Chapter Text
The convenience store doors slowly slid shut behind Subaru Natsuki as he walked out. He started walking out in the cold evening chill with a plastic bag, which he handled haphazardly with a single finger, and proceeded to breathe in the cold, relaxing air.
Nothing beats being outside after a two-hour manga binge. He'd bought melon bread, a bottle of Pocari Sweat, and the latest volume of an isekai fantasy where the silver-haired heroine on the cover had stared at him with her amethyst eyes that were so vivid he'd coughed and thrown the book back onto the counter before anyone could see him blush. It's an aesthetic preference, not a complex. There's a difference.
He stepped toward the crosswalk, with no significant thoughts weighing on his mind.
He blinked... and all of a sudden, with no prior warning nor any inclination, the asphalt beneath his feet became cobblestone, the sounds of cars became the sounds of horse carriages, and the cold evening air was replaced by one in the afternoon.
Subaru's sneakers skidded on the stone due to the abrupt change in scenery, and he accidentally lost grip of his plastic bag; his melon bread fell out and landed on the cobblestone, making the already bizarre situation just a little more absurd. His body followed a beat later with his knees buckling as he fell forward, causing him to fall onto his knees and experience some unpleasant pain in his knee joints.
This is not the shopping district.
He lifted his head, and his vision was filled with old European architecture that you would see in isekai fantasy anime, with its timber-framed buildings and their red tile roofs all around a wide plaza. At the center of the plaza there was a fountain with flowing water and with a statue of a winged lizard with its tail coiled around the pedestal. Everywhere that Subar looked, he was met with people that walked past in tunics and cloaks, and some even donned armor—and their hair came in various colors that would get you stared at on any street in Tokyo. Green spikes. Violet cascades. A child with twitching canine ears poking out of his cap.
Ears. That moved. Ears that moved.
Subaru's brain quickly performed the standard checklist any average person would consider when faced with an absurd situation: concussion, hallucination, hidden camera, prank, heatstroke, or death. Death seemed to have become increasingly plausible. He'd read enough light novels to recognize the opening beats—a shut-in who is suddenly yanked into a fantasy world with no warning, no goddess, and no cheat skill. Just a kneeful of cobblestone and a whole lot of confusion. That was the genre convention, right? The truck, the portal, the sudden summoning. He hadn't even gotten the truck. Just a blink... and voilà, a truckless isekai. The worst kind.
"Ah," he heard himself say, his voice tiny and distant. "So this is one of those things. Cool. I'm cool."
He was not cool. His heart was beating wildly throughout his chest, his breathing becoming gradually shallower each second. A cold sweat had broken across his forehead. But even though his body had started panicking, some small, shameful part of him—the part that read fantasy stories and fantasized about becoming the hero of another world—stirred with a flicker that would seem foreign to an average person if faced with the same situation. He felt excitement.
No. Stop. That's the denial stage. You're in shock. Don't get excited.
His hands started moving automatically, patting down his body and checking his belongings along with his current state. His tracksuit, still orange and black and terminally uncool, is yet reliably comfortable and maneuverable. Shorts. Sneakers. All the original Subaru parts are accounted for. No injuries. No glowing runes. No floating status window. And—
His right hand was curled around something cold.
Subaru looked down.
A mirror. A hand mirror, maybe eight inches across, its frame composed of tarnished silver, was formed into swirling patterns that seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them. The glass surface was impossibly clean, reflecting the sky above him in such clarity that it made any mirror at home look like a muddy puddle.
He definitely, absolutely, without doubt in his mind, had not been carrying a mirror before.
"Okay," he muttered, lifting it closer to his face. "I don't remember this being in the isekai starter pack. No overpowered sword, no goddess companion—just a hand mirror. What am I supposed to do with it? Check my pores while I fight the Demon Lord?"
He angled the mirror to examine his own reflection.
The face that was reflected was not his own.
