The Mirror World was silent. The only sound that remained was the hollow echo of Katakuri’s breath, slow and steady—too steady for a man whose world had crumbled around him.

He sat cross-legged on the cold, glassy surface, still as stone. The mochi scarf he once used to hide his mouth hung loose around his neck, forgotten. Here, there was no need to conceal anything. There were no gazes to judge him, no enemies to strike down, no family to protect. Just reflections—endless reflections of a man who no longer knew if he was a monster or merely made into one.

The silence pressed on his chest like a vice.

“So this is what it’s like... to stop pretending.”

His voice barely broke the stillness. It sounded foreign, like it belonged to someone else. His hand hovered over a jagged piece of broken mirror, his distorted reflection staring back with bloodshot eyes and a clenched jaw. A warrior’s face. A brother’s face. A liar’s face.

Katakuri’s fists tightened.

For years, he'd upheld perfection—untouchable strength, unbreakable resolve. But now? Trapped, alone, and forgotten by the outside world, he allowed himself to crumble in pieces no one would see. He tilted his head back, eyes stinging, teeth gritted.

“What was it all for?” he whispered.

A droplet fell—silent, warm—onto the mirrored floor. Not sweat. Not blood.

A tear.

Maybe this was his punishment. Not for weakness, but for hiding it so well that even he had started to believe the lie. The lie that he didn't hurt. That he didn’t want. That he didn’t need.

A shadow flickered in the reflection. He didn’t turn.

There was no one there.

Just himself.

And maybe that was the cruelest part.

Because in this world of endless mirrors, there was nowhere left to run from the one person he truly feared facing.

Himself.