ZZZ:Through the Frosted Mirror

Mira clutched her knees to her chest, hidden away in the small, cramped space beneath her bed. Ellen had told her to hide, to lock the door and not to come out. She obeyed, squeezing herself into the shadows, pressing her hands against her ears. But it did nothing to silence the horrors unfolding outside her door.

The music was the first thing she noticed. It drifted through the air, elegant and haunting, each note laced with malice. Then came the sound of Ellen fighting—heavy impacts, sharp crashes, and the sickening crack of walls giving way. And then—Ellen's screams.

Mira trembled. She had never heard Ellen scream like that before. Every cry of pain sent a dagger through her chest, suffocating her in helplessness. Her fingers dug into her arms, nails biting into her skin as she rocked slightly, trying to drown out the noises.

But then something changed.

A sharp, searing pain tore through her mind, and suddenly—she was Ellen. She felt every bruise, every fracture. The world spun as if she were the one staggering from the relentless attacks. Her chest heaved, her body barely able to hold itself together. Mira gasped, clutching her head, struggling to separate herself from what she was experiencing.

And then came the final blow. A deafening explosion. Ellen's body hurtled through the air. Mira felt it all—every fracture, every nerve screaming in agony. And then—nothing. The connection between them dulled, flickering like a dying ember.

No.

Mira's breath hitched, her instincts roaring to life. Ellen. She had to get to Ellen.

Everything else ceased to matter. The fear, the danger—it all vanished in the face of one truth: Ellen was slipping away. Before she even realized it, her legs were moving, her body tearing through the hall in a blur. She flung the door open, racing past the wreckage, ignoring the way her feet barely touched the ground. Her mind was screaming at her to hurry.

She skidded to a stop outside, her eyes widening in horror at the sight before her.

The Twin Marionettes stood over Ellen's limp body, their porcelain forms poised in eerie synchronization, hands delicately interwoven. A grotesque parody of a bow.

Mira didn't hesitate. She bolted forward, dropping to her knees, pulling Ellen into her arms. She pressed a trembling hand against Ellen's cheek, her skin cold and pale.

"Ellen…?" her voice cracked, but there was no response.

The floodgates broke.

Tears streamed down her face, her grip tightening around Ellen's lifeless form. Her sobs wracked her body, each one laced with desperation.

Her mother was gone.

And it was her fault.

No. No, it wasn't.

Her gaze snapped upward, locking onto the Twin Marionettes. Her sorrow twisted, curdling into something far darker. Something primal.

Her chest tightened, her breath came in ragged gasps as an overwhelming rage overtook her. The world around her trembled. The air grew thick with energy—cold, suffocating. Snow began to fall, delicate flakes landing on Ellen's skin, melting against her warmth. Then, the snowfall intensified. A blizzard erupted, spiraling violently around them.

Mira barely noticed her own transformation. Her limbs elongated, her nails sharpened into claws, her body radiating an ancient, terrifying power. Instinct screamed at her, demanding one thing: Give her your blood.

She obeyed without hesitation.

Biting into her wrist, she let her blood drip into Ellen's slightly parted lips. The blizzard howled louder, as if the world itself was reacting to her fury. The connection between them pulsed again, faint but there. Mira's grip on Ellen tightened, her heart pounding in her chest.

Then, as if sensing the shift in power, the Twin Marionettes extended their hands toward her. Not in attack, but in invitation.

A dance.

Mira bared her fangs, her glowing eyes narrowing. If it was a dance they wanted—then she would show them the true meaning of terror.

Mira launched herself at the Twin Marionettes, her movements a blur as she engaged them in combat. Unlike Ellen, who had struggled against their speed and precision, Mira met them head-on with a ferocity that bordered on inhuman. She twisted and spun, using her legs as her primary weapons, striking with devastating kicks that cracked the ground beneath her. Each blow she delivered carried the force of a tempest, her sheer speed and strength keeping up with the twins' deadly grace.

