“Where are you…?” muttered the elf so quietly that I almost didn’t catch it above the ruckus outside.


    “Right here.” I lent my filthy hand toward our elven beauty, though she didn’t look too great either. We were both dirty and miserable people; at least one of us couldn''t remember our tragic past.


    Silverhonor heaved, lying in her crystal-bed; her eyes and lips fluttered unconsciously. Slowly, I could hear it, the gears inside that big head started moving and sense was gradually restored in her distant gaze. She gulped, and a troubled breath popped out instead of words. A dry throat heaved, having gone without water for so long. She gulped again.


    “You’re…” she started, pressing her cracked lips together, “...Why are you here, Shen?”


    I shrugged. “I ask myself that everyday. Come on, it’s not safe here—”


    “Where is she?” Silverhonor tried sitting up but her arms disagreed, and she fell back into the crystal. Before I could help her, her hand and her stupid pride pushed me away. “Where is she, Shen—?!”


    I reached again but she stubbornly refused my help. “She’s outside fighting Archknell; well, you’re fighting Archknell—!”


    “What in the world are you talking about?! I’m referring to the woman with half her face pixelated!” exclaimed SH, and that gave me pause.


    There was another Alternate? We didn''t see a second one around. Rei would’ve theoretically sensed “her” already. Plus, logically-speaking, “she” would’ve shown herself given the intensity of the fight outside. Was SH hallucinating, did the second Alt already leave, or…?


    I bit the inside of my cheek—there wasn''t any time to ask questions—so I firmly grabbed her wrist and wrestled her from the crystal. She resisted at first, but her limbs were jelly and I still had enough strength to win the contest. “That’s a conversation for another day; we really need to port."


    Silverhonor begrudgingly leaned against me for support. The gravity of the situation was beginning to dawn on her, it seemed, and remorse replaced the frustration in her jewel-like eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry for dragging you into this. Sincerely, I-I…”


    “Save your apologies, let’s…” I traced our climb back up, and I let out a very unconfident sigh. “I didn’t think about how we’re climbing out of here. Can you handle yourself—?” (She glowered.) “—alright, okay, that’s a no. What about blowing the floor beneath us—?” (Glower.) “—cool, I can’t do that either.”


    “Are you practicing your stand-up routine while we’re in the midst of a life-threatening battle?!” she said, yet she was the one holding onto me for dear life.


    “You’re the A-Rank here; I’ve been a Slayer for not even three weeks—!”


    A deep, almost indescribable sound splintered the air. What did it sound like—? A thick cable, that was it. It sounded like a thick cable, the one you''d find in heavy machinery and construction, being whipped around by a giant at neck-breaking speeds. Around us, the walls of the great yet hollow tree vibrated and spread the love to our fractured bones and sore muscles, rattling us like tambourines in an orchestra—


    Crunch.


    Something lobbed off most of the tree above our heads. Gone, ripped off, just like that. Splinters rained on our shoulders and I instinctively shielded Silverhonor using my own body. The visceral sensation of wood tearing from wood reverberated into my flesh, carved a place in my ears, and would''ve paralyzed me if my fear of death wasn''t kicking my ass into gear. The only consolation was the fact that we were alive, because as it turned out, a tightly-wound and gargantuan [Netherstring] cable had nearly taken our lives. At first, I thought to scream all sorts of things at Archknell, but the [String] was slack, folded in on itself. The Deathweaver wasn''t in control; it''d been severed.


    One distant crash later, we escaped death for the tenth time today. Fortunately, our climb was reduced from twenty-ish feet to around six. That was doable.


    “You’re going up first!” I grabbed Silverhonor''s thin waist and lifted her up—under any other circumstances, this would be a city-wide scandal.


    Her hands slapped the splintered ledge and she yelped, feeling at least a hundred different wooden daggers long and small stab into her palms; annoyingly, she took several long moments of patting around until she was brave enough to climb. From thigh to knee to ankle, I pushed her upwards to safety.


    I joined her, [Forged Skin] flattening the splinters, and shakily stood on a single knee. Didn''t want to think about how high we were even after our lucky accident; I was about to hop off and improvise the landing, but a clump of silver-hair was thrown against my arm by the wind. “SH, get the hell down—!”


