43: Eye Against Eye

“What is this… this humiliating turn of events…!
Ghh—!”

Dan spat out the last of the eyeball-like creatures from his mouth, glaring up at Tom, who stood over him.
His piercing glare radiated a malevolent aura as it lashed out at Tom,but the grotesque entities floating around him absorbed the blow completely.

“Those nightmares I kept seeing as a kid… they were all for this moment.
No image I’ve ever imagined was more terrifying than this.
I lost to your ‘eye for truth’ countless times… but that was the hint all along.
To seal you, Dan… it had to be ‘eye for an eye.’ ”

“You—don’t tell me you’ve fought me countless times before?
Again and again, trying to find your own way to break through?
You actually crossed through all those parallel worlds just to get here?”

Dan’s curiosity overflowed—twisted and tangled with madness.

“Fff… fufufu… hahahaha… I see now, boy…
So that’s what you are.
I’ve been bored for far too long.
A threat like you—someone who can shake my world—
That’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
It’s your role to raise the stakes… and open a new chapter in my story.”

Sensing he was falling into Dan’s rhythm, Tom quickly hurled the Golden Axe toward Rena with his right hand.

Dan’s focus had shifted from the Golden Axe to something deeper—his own inner world.
As if intoxicated by that realization, he shouted at Tom with twisted delight.

“You were always meant to be the villain in my superhero story—Rocket Dan’s arch-nemesis!
Yes, you! You’re the ultimate enemy I created for myself!!”

Ignoring Dan’s self-serving interpretation, Tom placed his faith in the courage to shape his own story—and shouted to Rena.

“Rena!! Swing the Golden Axe!!
You can do this!
Cut through the past—live on!!”

“You thought you’d gained the upper hand, didn’t you?
Tom… no, my sworn rival…
I’ll start with you. That’s my newly written setting—decided just now.”

Tom’s mind registered the miscalculation, but his expression softened.
His highest priority—protecting Rena—had already been fulfilled.
What happened next would be up to her.
That belief alone, he knew, was the true path to his “true ending.”

–Parallel Mirror.

Dan’s declaration instantly rewrote Tom’s fear.

He was sealed inside a narrow, suffocating space—an endless hall of reflections, like facing a thousand mirrors.
But they weren’t illusions.
They were his own “negative memories,” multiplied, amplified, and turned into a mental assault.
These memories had the power to shatter a person’s mind.
Tom stood face-to-face with the swirling mass of guilt, failure, and fear within him.
Each fragment tore into him, mercilessly.

“I would’ve loved to see how you fought me in other parallel worlds.
You must’ve challenged me over and over again…
Thinking you were so clever with your little tricks.”

—Dan closed his eyes—

Watching Tom’s body shatter like glass, Rena stood frozen, unable to process the sight.

Dan turned to her, his voice cold.

“Now then, girl…
I’ll say it again—there’s something about you two.
Some thread of fate I can’t explain.
It makes no sense that characters like you would just stumble into my world.
You’re hiding something…
A secret I don’t know, aren’t you?”

Dan walked toward Rena, who remained facing where Tom had vanished.

“You know about the Mirror World, don’t you?”

To his strange question, Rena nodded wordlessly.
To “believe without doubting” meant even accepting memories that felt unfamiliar—she realized that now.

“What I want to know most…
is where you learned the secret of that Golden Axe—”

Dan spoke slowly, savoring each word.
But the moment he said it, a flicker of doubt crossed his expression.

“The axe…
Where is it?
That boy… he threw it to the girl, didn’t he…?”

Because I dropped my plushie,
Tom bent down to pick it up…

“—!!?”

Dan spun around, eyes narrowing.
He looked toward the toppled Second Mirror, the one he himself had created.
A deep frown formed as he spotted something strange.

“Still acting, girl…?
And that little one…
What’s that she’s holding…?”

Stunned and dazed, Rena saw a glimmer of hope beyond Dan, straight ahead.

Beneath the upturned mirror reflecting the stormy sky, a small girl stood tall in a radiant dress—
casually holding the Golden Axe in one hand.