.
"Because it is."
The corridor lengthened ahead. The mirrors began to stretch higher, warping slightly—no longer confined to humanoid forms. Some became scenes. Others, entire constructs.
They passed one mirror where Naomi stood, arms crossed, alive and furious.
> "You shouldn't have let me die."
Lucia clenched her jaw and kept walking.
Another mirror showed Saylor, not broken or sovereign, but whole. Laughing, surrounded by a crowd of players who praised him.
> "You could've saved me too. If you'd just listened."
The corridor narrowed again.
Then split.
Ahead, three paths formed:
One lined with red light, sharp and angular. One dim, edged with blue frost. One shrouded in golden mist.
> DECISION REQUIRED. MIRROR ASCENT STAGE ONE: INDIVIDUAL REFRACTION
Lucia turned to the group.
"It's going to separate us."
Kayla shook her head. "What if we lose each other again?"
Lucia's voice was calm. "Then we remember harder."
Eren met her gaze. "See you at the top?"
Lucia nodded. "Every time."
And one by one, they chose their paths.
Lucia stepped into the golden mist.
Lucia stepped through the golden mist, and the air changed.
Warm. Almost comforting. Like the way light used to fall through her childhood window on days before the world demanded she be more than she was ready for. It was artificial, of course. She knew that. But that didn't stop her body from wanting it.
The path solidified beneath her boots—glass paneled, but soft underfoot. Around her, projections formed. Not mirrors now, but full-motion tapestries of lives never lived.
She passed a version of herself laughing at a dinner table, surrounded by family.
> Her mother, not dead. Her brother, never disappeared. Naomi, smiling beside her—not as a fighter, but as a friend who'd never had to draw blood.
Another scene bloomed beside it:
> Lucia as an artist. Canvas after canvas painted in rich reds and midnight silvers. A gallery of pieces no one had ever needed to die for.
She slowed.
The golden mist parted ahead. And she stepped forward.
Lucia's reflection.
Identical in face. But her posture—relaxed, unburdened. Her eyes carried no weight. No scars. She wore a white coat. A teacher. A healer.
"Do you see it now?" the reflection said. "Everything you could have been if you just walked away."
Lucia didn't answer.
The reflection smiled. "You don't have to fight anymore. We could end this. Right here. Together."
The mist thickened around the doppelgänger. Threads coiled outward from her wrists—soft gold, but underneath, Lucia saw it: iron. Looped and binding.
Control.
Not freedom.
Lucia drew a breath. "You're not me."
"I'm the best part of you," the mirror-Lucia said. "The version who didn't let death define her."
"No," Lucia said softly. "You're the part of me who forgot what we fought for."
She raised her hand.
Her real Thread flared—violet streaks pulsing through the gold. It reacted to her will, not the Field's.
The reflection hesitated.
And then attacked.
---
The corridor erupted into fractured light.
Lucia backpedaled as her mirrored self lashed out, threads spinning in looping arcs meant to bind. The chains weren't blood-forged like hers. They were clean. Synthetic. False.
Lucia twisted, ducked a snare, and unleashed a burst of her own Thread energy. The mist around her rippled, distorting like cracked glass.
"Give in!" the reflection shouted. "You don't want this fight!"
Lucia rolled forward, crashing into her copy. They tumbled through a storm of images—the dinner table, the canvas, Naomi's smile.
"I want it to mean something," she hissed, pinning her reflection.
The mirror-version laughed. "Then die with it."
They broke apart again.
Lucia summoned her chain—only fragments formed. The Field was fighting back.
But so was she.
She took a deep breath.
And remembered Naomi.
The moment Naomi placed her hand over Lucia's and said, "I trust you."
The Thread surged.
Her chain snapped fully into form.
Lucia spun, swept her reflection's legs, and launched a focused strike.
The mirror shattered.
Not into shards, but into threads—unclaimed, unfinished.
They swirled, hesitated.
Then wrapped around her wrist.
> REFLECTION OVERRULED. ECHO SOLIDITY CONFIRMED.
Lucia stood alone.
The mist parted.
And ahead—just ahead—was a staircase of light.
The others would be there.
She walked forward.
And the Field listened.
As Lucia ascended the staircase of light, she allowed herself a single breath of peace.
The path was warm beneath her feet, pulsing in time with the thread at her wrist. Each step she took radiated outward—reverberations of memory solidified into presence. She was not a copy, not a possibility. She was Lucia, and she had chosen to remember.
She crested the next platform and paused.
Ahead, the path split briefly again—just long enough for her to see the others.
To her left, Eren emerged from a corridor of shifting blades and mirrored soldiers, his shirt torn, arm wrapped tight in kinetic bindings. He walked like a man who had fought himself—and won.
To her right, Kayla stumbled from a shroud of dreamlight, where dozens of versions of her—daughter, recluse, ghost—had surrounded her. She walked like someone who had chosen the harder goodbye.
Farther behind, Marcus dragged his chain along the path, blood on his knuckles, eyes hard. Quentin walked beside him with a fractured helmet tucked under one arm. Tyne followed quietly, her hands glowing with remnants of old constructs.
They had all fought.
Lucia waited as they joined her. One by one.
No one spoke.
They didn't need to.
Their silence was not the emptiness of fear.
It was the certainty of survival.
A final staircase shimmered ahead—larger, wider, rising into a brilliant corridor of shifting code.
The top of the Mirror Ascent.
Lucia stepped forward.
And the Field opened.