Spell 31 - A Question of Self

They left the Respite in the morning. There were no windows inside to confirm it, but Ren could tell as soon as they returned to the maze of hallways. Some of them were lined with windows, most covered by slim sheets of textured material, as if daylight would only disturb this place.

Ren kept his pace steady as they walked, still cautious about things they might encounter. Kagami moved just ahead of him, making no sound on the smooth surface.

The tension between them from earlier was still there, bearing the weight of new truths yet to be processed and catalogued in Ren's library of thoughts. However, this peculiar tension had become part of their routine now. Something that was there each time they crossed into the unknown together.

They passed under a rusted arch wrapped in wires, where charms fluttered in the air.

Suddenly, the ring on Ren's finger, the one he had taken from the Izanami statue at the pagoda entrance, flared softly. Smoke began to bleed from it, violet and slow-moving, while tiny particles detached and floated ahead down the hallway.

He then raised his hand slightly to inspect it.

"It's doing it again," he murmured, as if confirming it to himself more than anyone else.

Kagami stopped beside him and studied the trail of light as it was unfolding.

"It's called Akariwake," she said. "The ring of diverging light."

Ren turned his hand slowly, and the smoke reacted, readjusting its trail to the original direction. Somewhere into the unknown, they didn't yet know.

"It shows the path it thinks you need," she added. "Or rather, the path it deems aligned with your current state of self."

Ren lowered his arm slightly but didn't take his eyes off the trail.

"So it is some kind of guide."

"To an extent, yes. But it's limited to Naraku and to this structure in particular."

He looked ahead at the trail, where the hallway split around the corner and then sloped upward. The trail knew precisely where to point.

"Useful, I guess."

"And dangerous if overused."

He turned to her with a raised brow.

"How so?"

"That ring is meant for Pact-bearers. And strong ones at that. It forces resonance... or magic if you will... directly through the link between us. But your mind can barely handle a thread of it right now."

Ren kept silent for a moment. But then, he still had to ask.

"And what happens if I use it too much?"

"It overloads our sync," she simply said. "It will be harder for me to reach you, and the same will be true for you. What that means for the situations ahead, only time will tell."

"Damn. You really do know everything," he said half to himself, half to her.

Kagami's ears flicked once, unimpressed.

"You people are obsessed with always rushing towards something. You're all so quick to act. Strike first, ask questions later. But knowledge is the only true weapon."

Ren looked forward down the pathway, following the gentle trail of particles through the air, making sure they were still on track.

"You people," he repeated, echoing her words with a trace of irony. "Someday, we people... and especially me... will prove we're still worth more than you seem to think."

Kagami gave a rare smile. "Challenge accepted."

They followed the trail in silence for a while after that. The corridor changed again, then bent sharply to the left until it opened into a spiraling stairwell. Each step was inscribed with a faint set of glyphs that glowed beneath the surface.

Ren adjusted his footing and began to climb. The smoke still led the way, curling up and ahead through each turn.

At the top, the stairwell opened abruptly into a chamber unlike any other space they had encountered in Naraku. The room was vast and quiet, dome-shaped but without a clear ceiling. Glass monoliths were scattered throughout the place. More glyphs glowed across their surfaces, vanishing and reappearing in a pattern that resembled breathing.

The floor was dark and smooth, reflecting the shapes of the structures hovering above it quite clearly.

Ren took one step forward, but Kagami didn't follow. 

He turned towards her, asking without words.

"This one is for you. I'm not allowed past the threshold," she explained.

Ren looked into the chamber again, scanning the glass structures.

"…Alright," he said quietly.

And then he walked in.

The moment Ren stepped into the chamber, something clunked somewhere, like some sort of old mechanism had been set in motion with his first step. Every sound dulled after that. Even the soft sounds of his steps faded as if the floor absorbed them into nothingness.

He moved slowly across the reflective floor. The glass monoliths surrounding him reached up toward the unseen ceiling, evenly spaced in a perfect circle. Up close, he could see the glyphs embedded in their surface more clearly. They were lines and symbols formed through micro wiring that pulsed beneath the glass like veins.

But then, there was also something else.

At first, he thought the movement inside the glass monoliths was some sort of optical illusion or light distortion. But then, as he drew closer, the shapes became clearer. They were human forms, and even more than that, they were his own reflections.

He stopped walking and stared at them closely.

But no, something was off.

One version stood still but breathed heavier than he did. Another had his Pact blade reversed in his right hand. A third had golden eyes and markings up both arms that glowed faintly with Pact sigils he didn't recognize.

They were silhouettes resembling him, but behaving independently.

Ren moved his arms slightly to test the timing. One of them moved alongside him, but that movement finished before Ren finished his own gesture. Another smiled faintly, then let the expression vanish the moment Ren noticed.

Suddenly, all the glyphs on the monoliths gave off a brighter glow, until they dimmed back to their original state.

Afterward, something moved from deep within the monolith directly ahead of him. The mirrored surface morphed into unnatural shapes as if something was trying to break through from the other side of it.

Ren took a step back, bracing himself for whatever was about to emerge.

Then, the mirror returned to its original shape, but as it did, something had already stepped through.