The moment the mirror shattered inward, Renji felt gravity twist.
It wasn't falling—it was spiraling.
He was pulled through the shattered glass not with force, but with intention—as if something had reached out and yanked his soul across the veil.
Aoi's scream echoed behind him, distant and fading.
Then, nothing.
---
The Descent
Darkness gave way to colorless distortion.
Renji's body felt like it was unraveling, stretching like thread down an infinite drain. Yet somehow, he stayed intact. Or at least, part of him did.
> Am I dreaming? Dead?
The world around him solidified slowly.
He landed—gently, unnaturally—on a surface that rippled beneath his feet. The sky above spun like an inked whirlpool. Towering stone spirals rose around him like a graveyard of corkscrews.
There was no sun. No sound. Just the constant low hum, like something massive breathing far beneath the ground.
Renji whispered, "Where am I?"
And a voice replied:
> "Home."
---
Face to Face
From the shadows emerged himself—the reflection. But no longer a shadow.
This Renji was fully formed, twisted with black veins and spiraled irises. He wore the same clothes, but they shimmered with an otherworldly oil-slick sheen.
"You took my place," Renji said, his voice dry with fear.
Other-Renji tilted his head. "No. You became my place. There is no more 'you'—only what's left of me, waiting to be born again through you."
Renji's hand burned. The spiral mark had spread, now etching into his wrist like a living tattoo.
> It's accelerating.
---
The Spiral Throne
Other-Renji raised a hand, and a structure rose from the ground—a throne made of coiling tendrils of stone and bone.
"Every cycle ends here," he said. "Every vessel resists. You are no different. But you will sit on this throne in time."
Renji gritted his teeth. "I'm not giving in."
The twisted doppelgänger stepped closer. "But you already are. Why do you think mirrors don't reflect you anymore? You've begun to fray."
The throne pulsed, and in it, Renji saw visions—Aoi screaming, Kaito trying to pull him back, the temple cracking apart.
> They were still fighting. Still looking for him.
He had to get back.
> I'm not done. I still have a choice.
---
The Voice Beneath
Suddenly, the ground trembled.
Even the twisted Renji stopped speaking. His head snapped upward.
Something else was coming.
A voice—not his, not the reflection's—echoed from the spiraling sky.
> "The vessel has not yet chosen."
A fracture split through the throne.
The spiral mark on Renji's hand glowed white-hot, not black.
For the first time, his voice came through—not the curse's.
"I choose to fight."
And the Spiral Realm shattered.
---
End of Chapter 41
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To Be Continue