Her frost powers surged around her, manifesting not only in her weapons but also in the battlefield itself. When the twins tried to flank her, she stomped her foot, sending jagged ice spikes erupting from the ground, forcing them to adjust their movements. She coated her legs in a layer of thick, sharp ice, turning her kicks into deadly, bladed strikes. When one of the twins attempted to strike her from above, she crafted a mirror of ice midair, using it as a stepping stone to redirect herself and counterattack with a crushing axe kick.

The scythe and hammer she had conjured were now merely extensions of her body. She wove between them, summoning shards of ice to fire off like projectiles, then seamlessly switching to close-range combat, striking with elbows, knees, and kicks that shattered the air with raw power. She even created frozen chains to bind one twin momentarily, yanking them into the path of their counterpart's incoming attack. Her adaptability made her unpredictable, and for the first time, the twins faltered.

But the battle was far from over.

As Mira backed the twins into a corner, their eerie, synchronized dance faltered for just a moment. Sensing the end, she prepared to strike the final blow—only for something to fly past her and embed itself into their porcelain-like skin. A syringe filled with golden liquid injected into them, and almost instantly, their bodies convulsed. The delicate, doll-like figures trembled before straightening, their movements becoming sharper, more aggressive, and far more dangerous.

Mira tensed, watching as the twins' veil-covered faces slowly turned toward her. She exhaled, frost spilling from her lips as the temperature dropped even further. If round one was over, then round two was about to begin.

Darkness.

There was nothing but endless, all-consuming darkness. Ellen floated weightlessly, her body—or what remained of it—adrift in the void. The sensation of pain was gone, replaced by a numb detachment from everything. She could not tell if she was breathing, if she even had a body anymore. Her thoughts felt slow, sluggish, as if the very essence of her being was fading away.

Is this it?

She had fought, clawed, and bled to protect what she cared about, yet in the end, it hadn't mattered. The thought should have frustrated her, but she felt nothing. It was as if everything had dulled, as if even her emotions were dissolving into the abyss. There was no sound, no light, only the weightless sensation of drifting further into nothingness.

Then, she heard it.

A voice, feminine in tone, reverberated through the darkness. It did not come from a single direction—it was everywhere, yet it whispered right next to her ear.

"Your soul is strong. Stronger any regular one should be."

Ellen's dulled mind barely registered the words at first. But the voice did not stop.

"Two souls, woven together into something more. It is an anomaly, a divergence. You were not meant to be here, in this world. No, you were meant to walk another path, one where your existence would have been… guided. A path that would have carved the way for you."

A spark of thought flickered within Ellen's hollowed mind. What did that mean? Another world? Another path?

"Curious…" The voice mused, as if pondering the mystery itself. "Despite that, you have shaped your own destiny. Would you like me to correct that? I could still transport you there. But now, I am intrigued. I want to see how far you can go."

Ellen's sight returned—or at least, something akin to vision. For the first time since she had been swallowed by the void, she saw.

Before her loomed something vast, unfathomable in scale. It was colossal, its form stretching beyond comprehension, as if it existed on multiple planes at once. Its body was composed of swirling galaxies, pulsating nebulas, and the twinkling of distant stars, yet its head… its head was nothing but a void. A black hole, an absence of all things, gazing at her without eyes yet seeing her completely.

Ellen could not move, could not breathe, yet she felt its presence pressing down on her, suffocating yet indifferent.

This is… Nihility.

IX, Aeon of Nihility. The embodiment of absolute apathy. It was said that Nihility did not gaze upon anyone, that its existence was so detached from the universe that no being had ever truly caught its attention. And yet, here it was, looking at her.

She should have been terrified. Should have been consumed by despair at the thought of being seen by a being that believed everything in existence was worthless, that all things would ultimately return to nothingness.

But she was still here.

It was interested.

Why?

The answer came unspoken, as if whispered directly into her essence.

Because you touched me first.

Ellen's soul trembled. The battle, the pain, the moment she lost herself in the fight—had she unknowingly reached into Nihility's grasp? Or had it always been there, waiting for her to acknowledge it?

