CHAPTER FOUR: THE MIRROR OF RUIN
The wastelands began where the light of Eden ended.
Here, the world lost its color.
Beyond the barrier wall, the air shimmered with entropy, a faint haze of fractured light and swirling ash. The ground was a mosaic of dead stone and blackened sand, twisted by Akuma resonance into patterns that made the eyes ache. Time moved strangely here... hours stretched thin or folded in on themselves like cracked glass.
The scouts called it Zone 0, the edge of nothing.
Mr. P, in his usual fashion, had called it "the divine garbage heap."
But to Luther… it felt familiar.
He stood alone at the breach gate, the great steel door groaning shut behind him, sealing off the golden city with a final hiss.
On his back, the spear Lux Caedis hummed faintly, its angelic bone blade catching what little light this place offered. The lattice embedded in his spine thrummed against his nerves, keeping his pulse steady, his stance balanced, his divine code stable.
His orders were clear. Investigate the recent spike in Geki-class Akuma readings. Eliminate any threats. And return.
He stepped into the mist.
And knew immediately something was wrong.
There were no roars. No shrieks. No distant rumble of Akuma tearing through the stone deserts. No crackling of breached resonance fields.
Only silence.
And ash.
He moved forward slowly, every step measured. His boots crunched through the brittle crust of sand and bone-dry dirt. Above, a blood-orange sky arced over him, streaked faintly with gold veins where the heavens still bore their ancient wounds. The mist around him thickened with each step, clinging to his armor, making the edges of the world fade into nothing.
Gravity itself seemed to falter here sometimes pressing him heavier into the ground, other times tilting him faintly sideways as if the rules of space had forgotten what they were.
And through it all, Naomi's words stayed with him.
You were made to end him.
He shook his head. Focus.
But the visions came sharper here, like knives through the fog.
He passed the corpse of a massive Akuma lying in the sand. Its horn was shattered. Its jaws split open.
Its wounds bore the unmistakable signature of Lux Caedis.
Luther froze.
He had never been here before.
Had he?
His hand reached out almost on its own, fingers brushing the creature's obsidian skin.
Still warm.
He jerked his hand back as the mist thickened behind him... and a voice spoke.
Soft. Low. Familiar.
"Why do you wear that skin?"
Luther spun, spear snapping into his hands, eyes scanning the emptiness.
Nothing.
Only mist.
And then... movement.
A shape. A reflection.
It stepped forward soundlessly, the mist parting around its feet as it approached.
It was wearing his face.
It wore his armor, carried his spear, moved like him.
But its eyes… were wrong.
They weren't angry. They weren't even alive.
They were empty.
It stopped a few meters away and tilted its head, studying him like an artist appraising a flawed sculpture.
"They made you beautiful," it said, in his own voice. "A perfect lie."
Luther's fingers tightened around Lux Caedis.
"Akuma?" he asked.
The doppelganger smiled faintly.
"You already know the answer."
And then it moved.
Faster than thought, faster than a scream.
Their spears collided with a deafening crack that sent a ripple of force through the fog, scattering the ash around them into a storm of black and white.
It was like fighting himself.
Every movement was mirrored. Every parry, every thrust, every faint shift of weight on the balls of his feet. He struck high — it countered low. He spun — it spun. Their weapons tangled in a blur of bone and steel, the air hissing as their divine cores clashed in perfect synchronicity.
It wasn't just reading his thoughts.
It was his thoughts.
Not he, Luther corrected himself grimly, locking his spear against its in a sudden surge of strength.
It.
The thing whispered into the closeness between them:
"You were not born, Luther... You were carved."
Luther roared and shoved back, breaking the lock, spinning low and striking for its side.... but it was already gone, sliding behind him like smoke, its spear biting into his shoulder in a line of white-hot agony.
He gasped, the lattice in his spine flaring, his divine interface pulsing red.
Glyphs along his vertebrae flickered erratically as systems strained to stabilize.
"You were programmed to save," it hissed, circling him slowly, eyes glimmering with cruel amusement. "But you were meant for the opposite."
Luther fell to one knee, his breath harsh, the ground cracking beneath his weight.
The creature circled closer, its voice colder now, whispering like the mist itself.
"Naomi knew. That's why she had to die. She begged him not to finish you. Her plea was nothing but a flea against a man's resolve. You weren't born of love. You aren't salvation. And you not even human.... you Luther, You are a weapon."
Luther's grip tightened. His knuckles blanched.
And then he lunged, faster than he'd thought possible.
His spear pierced the doppelganger through the chest in a burst of white light, the tip burying itself deep enough to split the ground below them.
For a moment, the creature's smile faltered. Its body shuddered.
And then it dissolved into mist.
Gone.
No body.
No blood.
Only the faint whisper left behind in his own voice:
"Hehe... hehe. Bare aware of who made you?"
Luther stood in the silence, chest heaving, the spear still humming faintly in his hands.
But it felt heavier now.
Like it knew.
Behind him, the comm-link crackled to life.
"Mission complete," came Callus Greaven's detached voice. "Geki-class neutralized. Good work, Luther. Return."
Luther didn't answer.
He stared down at his arm.
It wasn't bleeding. It wasn't even cut.
But there, traced into the ash against his skin, were three words written in black.
Fear man as you fear the unknown
Far above, in Eden's central lab, Mr. P sat alone in his cluttered control room, watching the feed go dark.
He chewed absently on the edge of his stylus, his eyes narrowing faintly.
"Too soon," he muttered.
Behind him, one of his clones stumbled into the wall and exploded in a puff of static.
Mr. P didn't even flinch.
He pressed a finger to his communicator.
His voice was quiet now. Serious.
"Rei," he said. " To think you were onto something."
Far above them both, in the cold quiet of the Observer Tower, Zero sat motionless in his black crystal throne.
His eyes were closed.
But the faintest hint of a smile curved his lips.
"He's waking up," he whispered.
And deep below the earth, in a place forgotten by the world, something stirred.
A child.
White-haired.
Eyes shut.
But not asleep anymore.
Not anymore.
End of Chapter 4