The Pane screamed.

Not with words, not with voices—but with the shattering cry of its very structure. Every mirrored surface quaked, every fragment trembled, every eye in the broken sky blinked wildly as if in pain.

Ren stood in the center of it all, Thorn blazing in his grip. The ruin-light no longer sputtered or faltered—it roared, jagged arcs tearing across the battlefield like cracks in reality itself. The light didn't flow clean and even like the shadow's perfection. It writhed. It howled. It sang.

A savage, broken song.

The fragments recoiled, whispering in fear:

"The Thorn sings… the Thorn sings…"

The silver-haired girl clutched her chest, her flame pulsing violently in response. Her voice was trembling, half in awe, half in terror. "It's… alive. It's breaking the Pane's silence. Ren, do you hear it? That song… it's choosing you."

Ren's breath came heavy, but he smirked through it, raising Thorn high. The ruin-light wrapped around his arm, searing it, but he didn't let go. "Yeah… I hear it. And it's loud enough to drown out your so-called perfection."

Across from him, the shadow staggered, his pristine form flickering, the crack in his shoulder spreading down like a fracture in glass. His once-serene eyes now burned with fury.

"No," he spat, voice trembling, "you cannot wield it. That song does not belong to you. Thorn was forged to perfect the Pane, not destroy it!"

Ren's grin sharpened, wild and bloodied. "Then maybe it was waiting all this time for someone willing to break it instead."

He slashed Thorn downward.

The sound wasn't steel cutting air—it was glass shattering. A wave of ruin-light ripped forward, jagged and chaotic, tearing the mirrored ground apart. The fragments caught in its path screamed as they dissolved into static. The fissure ripped straight toward the shadow, forcing him to leap aside, his once-flawless composure crumbling further.

The battlefield shifted. No longer stable, no longer under the Pane's control. Thorn's song warped everything it touched—edges bending, mirrors cracking, even the sky itself bleeding into strange colors.

The silver-haired girl's flames flared brighter, her eyes wide. "Ren—do you see what it's doing? Thorn isn't just fighting him… it's rewriting the Pane around you."

Ren glanced at her, his chest heaving, sweat dripping down his chin. His smile was feral. "Good. Let's see how perfection likes its little world turned upside down."

The shadow snarled, his calm mask gone, replaced with raw anger. His aura flared silver, shards of light spiraling around him. "Enough! I am the savior, the flawless reflection! You are a mistake, and mistakes do not get to sing!"

He launched forward, Thorn raised high. His strike carried the weight of order, slicing the air like a divine judgment.

Ren met it head-on. Thorn screamed its jagged melody, clashing against the pure note of perfection.

The impact shook the Pane to its core.

Silver and ruin collided, but this time—Ren wasn't losing ground. His arms shook, his body burned, but Thorn's song poured through him like wildfire. Each pulse of its resonance filled his veins with raw defiance, each jagged note echoing his refusal to break.

The battlefield cracked wider. The fragments wailed. The sky shattered into rivers of light and void.

And Ren roared, his voice overlapping with Thorn's song:

"Perfection dies here!"

The battlefield screamed.

Every shard of the Pane quivered under Thorn's broken melody. Its jagged light sang through the mirrored void like a rebellion given voice, warping everything it touched. Walls bent into spirals, the sky fractured into colors no human tongue could name, and the fragments whispered as though they had just heard something forbidden.

"The Thorn sings… the Thorn sings…"

But then—another sound rose.

Clear. Cold. Terrifyingly perfect.

The shadow raised his blade, silver light coiling around it, not chaotic like Ren's, but precise—like a note struck flawlessly on an eternal instrument. The Pane steadied beneath it, trembling back into line, as if responding to its rightful master.

His voice carried like a hymn. "You think defiance is power, Ren. But rebellion is only noise. Allow me to show you the silence in song—the true Counterpoint."

The silver aura around him pulsed. And then, like a choir rising in unison, the Pane itself began to sing with him.

The shards didn't just whisper now—they harmonized. A perfect, seamless hum spread across the battlefield, drowning the screams of broken glass. The air vibrated with flawless resonance, pressing against Ren's chest like invisible hands.

Ren staggered. Thorn's jagged song faltered for a heartbeat, its chaotic light disrupted by the suffocating calm. His teeth clenched, his knuckles white around the hilt.

The silver-haired girl gasped, her flame sputtering as if smothered. "No… he's forcing the Pane to sing with him. Ren, his Counterpoint isn't just a weapon—it's a choir. He's trying to bury Thorn's song beneath perfection!"

The shadow stepped forward, every movement smooth, deliberate, like a conductor guiding an orchestra. His blade gleamed brighter with each step, every note of his hymn weaving the fragments tighter, binding them into obedience.

"You cannot fight harmony with chaos," he said softly. "You cannot outsing silence. Surrender, and let the Pane remake you."

Ren spat blood, grinning even as his body trembled under the crushing melody. "Yeah? Well silence has always been my least favorite song."

Thorn screamed in his hand, jagged and raw, rebelling against the suffocating calm. Its ruin-light spat sparks, fracturing the silver waves pressing down on him.

Ren forced his legs steady. His lungs burned, his veins seared, but he shoved his voice into the void, screaming back with Thorn's resonance.

"Then let's see whose song breaks first!"

The clash was no longer just steel against steel—it was orchestra against rebellion.

