Silence.
Not the kind that soothes or invites calm, but the dense, suffocating kind that presses deep into your ears, heavy as water pushing against eardrums during a dive. There was no gentle rustle of leaves, no distant birdsong to break the stillness. Not even a breath of wind stirred the canopy above. Only the motionless leaves hanging like frozen whispers, and the strange, watchful stillness of the forest itself, as if the ancient trees held their breath, eyes unseen, observing everything.
Lira exhaled slowly, her breath barely more than a whisper lost to the heavy air.
Her gaze locked onto his.
Three.
A reflection, but distorted, shifted in subtle ways.
His armor caught the dappled forest light just like hers, polished, gleaming with an almost unnatural sheen. Every plate shone with fragments of filtered sunlight. But where Lira's armor shimmered fluidly, like liquid silver flowing with every movement, Three's armor reflected a different truth, cold and static, as if time itself had crystallized over him. Unyielding. Unreadable.
And that staff.
It wasn't a weapon forged for brute strength or raw power. No, this was a tool of influence, subtle and insidious. From the moment their duel had begun, she understood its true nature: it didn't block attacks, it redirected them. When she lunged, it distorted her balance, twisting momentum in invisible currents. When she struck, it warped reality just enough to tilt the battlefield sideways.
She lunged left.
The forest seemed to shift.
No, it wasn't the forest itself. It was her balance betraying her. A subtle, disorienting tilt that made her body falter.
The tip of the staff barely touched her shoulder, but it was enough. Enough to send her world spinning, as if someone had flipped the ground beneath her feet.
She spun away, forcing herself to reset footing, biting her lip against the sudden sting of frustration.
"He's forcing my reflexes to lie," she whispered, her voice low and sharp, barely audible over the heavy silence.
Three's posture was maddening, composed to a fault, utterly unbothered by the clash. His grip on the staff was light, almost casual, as if he wielded not a weapon but a thought. He took a step forward. She mirrored him. Another step. Then another.
Their mirror-armors caught the slivers of sunlight breaking through the dense canopy, shimmering faintly in the scattered beams. But neither reflected the other, only the forest, and the silence that hung between them.
Lira gritted her teeth. "Enough mind games."
And with a swift, fluid motion, she threw her sword.
The mirrorblade cut through the still air like a comet blazing across a night sky, flashing through shafts of sunlight, and Three, as expected, dodged. A lean to the right. Perfect. Textbook.
Exactly what she wanted.
In that fleeting, razor-thin instant, a sliver of time carved out by feints and fury, she planted her foot hard into the forest floor. The dry earth cracked beneath her heel. She propelled herself forward, not like a skilled fighter, but like a slingshot releasing tension with raw force.
And then—
Elbow.
Direct. Brutal. Striking the exposed throat.
It landed.
He staggered, a cough escaping him, his armor catching the light at a crooked angle.
She almost followed through.
But he didn't fall.
Instead, his fingers closed around her forearm like steel cables tightening. She gasped, struggling to wrench free, but he wasn't merely holding her. He was binding her movement, locking her in place.
And then—
SLAM.
The ground rushed up to meet her. Bark, dirt, and blood smeared across her cheek. Her vision trembled. Roots quivered beneath the impact.
Three raised his staff calmly.
"Momentum is yours," he said, voice cold and precise, like a surgeon's scalpel cutting through flesh. "But I remember your steps now."
The tip of his staff glowed faintly with stored energy, mirrorlight bristling softly along its polished shaft. It was not magic, not in the conventional sense. It was memory, etched into movement and motion.
Lira spat blood, grinning through the pain. "Yeah? Let's see if you remember this—"
She surged forward again, not with a blade, but with a closed fist aimed straight at his face. An obvious move. Intentionally obvious. She wanted him to block it.
Three's staff swung sideways.
Exactly as she predicted.
Her fist never met flesh.
She dropped low, using the block's recoil to spin away from his side like a skipping stone across water. Her boot slid through the mossy floor, her foot hooked a root, anchoring her pivot.
In the blink of an eye, she was no longer facing him.
In the blink of an eye, she was gone.
Three turned too late.
She was already vaulting, rushing back toward her blade.
The mirrorblade pulsed faintly where it had embedded itself in the trunk of a tree. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt just as her feet touched the ground.
Without breaking her stride, she turned.
Dash.
She blurred low along the forest floor, each step tossing leaves into the air like sparks of flame. She moved like a heat mirage, a flicker of refracted rage.
And then—
Slash.
A fierce upward arc from ankle to chin. The mirror edge flashed sunlight and bloodlust alike.
Three parried.
But—
CRACK.
His staff fractured.
A thin, spiderweb crack snaked through the polished shaft.
He backed away immediately, posture tightening with caution.
Lira stood, blade humming softly in her hand, breathing hard but steady despite the sting in her ribs.
CRACK.
The fracture widened, just enough to threaten his hold.
Three took a single step back and stared at the damage almost with curiosity.
"You're not a mirror," Lira hissed, voice low and deadly. "You're a repeat. And I break patterns."
A long beat of silence stretched between them.
Three straightened, his grip shifting on the staff, deliberate, precise.
"Very well."
"Shall we test the full sync?"
End of Chapter 22.