The hulking one moved first, surprisingly fast for its size.
Its club crashed down with the sound of thunder. Bullet barely dodged, and the weapon hit the mirror floor where he'd stood a heartbeat before.
The floor splintered under the impact. Shards exploded outward like a bomb of glass and crystal. One piece sliced deep into Bullet's leg, cutting through his thigh. Blood welled hot, immediately stinging in the cold air.
His shoulder wound burning, he brought his own pipe up to block the next strike. Metal screamed against metal. Sparks flew, some landing on his cheek and searing the skin before dying out.
A hole had opened in the floor where the club had struck. A black hole whose edges seemed to suck in light itself. It tugged at him with unnatural pull, trying to drag him into whatever darkness was below.
His heart thundered in his chest, and his ribs screamed with each movement, but he forced himself to sidestep, his feet slipping precariously on the scattered shards.
The pull in his chest was an anchor, like a flame that would burn through chaos and not let him fall.
The gaunt one struck from his blind side.
Its serrated pipe whined as it slashed with a high-pitched whine. The blade carved a deep gash across Bullet's arm before he could react, blood spraying in arcs which the surrounding mirrors caught and twisted into a mocking spiral pattern.
The wound blazed with pain so intense his vision blurred. Sweat and blood stung his eyes. The mirrors flashed an image at him. A shadowed figure stealing through streets, a thief's life. And for a moment he couldn't tell if it was him or not.
He clamped his teeth so hard it made his jaw ache, his scar burning hot enough to refocus him back into the present.
He swung back, angling his pipe to catch the auroral light and reflect it directly into the face of the hulking one. The creature recoiled, momentarily blinded.
Its next club swing went wild, missing Bullet entirely and instead shattering a nearby spire. More shards rained down like deadly hail. One sliced across his cheek. Blood ran warm down his jaw, mixing with the sweat.
The deformed one lunged, its extra arm giving it a reach Bullet hadn't anticipated.
The forked prongs spun like a drill, tearing into his shoulder, the already-injured shoulder that had been bleeding for days now. Flesh ripped. Blood gushed out, completely soaking his cloak. The fabric stuck to his skin, heavy and wet.
The mirrors around him flickered into life, showing a vision of warriors in some ancient battle clashing, swords ringing against shields, men screaming. It seemed so real he could nearly smell the blood and smoke.
But it wasn't his memory. Couldn't be. He had no memories beyond waking up in the desert of Province 618.
Bullet dodged to the side, moving quicker than the eyeless wanderers he'd seen could manage. His scar blazed in his chest, a beacon that somehow let him see through the mirror's tricks, grounding him to reality.
He deflected the gaunt one's next slash. Sparks flew at the intersection of the pipes. His arm shook from the blow. The creature was stronger than it looked.
With a roar born of desperation, fury, and pain, he brought his pipe down on its arm with all his strength.
Bone snapped with a wet, sickening crack he felt as much as heard. Blood spurted from the break. The gaunt reflection's jaw twitched in what might have been silent torment as it staggered backward.
The mirrors caught its ruin and reflected it in fractured gleams, showing the broken arm from a dozen angles, each one more grotesque than the last.
The additional arm of the deformed one swung around for another attack.
Its prongs raked across Bullet's chest, shredding through his cloak and the skin beneath. Blood trickled warm, adding to the mess he'd become.
The mirrors flashed again. This time revealing the peaceful vision of a farmer gazing up at serene stars. It was false, beautiful, not his life. A jarring contrast, for he now found himself in such a very different setting.
Bullet rolled desperately past another void that had opened in the floor. The pull yanked at him, trying to drag him down. He barely escaped its edge.
With a vicious upward strike, he drove his pipe into the knee of the deformed one. Cartilage snapped with a brittle sound. Blood pooled immediately in the reflection of the mirror, flowing out in a dark circle.
The hulking one charged again, learning from its mistakes. This time its club arced in a brutal horizontal swing that would have taken Bullet's head off if he hadn't ducked.
