Mirror Time

A rotation had passed since our discovery at the shrine, and I lay entwined with Xiao Ru in the peculiar embrace of what had become our bed, her warmth pressed against me like a living blanket. She slept with the deep tranquility of someone who trusted completely in the safety of her surroundings, though such trust felt increasingly misplaced.

We had inspected the shrine again, and Ashley had posed the question that haunted us all: would destroying it prevent the creature's birth, or merely hasten its arrival? Our deductions painted a grim picture—the fey had used innocent blood to weaken whatever prison held this thing, the false moon had shattered the door, and now the shrine served as an incubator for something that should never draw breath.

When I had struck the shrine wall in frustration, the structure had pulsed beneath my knuckles like a great heart beating in slow time. Something lived within those stones, something that grew stronger with each passing hour.

Xiao Ru had suggested launching it into the void between stars, but Serena had pointed out that celestial bodies would only nourish such a creature. Folding it into a dimensional pocket might work, Serena had mused, but Yoko had dismissed this—the barriers protecting the thing were too strong, and there was no telling when it might emerge fully formed.

Why wouldn't the Empress simply deal with this herself? How had it become my burden to bear?

I sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes as stress rotted in my stomach like a baby chick seeking warmth. The pressure of responsibility was eroding my mind.

Xiao Ru's eyes fluttered open, her hand moving with drowsy grace to brush a strand of hair from my face. I looked down at her—disheveled dark locks framing features that seemed carved from some artist's dream of perfection, her expression holding that vulnerable softness that belongs only to the moments between sleep and waking. The sight made heat rise in my cheeks despite everything.

She smiled and sat up, draping herself around me with the casual intimacy we had grown accustomed to, skin meeting skin in ways that made the world's troubles seem distant. Her head found the hollow of my neck, and she bit down gently, drawing a stifled sound of pleasure from her throat.

I exhaled slowly, then turned to face her, hesitating only a moment before sinking my teeth into the familiar territory of her throat. She sighed with contentment, her body melting against mine as I drew sustenance from her generous veins.

Whatever horrors waited to be born from that corrupted shrine, I would face them. I had to—for this city, for the people depending on me, for the woman whose blood sang sweet songs on my tongue. For Ruru.

I withdrew my fangs and looked into her drooping, satisfied eyes, pressing a brief kiss to her lips before allowing myself to smile. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, but tonight belonged to us.

---

I was roused from sleep by Xiao Ru's urgent shaking, her voice cutting through the comfortable haze of dawn like the first crack of ice on a silent spring morning… had the Makai even such seasons? Yoko had contacted us—the shrine was bleeding strange energies into the mirror world, creating pathways that stretched like arterial networks through dimensions that should never have been connected.

The news a projector's film burning through in the middle of a beautiful scene. We dressed quickly and departed for the tengu village, where Yoko's analysis revealed the true scope of our predicament. The shrine's metaphysical body extended deep into the mirror realm, roots of corrupted energy spreading like cancer through reflected space.

"We could kill it from the source," Yoko explained, coiled with nervous excitement. "Strike at the roots instead of the trunk."

Hope spurred in my chest like a flower pushing through grave dirt.

Lady Kageyama nodded with the geological certainty of a fault line preparing to slip. "It must be done. But the mirror world holds perils that would make our darkest nightmares seem like children's lullabies."

My hand found the familiar shape of my pistol—recovered from Omokumaru during our earlier encounter, nearly forgotten in the pandemonium of recent events. The sleek metal offered what comfort it could.

Kageyama approached Serena, presenting her with an ornate feather fan that seemed to shimmer with its own internal light. "What? I'm not going!" Serena protested, backing away as if the gift might bite.

Ashley's expression remained flat as tombstone marble. "Yes, you are."

"What?!"

To Yoko, Kageyama offered what appeared to be an ordinary piece of wood, though something in its grain suggested deeper purpose. "Use it wisely."

Yoko's confusion was palpable. "Wisely…?"

Then Kageyama placed her hand upon Xiao Ru's head. Energy flowed between them like visible music, and suddenly Xiao Ru blazed with an aura that made the air itself seem to sing. Power coursed through her with the intensity of lightning contained in flesh.

"Wow!" Xiao Ru exclaimed, examining her glowing hands with wonder. "What did you do?"

"I unlocked your potential—the same gift that shapeshifter promised to give our detective. Your arrows should pierce any defense now, your clones endure far longer, your disguises perfect to the cellular level."

I waited for my own gift, but Kageyama's gaze passed over me without pause.

"Eh?"

"You'll find your own testament and trial in the mirrors," she said cryptically. "The reflections will show you what you need to see."

Testament and trial, the words lingered for a moment as we walked toward the opening.

We gathered at the edge of the shattered lake, peering down into what had become a cavern of crystalline fragments. Where the neighboring lake remained pristine, this one had transformed into the amniotic fluid of some monstrous, unseen birth—everything coated in chrome that shifted between silver and rainbow hues, surfaces that reflected not just images but possibilities?

Ashley studied the prismatic chaos below. "Couldn't we just destroy the false moon instead?"

"Too late," Kageyama replied with finality. "It's beyond our reach now, streaming energy from the void itself. Even if we could disrupt the flow, we would only delay the inevitable."

We prepared to descend into that glittering hell, but Xiao Ru raised her hand, stopping us mid-motion.

"Everyone hold onto me," she instructed, her voice carrying new harmonics of power. "With these abilities, I should be able to—"

The world folded in on itself like origami made of light, and we vanished, leaving only a brief shower of golden motes drifting on the wind where we had stood, or so I had assumed.