After the mirror, we didn't speak for a while.
We just walked.
The forest felt quieter than usual, as if it too had heard that voice.
As if "S" had taken the breath out of the world.
We stopped by a narrow creek. The water was dark, but it sounded clean.
Sera sat on a rock, hugging her knees, and looked at me in silence.
I sat down too. And for several minutes, we just listened to the murmur of the stream.
—
"Do you think you've already decided?" she asked at last.
"About what?"
"About becoming that Ryouhei from the mirror. Or… not becoming him."
I thought of the image. The throne. The bodies. My smile.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Before, I would've said no. Now… I'm not so sure."
She nodded, without judgment.
"I get it," she said. "When I left the Order, I thought I was saving myself. But sometimes I feel like I just switched prisons."
"And if there's no way out?"
"Then... we make room. Break down a wall or two. Or write something on them so we don't forget who we were."
—
I chuckled, barely.
"You don't seem like someone who writes on walls."
"Not with ink," she said, pulling up her sleeve.
The marks on her arm weren't magical.
They were scars. Old. Deep. Human.
I didn't ask.
She didn't explain.
—
"Sometimes I want to believe we can still be good," I said finally.
"I don't believe in goodness," she replied. "But I do believe in trying. In choosing. And in the way you look when you decide not to use your power."
I looked at her.
"How do I look?"
"Like someone who remembers they can still stop."
—
And in that moment, I didn't need to see any futures.
Because Sera was there.
And that was enough.