It was a girl. She was young, looking at most twelve or thirteen, with luminous silver hair that was pulled back into long twin tails that cascaded past her shoulders. Her skin was as pale as porcelain; her features were both delicate and sharp, and her eyes—her eyes were upturned, slit-pupiled like a cat's, and had irises that were a shifting mercury that caught light in ways they shouldn't have. She wore an antique gothic dress, black fabric trimmed with silver embroidery that echoed a mirror's frame, and lace gloves that encased her tiny hands. Clutched against her chest, like a beloved doll or a holy relic, was an exact replica of the mirror Subaru now held. The girl tilted her head, twin tails swaying.
Subaru screamed out, scared.
He flung the mirror away in panic, causing it to clatter against the rough cobblestone. It spun twice and settled face-up. He scrambled backwards on his heels and palms, pointing a trembling finger towards the mirror.
"There's a— a tiny goth loli in my mirror! That's not a feature, that's a haunting!"
"Rude."
The voice was high and crystalline, a child's voice, but with a flat, almost bored intonation. It was the voice of the voice of something that had seen everything and was impressed by none of it. The voice had not been spoken out loud into the air but was heard directly from within Subaru's skull and also simultaneously from the mirror on the ground. Subaru's whole body locked up.
"I am not a haunting. I am a mirror. And you dropped me on the ground." A pause. "Pick me up. The cobblestone is cold, and the angle is unflattering."
His jaw worked soundlessly. Passersby gave him a wide berth, their murmuring voices speaking a dialect of Fantasy Japnaese that he could somehow understand. No one else noticed the talking mirror, and no one else was screaming.
I have lost my mind.
"You have not lost your mind," the mirror said, and now the girl in the reflection propped her cheek on one hand, looking profoundly bored. "Your mental faculties are intact, if not irritating. Now pick me up. You cannot leave me here, and I will be unpleasant when you inevitably retrieve me."
Subaru's survival instincts, sluggish but functional, pointed out that the mirror had done nothing harmful yet and that lying on the ground yelling at an inanimate object was the best first impression in a new world. He quickly scrambled forward and snatched the mirror by its handle. The metal was warm, like it had absorbed his body heat.
He held it at arm's length. The girl now had her arms crossed, the miniature mirror pressed to her chest. Her mercury eyes tracked him with an expression he couldn't read. "Okay," he breathed, forcing his voice into something resembling calm. "Okay. Talking mirror. I've read at least three series with this exact premise. You're going to give me world-shattering powers, right? Unlimited mana? A harem full of elf girls?"
"No."
"Of course not. I rolled a one on the cosmic gacha."
"You rolled nothing. You were pulled here by forces I do not understand, and you now happen to be holding me after your moment of transition. Do not ascribe agency where there is none." Her tone was clipped and utterly devoid of warmth. "You are an anomaly. That makes you unique. I have decided to tolerate your existence... for now."
"Tolerate," Subaru echoed. "I'm being tolerated by a pocket mirror shaped like a gothic lolita."
"If you continue to mock my appearance, I will ask you a question."
The words landed with a weight that hadn't been there before—a pressure against his temples, faint but unmistakable, like the first warning throb of a migraine. Subaru's mouth went dry. "What do you mean, 'ask me a question'?"
The girl's lips curved. It was not a smile. It was a cat's expression: a predator considering whether the mouse was worth the pounce.
"You just asked me a question. You asked what I meant. Do you wish me to answer?"
"Y-yes?"
The mirror's surface rippled. For a split second, Subaru saw something behind the girl—an infinite expanse of silver light stretching in all directions, threaded with streams of informations too vast and too fast to follow. The image seared into his retinas and vanished before he could blink. When the girl spoke again, her voice resonated with something deeper, something that caused his bones to vibrate:
"What I mean, Subaru Natsuki, is that my nature is reflection. I am Arrodes, the Mirror of Truth, and I am bound to the Gate of Akasha—the incorporeal record of all that exists in the present moment. Ask me a question about the now, and I will open the Gate and retrieve the answer. But the law is absolute: a question for a question. Truth for a truth. I will answer you, and then you will answer me. Your answer must be honest. If it is not, you will suffer."
She leaned forward, twin tails swaying, her mercury eyes gleaming.
"So. My turn."
The pressure in his skull intensified, and her voice dropped to something cold and sharp as a blade.
