She dreamed of the forest. The very same one where she had first seen Randell. He lay on the ground, bleeding out, while she stood over him in golden armor, her hand raised to give the signal. Everything was exactly as it had been back then. But something was wrong.
The forest felt different. The shadows were longer. The silence was heavier. And instead of Leo and Torglin hiding invisibly nearby, she was completely alone.
“Amanda.”
The voice was her own, yet not hers. She turned around.
A mirror stood before her. Huge, set in a heavy black frame that had never been in the forest. And in that mirror… stood
him
.
Yamada Light.
She recognized him instantly. Or what was left of him.
Short black hair matted with blood. His face was shattered — the same car accident, the same moment when glass and metal had turned a living person into… this. His nose was broken and twisted to the side. His left cheekbone was crushed, dark, almost black blood oozing from the deep wound. His lip was torn, and when he spoke, crimson droplets sprayed from his mouth. One eye was swollen shut, the other red and bloodshot, but still staring. Staring straight at her.
He was wearing his usual clothes — a cheap sweater, jeans, old sneakers. All soaked in blood. Everything drenched in it. A law student who had dreamed of becoming a prosecutor. Who had died in that accident. Who… had been
her
.
“Have you forgotten?” His voice was calm. Too calm for someone with half his face destroyed.
“I…” Amanda stumbled backward. “I didn’t…”
“You forgot,” he repeated. Blood dripped from his chin onto his sweater. Drip. Drip. Drip. “You forgot who you are. You forgot what came before. You forgot that this body — it’s not fucking yours!”
He took a step forward inside the mirror, and his face began to change — not in its features, but in its very integrity. Fresh streams of blood ran down his forehead. From his nose. From the corner of his torn lips. Blood flooded his face, but he didn’t wipe it away. He didn’t even seem to notice. As if he had grown used to it.
“Do you really think you are her?” His voice grew louder, and with every word, crimson droplets sprayed from his shattered mouth. “Do you think these tears, this love, this… this weakness — belongs to you?”
“It is mine!” Amanda shouted. “I feel it! I’m alive! I—”
“You’re living
her
life!” He slammed his fist against the glass, and the mirror cracked. His knuckles split open, blood pouring out, but he didn’t stop. “You wear her face! You sleep with her man! You die for her people! So where are
you
, Light? Where is the person who studied law codes, who dreamed of justice, who… who died in a filthy ditch, unwanted by anyone?!”
He tore at the mirror from the inside. His fists hammered against the glass as cracks spread like a spiderweb. Blood flowed down his wrists and dripped onto the floor. There was too much blood. Far too much for a living person.
“You’ve become her! You’ve become Amanda! You’ve forgotten what it means to be a man! What it means to be Yamada Light!”
His hand broke through the mirror.
Shards exploded outward, and Amanda screamed as his fingers closed around her throat. They were cold. Dead. Real. And wet — sticky with blood that should never have remained in a corpse.
“Have
you
forgotten who you are?!” His face was inches from hers, his breath burning her skin. Blood dripped from his face onto her cheeks. Onto her lips. Into her eyes. “You’re a guy! You’re Yamada Light! You were supposed to become a prosecutor! You were supposed to get married! You were supposed to have your own life! Not this… not this stolen… not this…”
He was choking on his words. On blood. On tears. Tears stood in his eyes — in her eyes — mixing with the blood on his shattered cheekbones.
“I didn’t want to die,” he whispered. Blood flowed steadily from his torn lip down his chin. “I didn’t want to become her. I didn’t want…”
“I didn’t want this either,” Amanda said, staring at him — at herself, at who she had once been. At the dead man who refused to stay silent. “But it happened. And I… I can’t go back.”
“You didn’t even try!”
“I did!” She broke free, and his fingers slipped from her throat, leaving bloody streaks behind. “I tried! I wanted to go back! I looked for a way! But there isn’t one! There is no way back, Light! Do you understand? No road back!”
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He stood before her, on the other side of the shattered mirror, his hands covered in blood. Her hands. His hands. Their hands. His face was broken, twisted, drenched in blood, but he kept staring. He had always stared.
“Then why did you call me?” he asked. “Why did you remember?”
“I didn’t call you.”
“You did,” he smirked, and fresh blood trickled from his torn lip. “You started to forget. You started to feel. You started… to love. And your memory — my memory —
our
memory… it got scared. What if you forget completely? What if nothing of Yamada Light remains? What if… what if you become nothing but Amanda?”
“And what’s so wrong with that?” she whispered. “What’s so wrong with just being myself?”
He looked at her. For a long time. A very long time. Blood streamed down his face, dripping onto the shards of glass at his feet. He didn’t wipe it away. He didn’t even seem to notice. As if he had grown used to being dead.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m just… scared. Scared of disappearing. Scared of ceasing to exist. Scared that you… that you’ll be happy. Without me.”
