66: Causality

“Parallel Mirror!!
Now I’ve tapped into the full power of the Mirror World—my home ground!
My abilities have skyrocketed!”

Space around Dan twisted violently, warping in response to his power.
Dimensional vibrations tore through the air, spinning with an unnatural force.
The imaginary world Tom had created began to collapse with a thunderous roar,
and the shockwaves reverberated all the way to the Mirror World—where Rena had only just arrived.

“It’s collapsing…! I—I have to hold on!!”

Rena clung desperately to the massive frame of the Eternal Mirror, watching as dimensions tore themselves apart.
Even amidst what felt like the end of the world, her hand still held tightly onto the golden axe.
As if resisting Dan’s destructive power, the axe began to emit a soft, warm light—gently enveloping Rena in its glow.

“Come now, Shadow!
Enter my picture book world!
It’s time to begin your re-education!”

A wave of shock radiated from Dan’s body, sweeping across the edges of Tom’s fabricated space.
But the wave rebounded fiercely, spiraling back toward Dan and forming a powerful vortex.
This converging force condensed into a swirling energy field around him—dense, complex, and incredibly potent.

Eventually, the dimensional distortion began to settle.
With a gesture, Dan brought both hands inward as if gathering power.

“This is the place where you were born…
The very core of my picture book world.
A space linked directly to my body—one that even Emma cannot detect.
Not that you’d understand any of that.”

This domain—crafted by Dan—was a surreal place where reality and fiction blended.
It was a secret control room, beyond Emma’s surveillance, where he orchestrated every movement of his constructed world.

From here, he watched over the picture books he had scattered throughout the real world, setting traps for the unwary.
Anyone who didn’t fit his tastes was erased with the flick of a finger.

“Let’s begin, Shadow.
First, I’ll delete your unnecessary data.
Judging by your appearance, you’ve aged thousands of years, haven’t you?”

The Shadow, who had followed Dan through the rift, remained silent.
His eyes didn’t focus on any one thing—they were observing time itself,
as though he was watching the unfolding of events yet to come.

“To become a being who transcends time and space,
you’ll need to be cleansed of irrelevant data.
So let’s start with a clean cut.”

In Dan’s hands appeared a book the size of a thick dictionary—Shadow’s blueprint.
With forceful precision, he began ripping out page after page.
Each page he tore caused a line of deep wrinkles on Shadow’s face to vanish,
and his sunken eyes gradually regained their light.

Then Dan noticed a page filled with swirling rows of letters—countless alphabets layered like a shield.
It seemed to guard something precious, and Dan’s curiosity piqued.

“Oh? What’s this… A ‘bookmark’ the boy left behind in our battle?
Impressive. I can’t just tear this one.
So this is how he used the book to absorb everything into his memory…
Even the golden axe.
Though now, it’s in that girl’s hands—Rena’s.”

At the mention of her name, Shadow’s expression twisted.
A pained whisper left his cracked lips.

“…Rena… You disappeared so suddenly.
The day before our wedding…
And they found you here.
In this park… in this pond…”

“What…? Did I just stumble into your memory data?
A wedding? You and that girl, Rena…?
No… no, that doesn’t make sense.
What’s this? These pages are stuck together…”

Dan carefully flipped the overlapping pages, peeling them apart.
But as he did, something dark stirred within the text.

Mill… Miru… See…

There it was—an unimaginable storm of negative energy.
Out of the writhing pages burst countless aberrant creatures—non-human, otherworldly.
They surrounded Dan, all of them staring straight into his soul.

“These things…!!
They’re the same eyes!
The ones the boy used to strike me with during our fight!”

Frozen in place, Dan could only watch.
From the open book emerged a new vision—
a dark corridor in the in-between world, lined with countless mirrors.
In that vision stood Shadow Tom, holding an old, worn book.

“Since when…?
Since when were you there…?
And what have you been doing…!?”

Dan’s voice trembled.
It wasn’t the eyes that terrified him now,
but the years upon years of Shadow Tom’s quiet resistance—
recording the anguished cries of those rejected by Dan’s cruel selection.

While Dan built his kingdom of self-indulgence,
Shadow had been writing—inscribing their pain into every page with his own hands,
one wrinkle at a time.

“No… I… I opened it…
I touched a page soaked in despair!”

Dan was engulfed in the very curses he had ignored.
He now stood face-to-face with the karma he had forged through his own wicked deeds.

⸻A new page was born.

The shadows vanished—as if they had never existed at all.
And in that silence, something changed.

“…The one move I lacked…
That final piece I needed…
was this, Dan.
Now, the story can finally end.”

Wearing a white cloak and exuding a quiet, almost sacred presence,
Tom—the one who had walked through countless parallel worlds—
stood before Dan, his eyes resolute.