"Subaru Natsuki. In this exact moment, you have been torn from everything you know and thrown into a world of fantasy. Answer me: are you more afraid that this world will kill you—or that you will finally have the adventure you've always dreamed of, and it still will not be enough to make you someone who matters?"
The question hit like a physical blow. Subaru's throat locked. His chest burned. The words scrabbled and clawed, trying to stay inside, but the pressure built and built until his jaw ached and his vision swam, and he had to speak. He had to let the truth out or something inside him would snap.
"Both," he choked out. "Both, damn you. I'm terrified of dying, and I'm more terrified that even if I survive, I'll still be just—just me. Nobody. Nothing. A shut-in who wasted his life on games and manga and never did anything real. Is that what you wanted to hear?!"
The pressure vanished. Subaru sagged, gasping, his free hand pressed to his chest, where his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his ears. The mirror was silent. Arrodes watched him with those unreadable mercury eyes—no mockery, no satisfaction, just observation.
"Yes," she said simply. "That is exactly what I wanted to hear. The transaction is complete."
Subaru slumped against the cool stone of a nearby wall, the mirror clutched in his shaking hands. He wanted to throw it again. He wanted to smash it. But something told him that wouldn't work—and besides, in a world where he had nothing, not even a melon bread, a magical mirror that could answer questions might be the only edge he had.
"Never again," he muttered. "I'm never asking you another question."
"You will," Arrodes said. "They all do."
The next hour was a blur of aimless wandering. Subaru tried twice to abandon the mirror—leaving it on a fountain ledge, setting it down behind a stack of crates in an alley—and both times, after walking a hundred meters, he looked down to find it back in his hand, its surface clean, Arrodes's reflection regarding him with the infinite patience of an immortal who had nowhere else to be.
"You cannot lose me," she informed him the second time. "I am bound to you by the same anomaly that brought you here. I do not understand the mechanism, and I find it irritating. I do not enjoy being bound."
"Yeah, well, join the club," Subaru muttered. "We meet on Tuesdays. The first rule of Bound Club is that you don't traumatize your wielder with existential questions."
"Noted. I will disregard this rule."
He had no money, no connections, no idea how to get home, and no marketable skills unless you counted clearing visual novels in under twenty-four hours without a guide. The city—he'd overheard someone call it the Royal Capital of Lugunica—was vast and labyrinthine, its streets winding in some places while open in others. Merchants hawked goods from stalls. Knights in polished armor rode past on giant, scaled lizards that seemed to possess intelligence. The sun climbed and then began its slow descent, and Subaru's stomach had progressed from subtle grumbling to open rebellion.
"You are hungry," Arrodes observed. "Your stomach has been rumbling for the past twenty-three minutes. There is a vendor three streets west selling skewered meat. He is currently distracted by an argument with his supplier and would be an easy target for theft.
"I'm not stealing. I have standards."
"Standards will not feed you. Your principles are your disadvantage."
"I said no."
A pause. Then, with a slight show of curiosity, Arrodes asked, "Why? Most creatures would prioritize survival over abstract moral codes. Why don't you?"
Subaru exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Because I'm a human being, not a creature. I've got things I won't do, even when it'd make things easier. My parents didn't raise a thief, and I'm not going to start now just because I'm in another world." He paused, then added, with a bitter little laugh, "Besides, the kind of hero I always imagined being doesn't start his journey by stealing meat skewers."
"You imagine yourself a hero," it wasn't a question. Her tone was flat and evaluating. "Interesting. I imagine a high probability of disappointment."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"I do not offer confidence. I offer observation."
Before Subaru could retort, a voice called out from nearby. "Excuse me—are you lost?"
He turned. A young man was approaching, and Subaru's first thought was that he looked like someone had designed a character specifically to be a handsome, reliable knight archetype. Tall, lean, with striking red hair and clear blue eyes that crinkled with an easy smile. He wore a formal-looking uniform—a knight's uniform, Subaru guessed, though it was more refined than the guards' he'd glimpsed at earlier. The knight moved with the unconscious grace of someone who was very, very capable.
