When Ren opened his eyes, he wasn't sure he'd survived.

The air was heavy, not with smoke or dust, but with silence. A silence so thick it pressed into his ears like a physical weight. He tried to move, but his body resisted—as though gravity had become uncertain.

The ground beneath him wasn't ground. It was a mosaic of shattered mirror-shards, each piece reflecting not him, but different versions of him.

One shard showed him as a boy, still innocent, standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom. Another showed him older, with eyes hollow and full of hate. Another showed him lying dead, glass sprouting from his chest like flowers.

Ren pulled himself upright, teeth grit, refusing to stare at any one reflection for too long. His blade was still in his hand, its thorns flickering faintly as though exhausted.

The shard-winged girl stumbled toward him, her feathers dimmed, her expression pale with shock. "Ren… do you feel it? This isn't the Pane anymore."

He looked around.

Above, there was no sky. Only endless rifts, glowing with cracks of black light. The stars were gone, replaced with jagged wounds bleeding streams of silver. The Pane had been a world of rules, mirrors, and whispers. But this place—this place was raw, half-formed, as though existence itself had forgotten how to finish painting.

"This is the world outside the Pane," the girl whispered. Her voice quivered like breaking glass. "You've torn us into it."

Ren steadied himself, refusing to falter. "If this is outside… then Hunger's already here too."

A low groan rippled through the air. It wasn't a sound from a throat—it was the sound of mirrors remembering being broken. Shapes stirred in the distance, tall as towers, yet faceless. Their limbs bent in ways no body should, their movements echoing Ren's own gestures—but distorted.

Reflections that shouldn't exist.

The shard-winged girl's breath caught. "They're us. Every reflection the Pane ever erased… walking free."

Ren narrowed his eyes, tightening his grip on the Thorn-blade. "Then we'll cut through them until we find the real threat."

But the girl shook her head violently, feathers scattering shards of light. "You don't understand! These aren't enemies, Ren—they're futures. If you destroy them, you'll destroy pieces of yourself."

He hesitated. For just a second.

One of the distorted figures turned toward him. It had his face—his exact face—but its smile was crooked, too wide, teeth sharp. Its eyes burned with hunger.

"Ren…" it whispered, its voice nothing but glass grinding on glass. "You fed us. Now it's our turn to feed you."

The figure lunged.

Ren's blade shot up, reflex faster than thought, sparks flying as steel met glass. The impact rang out like a scream.

This wasn't Hunger's Face.

This wasn't the Pane.

This was something worse.

This was the world that should never have been born.

Ren's arms trembled, forcing the reflection back. "Damn it…" His lips curled into a defiant grin despite the dread crawling up his spine. "Looks like I really broke everything this time."

The shard-winged girl's voice rose, desperate: "Ren, if you fight them all—you'll lose yourself!"

Ren pushed harder against his distorted self, eyes burning. "Then I'll just have to win before that happens."

The reflection's mouth opened wide, too wide, its face splitting like a mirror under a hammer. From inside its throat, dozens of voices screamed—his voice, speaking words he'd never said.

The sound crawled under his skin, trying to pull him apart.

Ren roared back, slashing through the reflection in a single brutal arc. The figure shattered, but instead of vanishing, the shards melted into the air—flowing upward into the cracks of the rift. Feeding it.

The girl clutched his shoulder, eyes wide with horror. "Ren… every strike you make strengthens the Outside."

His chest heaved, sweat dripping into his eyes. He looked at the blade in his hand, then at the hundreds—no, thousands—of distorted figures emerging from the horizon.

They weren't just versions of him anymore. Some were silver-haired. Some wore masks. Some were winged. Some had no faces at all.

All of them were wrong.

All of them were real.

Ren's grin faded into something darker, sharper, as he whispered to himself:

"Guess I'll just have to break the rules again."

The shard-winged girl looked at him, trembling. "Ren—what are you planning?"

His answer was simple, cold, and filled with fire.

"If the Pane can't hold these things… then I'll carve a new law myself."

And with that, Ren lifted the Thorn-blade, pointing it toward the bleeding cracks in the sky.

The reflections surged.

The rift widened.