The weapon whistled over him. Instead of hitting Bullet, it shattered a wall behind him. The entire structure came apart in a storm of deadly shards. One piece deepened the wound in his thigh that was already bleeding. Blood streamed down his leg now, leaving a trail with each step.
Dizziness clawed at the edges of his consciousness. He'd lost too much blood. His body was running on fumes and stubborn will.
But that still wasn't all.
Bullet thrust his pipe forward like a spear, driving it into the hulking one's throat. Blood ran hot over his hands, warmer than he expected, almost burning. He twisted the weapon, then brought it up to crush the creature's skull.
Bone caved inward with a sickening crunch. Brain matter splattered across the surrounding mirrors. The reflections caught the gore and warped it into grotesque patterns that seemed to writhe and move on their own.
The gaunt one lunged for his face, going for his eyes now.
The mirrors showed him a thief's grin: sharp and cruel and confident. Not his expression. Not his life.
Bullet dodged at the very last moment. He swung his pipe down in a vicious arc that bit into the creature's spine. Vertebrae crunched like gravel under a boot. Blood flooded across the mirrors, painting their silver surfaces deep red.
The prongs whirred a final time, desperation in every movement of the deformed one's fork.
The many mirrors around them seemed to cry, a noise almost like a lost child weeping. It had stabbed guilt through Bullet's chest like a physical blade.
Cowboy's final scream. Rivet's blood pooling in the sand. Ember's stone altar cracking under the cragbeast's attack. Stitch's trust when he'd left the tunnels. Glow's vines binding her as he walked away.
All of them. All the people he'd failed.
He parried one prong with his pipe but the other sliced deep into his thigh. Blood roared from the wound. The pain was blinding, white-hot, making his vision tunnel.
His scar felt like a furnace burning in his chest. Hot enough that he was surprised it didn't just bore straight through him.
But that heat centered him somehow, grounded him when everything else was chaos and blood and death.
He surged forward with everything he had left.
His pipe crushed the deformed one's chest, ribs pulping beneath the metal like overripe fruit. Then he brought the weapon down one final time on its split face.
Brains burst across the mirrors in a wet explosion of grey matter and dark blood.
The mirrors caught all the carnage. Their gleam dimmed, and the three reflections melted away, dissolving back into whatever twisted realm had birthed them.
Fragments scattered across the ground, dying stars winking out one by one. The pulse of the province quieted, though dread continued to hang in the air as a physical presence.
Bullet stood amidst the aftermath, heaving for breath. Blood dripped from innumerable cuts and gashes. He had lost count of how many he had taken. His scar still seared in his chest, and the pull urged him onward, it would not let him rest now.
The mirrors shattered around him in a chain reaction, their cracks spreading like spiderwebs. The false visions they had shown, tyrants and thieves and lost children, disappeared like smoke in wind.
But the guilt remained.
It was heavier than the blood-soaked pipe in his hand. Heavier than the cloak dragging at his shoulders. Heavier than the exhaustion threatening to drag him down.
Cowboy. Rivet. Ember. Stitch. Glow. Their trusts were all shadows that followed him, ghosts he couldn't shake no matter how far he walked.
And now the pull was brighter, like it knew he was onto something big.
It guided him past shattered spires through a field of broken mirrors to a place that hummed beneath this province's reflective face.
The ground shook beneath his feet. The mirrors, though of firm glass, caused ripples on their surface like water. The auroras above seemed to press down upon him, their lights searing his skin as embers held too close to flesh might.
Before him now rose a structure impossible and towering, a shrine of mirrors.
Its walls were a mosaic of writhing shards that seemed almost alive, their movement an indication of sentience behind them, something aware and watching. It was the Mirrorheart: the thing birthing all the twisted reflections, the source of this province's cruel power.
The shrine's mirrors immediately cast false versions of Bullet back at him. Tyrants wearing crowns of bone. Thieves with blood on their hands. Versions of himself with empty eye sockets, blinded like the wanderers.
Air itself vibrated with metallic resonance that he could feel in his teeth. The walls shifted, subtly, sealing him inside the shrine. Blood. His blood, pooled on the mirror-sheen floor, spreading out in dark circles.