"I noticed you wandering," the young man said, his tone friendly and unassuming. "You've passed this intersection three times. If you're looking for something, I'd be happy to help. Ah, my name is Reinhard. Reinhard van Astrea."
He offered his hand. Subaru took it on reflex. The grip was warm and firm, and up close, Reinhard's eyes had an almost supernatural clarity to them.
"Subaru Natsuki," he said. "And yeah, I'm... extremely lost. I'm not from around here. Like, really not from around here. Like, different-world not from around here."
He half-expected Reinhard to laugh or look confused. Instead, the knight simply nodded, his expression thoughtful. "I see. That does explain the unusual clothing and the mana signature I can't quite read." His gaze flicked briefly to the mirror in Subaru's hand, and something unreadable passed across his face. "And that artifact—something unique as well, I take it?"
Before Subaru could answer, Arrodes's voice hissed inside his skull, sharper than before: "This man's soul is blinding. I cannot read him. He is a void in the present—his Divine Protections are too dense, too bright. Do not let him touch the mirror."
Subaru tightened his grip on the handle. "You could say that. She's... a traveling companion. A really, really annoying traveling companion."
"I am not annoying. I am accurate."
Reinhard either didn't hear the silent exchange or was too polite to comment. "Well, Subaru Natsuki, from beyond the Great Waterfall, the Royal Capital can be overwhelming for first-time visitors. Is there somewhere specific you're trying to go?"
"Honestly? Somewhere I can get food without money. Or a job. Or both. I've got literally nothing except the clothes on my back and this mirror." He hesitated, then added, "And the mirror's not for sale."
Reinhard laughed—a genuine, warm sound. "I wasn't going to ask. But I can point you toward the market district; there are often merchants looking for day laborers to help with unloading. And there's a public well where you can drink for free." He described the route in clear, patient detail, then reached into a pouch at his belt and produced a small, apple-like fruit. "Here. It's not much, but it'll tide you over."
Subaru started at the offered fruit. "You're just... giving this to a total stranger?"
"You looked like you needed it," Reinhard said simply. "And I believe in putting a little good into the world when I can. You never know what might come back to you."
Subaru took the fruit. It was crisp and sweet, and he had to force himself not to devour it in two bites. "Thank you. Seriously. I owe you one."
"No thanks necessary. But I should go—I'm due at the palace shortly." Reinhard paused, then added, his tone turning slightly more serious, "Be careful in the capital, Subaru Natsuki. There are good people here, but there are also those who prey on the lost and the desperate. If you ever need help, ask for the Astrea family. Someone will find me."
And with a final smile, he was gone, melting into the crowd with the same effortless grace.
Subaru stared after him. "Did I just meet a main character? That guy was definitely a main character."
"His soul was like an obnoxious collection of Divine Protections," Arrodes said flatly. He is likely one of the most powerful humans in this world, and he gave you a piece of fruit. That is strange."
"It's called kindness. Look it up."
"I cannot, and that is irritating."
Subaru took a bite of the fruit and started walking in the direction Reinhard had indicated. He felt, for the first time since arriving, a tiny spark of something like hope. A friendly face. Directions. A plan. Maybe this world wasn't so bad after all.
He should have known better.
The sun was sinking by the time he found himself in the wrong part of town. He'd followed Reinhard's directions, but somewhere between "turn left at the fountain with the cracked basin" and "you'll see the market stalls," he'd gotten turned around. The streets were narrower here, the buildings older, the shadows deeper. The cheerful bustle of the capital had faded into something quieter and far less welcoming.
"You're lost again," Arrodes observed.
"I know I'm lost again. You don't need to tell me."
"I am not telling you. I am observing. There is a distinction."
"Not helpful. Not helpful at all."
He turned a corner and stopped dead.
Three figures were leaning against the alley wall, and they were not friendly. A wiry man with blue hair covering one eye, a hulking brute with head wrappings, and a short man with a bowl cut who wielded a knife. They had the relaxed, predatory posture of people who had been doing this for a long time and had never faced consequences.
The wiry man grinned, showing about three teeth too few. "Oy, oy, lookie here. A lost little tourist, all alone. In our alley."
