Deceptive Reflections

The silence in Inverso was thick.Not ordinary silence, but the kind that swallowed sounds before they even existed.
The white-haired girl — Saya — watched them with an unsettling gentleness.Her smile hadn’t moved. Her bare feet hovered a few centimeters above the ground, and her pale, translucent eyes seemed to see everything.
— Welcome, she said. I am your host. Your guide.Or perhaps… your final illusion.
She extended her hand.
— Enter.
The ground cracked open, and the mirror-city transformed.


Akaru opened his eyes.He was home. Not Inverso. Not Tokyo. His real home.His father was there. Alive. Smiling.
— I’m so proud of you, he said.
Lyana awoke in a vast prairie.Her people cheered. Her mother — gone for years — took her hand.
Mira stood in a lab, inventing freely. Respected. In control.
And Theo?On a stage. A concert. His dream.Thousands of fans shouting his name.


They were separated.
Each inside a perfect world.A world where everything was fixed.A world… with no reason to fight.
And then, slowly, the illusion began to crack.
Faces repeated themselves. Voices warped.Landscapes turned blurry.People spoke the same lines, again and again.
— This isn’t real, Akaru realized.
He drove his sword into the ground. The illusion shattered.
The others followed.
They broke free from the dream. Gasping. Soaked in sweat.The real ground was cold. Metallic.Saya stood there, still smiling.
— Congratulations. You are still yourselves.
She turned her back.
— But tell me… how many more times will you know the difference?