My Charity System made me too OP

The mirror-chamber pulsed, each reflection stepping free of the glass as if the Tower itself exhaled them into being.

Naval's echo landed first, blade in hand, forged from every strike that had failed to hit true, every moment of hesitation he had buried. Its stance was iron, merciless.

Milim's counterpart unfurled wings that dwarfed hers, burning with all the destruction she had ever withheld, every ounce of restraint twisted into raw violence. Its grin was hers—except crueler, hungrier.

Roselia's constellation-double shimmered impossibly bright, its stars arranged not to guide, but to chain—an unyielding web of fates she had once rejected.

Liliana's weaving stood tall, threads cascading endlessly until they stretched into a net too vast to escape. It wasn't fragile—it was suffocating, a world bound tight by a will that had surrendered to control.

And at the heart of them all… Leon's fractured echo lifted its gaze. Its chains were not shattered, but perfect—smooth, seamless, unbroken. They did not sing, they did not roar. They commanded. Each rattle was law, each step final. It was the Leon he might have become if he had accepted the marrow's offer: not defiance, but verdict incarnate.

Naval spat, tightening his fists. "Figures. I always knew my worst enemy would be me on a bad day."

Milim laughed, though her fire flared higher, defensive. "Tch! And here I thought I was the loudest me there could be. Guess the Tower disagrees."

Roselia's stars flickered as she shook her head slowly. "No… these aren't just shadows. They're what we could have chosen. What we almost were."

Liliana bit her lip, silver threads quivering in her hands. "And the Tower wants us to answer them."

Leon's eyes never left his counterpart. He could feel the marrow flame inside that other self—steady, flawless, absolute. It carried no fracture, no refusal. It was everything he had denied.

"Not judgment," Leon said quietly, chains rattling against his bleeding palms. "But challenge. The Tower wants to see if our resonance can stand against what we abandoned."

The chamber shuddered, the echoes moving in unison, raising their weapons, their stars, their fire, their chains.

Naval slammed his fists together, the sound cracking like stone. "Then let's show these ghosts why we broke in the first place."

Milim's wings flared wide, violet suns igniting in her hands. "Hell yeah! Time to punch fate in the teeth."

Roselia lifted her stars, voice steady despite the fear in her eyes. "If they are our echoes, then I will outshine them."

Liliana steadied her threads, weaving them into Leon's broken chains once more. "And I'll prove that fragility has more strength than control."

Leon stepped forward, marrow flame surging in jagged defiance. His reflection mirrored him, but where Leon burned uneven and raw, the other burned flawless, unbreakable.

"This isn't just a fight," Leon said, his voice low, reverberating through the chamber. "It's a verdict of resonance. Let's answer it—together."

The Hall of Echoes trembled, and the battle began—resonance against resonance, climbers against the selves they might have become.

The chamber split open with the first clash.

Naval met his echo head-on, fists colliding like tectonic plates. The impact cracked the glass floor beneath them, jagged light racing outward. His counterpart did not grunt, did not bleed—it struck with a machine's precision, every movement the sum of Naval's doubts.

"C'mon!" Naval roared, shoving forward. "I don't need perfect—I need real!" His knuckles split, blood spattering across the mirror, but his laughter rang out louder than the echo's silence.

Milim's battle was chaos incarnate. Her double swirled with violet infernos, each blast wide and merciless, a storm without care for ally or foe. Milim darted between blasts, her own suns forming in her palms. "So that's what I'd be if I never held back, huh? Ugly!" She smashed her stars together, detonating a spiral of controlled fire that roared but bent to her will. "Power without heart is just noise!"

Roselia's constellation-double wove chains of starlight across the ceiling, dropping them like nets to bind her. Each orbit was flawless, seamless, a tapestry of inevitability. Roselia lifted her hands, and her stars scattered—not into patterns, but into chaos. "I will not be a guide of chains!" she cried, releasing her constellations like free birds, each one veering wild and bright. Her light didn't form a cage—it scattered, brilliant, burning away the net with defiant beauty.