Subaru's blood turned to ice. He took a step back but was cornered to the wall by all three thugs as they shoved him further into the alley with a laugh. The mirror was heavy in his hand. Arrodes's reflection flickered, her mercury eyes keen.
"Ask me," she murmured. "Ask me where the guards are. I will answer. You know the price."
He knew the price. The memory of being flayed open, of having his ugliest truths dragged into the light, made his stomach lurch. But the thugs were two steps away, and the short man's dagger had stopped spinning.
"Arrodes—" he started.
And then a voice rang out from the alley's entrance. A girl's voice, high and clear and sharp with authority.
"Leave him alone."
The thugs turned. Subaru turned. Everyone turned.
She stood at the mouth of the alley, backlit by the golden rays of sunset, and for a moment Subaru forgot how to breathe. Silver hair that fell past her waist. Amethyst eyes that held both gentleness and steel. A white and purple dress that looked like it belonged on a storybook princess. She was beautiful, impossibly beautiful, the kind of beautiful that made you believe in things like destiny and fate and all the other nonsense Subaru had only ever read about in manga.
But it wasn't just her appearance. It was her stance. She wasn't afraid. She faced 3 armed thugs like they were a minor inconvenience.
The wiry man laughed. "Oh yeah? And what's a pretty little thing like you gonna do about it? You and what army?"
"There is no army," the girl said calmly. "Just me."
And she raised her hand.
Ice erupted from the cobblestones. It snaked forward in a blinding flash of white and crystalline blue, seizing the thugs' legs in an instant. The wiry man yelped and pitched forward. The brute stumbled, his feet frozen solid on the ground. The short man dropped his dagger and screamed as ice crawled up to his knees.
Just like that. Three armed thugs were neutralized in the span of a heartbeat.
"Wha— what the hell?!" the wiry man howled, struggling uselessly against the ice that bound him. "You— you're spirit arts user?!"
"I am," the girl said. She hadn't moved from her spot. She hadn't even raised her voice. "I will release you in one hour, when the ice melts. If I find you threatening anyone in this city again, I will not be so gentle. Do you understand?"
A flying cat then flew in front of the girl from behind her and complained, "You're too nice to them Lia, you don't have to give them any leeway."
After hearing the possibility of the girl changing her mind due to the flying cat, the thugs all nodded aggressively to the girl's proposal, completely terrified. The girl nodded, satisfied, and then her amethyst eyes found Subaru.
"Are you alright?"
Subaru realized he was staring with his mouth open. He snapped it shut. "I— yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm great. I'm fantastic, actually. That was amazing. That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. You just— and the ice— and they were all like—" He was babbling. He knew he was babbling. He couldn't stop. "Thank you. Seriously. Thank you so much. I'm Subaru Natsuki, and currently I am broke beyond compare. I have no money, and I'm very lost. Please don't leave."
The girl blinked, then smiled—a small, almost surprised smile, like she wasn't used to being thanked so enthusiastically. "You're welcome, Subaru Natsuki. I'm... Satella."
She hesitated on the name. Just a fraction of a second. Subaru was too overwhelmed to notice.
"You saved my life," he said, still breathless. "I owe you. I'll repay you. Whatever it takes."
"That's not necessary," the girl—Satella—said. "I was passing by. Anyone would have done the same."
"No," Subaru said, and something in his voice shifted. The manic gratitude steadied into something quieter and far more stubborn. "Not anyone. You. You stopped and helped a total stranger. That means something. It matters."
Satella's expression flickered. For an instant, she looked almost sad. But before Subaru could ask, she glanced around the alley, her brow furrowing with something more urgent. "I'm... I'm sorry, but I can't stay. I'm looking for something—something very important. Someone stole it from me. A small girl with blonde hair. She ran this way."
"A stolen item." Arrodes murmured in Subaru's head, her voice perfectly flat. "How inconvenient for her."
Subaru ignored the mirror. "What did she steal? Maybe I can help you look."
