CHAPTER 57: CHAPTER 57 –“THE PANE’S FEAR”

The Pane wasn’t quiet anymore.

The eyes above them bled streams of fractured light, their unblinking gazes locking onto Ren and the scar-copy kneeling before him. The mirrored world trembled with each ragged breath, as though the fight itself had split its reflection in half.

Selene held Ren’s arm tightly, her fingers digging in. She could feel his pulse racing, the heat of his Thorn burning through his veins.

But Ren wasn’t moving.

He stood frozen, his blade hovering in hesitation. Across from him, his scar-copy knelt, clutching its chest as black glass-bleeding veins spread across its body. It didn’t sneer, didn’t mock, didn’t fight anymore.

It only begged.

"Don’t erase me. Don’t make me vanish again."

The words weren’t just echo—they were his voice. Not distorted. Not hollow. His own voice, raw and broken, tearing from the scar that should’ve never spoken.

Ren’s throat closed. For the first time since entering the Mirror World, the Thorn inside him trembled—not in rage, but in recognition.

Selene’s silver eyes widened as she felt it too. The resonance between Ren and the scar-copy wasn’t fading. It was deepening.

Her voice shook. "Ren... if you take it back, you’ll be whole. But if you take it wrong..." She looked up at the Pane’s eyes, endless and merciless. "...the Pane will claim you completely."

The scar-copy raised its head, bloodless tears streaking its face. Its blackened Thorn pulsed violently, in sync with Ren’s chest.

"We were cut apart. Don’t leave me here."

Ren’s grip on his sword faltered. The weight of his vow burned on his wrist like molten iron. He wanted to swing—to end it. But he also wanted to reach out—to take back what was lost.

Two paths. Both ruin.

Ren snarled, pressing his palm against his chest, over his burning Thorn. "No... not ruin. Not theirs."

Selene gasped softly. His words weren’t rebellion against the scar. They were rebellion against the choice itself.

He lowered his sword. Not in surrender—but in defiance.

The Pane’s eyes widened, all at once.

Ren took a step toward his scar-copy. "You’re me," he said, voice steady despite the chaos ripping through him. "But you’re not all of me. You’re not the only wound I’ve carried."

The scar-copy shivered. Its blade trembled. Its grin, once cruel, cracked into something raw.

Ren extended his hand, not his weapon. "You’re not erased. You’re not whole. But you’re mine. And I’ll take you back on my terms—not the Pane’s."

The Pane screamed. The entire mirrored world shook, the shrieks of shattering glass splitting the sky.

Selene shielded her ears, her body pressing close to Ren’s. "Ren—it’s rejecting you! You’re rewriting the rule it made!"

The scar-copy reached for him, trembling, its eyes wet with blackened tears. And when their hands touched—

The Thorn inside Ren’s chest flared like a second heartbeat. The scar-copy’s body cracked apart, shards peeling away, but instead of vanishing, its form streamed into him—like light sinking into its source.

Ren staggered, his vision fracturing into a thousand memories at once—versions of himself buried by the Pane, versions that laughed, wept, screamed. His lungs burned. His skin seared.

Selene’s voice broke. "Ren—don’t lose yourself!"

He grit his teeth, forcing a ragged grin through the storm.

"I’m not losing anything." His eyes blazed, darker than shadow, brighter than fire. "I’m taking it all back."

The Pane shrieked louder, its eyes blinking out one by one. The mirrored world groaned, shattering in places—but not collapsing.

Because for the first time, Ren hadn’t just broken a rule.

He’d rewritten it.

Ren collapsed to his knees, gasping, his palm pressed against his chest. The Thorn inside him wasn’t burning anymore—it was pulsing, heavy, like something alive. The scar-copy’s essence swirled inside him, jagged and raw, fighting to settle into his veins.

Selene dropped beside him, holding his shoulders. Her silver hair brushed against his cheek, damp from the Pane’s glass-rain. Her voice was sharp, but trembling.

"Ren—don’t you dare close your eyes now. You’ve... you’ve taken something back, but it’s not stable."

Ren exhaled, long and ragged, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "Stable was never me, Selene."

A bitter laugh slipped from his throat, cut short by a cough. Blood stained his lips, but it wasn’t red—it glittered faintly, like crushed fragments of mirror.

Selene froze. "...You’re bleeding the Pane."

Ren wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at the crystalline smear on his skin. The reflection shifted across the blood, showing faces that weren’t his—laughing, crying, screaming versions of himself.

Memories that weren’t supposed to exist.

"They’re all still here," Ren muttered. His eyes darkened as he clenched his fist. "Every version they buried. Every failure. Every me that broke."

The Thorn pulsed harder, like a second heartbeat that wanted to burst free. Selene grabbed his wrist, forcing him to meet her gaze.

"Then carry them," she whispered fiercely. "Don’t drown in them. You said it yourself—you’re not losing anything. So don’t start now."

Her words dug in deeper than the Thorn ever could. Ren blinked at her, seeing not the rebellion of the Mirror’s girl, not just her defiance, but her faith.

For a heartbeat, the Pane quieted. The storm of glass-rain slowed.

But then—

Crack.

One of the remaining eyes above shattered, falling like a star across the fractured horizon. The voice of the Pane hissed low, trembling like blades scraping across stone.

"You think to hold what was divided? You cannot bear it. Wholeness is weight. Wholeness is rot."

Ren staggered to his feet, leaning on his blade, his voice hoarse but unyielding.

"Then I’ll rot standing."

The Pane shivered. The world around him quaked, but it didn’t collapse. For the first time, it seemed to hesitate.