    “That… That really is me.” Silverhonor stood tall, grinding her feet on the frayed wood, as the Crystal Forest was razed into dust, smoke, and broken trees. Destruction had waved away large and uneven swaths, stripped everything barren and leaving only craters and ripples in the pale dirt. The harbingers were high-rankers floating in the air and hunched over as though controlled by a lazy puppeteer.


    One way or another, human or Alternate, they were bleeding and sweating and panting, but neither were close to the brink. They, however, had wordlessly yet mutually agreed on a timeout as they both admired and gawked at the elf standing beside me.


    The original finding her doppelganger. The guardian finding his heart.


    Silverhonor’s lips trembled and she inched forward treacherously, feet halfway off the edge. I grabbed her just in time, yet she ignored me and continued to fixate on her Alternate. On "herself." Tears welled in her exhausted eyes, and in my grasp, she trembled. I couldn''t tell if anger or sorrow was showing more. “Why…?”


    I tugged on her arm—


    “WHY?!” she screamed so the whole world could hear, yet her words seemed to fall on the deaf ears of her Alternate. “Why must you torment me with what I’ve lost?! My dreams are tainted by your fragmented memories, and I wake nearly every night grieving the hole in my heart that you placed there! I cannot put a time to my own tears, only a name for my grief: the Lyressa fey Suntear before the Crystal Forest! Can you recall what she had experienced?! Tell me the name of her first love, her greatest achievement—anything! What can you tell me, you damned bitch who wears my face?!”


    “Lyressa!” Archknell screamed. “Stay back! Don’t—!”


    “I am as hollow as the tree I emerge from! Tell me, what am I? What purpose do I serve here?! Am I as grotesque as you, what meaning can we possibly create—?!”


    Silverhonor—the Alternate—waved her hand in our direction.


    I tackled the real one off the tree, and an arc-shaped energy wave crashed into the damaged trunk. That would’ve been us.


    This was the part where I had to improvise a landing. As good as I was at improv, I couldn’t think of one that didn’t include shattering a dozen bones from the fall. My bones. Fortunately, I had friends  waiting for me and the elven princess. A strange sensation overtook my skin, overwhelming the itchiness from the sweat and dirt and splinters; it felt like I’d been dropped into a vat of slime or got put into a chrono-chamber. Everything moved slower, even my breathing. Around our bodies, a peculiar purple aura enveloped us. I couldn’t see the caster before we were gently dropped onto the ground. Only Problem had the tools to pull that kind of trick.


    Silverhonor hopped off me and raced to find her Alternate, but someone grabbed her wrist. “Lyressa, you can’t go out there—!”


    She pulled away. “Unhand me, Leo! I can finally have my answers! Two years, I’ve been waiting for two years—!”


    “And they’ll be cut short if you think about exposing yourself again!” Problem intervened, floating toward her with a beaten and bruised face—it wasn’t a good sight to see a kid like that, whether or not there was a grown man’s brain inside there.


    As Firebrand kindly helped me up, Empress physically blocked SH. “Please, you can’t do this—!”


    An impact landed ten meters behind Empress, dirt spewing everywhere again. Like rats, we scurried to the safety of the great tree’s surfaced roots. The Alternate had proven Empress''s point in the scariest way possible: we were all fucking ants compared to the Mythos-level Alternate that was giving Archknell a run for his money. And speaking of, [Netherstrings] covered the sky and converged somewhere that none of us could see.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Archknell was pushing the Alt away. I hope.


    Firebrand pulled on the roots, pissed at everything and especially at himself, and snapped a few weak twigs off. “This can''t be a simple enviro. There''s gotta be something else we''re missing."


    Empress hovered near the elf, making sure she wouldn''t run off to her death. “You think it could be an Inner World—?”


    “No, impossible, no. I…” Problem hissed from pain and frustration, scratching at one of his cuts and flaking hard dirt off. “Inner Worlds are a different beast than enviros, but then again, it could explain why the Alt can stand a chance against a Mythos-level Slayer.”


