Chapter 8: Stirring The Pot

Izumi was broken in a way I had no frame of reference for.

Whoever had done this, had absolutely no mercy whatsoever.

I'd always known what it meant to feel pain.

Next to her, though—everything I thought I knew about it felt like a caricature.

All pain is valid and real, but this is completely on a different tier.

"Keizo." She trembled again. "Please, leave me alone. I... cannot bear to see this torment any longer."

Another tear fell down her cheek, trailing down, falling into the pool of darkness below.
There was nothing I wanted more to do than wipe the tear from her face.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to see you like this…” I said, careful not to raise my voice or come across hostile.

Izumi shivered inside the Mirror Realm. “I do not deserve your kindness.”

"Don't say that."

"Why?" she sobbed, sounding hopelessly lost in a world she shouldn't know anything of.

"How can anyone care about someone who has suffered such a life? How can anyone pity someone they cannot even begin to comprehend!? What have I done to deserve your sympathy?!”

The image began to distort.

She seemed to be slipping further away.

"“Woah—stop. Izumi, please.”

I swallowed. “I recognize this. The way you’re talking… it’s the part of you that wants to disappear.”

She blinked.

“I lived there longer than I want to admit,” I said quietly. “And you’re the reason I don’t anymore.”

I couldn’t bear to see her like this—knowing that leaving her there would only make it worse.

I took a breath.

"We have to get you out of there."

"Keizo." She shook her head. "Go. Please go and forget all about me. Leave me to live the lives I am now condemned to."

I stepped forward and placed both my hands on the glass.

"No."

She stared at me blankly, shaking her head again.

Then a tear rolled from her eye. Another. Another.

“I don’t need Psionics to see this,” I said quietly.

"I hate seeing you like this. But if you refuse to ask for help then I can't let you stay here.”

She burst into tears again.

It stung me badly.

Couldn't even give her a hug.

"Thank you Keizo," Izumi said in between sobs.

I nodded, then leaned back, looking up at her through the glass.

She lifted her hands, pressing them hard against the pane.

"Please," she pleaded. "Help me."

I closed my eyes.

"Give me some strength,” I whispered. “Show me how to take away this suffering."

Silence.

Then she said something I didn’t expect.

“Promise me.”

“What?”

“Swear to me, Keizo. On your world. On your soul. Swear on the very matter that makes up your Aether Signature.”

I stepped forward and placed my hand over hers through the glass.

“I promise,” I whispered. “Whatever this is… I’m not leaving you alone in it.”

She stared at me, then closed her eyes

That seemed to calm her down.

"“You said this place has a barrier,” I said carefully. “That means it isn’t perfect. Nothing built ever is. There has to be a weak point. Somewhere it doesn’t quite hold.”

Her eyes snapped open. “Keizo… what are you planning?”

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But barriers fail. They always do. And if this realm was made to contain you, then it was made by someone who underestimated something.”

She studied me, really studied me, as if weighing the thought for the first time.

“I had never considered that,” she said softly. “A prison’s weakness is not always force… but assumption.”

She faltered, pressing a hand to her chest. “I am too exhausted to think clearly now.”

She turned away, then paused, lifting her hand in a small, unsteady wave.

“Until tomorrow, Keizo.”

I nodded once. “Rest. I’ll figure something out.”

The image dimmed.

The mirror returned to glass.

Breaking the Mirror Realm wasn’t going to be simple.

But it wasn’t impossible either.

And for the first time tonight, I knew which side of that line I was standing on.