The battlefield didn't fall silent after the Counterpoint shattered.

It screamed.

Every crack in the Pane bled with resonance too raw for language—like the cries of a million broken reflections set free at once. Glass thundered into the abyss, shards spinning into oblivion, but Ren hardly noticed. His body trembled on one knee, Thorn buzzing violently in his hand, its jagged glow flickering like a dying star.

The silver-haired girl rushed to him, dropping to her knees. "Ren!"

Blood streaked his lips, his breath ragged, but he forced a grin anyway. "Told you… noise beats silence."

But before she could answer, the world itself shifted.

The cracks above them spread wider, stretching into the void like black veins splitting through heaven. Beyond them, something stirred. At first, it was only pressure—like a storm gathering on the other side of a door too thin to hold it. But then—

It opened.

An eye.

Not human. Not divine. Something beyond both. Its surface shimmered like polished obsidian laced with galaxies, but its pupil wasn't round. It was fractured—a spiral of broken reflections that spun endlessly, pulling thought and sound toward it.

The silver-haired girl gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "No… it can't be…"

The shadow staggered upright, his porcelain-cracked body trembling. His blade dripped with silver blood, his perfect composure broken. But his eyes—still defiant—locked on the vast gaze above.

"The Watcher…" he whispered, the word heavy with reverence and dread. "The Pane's first wound. The one who saw before sight existed."

Ren forced himself to his feet, Thorn braced against the collapsing ground. "Watcher, huh? Doesn't look friendly."

The shadow's cracked face twisted. "It doesn't watch. It remembers. Every rebellion, every deviation, every thought unaligned—it stores them. That is what you've woken."

As if in answer, the Eye shifted, its fractured spiral contracting. A beam of broken light poured through the largest crack in the Pane, striking the ground with the force of an entire world collapsing. The battlefield buckled, silver surface warping and twisting, glass mountains rising like jagged ribs.

Ren and the girl staggered back as shards of memory erupted around them—visions flashing in midair.

—A thousand rebellions, all silenced.

—A million selves erased, screaming their last before vanishing.

—A war older than the Pane itself.

The girl's breath shook. "This is what they've been hiding from us. Not just control. Not just silence. The Pane is a prison. And that Eye… it's the Warden."

Ren clenched Thorn tighter, his teeth bared. "Then it just noticed the wrong prisoner."

The Watcher's spiral pupil widened. For the briefest moment—Ren swore it wasn't just looking at him. It was recognizing him.

And then—

A thousand voices spoke through the Eye at once.

"—ANOMALY—

—REN—

—THE ONE WHO BROKE THE MIRROR—

—YOU ARE ALREADY WRITTEN—

—RETURN—"

Ren staggered, his mind rattled by the layered chorus. His knees buckled, but the girl grabbed his hand, her voice cutting through the storm.

"Don't listen! That's how it binds you!"

The shadow raised his shattered blade, his cracked voice trembling with both awe and despair. "You've doomed us all… The Watcher doesn't fight. It devours."

The Eye pulsed again, its spiral spinning faster. The Pane beneath their feet shattered outward in a wave, ripping the battlefield into floating shards of silver glass suspended in the abyss.

Ren tightened his grip on Thorn, forcing his legs steady, his eyes blazing despite the chaos.

"Good. Then let it come. I'm not the one who's getting swallowed."

The girl's flame flared in answer, her fractured aura burning brighter than ever before.

And somewhere deep in the abyss, the Watcher's spiral began to descend.

The abyss howled.

Ren stood on a shard of ground that wasn't ground anymore, just one broken fragment of silver floating among countless others. The Pane's battlefield had collapsed into a shattered constellation, pieces spinning in slow arcs around the massive Eye above. Each shard reflected the Watcher's spiral pupil, a thousand distorted gazes that followed him no matter where he turned.

The silver-haired girl pressed close, her grip locked around his arm, her flame aura flickering desperately against the pull of the spiral. "It's trying to drag us in!"

Ren's teeth ground together. The pressure wasn't just physical—it clawed inside his mind. Memories cracked loose like glass—his childhood, the day he first stumbled into the mirror world, the first time he saw himself standing on the other side. All of it was being tugged upward, sucked toward that all-consuming gaze.

The shadow wasn't spared either. His porcelain flesh flaked away in slivers, dissolving into motes of memory light. He roared against it, jamming his cracked blade into the shard beneath his feet to anchor himself. "Do you understand now, boy?!" he spat, his once-perfect composure shredded by terror. "This is not a foe you can strike down! It is law. It is the prison itself!"

Ren lifted Thorn, its jagged edge trembling under the spiraling resonance. But even weakened, even bleeding, his voice cut through the storm.

"Law? Prisons? I don't care what name it wears. Anything that tells me I can't fight…" He leveled Thorn at the Eye, his gaze burning. "I strike anyway."

The Watcher pulsed.

The shards around them lurched, orbit lines snapping like threads, pulling Ren, the girl, and the shadow closer to the abyssal spiral. The girl's flame surged, forming a shield, but cracks spread instantly across it as the spiral's resonance drilled through. Her cry broke from her throat.

"Ren—it's unraveling me!"

For a heartbeat, he saw her body blur—her hand flickering, like her very existence was a reflection being erased.

