It started with a flicker.
Not in the firelight, not in the room — but deep inside Kaen's Mind Palace.
A flicker in the Vault of Impossible Ideas — the place he kept the nen abilities that scared even him.
One file glowed red now.
PROJECT: ZERO MIRROR
Locked. Contained. Buried beneath three layers of memory encryption.
He had created it on the night he first dreamed of what might exist beyond Nen — the moment he realized that reflection was more than just image.
It was armor. It was weapon. It was trap.
⸻
Kaen sat alone in the stone shelter. Vane had gone out to set aura-traps — silent, careful, cloaked in Zetsu.
But Kaen wasn't resting.
He was reaching into the dark.
His breath trembled. His fingers twitched.
"Open the file."
A key appeared — shaped like a blade of cracked obsidian. He slid it into the mental lock.
click
The room dimmed.
A cold wind rushed through the Palace. The chamber darkened to black, and only one thing remained: a mirror.
Tall. Ancient. Cracked from top to bottom.
Kaen stepped forward and saw not his face — but five versions of himself in the glass.
Each one staring back with a different expression:
• One was laughing maniacally.
• One was covered in blood.
• One was whispering something he couldn't hear.
• One stood motionless, eyes pitch black.
• The fifth was smiling… gently. Sadly.
"Do you wish to activate Zero Mirror?" a voice asked — his own voice, layered in echo.
Kaen hesitated. He could feel something staring back from beyond that glass.
But then he remembered the Black Thread agent.
How he'd lost a Framewalker clone without warning, without contact, without reason.
Erased.
He clenched his fists.
"Yes."
"Zero Mirror: Begin Integration."
⸻
The world shattered.
Not the real world — the Palace.
The mirrored Kaens broke apart like shards, flying into his chest, slamming into his mind. Each one brought a surge of memory, emotion, vision, and fear.
Pain.
Kaen screamed.
Blood burst from his nose. His heart raced like it would crack open. The walls of the Mind Palace glitched, reality folding inward for a moment.
But then—
Silence.
And standing in front of him was a new structure.
A throne made of mirror-shards, and floating above it:
ZERO MIRROR CORE INSTALLED.
⸻
[NEN ABILITY UNLOCKED]
Name: Zero Mirror
Type: Hybrid (Specialist/Manipulation/Countertype)
Function: Reflects incoming Nen signatures — including aura, emotion, thought intent — into a projected construct that acts as a "response ghost."
Secondary Effect: If Kaen is targeted by a Nen ability while Zero Mirror is active, a replica of that ability is generated and mirrored for up to 60 seconds.
Risk: If the mirrored ability overwhelms Kaen's aura capacity or his mental stability, the copy becomes sentient.
⸻
Kaen opened his eyes — for real.
The air felt heavier.
He could see everything in the dark — the shifting temperature, the trailing threads of energy where Vane's traps had been laid.
His vision shimmered with reflective overlays — information flowing like veins across the sky.
But more than that…
He felt something approaching.
⸻
The fog was moving again.
Only this time, it didn't just creep.
It howled.
Vane burst through the side entrance, bleeding from a gash on his temple.
"Kaen — MOVE!"
From the mist behind him, six figures emerged — Black Thread scouts. This time, not one. Six.
Each wore different masks — ivory, onyx, crimson — but all were silent, each one dripping a strange black substance from their sleeves.
No aura. No emotion.
No Nen signature.
Kaen stood and whispered, "Zero Mirror… activate."
The room bent — light refracting off his aura like water off steel.
Then, the first agent vanished.
Instant teleportation.
The second appeared behind Vane — reaching.
Framewalker: Auto-trigger!
Kaen split into two — one body tackling Vane aside, the other raising a hand.
Impact.
A black needle of nen pierced his shoulder. It didn't hurt at first.
But then… silence.
Like his own nen had gone numb.
Nullifier…?
The needle's aura was canceling his — corrupting the flow. Like reverse-In.
Kaen's heartbeat spiked.
Zero Mirror: Response Triggered.
Suddenly, a glowing phantom appeared beside him — an outline of the needle's power, mirrored and reversed.
It hovered, clicked once — and fired backward at the attacker.
The Black Thread scout dodged — but for the first time, it twitched. The perfect calm cracked.
Vane shouted, "What did you do?!"
Kaen was shaking, grinning, his blood still running from the wound.
"I didn't fight back," he said. "I just showed them themselves."
⸻
More needles flew — curved ones, vibrating with vibration-based nen.
Kaen's mirrored phantoms began to appear like glowing ghosts around him, each one copying, twisting, firing.
For every attack they launched, he returned an echo.
Not quite a perfect copy.
Not a theft.
A reflection.
And the Black Thread began to retreat.
Afraid.
Vane watched in stunned silence as Kaen stepped through the fog, bleeding, exhausted, but surrounded by spectral versions of his attackers' own powers.
Kaen raised one hand, and whispered:
"Zero Mirror: Final Echo."
The sky flashed.
The fog rolled back.
And all six agents vanished.
Not dead. Not erased.
But pulled back.
Recalled.
Because the Council didn't expect resistance.
And certainly not from someone like him.
⸻
Kaen collapsed moments later.
His aura flickered dangerously.
His Palace pulsed with stress.
But he'd done it.
He had turned the unseeable into something that could be reflected.
Even if just for a moment.
And in that moment…
He felt it.
Fear.
Not his own.
Theirs.
⸻
To be continued in Chapter 10: Whisper of the Core