The space around her shifted. Images flickered in and out of her mind—debilitating weakness, the sensation of enemies growing sluggish, their very strength drained from them. Debuffs, curses, entropy. The power of Nihility was not destruction, not in the way Fire burned or Lightning strikes. It was the slow, inevitable unraveling of all things.

And yet, it had noticed her.

"Your potential is limitless. I wish to see what you will become."

The black hole pulsed, and for the first time, Ellen felt something other than numbness.

A choice.

Would she let herself fade into the nothingness Nihility promised? Or would she take that gaze upon herself and forge her own path, no matter how bleak?

Somewhere, in the distance, she could hear her name. Miyabi… Her heart ached. Her soul, despite being held in Nihility's grip, burned.

She had to go back.

The stars around her swirled, and the black hole loomed closer. Choose.

Ellen clenched what she imagined were her fists.

She would not fade. She would not be nothing.

She chose to fight.

As the weight of Ellen's presence settled upon New Eridu, an unnatural silence washed over the city. Every living being, from the strongest Hollow Investigator to the lowliest scavenger, felt it—a suffocating pressure that gripped their souls. It was as if Death itself had stirred from its slumber, and those who still drew breath could only wait for its judgment.

Mira, the Twin Marionettes—everyone turned towards the epicenter of this dread. Ellen rose slowly, her form obscured by the frost-laden mist that clung to her like an ethereal shroud. As the haze thinned, her transformation became visible, and the sight was nothing short of terrifying.

Ellen's body was changed—evolved beyond recognition. Her once-wild shark-like traits had been refined into something more ominous, more absolute. Her skin was pallid, tinged with a ghostly blue hue, as if life itself struggled to remain within her. Her eyes, once filled with determination and sharp wit, now gleamed with an eerie, abyssal glow—one eye a piercing, frozen blue, the other a deep crimson that burned like the last embers of a dying world. The jagged scars along her body pulsed with a dim, unnatural light, remnants of the power that had rewritten her very being.

Her weapon—her giant scissors—had not been spared from this metamorphosis. Once crude yet effective, the blade had transformed into an elegant yet horrifying instrument of death. It was no longer a simple pair of shears, but something far beyond mortal craftsmanship. The metal glistened unnaturally, shifting between hues of deep black and shimmering silver, as though it did not exist entirely within this world. Frost and shadows coiled around it, a cold mist exuding from the edges, each motion whispering the promise of oblivion.

Mira's breath hitched. Her body trembled, not out of fear, but from sheer awe. Her mind struggled to process what she was seeing, and for a long moment, she could do nothing but stare. Then, like a child witnessing their parent perform an impossible feat, her lips parted in wordless wonder. Her mother—her mother—was beyond anything she had ever imagined.

Her eyes sparkled, shimmering with admiration, and she barely managed to breathe out, "...So cool..."

Ellen turned towards Mira, her expression unreadable at first. Then, with a gentleness that defied her overwhelming presence, she raised a hand and ruffled Mira's hair. "You did well, Mira. You protected yourself. I'm proud of you."

Mira's heart swelled. The warmth of those words threatened to bring tears to her eyes, but she refused to cry. Instead, she beamed, a smile so bright it could have melted the ice forming around them.

But the moment was short-lived. Ellen's gaze shifted to the Twin Marionettes, still locked in instinctual terror, gripping each other's hands in a desperate attempt at solace. Their bodies trembled as Ellen took slow, deliberate steps toward them, each footfall sending tremors through the frozen ground. The weight of inevitability pressed down upon them as they realized their fate had already been decided.

With a single, effortless swing of her weapon, the world itself seemed to hold its breath. The blade carved through the air, and in an instant, the Marionettes were no more. The force of the attack did not stop at them—the entire Section 6 building behind them was erased in a wave of frost and destruction, frozen solid before shattering into glacial dust.

Mira could only stare in breathless amazement. No words came to her, only the overwhelming, childlike awe of watching a parent do something so utterly beyond comprehension. Ellen turned, walking back toward her, and the world—once drowned in nihility—slowly regained its color.

Mira took one shaky step forward, still staring, still processing. And then, in a voice filled with unfiltered admiration, she whispered once more,

"So. Freaking. Cool."