The wind clawed at the mountaintop, cold enough to sting, sharp enough to feel alive. It rushed past Tomora's ears in long, hollow howls, tugging at his cloak as if the mountain itself were trying to pull him back. Below him, the land stretched endlessly—villages reduced to clusters of firelight, forests sinking into blackness, roads like pale scars across the earth.
In front of him hovered the mirror.
It was immense, taller than any building he had ever seen, its surface smooth and silver-bright, reflecting not his face but the eyes of the world. The glow from it painted his hands pale as bone.
Tomora swallowed.
His fingers trembled as he reached into his satchel and pulled out the ancient scroll. The parchment was old, stiff at the edges, its surface marked with symbols carved by hands long turned to dust. The weight of it felt wrong—too heavy for something so thin.
He unfolded it anyway.
The sound of the parchment cracking echoed louder than it should have.
His voice followed, unsteady at first, but it carried—drawn out by the mirror, multiplied, sent racing across valleys and rooftops and open squares.
"Irregulars and Ancestral Awakened… feared and hunted… deemed threats to order…"
As he read, the symbols on the scroll began to glow faintly, then brighter. Letters lifted themselves from the parchment like smoke, drifting upward until they pressed against the mirror's surface.
They didn't vanish.
They burned themselves into it.
Across the land, people looked up and saw the words appear, massive and unmistakable.
"…the government's reason for their eradication…"
Tomora's throat tightened, but he kept going.
"Mimicry and Darkness Elements—powers misunderstood and branded as curses—the true source of their fear…"
The mirror pulsed once, as if reacting to the truth forced upon it. Then, beside it, another mirror bloomed into existence.
This one did not show words.
It showed faces.
Villagers packed into squares. Farmers frozen mid-step. Merchants gripping their wares. Children peering from behind adults' legs. Nobles standing stiff and distant beneath torchlight. Every expression was caught and reflected back toward Tomora.
Shock came first.
Then confusion.
Then something heavier.
Ghostly text began to appear across the mirror, drifting like fog, overlapping faces without touching them.
"Strong ones disrupt peace."
"Better they perish for our safety."
"Not our problem."
"We survive. That's all that matters."
The words piled on top of one another, growing denser, darker.
Tomora felt his chest hollow out.
More messages appeared—fewer this time, struggling to remain visible beneath the rest.
"The government is killing people."
"This is not right."
"They're lying to us."
They were there.
But they were buried.
Tomora's eyes moved across the mirror, searching desperately for something—anything—that looked like understanding. His grip on the scroll tightened until his knuckles burned.
His breath hitched.
"They… don't care."
The words slipped out before he realized he was speaking. His voice wavered, breaking at the edges.
"They don't see the hunted as victims…"
His vision blurred. He blinked hard, but the ache only deepened.
"They see us as monsters."
The scroll sagged in his hands. The glow faded. The letters on the mirror dimmed, still there but suddenly distant, like something already forgotten.
Behind him, the group stood silent. No one spoke. No one moved.
Then Ishimo's voice cut through the stillness—soft, almost gentle.
"What now, Tomora?"
Tomora didn't answer.
A sharp sound rang out.
Crack.
A thin fracture split the mirror's surface, running from top to bottom like a lightning bolt frozen in silver.
Another crack followed.
Then another.
The mirrors shuddered.
Across the land, people gasped as the towering images began to splinter. Lines spread rapidly, webbing across the reflective surfaces until they could no longer hold themselves together.
With a sound like glass screaming, the mirrors exploded.
Shards of light scattered into the night sky, dissolving before they could fall. The glow vanished. The mountain was plunged back into darkness, lit only by stars and distant fires.
Below, the crowds stirred.
Some turned away almost immediately, shaking their heads, conversations already shifting to safer topics. Others lingered, staring up at the empty sky where truth had hovered moments ago.
A few stood frozen, faces pale, eyes haunted.
On the mountaintop, silence returned.
Tomora stood unmoving, shoulders tense, breath shallow. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted one hand and wiped the moisture from his face. His fingers came away wet.
He clenched his fist.
The trembling stopped.
His spine straightened. Something hard settled behind his eyes—no longer hope, no longer desperation.
Resolve.
"If they won't listen…" he murmured, barely louder than the wind.
His fingers dug into his palm.
"…then I'll make them."
Patricia stepped forward, her voice low, careful, as if afraid to break him.
"Tomora."
He didn't turn. His gaze remained fixed on the horizon, on the unseen world that had looked back at him and flinched.
Somewhere far away, Connor watched from the shadows of a forest, hands curled into fists, the echo of Tomora's words burning in his chest.
The rebellion had found its voice.
And it had just learned how deaf the world could be.