---
The chanting deepened, vibrating in Sora's bones. It wasn't just sound anymore—it was a pulse, a rhythm that seemed to match his heartbeat.
The coffin in the center of the chamber stood unnaturally still, despite the wind spiraling down from the open ceiling. Every instinct screamed at him to stay away, yet he couldn't stop staring.
Gojo adjusted his blindfold and stepped forward, his casual grin gone. "Rei. Cut their connection. Now."
Rei knelt, pressing her palm to the stone. Her cursed energy spread outward like ripples on water, snuffing out the lantern light entirely. The only illumination came from the silver moon above… and the faint, ghostly glow seeping from the coffin seams.
---
CRACK.
The first fracture ran along the coffin's lid like lightning across a night sky. Dust floated upward instead of falling, dispersing into thin, dry air.
Another crack followed, then another, until the lid quivered with a dull, hollow sound.
Gojo's voice sharpened. "Don't let that thing open."
Sora took a step forward before Rei's hand shot out to stop him. "You open that, and reality starts forgetting your name faster than it already is."
"My name?" he asked, confused—
But before she could answer—
---
The coffin lid shifted.
No creak. No scrape. Just a smooth, silent slide, revealing… nothing.
Not darkness. Not shadow. Nothing.
An absence so complete it made Sora's stomach turn.
The chanting stopped. The cultists fell to their knees in unison, bowing until their foreheads touched the stone.
---
A sound broke the silence.
Not from the coffin—
From the floor beneath Sora.
A scratch.
Then something cold curled around his ankle.
He looked down.
---
It was his own hand.
Not attached to him. Not even real flesh—its skin was grey and faintly translucent, its nails sharp like obsidian. Yet it was his hand, down to the scar across the knuckle.
It gripped him. Hard.
And the world lurched.
Breathing became a distant thought. His chest refused to rise. His vision tunneled until all he saw was that hand, pulling, dragging—
---
"Not happening!" Rei slammed her palm to the floor, sending jagged black fractures through the stone. Her shadows rose like spears, stabbing into the pale limb.
It split apart into ribbons of black mist, retreating toward the coffin—
But not alone.
Something came with it.
---
First an arm, then a shoulder, then the bowed head of a boy his age.
His hair was ragged, uneven like it had been torn out in clumps. His clothes were the same as Sora's… but shredded, soaked in a darkness that refused to drip.
And when he looked up, Sora saw his own face—
only paler, sharper, with eyes like dead moons.
---
The double smiled. It wasn't a grin. It wasn't even human.
"You're still here?" he said, voice soft but echoing, as if spoken through deep water. "I let go a long time ago."
Gojo's cursed energy flickered in the air like heatwaves. "Bad news, kid. I've got a strict no-clones policy."
The double didn't even glance at him. His attention stayed locked on Sora.
"You feel it, don't you? That emptiness eating the edges of your memory. You think you can fight it." His tone softened almost to sympathy. "I stopped fighting."
---
Sora's pulse pounded in his skull. "You're not me."
The double tilted his head. "No. I'm what you leave behind when you're gone."
The coffin throbbed with a slow, steady pulse, black veins spreading across the stone floor toward Sora. They reached his shoes, creeping upward like roots.
Rei swore. "It's binding you—"
---
The ground exploded upward. The veins coiled around both Soras, crushing the air from his lungs. The double leaned forward until their foreheads almost touched.
"I'll show you what it's like to be free," the double whispered.
The pull was instant and merciless.
The chamber vanished.
---
For a fraction of a second, Sora saw the moon hanging impossibly close above him—so close it filled the entire sky, its craters carved into shapes that looked like screaming faces.
Then the void swallowed him whole.