Every strike was a note, every dodge a rest, every clash a crescendo. Thorn's broken, defiant song lashed out in ragged bursts, cutting the air like torn strings and broken glass. The shadow's Counterpoint responded with pure, flowing harmony, each strike tightening around Ren like a suffocating embrace.

The battlefield became a symphony hall of war.

Thorn's song cracked mirrors and bled colors into the void.

The shadow's Counterpoint mended them, forcing them back into seamless silver.

Ren's voice was a scream of will, unrefined but alive.

The shadow's was a flawless hymn, empty of humanity, yet all-consuming.

The Pane itself shook between them—torn between the jagged song of rebellion and the suffocating perfection of harmony.

The silver-haired girl clutched her flame tighter, tears streaking her cheeks from the sheer pressure of the sound. She whispered, voice breaking:

"Ren… don't let his silence erase you…"

Ren's knees buckled. Thorn's jagged light flared violently, threatening to shatter from the pressure of the Counterpoint. The shadow towered above him, blade poised, the Pane's choir swelling to its peak.

"This is your end, Ren. A song sung once will always fade. But my Counterpoint is eternal."

He raised his weapon for the killing note.

And Ren… laughed through blood.

"Eternal? Then let me be the crack that ruins eternity."

Thorn screamed, louder than ever before.

The broken song surged, tearing chunks of the battlefield apart in jagged crescendos. The Pane cracked wider, shards collapsing into void, the fragments crying in fear. For one heartbeat, Thorn's jagged scream split the harmony in two.

The shadow's eyes widened.

The Counterpoint wavered.

The Pane couldn't hold anymore.

Ren's jagged scream had cracked the flawless Counterpoint, and for the first time since the shadow revealed himself, the battlefield didn't just echo—it howled.

Shards fell like meteors, each fragment carrying whispers that no longer harmonized. Some cried. Some begged. Some laughed with the madness of broken reflections. The Pane was unraveling, the symphony tearing itself apart.

The shadow's eyes narrowed, silver light spiraling violently around his weapon. His voice was sharp, cold, yet strained. "You dare fracture the eternal? You dare mar silence with noise?"

Ren spit blood and grinned, the corners of his mouth twisting despite the pain tearing through his ribs. Thorn pulsed in his hand, jagged veins of ruin-light spreading from the blade into his arm. His voice came out rough, ragged, but alive.

"Yeah. Because silence is just cowardice dressed pretty."

The silver-haired girl's flame burned brighter, her trembling body standing against the gale of sound. She clutched her chest, voice cracking as she screamed:

"Ren! Don't just fight him—drown him! Don't let his song bury yours!"

Ren roared in answer, swinging Thorn. The blade's scream tore a canyon through the Pane itself, shattering the silver surface into rivers of broken reflection. From the rift poured visions—fragments of Ren's lost selves, echoes of what could have been.

A boy in chains.

A warrior with bloodied hands.

A version of him who never entered the Pane.

Another who drowned in it.

Each shard bled with songs of their own.

The shadow slashed his blade, the Counterpoint weaving, desperate to force those voices into order. But the cracks had spread too far. The Pane resisted him. His hymn faltered, bleeding dissonance into the perfect silence he tried to impose.

Ren laughed through the chaos, sweat and blood dripping down his face. His voice rose, raw and defiant.

"You hear that? It's not just me anymore. Every version you tried to erase is screaming with me!"

The fragments roared, voices weaving into Thorn's jagged symphony. Their broken chorus ripped through the void, each voice a shard, each shard a wound against eternity.

The shadow staggered, silver harmony cracking into distorted echoes. His grip tightened, his blade trembling—not from weakness, but from rage.

"No. No! You are not a choir—you are mistakes! Noise that must be cut away!"

He lunged. His blade came down like judgment, silver waves crashing outward, smothering the fractured voices. The Counterpoint thundered, trying to rewrite the battlefield back into perfection.

Ren met it head-on. Thorn screamed.

The clash wasn't sound. It wasn't sight. It was total collapse.

The Pane shattered in a shockwave of jagged glass and blinding light, shards flying like meteors into the endless dark. Both symphonies collided in their rawest form—ruin against harmony, chaos against perfection.

The silver-haired girl screamed his name. "REN!!"

He pushed harder. Every vein in his body burned as Thorn's jagged resonance bled through him, shredding flesh, searing bone, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.

Because this wasn't just his fight anymore.

Every echo screamed with him. Every erased self clawed its way into the song.

Ren bellowed, a howl ripped from the core of his being—

"BREAK!!"

Thorn's light exploded outward.

The battlefield collapsed.

The Pane wailed as its foundation cracked wide open, the reflection fracturing into a spiral of ruin. The Counterpoint shattered mid-note, ripped apart by Thorn's jagged crescendo.

The shadow was thrown back, his blade splintering as silver blood sprayed across the void. His hymn broke into gasps. For the first time—he looked mortal.

Ren collapsed to one knee, Thorn shaking in his grip, his body a torn ruin of blood and broken veins. His chest heaved, each breath a war in itself. But his grin didn't fade.

"…Guess your eternity wasn't so eternal after all."

The shadow's gaze burned with fury. Even wounded, even broken, his presence didn't vanish. He staggered upright, silver cracks spreading across his body like shattered porcelain.

"This… isn't over," he hissed. "You've only broken the first note. The symphony still belongs to me."

The battlefield groaned beneath them, the Pane collapsing into darkness.

And above—beyond the fracture—something vast opened its eye.