The hum in the space was predatory, hungry, like it had been waiting for him.
The Mirrorheart surged from the shrine's center like a living nightmare.
It was a churning mass of liquid mirror, rippling and flowing like molten steel caught in the violet and amber light of the auroras filtering through the walls.
It swelled grotesquely, growing as he watched. Limbs sprouted from the mass. Hulking arms that bulged unnaturally, gaunt tendrils that writhed like starved serpents searching for prey.
Faces emerged from the liquid mirror. Deformed visages, half-formed and terrible, scarred like Bullet's own face, their eyeless sockets gaping with pure malice. They were screaming silently, their mouths opening and closing without sound.
The air thrummed so deep he felt it in his bones. It vibrated through his chest, making his already-damaged ribs ache worse. His teeth felt like they might shatter from the resonance. Each labored breath sent fresh waves of pain through his torso.
His scar blazed hot. Hotter than it ever had before. It pulsed in time with the Mirrorheart, almost as if the two were connected somehow. As if the thing recognized him, or he recognized it, or they were both part of something larger he didn't understand.
A tendril lashed out faster than he could track.
Its edge was jagged with embedded crystals that caught the light. It screeched like metal being torn as it moved. The sound was physically painful, making him want to cover his ears.
The tendril sliced deep into his chest, cutting through skin and muscle. His blood gushed hot, immediately soaking what was left of his cloak, splattering on the mirror floor in dark droplets that spread like ink in water.
The pain roared through him, blinding in its intensity. His knees buckled. He almost went down.
The mirrors twisted his spilled blood into crimson spirals, forming patterns that showed warriors clashing in ancient battles. Not his memories. Not his wars. But they felt real enough to make him doubt.
He gasped, dragging air into his lungs. It burned his throat. The air here tasted like copper and ozone. The pipe in his hand was slick with blood and sweat, but its weight grounded him. Real. Solid. His.
Bullet swung desperately, putting everything he had into the strike.
The pipe arced through the air. His muscles strained, screaming in protest as his damaged ribs sent stabbing pains through his chest with the movement.
The pipe crashed against a cluster of protruding shards on the surface of the Mirrorheart. The impact sent a shockwave up his arms, jarring every bone. Sparks erupted in brilliant violet-white bursts that for a moment blinded him.
Shards shattered, spinning outward like deadly projectiles. One piece embedded itself in his arm, cutting fresh and deep. Blood welled around it. The fragments crunched under his feet as he moved, grinding against the mirror floor.
The floor itself splintered beneath them. Cracks spread like lightning, spiderwebbing outward. Through the cracks, he could see voids opening. Black maws that pulsed with hunger, threatening to swallow everything into whatever darkness lay below.
His heart pounded so hard, he thought it might burst through his chest. Dizziness clawed at him, blood loss catching up, demanding he stop and rest.
But it surged in response, urging him toward survival above all else. Not yet, he couldn't stop yet.
Glass began raining from the trembling walls above. The edges caught the auroral light as they fell, looking almost beautiful if you ignored that they were essentially falling knives.
One shard grazed his side as a small spire collapsed right beside him. Glass blades whistled through the air, slicing shallow cuts along his hip. Blood soaked through his pants, warm and sticky.
The Mirrorheart changed shape, dodging his attacks.
Its tendrils whipped faster now, learning his patterns. New growths sprouted. Prong-like spikes gleaming with cruel intent that were clearly designed to pierce and tear rather than slash.
One prong stabbed into his side with brutal efficiency, piercing the cloak and shredding the leather Patch had mended so many times. The spike grazed off his ribs. He felt it scrape against bone. His blood flowed sticky and warm, soaking his clothing.
Pain stole his breath utterly. For a moment he could not breathe, could not move, could only stand there impaled and bleeding.
The mirrors flickered around him and a new vision was revealed: A child's shadow, trembling in a void, small and afraid and alone.
Not his memory, but it stabbed guilt through him anyway, sharp as any blade.
