The world fractured into light.
Eren's scream never left his throat — it was stolen by the Pulse, devoured by its storm.
For a heartbeat, there was only brightness: not warmth, but searing memory. Fragments of faces. Glass cities. A thousand reflections of himself, all breaking at once.
When the light finally dimmed, he was no longer standing in the chamber. The ground beneath him was made of mirror, slick with something dark.
Blood. His own reflection bled where he stood.
He stumbled back, disoriented. Every movement rippled through the mirrored world like sound underwater. Above, there was no ceiling — only infinite versions of himself staring back. Each one slightly different. Each one alive.
"Eren…"
The voices overlapped — too many, too close.
"You are the wound that remembers."
"You are the shard that wasn't meant to stay."
He pressed his palms to his ears, but the voices came from inside him. From the Pulse itself.
"Stop!" he shouted. "I'm not—"
A hand shot through the mirror behind him. Pale. Veined with silver light. It caught his wrist and yanked.
He spun — and found himself face-to-face with another him. But this one's eyes were hollow glass, and the veins that glowed beneath his skin pulsed red instead of violet.
"Not you," Eren whispered. "You're not me."
The reflection smiled, thin and cruel. "No, Eren. I'm the part Kael buried."
The mirror-Eren's voice sounded like his own but echoed with static, layered and glitching. The edges of his form flickered between solid and broken pixels.
He stepped closer, and wherever his feet touched, the mirror cracked — leaking streaks of red.
"You think you can choose what you are?" the reflection sneered. "You're built from someone else's grief. A memory he refused to bury."
Eren's chest tightened. Kael's face flashed in his mind — that look of guilt, that tremor in his voice.
"I don't believe you."
"You should."
The reflection's grin widened. "He didn't save you. He made you. You were never real."
Lightning snapped across the mirrored plane, violet and violent. "Then why am I standing here?" Eren hissed. "Why do I bleed?"
The reflection tilted its head, eyes glimmering like fractured glass. "Because memories bleed too."
The world shuddered. The Pulse boomed, deep and resonant, as if agreeing.
Eren raised a trembling hand — energy coiling through his veins, the shard beneath his skin blazing brighter than it ever had. "If you're me, then you know this won't end well for you."
The reflection laughed — a raw, broken sound. "It never does."
Then it lunged.
Glass exploded between them. Light screamed.
Eren met the reflection's strike head-on, their energies clashing — violet against crimson. Each blow shattered more of the mirrored realm, spilling waves of glowing blood that hissed when it touched Eren's skin.
It burned like truth.
He fought wildly, but every hit he landed felt like tearing through himself. Every scream he heard sounded like his own voice.
Finally, with a cry that tore his throat raw, Eren drove his hand into the reflection's chest — lightning spearing through.
The red glow faltered, then fractured.
"You're not real," Eren whispered.
The reflection smiled one last time. "Neither are you."
It shattered into dust — into countless shards that rained down around him. Each one reflected Kael's face.
The world pulsed once. Twice. Then collapsed.
Eren's body hit solid ground. Real ground.
He gasped, clutching his chest, slick with blood and mirror dust. The air was heavy with ozone and ash.
"Eren!"
Kael's voice cut through the haze. He was kneeling beside him, eyes wide with fear.
Eren blinked, the world spinning, and saw Draven standing in the distance — expression unreadable.
Kael reached out, fingers trembling. "You're bleeding—"
Eren caught his wrist before he could touch him. His eyes burned faintly violet. "You knew," he said softly. "You always knew what I was."
Kael's mouth opened, but no words came.
Draven stepped closer, boots echoing on the cracked floor. "And now he's seen the truth," he said, almost gently. "The Pulse has shown him everything you tried to hide."
"Shut up," Kael hissed, rising to his feet.
But Eren's gaze didn't move. He could still feel the reflection's voice in his veins, whispering: You were never real.
"Tell me one thing," Eren said quietly. "When you found me… was I already broken?"
Kael's jaw tightened. "You were alive. That's all that mattered."
"Then why does it still hurt?"
Silence filled the air — thick, electric, unbearable.
Draven smiled faintly. "Because you're beginning to remember."
The Pulse stirred again, humming deep beneath the city. Eren could feel it vibrating through the floor, through his bones.
He didn't know if it was calling to him or warning him.
Either way, he was done running.
He turned his gaze toward the shattered chamber ahead — where the Observer's mirror once stood, now reduced to a gaping wound of light.
Eren stepped forward, blood dripping from his fingertips, lightning dancing faintly at his wrists.
"I'm going to find out what I am," he said. "And when I do… none of you will be able to lie to me again."
Draven's smirk deepened. "Good. Then we finally speak the same language."
Kael's voice broke behind him. "Eren—"
But Eren didn't stop. He walked straight into the light.
And the Pulse roared in welcome.