    Because she could be a True Mythos, was what everyone was thinking. I also had another thought: if the Alternate resembled Silverhonor in any capacity, then did she possess the same power? Asking questions was useless in our position; we wouldn''t get worthwhile answers to either of our theories, but we eyed the elf anyway.


    She shuddered, hugging herself, and shot disdainful scowls at each of us. “I-I’m a blundering fool like the rest of you!” Despite her harsh language, her voice was breaking. “I don’t have the answers you want; all I bring is this! Chaos, confusion, and destruction—!”


    “Please don’t say that, Silverhonor-san,” said a boy. He appeared outside our little huddle, his skin brown and gray from smog, and a few sticks stuck to his clothes and in his hair. Although he had the brightest eyes out of everyone, they were smaller here, dimmer, as he admired the pocked ground. "You aren''t hollow."


    “Rei?” Problem tore crusts around his eyelids. “I’d told you—”


    “Who are you?” asked SH, fists clenched.


    Rei shook his head as though telling her that he didn’t pose a threat. “I’m only a young kensei working for Angels. I’m… I’m also searching for my own answers. While this is the first time we’re meeting, you’re nothing like what you’ve claimed. Even without your memories, you’re still—”


    Another tremor, but it felt different this time. Existential, that was the best way I could describe it. The show was coming to an end, like a stage pulling up the curtains and revealing the actors behind the characters.


    On the far “horizons” of the enviro, it cracked. These cracks ran from one end of the world to the other, splitting the “sky” in half, and the true world leaked through. It brought rain and dim lights. Yawning fractures spawned from the cracks and gradually began to consume bright pastels of the Crystal Forest. Beneath our feet, the ground shifted like sand.


    “What’s that?” Firebrand asked, looking around. “Did Archknell break the enviro—?”


    “It’ll take too much energy—” Problem paused, “—Wonder. It seems he made a good judgment call.”


    Silverhonor flinched as another close impact rang. “What about my doppelganger?!”


    Empress flexed her hands, making sure her fingers worked. “We’ll have to beat her outside the enviro.”


    Another tremor rumbled throughout the Crystal Forest. The cracks and fractures sprouted smaller branches, connecting together, and infected the ground. We scattered, instinctively keeping our feet away from the scary-looking breakages like we''d fall through. Everyone did, except Rei.


    It wasn’t because he was unafraid, but his mind was too preoccupied with the sight above him: the “sky” was transformed into an abstract artwork you’d find on pottery. Strangely, small droplets of water fell on his cheeks and left clean streaks.


    I inched toward him. “Rei?”


    Curtains fell over his cosmic-blue eyes. “It’s raining, senpai.”


    Glass shattered, and a bright light overwhelmed my vision.


    ***


    The first thing I felt was a heavy downpour washing away the grime I’d accumulated. Mud poured down my [Combat Suit], and my eyes stung from the sludge rolling down from my nappy hair. I tasted dirt in my mouth, crunched gravel between my molars, and spat everything onto the wet ground. My hands wiped my head, my face, my vision multiple times, enough so I could barely see through the rain.


    The enviro, the Crystal Forest, was destroyed.


    The isolation barrier was gone too.


    Through the heavy screens of rain, I barely saw my team. Empress and Firebrand were together, shivering from the cold rain. Problem quickly whipped his hood back on. Behind us, Sage and Mongrel and Wonder were standing there, flabbergasted at our state; and behind them, a line of Slayers—Glories—formed as our curious audience. Luckily, they acted as a barrier to prevent additional onlookers from further exposing our exploits.


    In front of me was Silverhonor standing next to Rei, and they faced our two defiant fighters.


    Half of Archknell’s armor and his [Loadout] were ripped off. Wet crimson masked most of his face, dripping onto his shoulders and bare sculpted chest and watering the grass and weeds. The skin around his [Netherstring Gauntlets] had long been peeled, raw and bleeding flesh underneath, which must feel absolutely terrible with the constant rain.


