[Mirror's POV]
"Our fight start now... sorry, young girl, but you're just being delusional at this point. You're seriously injured, your sword is broken... how exactly is our fight starting now ? Rather, I think it is the end."
Brandon sighed.
"You're potential is on par with most Lightbringers, I can recognize that... But that's just it. Potential. You clearly have no idea what you're doing, and you probably know less about sorcery than most. It's truly a shame that I met you now, and not in the future. A shame... for the both of us."
Brandon's infected fist was trembling. Not immediatly attacking Mirror seemed to require an insane amount of willpower.
He threw a glance at Alice.
"You should run away. Run away, and come back strong, Lightbringer. Strong enough to kill me."
Alice looked as if she hesitated.
"Nah." laughed Mirror. "You don't need to run away. If you do, how will you see me win ?"
Saying to Alice to not run away wasn't really a sound decision. In fact, it put the person who mattered the most to Mirror in danger.
Frankly, it was kind of dumb.
But Mirror... Mirror was feeling like Alice needed to be here. Needed to see her hopeless fight against Brandon. And she trusted her unnatural instinct more than reasonable logic.
Alice looked at Mirror, worried. It seemed as if she had no intent to leave.
That... was good.
"Kids these days... so reckless."
Those were the last words Brandon pronounced before his attack.
A lighting-fast punch of his infected arm, who was slowly taking deadlier and deadlier shapes.
Too fast to avoid.
Too strong to block.
Mirror saw no way to escape death.
No way to win against Brandon.
No way out.
It was the end...or was it ?
At this moment, Mirror stopped thinking. Her thoughts were useless, so she relied on something else.
Instinct.
Mirror pushed the Seer Sixth Sense to its limit.
And then, she threw a spell so complex her own mind was unable to comprehend it.
But her subconsious was, in a way.
The fist of the giant suddenly stopped in the air , as if he just hit an unbreakable object. Brandon's eyes widened in surprise.
"What did you do ?"
Mirror didn't bother answering. In her state, she was incapable of that.
Instead, she trusted her instinct once again.
What did Mirror want ?
She wanted to kill Brandon.
Therefore, she needed a weapon.
So, a weapon appeared.
Magic was that simple.
Her new weapon... was a three-meters sword, made of pieces of her own souls. The blade of the sword was white and ethereal, and the weapon in itself was lighter than a feather.
"A Soulblade ? What kind of..."
Mirror rushed forward, avoiding numerous attacks. She wasn't even reacting to those attacks, she just... kind of predicted then.
This... was the power of her copied Name.
The power of a Seer.
Foresight.
Brandon, or rather, the thing inside Brandon, tried to push away Mirror.
The giant hand that approached her was cleanly cut off from his arm, in an joyous explosion of blood, black petals, and weird vegetal stuff.
Mirror should have felt joy. She just gained a big advantage, after all.
Rather, she only felt...pain.
Mirror rolled away from the giant, narrowly avoiding death.
This... wasn't a one-sided beatdown anymore. Now, this was a fight.
Mirror and Brandon's eyes met for a brief moment.
Brandon's eyes were full of hope, those of Mirror showed no hint of any kind of feeling.
Suddenly, something appeared in Brandon's left hand.
An ethereal sword made of white enrgy, as large as the giant himself.
Brandon seemed surprised by the appearance of his own Soulblade.
If Mirror could be scared, she would be. But right now, she couldn't. She was in a strange battle trance, unable to understand what was happening or what her own body was doing.
So, when Brandon rushed towards her, with his strenght and speed both aigmented by his sorcery -Which wasn't actually his, understood Mirror's instinct, but the one of the creature within him- Mirror ran towards him.
How did she survive the wrath of her opponent ?
Mirror herself wasn't sure. Brandon's body moved so fast, he was so powerful... but she was fast and powerful, too.
The two exchanged blow after blow. Mirror avoided most of them, while Brandon's body, while augmented by the parasite inside it, was so tough that even a Soulblade could only deliver shallow wounds.
Sometimes, the two weapons collied, making atrocious sounds.
At some point, after a minute or two of intense fighting, Mirror retreated in a corner of the room, her whole body battered and bruised.
At this point, some of her counsciousness was back, even though she was still in somewhat of a trance.
That was why she felt that something was odd.
She was... taller. The size of some part of her body seemed different as well.
Brandon talked.
However, this time, his voice was different. It wasn't the voice of a broken man who wanted nothing more than to end his own life. No, it was the voice of a dreadful abomination.
"Humans sorcerers. Will always be a joke..."
"What are you trying to say ?"
"Humans souls. Don't regenerate. Humans kill. Themselves. To do sorcery."
Mirror knew that already, thanks to one of the visions the recieved while being transported beetween the Forest of Glass and the City of Flowers.
She knew that humans souls (and, in general, the souls of the vast majority of being) didn't regenerate. She also knew that throwing even a weak spells severly injured the soul of the spellcaster, because the source of energy theses spells needed was the soul of the user.
Every time somebody used magic, that somebody was "burning" or "selling" a part of his soul. And that part would most likely be lost forever.
Mirror also knew that having a very damaged soul could be fatal. After all, it was the reason why Stranger was dead.
To summarize, she knew that the pain she felt while using sorcery wasn't just pain. It was her body screaming to her to stop, that she was doing something dangerous.
That she was litteraly killing herslef.
"Because of this. Human mage. No experience. Don't understand. Magic. Die young. Before reaching twenty."
"What's your point ?"
"Soon. Before dying. Side effects. Different for. Each person.Yours. Funny."
Mirror froze.
That was why Stranger changed into a statue made of glass. Dying because your soul was destroyed apparently produced strange effects.
And these effects, Mirror was experiencing them now.
Which meant that she wouldn't be able to fight for much longer...
"What... What are my side-effects ?"
The vile being seemed to laugh.
"You. Looked around ten. When you. Entered. This Tower. Now. You looks. Almost thirty."
Mirror stayed silent for a while.
Even if she managed to kill Brandon and his horrible "friend", what happened here was going to affect her for the rest of her life. This... was arguably worse than losing an eye.
Almost twenty years... she already paid a hefty price.
But Mirror knew. She knew that the price was going to be even higher, in the end.
She tightened her grip around her Soulblade, determined to win.
"What's your name, monster ?"
"Isa named. Me. Lotus."
"Let's finish this, Lotus."
Mirror and Lotus both rushed towards the other.