“But you
are
me,” Amanda said, stepping closer to the shattered mirror. Glass crunched under her feet. “You’re a part of me. Always. No matter what happens. No matter who I become. You were the first. You’re the one who made me strong. You’re the one who taught me how to fight. You’re the one who…”
She fell silent as tears choked her. She stared at his broken face. At the blood that wouldn’t stop flowing. At the dead man who refused to die completely.
“You’re the one who gave me this chance,” she continued. “To live. To love. To
be
.”
He stood opposite her, on the other side of the glass, his face wet with tears and blood. Tears mixed with blood, sliding down his shattered cheekbone and falling onto his torn sweater.
“What if you forget?” he asked. “Completely?”
“I won’t forget,” she said, reaching out to touch the broken mirror. Shards dug into her fingers. “I promise. I’ll remember. Always.”
He looked at her hand. At the blood that mixed with his own. At the shards that separated them.
“Alright,” he said. Blood continued to drip from his chin onto his chest. Drip. Drip. Drip. “Remember. Remember that I existed. Remember that we existed. Remember…”
His voice grew quieter as the mirror began to heal. The cracks closed, the shards slid back into place, and he retreated deeper into the glass. The blood on his face vanished. The wounds closed. But his eyes — those red, bloodshot eyes — stayed fixed on her until the very end.
“Remember who you are,” he whispered. “Remember where you came from. And… be happy. Okay?”
“Light!” She struck the mirror, but it was whole again. Smooth. Cold. In it reflected only her — Amanda. A woman with red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. And bloody marks on her neck.
“Light!” she cried out. “Light!”
“Amanda! Amanda, wake up!”
She opened her eyes. Randell was holding her by the shoulders, his face pale with worry.
“You were screaming,” he said. “You were screaming in your sleep.”
She stared at him — at his anxious eyes, at his hands gripping her shoulders, at his lips that had just whispered her name.
“I had a nightmare,” she whispered. “A bad one.”
“What was it about?”
She wanted to tell him. She wanted to say that she wasn’t really Amanda. That she was a guy from another world who had died in a car crash and was now living in someone else’s body. That she had deceived everyone. That she wasn’t a goddess. Not a Guardian. Just… a dead person pretending to be alive.
But the words stuck in her throat.
“I don’t remember,” she said. “It was just… scary.”
He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her tightly, just like he had after the battle.
“It’s alright,” he murmured. “I’m here. I’m right here. Nothing bad is going to happen.”
She pressed herself against him, feeling the warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart. And she felt the bloody streaks on her neck slowly drying — the ones left by cold, dead fingers.
I can’t tell him,
she thought.
Not now. Not after everything. I can’t… I can’t lose him.
“Tell me something,” she asked softly. “Something good.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he began to speak.
“When I was little, I was afraid of the dark,” he said. “Not because I thought there were monsters. But because I was scared that when morning came, everything would be different. That I’d wake up and my mother would be gone. My father would be gone. Our home would be gone.”
“And what happened?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he kissed the top of her head. “Everything was always the same. But I was still afraid. Every single night. Until I grew up.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m afraid of something else,” he looked at her. “That you’ll disappear. That one day you’ll wake up and realize I’m not worth you. That…”
“Don’t say that,” she covered his mouth with her palm. “Never. Do you hear me?”
He kissed her palm. Then her wrist. Then her lips.
“Alright,” he said. “I won’t.”
She smiled. She was scared. She was hurting. But with him beside her, everything felt… lighter.
“Randell,” she said.
“Hm?”
“Are you afraid that I’m not who I seem to be?”
He looked at her. There was no doubt in his eyes.
“You are the one I love,” he said. “Whoever you are. Wherever you came from. Whatever happens. You are mine.”
She wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to tell him everything — about Yamada Light, about the shattered face, about the blood that never stopped flowing, about the fear that haunted her every night. But instead, she simply pressed closer to him and touched the skin of her neck with her fingers.
The marks were gone. As if they had never been there.
“Do you really think that?” she whispered.
“I know it,” he replied.
Outside the window, dawn was breaking. The first rays of sunlight touched the rooftops, filling the room with golden light. Amanda looked out the window, feeling the warmth of his arms, and thought that maybe she didn’t have to be only Yamada Light. Or only Amanda. Maybe she was both. And maybe there was nothing wrong with that.
But she remembered. She remembered the cold touch of dead fingers on her throat. She remembered the blood dripping from the broken face. She remembered that Light was still there. In the mirrors. In her memory. In her fears.
I will remember,
she thought.
I will remember you, Light. But I will live. Here. Now. With him. Because you… you would want me to be happy.
She closed her eyes and smiled.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” he replied.
The sun rose higher above the castle, and a new day began. Amanda knew there would still be many fears, many doubts, and many nights when Light would come to her in the mirrors — dead, bloody, with a shattered face and cold fingers.
But today, in this moment, she was here. With him. And that was enough.