    Lastly, our most troublesome Alternate to date was shrouded by the rain. I didn’t know if she was bleeding or showed further signs of hurt, but she was still standing and freakish tears continued to stream down from her solid eyes. She could still fight, and in a public space like this, collateral damage didn’t mean a destroyed enviro. It meant millions in property damage and millions more in wrongful death lawsuits.


    How could we beat something like that even in its damaged state—?


    Rei stepped forward.


    “Little kensei?” Silverhonor asked. “What are you—?”


    “Rei!” I shouted. “Don’t think about it—!”


    “...I must act,” he said, soft-spoken, barely audible over the storm. Where was his enthusiasm? What happened to the little ball of energy who’d been so eager to be a part of the team? “I have to act.”


    Archknell saw his approach and threw an arm out to stop him. “Stop right there, Angel! Don’t come any closer! It’s too dangerous—!”


    “I’ve heard your tears for so long. I’ve felt your grief.” Rei produced his worn and battered katana that I’d seen back at the Jin Family Manor. He slipped off the peeling sheath and tossed it aside, revealing a blade that was in an even worse state. The edge was chipped, the whole thing slightly bent, and the tip was flattened; it was far too dull to cut anything. That wasn’t a sword. It was scrap metal. “Yet no matter how much you wail and beat at the ground, everything will be washed away in the rain.”


    Archknell continued to hold his arm there, yet the boy continued to walk. “I’ll incap you, Angel! Do not—!”


    “Please, Archknell-sama. Allow me to conduct her last farewells, so that she may weep no more.” Rei stared ahead at the Alternate without hate or pity in his gaze nor with sympathy or kindness. His emotions were, as he said, washed away in the rain; the Alternate stared back, as no such emotions existed within her. “I cannot say we are the same. We live separate lives, because I… I am…”


    He exhaled.


    “My existence is [Broken Swords].”


    An image flashed before my eyes: a drowned plain, more water than earth, covered in high stalks and cut-down reeds. Rei was surrounded by them as rain continued to fall—no, wait, those things weren’t reeds.


    They were swords, buried into the wet ground or laid in pieces. I saw swords of all kinds: single-edged, dual, long and short, all finding themselves in this waterlogged graveyard of blades.


    The image left my eyes.


    Archknell nearly fell backwards, his bulging eyes visible through the rain.


    “That…!” Problem gasped. “That was an Inner Mirage! How—? What are you, Amamizu Rei?!”


    Rei shut his eyes.


    He could never answer Problem’s question, as the Alternate had shot a golden arrow toward him. He didn’t move. He didn’t bother to react. And so, the arrow blew a hole in the center of his chest.


    The rest of his body dissipated in the droplets.


    Rei reformed behind the Alt. “No matter how many swords I hold…”


    She whipped around and blindly lashed with a magical bow, yet he vanished. “Not a single one remains…”


    He reappeared a few meters away, staring at the ground. “Will I be able to fulfill my promise…?”


    Silverhonor flexed her hands—


    Rei teleported in front of her as if the rain had whisked him there. “Will I ever become just like ‘you’…?”


    He tightened his lips and clamped both hands onto the wet hilt, and his cosmic-blue eyes were the sole shining light amidst the rain.


    [Skill Activation]


    “Sayonara, Silverhonor-san.”


    “Kowareta Ken (壊れた剣).”


    [Broken Sword]


    A single, smooth cut rang throughout the training field. That’s all it was. One cut.


    “Urashiki (心式).”


    [Type Heart]


    There was no obvious injury on the Alternate, yet she stumbled forward. Her magical bow withered into small motes of light; she raised her arms and found them decaying into dust. As she turned back to look at the small boy, all she could see was his downturned head looking down at the broken pieces of his katana, gathered together in a small puddle of shattered steel and mud.


    He let go of the hilt.


    Then, she too returned to mud.


    [Event Commission “Disappearance of SIlverhonor” has been completed]


    [You have been paid 250,000ssp]


    Event Commission: Disappearance of Silverhonor


    Pay: 250,000ssp


    Description: Don’t look back. There''s nothing for you anymore. Curb your curiosity and never fantasize what you left behind. Erase those years from your long life. Live on blissfully, and let your scars fade away and love once more. This is for your own good, Lyressa.