Selene rose beside him, her hand still gripping his wrist. She smiled faintly, though her eyes glistened with worry. "You’re heavier now, Ren. But maybe that’s what makes you harder to break."

Ren exhaled, his jaw tight. The Thorn pulsed again, but this time—it didn’t feel like it was consuming him. It felt like it was listening.

He wasn’t one piece. He wasn’t two. He was all of them.

And for the first time, the Pane couldn’t calculate him.

The silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was fear.

The Mirror World had always been cold. Silent. A cathedral of rules. But now...

Now it trembled.

The Pane itself—the skin of this fractured reality—was quivering, as if something had touched it that was never meant to exist.

Ren stood tall again, though the Thorn pulsed like a restless beast inside him. Its black-silver glow leaked through the cracks in his ribs, weaving through his veins like roots. Every pulse came with a memory not his own, bleeding into him—the laughter of a boy who had lived without fighting, the scream of one who had died begging, the silence of another who had surrendered.

All of them.

Inside him.

And yet—he did not falter.

Selene’s hand lingered on his wrist, grounding him. She stared up at him, her fractured silver eyes reflecting not just Ren—but all the Ren’s behind him. She saw them too. And the weight of that vision made her voice tremble when she spoke.

"They’re afraid of you," she whispered.

Ren’s lips curved into a grim smile. "Good."

The ground beneath them split, silver light pouring from the fissures like molten glass. The voices of the Pane rose in a chorus—flat, mechanical, without emotion, but pressed together they sounded like a terrified hymn.

"Anomaly persists."

"Weight is unsustainable."

"Fragmentation inevitable."

"Remove. Remove. Remove."

From the rift below, figures began to rise. Not like the fractured echoes he and Selene had fought before—these were sharper. Denser. Their forms solid, like statues carved from glass and bone. Each one bore Ren’s face, but twisted into archetypes:

– A Ren smiling with perfect serenity, eyes blank.

– A Ren chained, arms bound, kneeling in surrender.

– A Ren screaming with wild fury, veins bursting with shards.

– And one Ren... who looked at him with cold calculation, Thorn in hand, smirking as if he was the real one.

Selene stiffened. "They’re sending more reflections?"

Ren shook his head slowly, his grin fading into something harder. "No. These aren’t reflections."

He raised the Thorn, its hum deepening into a growl.

"They’re the futures I refused."

The figures stepped forward in unison, moving not like individuals but like limbs of one larger body. Their footsteps cracked the Pane with each step. The sky’s crescent eyes bled harder, dripping down shards like endless rain.

Selene gritted her teeth. "We can’t fight all of them."

Ren didn’t flinch. His grip tightened on his weapon. "We don’t have to."

The Thorn pulsed—and the other Thorn, the one carried by the cold-eyed Ren, pulsed back. A resonance.

Selene realized it first. "...They’re trying to fold you. Collapse all your choices into one fixed self. One that fits their law."

Ren smirked through the rising storm of fear. "Then they should’ve picked someone else."

The first future-Ren lunged forward—the serene one, smiling as if bliss was truth. His Thorn wasn’t a blade, but a mirror, reflecting Ren’s every movement before he made it. Every swing, every dodge, predicted. Perfect.

Ren met him head-on, sparks flying as Thorn struck Thorn. The reflection pressed him back, voice calm, eerily soothing.

"You could have peace. You don’t need rebellion. You don’t need pain."

Ren shoved forward, his voice a growl. "Peace isn’t living—it’s numbness."

He twisted his blade, shattering the mirror-sword into fragments. The serene Ren crumbled like glass, his smile fading into dust.

But two more rushed him.

The chained Ren caught his wrist, dragging him down, whispering through broken lips:

"You were weak. You begged. You lost. You’re pretending."

The furious Ren struck from the other side, eyes blood-red, screaming:

"And you want to burn everything because of it!"

For a moment, Ren staggered—two voices clawing at him, two truths pressing against his ribs.

Selene leapt forward, silver light radiating from her hand, breaking the chains around his arm with a pulse of rebellion. "Ren! They’re not you anymore. They’re the weights you already threw away!"

Ren’s eyes widened. Her voice cut through the storm.

He surged upward, roaring, ripping his arm free, Thorn burning like a sun. The furious Ren lunged—Ren met him strike for strike, and in a single brutal motion, impaled him through the throat. The glass body cracked, splintered, and exploded into shards.

The chained Ren shrieked once before Ren swung his blade sideways, cutting him in half. Both dissolved into dust.

The Pane howled—its chorus breaking, stuttering.

"Inconsistency persists."

"Anomaly absorbs."

"Weight increases."

The last one stepped forward. The cold Ren. His smile was crooked, cruel. His Thorn sharper than Ren’s, forged not of rebellion, but of acceptance.

He tilted his head. "They’re wrong about you."

Ren tensed, his breath steady. "Yeah? How so?"

The double grinned wider, stepping into the light. "You weren’t born to fight the Pane. You are the Pane. You’re just the shard that got lost. And when you’re whole again—" He lifted his blade, the hum deeper, heavier. "...there won’t be a you left."

The ground shattered around them as the two locked eyes. The Pane went silent. No chorus. No whispers. Just waiting.

Because this wasn’t Ren fighting fragments.

This was Ren fighting the truth the Pane feared most.

And Selene realized, clutching her chest, whispering to herself—

"...This is the battle that decides if he stays human."

The Thorn in Ren’s chest pulsed harder than ever.

Two Ren’s.

One choice.

And a world that couldn’t look away.