And Ren's rebellion deepened.

The air trembled.

Ren stood on the fractured plain, his blade raised, as the tide of distorted reflections began their march. Their footsteps cracked the ground into jagged mirrors, each step echoing like thunder inside his head.

The shard-winged girl grabbed his arm, her voice tight. "Ren—stop! If you fight them all head-on, you'll be feeding the Outside until it swallows everything!"

Ren's eyes stayed fixed on the advancing tide. His distorted selves—some human, some monstrous—were closing in from every angle. Their faces twisted, laughing, crying, whispering words he never spoke. It was chaos, an army of 'what ifs' and 'what could have beens.'

But Ren didn't falter. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Then maybe I shouldn't fight them all."

The girl's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

Ren planted his blade into the ground. Shards scattered, the sound sharp and final. "They're me. Pieces of me. If breaking them feeds the Outside, then maybe the answer isn't cutting them down."

One reflection stepped forward—a Ren with hollow eyes and skin pale as frost. "We are you. But we are not yours. We belong to the cracks."

Ren tilted his head, gaze burning. "Wrong. You're mine. Always were."

The hollow-eyed reflection sneered, its jaw splitting unnaturally. "Prove it."

The swarm lunged.

Ren moved—not to slash, but to seize. His hand shot forward, gripping the hollow-eyed version's throat. The reflection's skin felt like ice, brittle yet alive. It screeched, clawing at him, but Ren's grin widened as he pulled it closer.

"Mine."

The Thorn-blade pulsed in his other hand. Instead of cutting, he plunged its thorns into the reflection's chest—not destroying it, but binding it. The glass-skinned body shuddered, convulsing as black light bled into the blade, threads stitching reflection to wielder.

Ren's heart lurched. For a moment, he saw flashes—memories not his own. This hollow-eyed Ren walking through an empty house. Sitting alone at a desk, muttering to himself. Smiling at nothing. Crying into a mirror.

Then, silence.

The reflection collapsed inward, folding like shattered glass, and the Thorn-blade flared brighter.

Ren exhaled sharply. "Yeah. That's it."

The shard-winged girl stumbled back, horrified. "You—absorbed him."

Ren's voice was steady, dark. "Not absorbed. Claimed. If they're pieces of me, then I'll make them mine again. One by one."

The swarm screeched, as if enraged by the theft. Dozens rushed forward—versions with broken wings, with monstrous claws, with bleeding eyes. They piled toward him, the horizon a flood of twisted selves.

Ren roared, swinging his blade in a wide arc—not to kill, but to snare. The Thorn-blade lashed out like roots, its thorns hooking into two, three, four distorted reflections. Their cries rang out, but Ren held fast, dragging them into himself.

Each one carved new weight into his body—new memories, new scars, new hungers. He stumbled, clutching his chest as their voices screamed in his skull.

I wanted to die.

I wanted to kill them all.

I wanted to never exist.

I wanted to be loved.

They thundered against him, a storm of selves.

Ren clenched his jaw, veins standing out in his neck. "Shut up… all of you… you're mine now."

The reflections twisted, shrieking as they resisted—but the Thorn-blade's thorns dragged deeper, binding them to his core. The voices grew quieter, dimming into embers.

The shard-winged girl's breath caught. "Ren, you're—changing."

She was right. His hair flickered with streaks of silver, his eyes burning brighter, one iris fracturing like glass. His aura rippled—not just his, but layered with echoes of a hundred others.

Ren smirked through the pain. "Good. Let's see what happens when I become every version of me at once."

The reflections hesitated now, their advance slowing. For the first time, they looked afraid.

Ren leveled his blade at them, thorns dripping with their own essence. "Come on, then. You're not my enemy. You're my army."

The Outside itself shuddered. The rift above widened further, as if sensing what Ren had done. The reflections screamed—not just in fear, but in defiance. They charged again, desperate to keep their freedom.

Ren grinned, charging forward to meet them, Thorn-blade ready.

The War of Reflections had begun.

The battlefield was a storm of mirrors.

Fragments spun through the air like razor snow, reflecting flashes of Ren's face twisted in a thousand different ways. The distorted versions screamed as they rushed forward—beasts of bone, shadows with teeth, broken shells leaking silver light.