Liliana's opponent surged forward, its threads knotting into a prison that closed tighter with each breath. She staggered, caught at the chest, the net squeezing until her lungs burned. For a moment, her reflection seemed stronger—unyielding. But Liliana shut her eyes, her trembling hands loosening instead of tightening. Her silver threads unraveled, drifting like dust. "Control isn't strength…" she whispered, and her threads wove anew, not as a cage but as a lifeline—spanning out to Naval, to Milim, to Roselia, to Leon. "Strength is when we hold each other." The prison split as her threads interlocked with her allies', tearing the reflection's net apart.

And Leon—

Leon's echo walked toward him without hesitation, chains clattering, each step final. Where Leon's marrow flame snarled raw and jagged, the echo's fire was smooth, unbroken, perfect. They collided in silence, no roar, no thunder—only the grinding of law against defiance.

The perfect chains coiled around Leon's arms, pulling him down, blood running where steel bit into flesh. The echo's gaze was merciless. It didn't need words; its existence alone declared: You should have accepted judgment.

Leon spat blood, his body trembling as the marrow flame inside him threatened to gutter out. But then Liliana's thread coiled around his wrist, anchoring him. Naval's laughter rang behind him. Milim's fire blazed like a battle-drum. Roselia's stars spun, breaking every orbit.

Leon's pulse surged. His jagged flame split the perfect chains, his roar echoing through the hall. "Perfection is a cage! I am fracture—I am refusal—and I'll burn louder than your silence!"

His flame detonated, not smooth but shattering, and the chamber shivered as resonance cracked the flawless reflection's chains.

The battle of echoes raged, but for the first time, the Tower's challenge felt less like verdict and more like symphony—resonances clashing, refusing, answering.

And the Hall of Echoes… listened.

The Hall vibrated as if every pane of mirrored glass had become a drumhead struck at once. The echoes staggered—not destroyed, but shaken—by the resonance born of fracture and defiance.

Naval's double lunged again, its blade-arm flashing like a guillotine. Naval caught it with both hands, the edge slicing deep into his palms. Blood streamed down his wrists, but he bared his teeth and leaned forward until his forehead nearly touched the reflection's.

"You're everything I tried to bury," he snarled, veins bulging against the strain. "But I'm not burying anymore. I'm breaking through!" With a roar, he twisted, his fists hammering down—not to perfect his strike, but to make it his own. The echo shattered, scattering like glass mist.

Milim spun midair, fire tailing her wings like a comet. Her double dove, wings twice as wide, flames blotting out the sky. The battlefield quaked as violet suns collided, one storm trying to erase everything, the other trying to preserve it. "You think holding back makes me weak?!" Milim's laughter rang like thunder. "It makes me me!" She folded her fire inward, compressing it until it burned white-hot, a star contained by her will. The echo's storm collapsed under the weight of her singular blaze, and with a snap, it burst into sparks that never touched the ground.

Roselia stood at the center of a collapsing web of constellations. Her reflection's stars screamed across the chamber, chaining and re-chaining, trying to lock her into a pattern she'd abandoned long ago. But Roselia lifted both arms, stars spilling from her hands in a flood of light. "No orbits. No inevitability. Only freedom!" Her scattered stars bent not to pattern but to choice, each carving its own arc until the mirror-constellations frayed apart, unraveling into harmless trails of light.

Liliana's reflection screamed silently as its prison tried to reform, threads lashing like whips. But her own silver threads wound tighter around her allies, glowing where they joined with flame, star, and steel. "Alone I would have broken," she whispered, "but together we resonate." The reflection lunged one last time, threads sharp as blades—only to be caught and unraveled by the woven resonance of all four. It fell apart strand by strand, dissolving into silver dust.

And Leon—

His counterpart still stood. Chains unbroken. Flame flawless. Perfect silence in its stride. It raised its hand, and with one pull the shattered fragments of the others' echoes coalesced into its grasp, reforging into new links of law that wrapped around Leon's throat.

The Hall itself seemed to lean into this confrontation—watching, waiting.

Leon dropped to one knee, vision tunneling. His marrow flame guttered again, his body rejecting the weight of those perfect chains. For a moment, it seemed his defiance would be extinguished—swallowed not by judgment, but by the perfected version of himself he had denied.