Cowboy's body, half-swallowed by the sand maw. Rivet's blood spreading across the crimson dunes. Ember's stone altar, cracked and broken. Stitch's trusting eyes as he'd said goodbye. Glow's form wrapped in vines, trapped in dreams while he walked away.
All of them. Everyone he'd failed to save, failed to help, failed to stay with.
Bullet dodged to the side, pulling free of the spike with a wet sound that made his stomach turn.
His body was still swift despite the injuries, faster than the eyeless wanderers could manage. The scar in his chest was like a furnace now, so hot he half-expected to look down and see his skin burning.
Yet, that heat anchored him against the mirror's deceit, kept him focused on what was real.
He angled his pipe carefully, using its scarred metal surface to catch the auroral light filtering through the shrine. He reflected it back in dazzling bursts, aiming for the Mirrorheart's tendrils.
The beams of light seemed to confuse the creature. Its strikes missed, plunging into the voids in the floor instead. Screeches echoed through the shrine as the tendrils disappeared into darkness, cut off from the main body.
The shrine shook violently. The walls cracked. Panels buckled inward. The shards swirled through the air in a deadly vortex, creating a storm of cutting edges.
The shard sliced across his cheek. Blood dripped warm down his jaw. The sting was lost in the overwhelming chaos of everything else hurting.
His lungs scorched with every breath. Each inhalation came with a metallic taste. The shoulder wound was dripping steadily, it hadn't stopped bleeding since the jungle. His thigh gashes pulsed with every heartbeat. His body was fighting against its limits, far beyond what was supposed to be survivable.
But he was still standing. Still fighting.
The Mirrorheart's core pulsed at the center of the mass. It glowed with liquid mirror-light, its thrumming vibration traveling through his bones, syncing with his scar's rhythm like they were two parts of the same song.
This was it. The heart. The source.
Bullet lunged forward, raising his pipe high despite the agony in every muscle.
His feet slipped on the blood-slick mirror floor, his own blood, spreading in pools now. His muscles screamed as he drove the weapon forward with everything he had left.
The pipe sank deep into the churning mass. The resistance was thick, like pushing through mud or tar. Shards burst outward in a spray of crystalline fragments. Some embedded themselves in his arm, adding more cuts to the collection. Blood sprayed through the air in dark ribbons.
With a groan that seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, the shrine shook. The walls fractured, releasing dust and more shards into the air. The atmosphere grew thick, choking.
A tendril coiled around his chest like a constricting snake. The embedded shards carved deeper into his flesh as it tightened. Blood flooded from the wounds. Pain went white-hot, so intense his vision grayed at the edges.
The mirrors flickered one more time, showing him a burning village: flames roaring high, people screaming, heat that felt real enough to blister his skin.
Not his memory. Not his life. Yet it had a feel of truth he could not explain.
He roared back at the vision, at the pain, at everything. The pull roared louder inside him. A primal fire that absolutely refused to be extinguished, no matter what this place threw at him.
One final surge of desperate strength, Bullet struck the core again.
With every last measure of strength he could manage, he drove the pipe into the glowing heart of the Mirrorheart. Every muscle, every bit of stubborn will, everything he had left.
Shards stormed outward like the detonation of a bomb. Throughout the shrine, a cacophony of cracking glass grew as the mirrors fractured. Their surfaces splintered into a countless number of fragments scattering across the floor like dying stars winking out across a night sky.
The Mirrorheart buckled. Its hulking limbs dissolved, flowing back into liquid pools. The tendrils collapsed limply. The screaming faces melted into formless sludge.
Its pulse slowed. The glow of the core faded from brilliant to dull to almost nothing. The bone-deep hum quieted to a whisper, then to silence.
Bullet struck one more time, shattering the core completely.
At his feet, blood and fragments of the mirror mixed. The mirrors in the shrine all dulled, their malicious sentience fading like a turned-off light.
The Mirrorheart sank into dormancy. Its mass was still, no longer churning or reaching or attacking.
Not destroyed, he could feel that. But subdued. Quieted. A threat the Leader could probably rekindle if he chose, but dormant for now.