Wind scraped the surface of the ruined field as if trying to erase what had happened moments before. But the energy that Rei had unleashed by accepting the Echo Crown could not be undone. Not now. Not anymore.
Rei knelt quietly beside a patch of petrified flowers—crimson blossoms forever frozen mid-bloom. His fingers hovered above them, reverent, as though remembering something from another life. The Crown on his head shimmered faintly, not with pride, but with weight. The cost of inheritance.
Behind him, the silence broke.
Mireille spoke first. "Are you still... you?"
Rei turned slightly. His expression was unreadable, but his voice held its usual calm. "I am. But now I carry echoes of those who weren't allowed to be."
Noira crossed her arms. "So what does that make you now?"
Rei stood. The petrified ground shifted slightly under his feet. "A witness. A warning. And a weapon, if needed."
---
Deep within the catacombs of the Grigori, Azazel watched as new data poured into the crystalline interfaces.
The readings were beyond anything he'd encountered—not even the original Satans, nor the Sacred Gear anomalies, registered such volatile shifts. The Echo Crown's pulse had torn open a layer of the spirit realm no one even believed still existed.
He muttered, "This isn't evolution. It's rebellion against the cosmic code."
A voice chimed in his communicator.
"Sir, the Council of Three requests emergency audience. They detected a spike even within the Dimensional Gap."
Azazel's gaze hardened. "Tell them they're too late. The throne has already chosen."
---
Back at the field, the group moved on.
As they crossed into the forest ruins east of the spire, an unnatural fog rolled toward them—not summoned by magic, but born of fractured memory.
Eirenne hissed, drawing a blade etched with runes. "This isn't spirit resistance. This is something else."
Rei paused, eyes narrowing. "The Echo Crown is bleeding. The worlds it connects... they're starting to merge."
Suddenly, shadows emerged.
They were not demons. Not angels. Not spirits.
They were... former echoes. Residual projections of what Rei could have become. Fractured possibilities given pseudo-form.
Mireille recognized one. "That's you... from the vision trial. The version that chose vengeance."
The doppelganger smirked. "And I remember what you sacrificed. Want to see what I did with my pain?"
A battle ignited.
Blade against shadow, memory against resolve.
Karasu's voice filled Rei's mind. *"Defeat them, and you clarify your path. Fail, and you fracture again."
As Rei clashed with his vengeful self, he saw brief flashes—visions of himself slaughtering the Three Factions, of worlds burning in his name. They were tempting.
But he denied them.
"I don't need to destroy to be strong," he growled, pushing the echo backward with a flare of spirit fire and void wind.
Mireille and Noira flanked the sides, covering his blind spots.
Eirenne invoked a barrier chant that held the edges of the collapsing realm.
One by one, the doppelgangers fell. Not because Rei was stronger. But because he was more whole.
---
When the fog finally lifted, and the last shadow dissipated, Rei stood breathing heavily, not from exhaustion—but from rejection. He had cast away a thousand tempting versions of himself.
Mireille looked at him, eyes wide. "You're still here."
He nodded. "I always was."
Then the ground beneath them vibrated.
From the east, a light flickered in a forgotten canyon.
Noira muttered, "That's the Sixth Fragment. Finally."
But Rei, still glowing with Crown resonance, looked past it.
"To claim the Sixth, we'll have to face something worse than ourselves. We'll have to face what created us."