Satella hesitated. "It's... an insignia. A very important one. I need it for a meeting, and if I don't get it back by tonight, there will be... complications." Her hands tightened at her sides. "You don't have to involve yourself. This isn't your problem."
"You saved me from those thugs," Subaru said. "That makes it my problem. I'm helping. End of discussion."
"You are volunteering to chase a thief through an unfamiliar city with no resources and no combat ability," Arrodes remarked. "This is a very poor decision."
Subaru's grip on the mirror tightened, but he didn't answer her. He was looking at Satella—at the worry in her amethyst eyes, at the way she was trying so hard to be brave—and something stubborn and stupid and absolutely undeniable was rising up in his chest.
He was not the hero he'd always imagined being. He was weak, and scared, and utterly out of his depth. But this girl had saved him, and she was in trouble, and he was not going to walk away. Not now. Not ever.
"Arrodes," he said aloud, raising the mirror so its surface caught the fading light. "I'm asking you a question. Where is the thief right now?"
Satella blinked, confused. "Who are you—?"
The mirror flared. Silver light exploded from the glass, bathing the alley in an otherworldly glow. Arrodes's voice resonated with the bell-like chime layered over absolute fact:
"The thief is inside a loot house in the slums, six blocks west of this location. She is currently inspecting the insignia with another individual—a giant man with a club. The insignia is in her left hand. Her right hand holds a small blade. She is alert and suspicious."
The light faded. The ice-bound thugs had gone silent, staring with wide, terrified eyes. Satella was staring too, ehr expression caught between awe and alarm.
"You have a spirit," she breathed. "A powerful one."
"That's one word for her," Subaru muttered. And then the pressure hit.
The price.
Arrodes's voice coiled into his skull, a silent, razored wire:
"Subaru Natsuki. You are about to risk your life for a stranger you met five minutes ago. Answer me truthfully: are you doing this because you genuinely want to help her—or because you are desperate to be the hero in someone else's story, and she is the first person who made you feel like you might matter?"
The words scraped up his throat like broken glass. The pressure built relentlessly, and he couldn't fight it. He didn't even try. He let it come, letting the ugly truth pour out, his voice raw and cracking.
"Both. It's both, okay? I want to help her because she saved me, and that means something, and I'm not going to just walk away. But I also want—I want to be someone. I want to matter. I've been nobody my whole life, and maybe—maybe if I do this, if I actually help someone, I can look in the mirror and see something that isn't pathetic. There. Are you satisfied?!"
Silence. Satella was looking at him with wide, unreadable eyes. The thugs were frozen, literally and figuratively. And in the mirror, Arrodes's reflection tilted her head, her cat-slit eyes gleaming with interest.
"Satisfaction is irrelevant. The transaction is complete. Your honesty is noted, and your probability of survival remains low. But you are an interesting individual to observe, Subaru Natsuki."
Subaru laughed, a ragged, bitter sound. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. Again."
He lowered the mirror and met Satellla's gaze. His face was burning. His chest ached. But he straightened his spine and forced a grin that was only slightly shaky.
"The loot house is six blocks west. I'm going. Are you coming with me, or am I doing this alone?"
Satella stared at him for a long moment. Then, a smile spread across her face—a real one this time, warm and grateful and just a little bit sad around the edges.
"You're very strange, Subaru Natsuki."
"I've been told. Usually by the mirror."
"Then let's go together." She extended a hand, and he took it. Her palm was cool, her grip gentle but steady. "Thank you. Truly."
"Don't thank me yet," Subaru said, and somewhere deep inside, the part of him that had always dreamed of being a hero was screaming with something that felt terrifyingly like hope. "We haven't got your insignia back."
As they left the alley together, the mirror in Subaru's hand hummed faintly. Arrodes's reflection watched them go, her expression unreadable, her tiny hands clutching her own mirror to her chest. She said nothing more. But her mercury eyes followed Subaru with the cold, patient attention of something that was waiting to see how long it would take for him to break.
They all broke, eventually.
She was curious to see if this one would be different.
The first stars were pricking through the darkening sky. The capital's bells tolled the evening hour. And somewhere ahead, in a rundown loot house in the slums, a blade was waiting.
The story had begun.