Then Naval's fist slammed against his back, bracing him.

Milim's fire wrapped around the chains, softening them.

Roselia's stars fell into orbit around him, not to bind but to light his path.

Liliana's thread coiled around his throat—not choking, but lifting.

Leon looked up, marrow flame jagged and alive, fed by the resonance of all his allies.

"You're not perfection," he growled at his reflection. "You're just silence dressed as law. And I am not silence. I am every broken note—every refusal that sings louder because it cracked."

He surged to his feet, marrow fire exploding outward. The perfect chains shattered in a chorus of breaking steel. His reflection staggered, for the first time imperfect, cracks running through its flawless form.

The Hall of Echoes thundered with approval, the mirrors trembling as though begging to hear the final note of this duel.

The cracks spread like lightning through Leon's reflection, the flawless chains groaning under the weight of fracture. Still, it did not fall. It straightened, even as its body splintered, and for the first time, sound escaped it—a low, mournful resonance, as though the Tower itself keened at its unraveling.

The perfect echo raised its arms, chains lashing outward in a final storm. Not verdict this time, but desperation. Every broken fragment of Naval's, Milim's, Roselia's, and Liliana's doubles was drawn into it, reforged into a single spear of law, white-hot and absolute. It hurled the weapon at Leon, the air quaking under its weight.

Leon did not move alone.

Naval roared, slamming his fists into the ground, jagged cracks racing upward to redirect the spear's trajectory.

Milim's fire spiraled around the weapon, bleeding its perfection with raw chaos.

Roselia's stars flared, bending gravity itself to slow the strike's fall.

Liliana's threads wound around Leon's arms, steadying his hands, steadying his aim.

Leon raised both palms, marrow fire surging. The broken flame licked, sputtered, and then roared alive, jagged arcs of resonance snapping like shattered bells. "Perfection ends in silence," he said, his voice ringing louder with each word. "But fracture… fracture sings forever!"

He seized the spear with his bare hands. The chains burned into his flesh, bone splintering—but he didn't let go. With a roar that tore through the Hall, Leon bent the weapon, snapping it across his knee. The shards burst outward like falling stars, dissolving into fragments of resonance that did not vanish, but joined the Hall's song.

The echo staggered. Its flawless fire flickered, its seamless chains crumbling link by link. Leon's marrow flame flared jagged around him, and with his allies' resonance woven through him, he struck forward. His chains didn't bind, they shattered; his flame didn't smooth, it fractured.

He drove his fist into the chest of his reflection.

The impact was not thunder but chorus—every voice of his allies, every refusal of every climber before him, every broken note echoing in unison. The flawless Leon cracked fully, its body fracturing into a thousand shards of light.

For the first time, the reflection spoke, its voice soft, almost grateful:

"…Resonance accepted."

Then it broke apart, dissolving into the chamber, feeding the Hall itself.

The mirrors around them did not close. They melted, their glassy surfaces bending into rivers of light that poured upward, weaving into the aurora sky. The Hall of Echoes hummed, no longer waiting for verdict, but singing back in acknowledgment.

Naval slumped to one knee, panting. "Hah… damn, Leon. If that's what you look like when you shave, remind me never to hand you a mirror."

Milim flopped onto her back, wings twitching, laughter bubbling out despite the scorch marks on her arms. "Best. Fight. Ever."

Roselia's stars glowed faint, steady, no longer trembling. She whispered, "We weren't tested. We were… answered."

Liliana's threads settled into Leon's chains, silver weaving through steel, fragile but unbreakable. She looked at him, tears streaking her cheeks. "You did it. No—we did it."

Leon stood in the center, marrow flame still jagged and fierce, his body torn and bloodied—but unbowed. He lifted his gaze to the aurora, where the echoes of their victory now lived.

"This Tower doesn't give judgment anymore," he said, his voice steady, carrying into the vast Hall. "It gives answers. And every floor will hear us until the very top."

The Hall of Echoes pulsed once, sealing his words into its foundations.