"No!" He reached for her, Thorn's resonance flaring in sync with his heartbeat. The jagged blade screamed as if alive, bleeding black-blue light into the spiral around them. For the first time, the Watcher hesitated.

The shadow's eyes widened. "Impossible… it reacted to him?"

The Eye contracted. The spiral snapped inward, focusing solely on Ren. The voices layered again, pressing into his skull until blood ran from his nose.

"—ANOMALY—

—RETURN TO SCRIPT—

—YOU DO NOT BELONG—

—CORRECT—CORRECT—CORRECT—"

Ren grinned through the blood, a savage, trembling smile. "Then you're damn right. I don't belong."

He swung Thorn.

The jagged resonance tore the space around him, not cutting the Eye—but striking the spiral itself. The pull faltered. For the first time, fragments of the spiral cracked away, dissolving into starlike dust.

The girl gasped, eyes wide. "You hurt it—!"

The shadow staggered back in disbelief. "No… not hurt. He's changing the resonance."

But the Watcher didn't recoil—it surged.

The spiral widened into a vortex, swallowing the entire sky of shards. Ren, the girl, and the shadow were all pulled toward its core, their fragments of footing tearing apart beneath them.

Ren locked eyes with the girl as their bodies lifted into the abyss. "Then we strike again—together!"

Her flame flared brighter, wrapping around his Thorn like a burning thread, while his jagged resonance coiled through it, fusing flame and fracture into something new.

The spiral's roar consumed everything.

And then the three of them—Ren, the girl, and even the shadow dragged by necessity—were swallowed whole into the Watcher's eye.

There was no fall.

One moment Ren's body was being ripped apart by the spiral, every bone in his frame vibrating like glass about to shatter, the silver-haired girl clutching him like she'd vanish if she let go. The next, silence.

Not silence—absence.

The weight of the world disappeared. No gravity. No time. Even Thorn in his grip felt less like steel and more like a thought, a concept barely tethered to his will.

Ren blinked.

He wasn't standing on ground, but suspended in a vast, translucent ocean of glass. Every direction stretched into infinity, ripples spreading outward when he moved, as though his very existence was disrupting a still surface.

And above him—no, around him—was the Eye.

Not a floating orb this time, but an endless dome of spirals layered upon spirals, staring down at him from every angle, their pupil a black abyss at the center of it all.

The girl floated beside him, her hair drifting like pale fire in water. Her breath was ragged, her flame aura dim but unextinguished. She gripped Ren's sleeve like an anchor, her wide silver eyes darting to the spirals.

"This…" Her voice trembled. "This isn't the Pane anymore. We're inside its gaze. Inside the Warden itself."

Ren's heartbeat pounded, heavy but steady. He could feel it—an oppressive awareness crawling over him, examining him, dissecting him thought by thought. His childhood fears, his private desires, his rebellion—they were all being read.

The shadow wasn't silent. He drifted some distance away, porcelain cracked worse than ever, his body shedding shards of himself like broken pottery. He laughed, hoarse and bitter.

"You fool… You've doomed us. No one survives inside the Warden's eye. This is where even anomalies are… corrected."

The spirals shifted.

Words didn't echo—they pressed directly into Ren's skull, like commands etched across his nerves.

"—RECONFIGURING—

—ANOMALY CLASSIFIED: STRIKER—

—UNSANCTIONED WILL—

—INITIATING STRIP—"

Ren staggered as light split from his chest—his memories flaring loose. He saw fragments peel away: Airi's quiet smile, the first time he touched Thorn, the countless nights where loneliness pressed like a knife into his ribs. Each one floated toward the spiral dome, drawn like moths to flame.

The girl screamed, fire bursting from her body, trying to shield him. But the spirals pierced through her flames effortlessly, dragging pieces of her too. Ren saw her face flicker in and out, like she was a reflection dissolving.

"Ren—I'm—losing—"

"No." Ren's hand snapped forward, seizing her wrist with a grip of pure defiance. Thorn quivered in his other hand, bleeding that jagged resonance again, darker now—raw, desperate, unstable.

The shadow snarled. "You'll burn yourself out! This is not a place for mortals to resist—"

Ren's voice cut across the abyss.

"I don't care what place it is. I don't care what rules it has. If it tries to erase me—if it tries to erase her—" His gaze lifted to the endless spirals, teeth clenched. "—then I'll scar even the Warden's eye."

Thorn screamed.

The resonance this time wasn't a cut or a flame, but something deeper. His jagged will pulsed outward, slamming into the spirals around him. The dome shuddered—just a flicker—but it shuddered.

The Watcher's voice boomed, its calm layering breaking into distortion:

"—ERROR—

—INTRUSION INTO FRAMEWORK—

—UNSANCTIONED WOUND DETECTED—"

The spirals began collapsing inward, tightening into a funnel of infinite eyes, each one staring, each one demanding correction.

The girl's flame linked with Thorn again, wrapping its fractured resonance in her burning thread. Her face, half-flickering but still fierce, pressed close. "Then let's scar it together!"

For the first time since entering the gaze, Ren smiled—not savage, not broken, but alive.

He raised Thorn.

She poured her flame into him.

And together, they struck the spiral from inside the Warden's eye.

The abyss cracked.