Ren was in the center of it all, his chest heaving, the Thorn-blade vibrating with a life of its own. He had already consumed fragments of himself—echoes that cried, raged, loved, hated. They weighed inside him like anchors, yet every one made him stronger, heavier, more real.

The shard-winged girl stood behind him, her silver hair wild in the storm. Her wings trembled, scattering splinters of light. "Ren—you can't take them all! If you bind too many, you'll tear yourself apart!"

Ren turned his head slightly, his fractured eye glowing like a shard of moonlight. His grin was sharp, feral. "Maybe that's what it takes. To break apart until there's nothing left… and then rebuild myself as something stronger."

The girl's lips parted in shock. His voice wasn't just his anymore—it carried undertones, whispers, the harmonized echo of the reflections already bound to him.

The distorted swarm charged again.

Ren thrust his blade into the ground. The Thorn-blade split into jagged roots that lashed outward, hooking into dozens of charging figures. They howled as Ren dragged them close, the blade drinking their fractured essence.

Images screamed into his mind.

A Ren who slit his wrists in silence.

A Ren who slaughtered everyone in his classroom.

A Ren who ran away and became nothing.

A Ren who loved Airi so deeply it destroyed him.

A Ren who never existed at all.

The weight crushed him. His knees buckled, breath tearing from his chest. The voices shrieked inside his skull, fighting for dominance.

You can't hold us.

We'll tear you apart.

You're no king, you're nothing.

Ren spat blood, his teeth bared. "Shut. Up."

The Thorn-blade's thorns pierced deeper, not into the world, but into him. Wrapping around his bones, threading through his veins, binding reflection to flesh. His body convulsed. His scream tore through the storm.

And then—silence.

The swarm stopped mid-charge, frozen. The storm of fragments stilled in the air. Even the rift above seemed to pause, watching.

Ren rose slowly, his steps deliberate. Shards of glass floated around his head, orbiting him like a crown. His fractured eye bled silver light, the cracks spreading outward across his cheek like veins of glass.

The shard-winged girl's voice trembled. "Ren… what are you?"

Ren tilted his head, his grin cruel and glorious. "I told you, didn't I? They're mine now."

The floating shards locked into place, forming a jagged, incomplete crown across his brow. His aura surged, vast and suffocating, layered with countless voices whispering in unison.

The Crown of Shards.

The reflections—the ones who had yet to be claimed—took a step back. Their screams faltered. For the first time, they recognized something in him: not prey, not another fragment, but a ruler.

Ren raised his blade, pointing at them. "You thought you could bury me under what I could've been. You thought my weakness would feed the Outside."

He stepped forward, his crown glinting, his voice laced with countless echoes.

"But you forgot one thing."

He swung his blade down, the ground splitting like cracked glass. Shards shot upward, skewering several of the distorted figures. They didn't shatter this time—they bent, howling, as the thorns pulled them into him.

Ren's grin widened. "I don't run from what I am. I wear it."

The shard-winged girl whispered, horror and awe mixing in her tone. "You're… not just surviving the Outside. You're conquering it."

The swarm hesitated, trembling under the weight of his presence.

Ren's fractured eye gleamed. He extended his free hand toward them, palm open. "Kneel. Or break."

For a heartbeat, silence reigned. Then—the closest reflection dropped to its knees, shuddering. Another followed. And another.

Not all obeyed. Some screeched in fury, charging him once more. Ren moved like a storm, the Crown of Shards blazing above him, his blade striking with terrifying weight. Every defiant reflection that fell became another piece bound to his will, another shard in his growing dominion.

The rift above writhed violently, silver-black light bleeding into the sky. The Outside wasn't just feeding anymore—it was challenging him.

But Ren only smirked, lifting his bloodied, shard-wrapped blade.

"Come on, then. If the Outside wants a king… I'll show it one."

The battlefield erupted in chaos once more, but this time the tide had shifted.

Ren no longer fought as a fractured boy against endless selves.

He fought as the crowned sovereign of every shard that had ever broken him.

And the world itself trembled at his rise.