Yuto dreamed of shadows.
Not the kind that dance on walls or slink beneath streetlamps—but alive shadows. Hulking figures with hollow eyes, stitched mouths, and a hunger that felt older than the loops themselves.
He stood in a long corridor lined with mirrors. Each mirror reflected a version of him—a laughing Yuto, a crying one, a broken one with bloodied hands. But in the last mirror stood something else entirely.
It was him.
And not him.
Red eyes. A grin stretched too wide. And no light in his gaze.
"Soon," it whispered. "We won't be separate anymore."
---
Reality. Morning.
Yuto bolted upright in bed, cold sweat soaking through his shirt.
"Okay," he mumbled, clutching his forehead. "That one was new."
Yuzu peeked in, holding a spoon and a cup of cereal.
"Dreaming of evil clones again?"
He blinked. "Wait, how'd you—?"
"You sleep-talked something about 'merging with the darkness and unlocking forbidden timeline abilities.' So… cereal?"
---
At School
News of "the masked guy" had already become the latest conspiracy at school. Some students claimed it was a government agent. Others thought it was part of a secret VR game.
Only four people knew the truth.
Yuto sat under the cherry tree in the courtyard with Aira, Hiro, and Kana. The usual morning light felt off, like the sky had a cold filter over it.
"We need to talk about the thing I saw," Yuto said.
Aira frowned. "Which one? There's a growing list."
He explained the dream—the corridor of mirrors, the red-eyed doppelgänger, the whisper.
Kana grew still. "That wasn't a dream. That was Voidlinking."
"Void-what now?" Hiro asked.
"It's rare," she said. "When a Looper begins to fracture from too many resets, they can manifest a 'Shadow Self'—the part of them that gets left behind. The damage. The pain. The rage."
Yuto felt his stomach twist.
"So... it's like my ghost? My corrupted twin?"
"Worse," Aira said. "It's you with no humanity. Just the part that wants to escape the loop at any cost."
---
That Afternoon
They went to the old gym—now their unofficial base of operations. Kana set up an EMF scanner that was probably just a baby monitor duct-taped to a Game Boy, but it beeped anyway.
"It's strongest here," she said. "There's a temporal fracture."
And then the lights flickered.
The air got cold.
From the far corner of the gym, black smoke slithered up the wall like a reversed waterfall. It curled into a form—humanoid. Familiar.
Yuto's Shadow.
It looked like him—same face, same uniform—but all in monochrome. Like the life had been drained away. Its eyes glowed red.
"Found you," it said.
---
Action erupts.
Hiro grabbed a mop. "Shadow clone or not, I'll beat the darkness outta you!"
The Shadow knocked him back with a pulse of energy.
Aira summoned her light—a ripple of gold that briefly pushed the Shadow back.
Yuto stepped forward, fists clenched.
"You're me."
"I was," the Shadow hissed. "But I'm tired of being the part you hide."
With a roar, it charged—and Yuto met it head-on.
Their fists collided.
BOOM.
The force shattered a window.
Time warped. Again.
---
Yuto's vision blurred.
He stood back in the mirror corridor.
This time, the mirrors shattered around him. Only one remained.
The Shadow stepped through.
"You're not ready yet," it said. "But you will be. And when you are… I'll be waiting."
It vanished.
---
Back in the real world
Yuto gasped, stumbling to the floor. Aira caught him.
"It's gone," she said. "For now."
He looked at his hands. They were glowing faintly again—this time, not gold or blue… but tinged with black.
"I think… I didn't fight it off," Yuto said. "I absorbed part of it."
Kana looked alarmed. "That's not how that's supposed to work."
Yuzu, who had arrived just in time with snacks, blinked. "Okay, this arc just hit 'emotional boss battle' levels of chaos."
Hiro moaned from the ground. "Next time I'm bringing a real weapon. Like a frying pan."
---
Later That Night
The Shadow stood at the edge of the city, in a part of the timeline no one could access.
Another figure approached. Masked. Familiar.
"You've touched him already?" the Masked Stranger asked.
The Shadow Yuto nodded. "He's cracking faster than expected."
The Mask tilted its head. "Then we accelerate the plan. The Gift must awaken. And then… we reset them all."
---