The Broken Mirror
"A shattered mirror reflects a thousand fractured truths."
— Letter from Hotaru no Yakusha
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The cold wind sliced through the hollow ruins of what was once a proud village.
Shindō stood before the remnants of a shattered mirror, its fragments scattered like broken dreams across the cracked earth.
He knelt, picking up a jagged shard, its surface dull yet still catching the faintest glimmer of moonlight.
In that broken reflection, he saw not just his own face, but a thousand versions—some consumed by darkness, others barely clinging to light.
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Memories flooded back—times when he was both the hunter and the hunted, the sinner and the savior.
The mirror was a cruel reminder that no man was whole, that every soul carried its own cracks and shadows.
Yuuki's voice echoed beside him, soft yet unwavering.
"Truth is never pure.
It is fragmented, shaped by pain, regret, and the lies we tell ourselves to survive."
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Shindō pressed the shard to his palm, feeling the cold bite of its edges.
It was a wound in itself, but one that reminded him he was still alive—still fighting.
The path ahead was uncertain, jagged as the mirror's shards.
But in the fractures, there was a strange beauty—an imperfect light that could guide him through the darkness.
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The war was not just against enemies without, but against the fractured reflections within.
And only by facing every broken piece could he hope to reclaim what was lost.