Mirror/Mirror (Episode)

*The correct title of this article is* **Mirror|Mirror***. The title is displayed incorrectly due to technical restrictions.*

**Mirror|Mirror** is the twenty-second episode of Tales of Dikuda. It is also the tenth episode of the second season.

## Summary

The Scientists set in motion a plan that threatens not just the pesky rat, but the civilian population of Dikuda, as an invisible poison spreads through the city.

## Episode in Detail

A thoughtful Krrah is pacing in her room, thinking about how she wants to meet up with Uuzoo and the troubles regarding the situation. She tries to wrap her mind around what the snake could be thinking about it, trying to understand her. It does not help, that she is stressed out by the recent events in the city, like Ryahno getting shot by Gwadeweido, an incident that makes Krrah feel angry and hateful.

She isn't the only person however, that would like to end the rat's life, as at the same time, members of the group of scientists have to deal with Gwady, who blew up parts of their laboratory yet again. This time however, Pertinax sprayed the rat with a virus, which might not kill her, but might get others to kill her once they are contaminated.

The virus Gwady was contaminated with is noticed relatively early, when the rat returns to her home and talks to Yavei in a call, who immediately shows up at Gwady's home, protected by a shield. She cleanses the rat of the remainder of the virus and tells her to leave, before sending Ching over, since he is specialised on dealing with viruses and toxins. According to him the virus already spread though. As it turns out it is actually a sort of poison that interacts with a person's aura and negative energies, while being focused on reflective objects like mirrors. It will then spawn a mirror image that is a reflection of the person's self at the most vulnerable time of their life. The only way to teal with them permanently would be to resolve the negative situation.

Yavei gives him the lead over dealing with the situation and tells him to contact Derbri, who is currently in Dikuda, if he runs into any troubles.

After cleaning the room of the toxic material and leaving the apartment building, Ching then gets a call from Loco Wish, who appears to be in a panic as Yuw appears to have gone out of control, trashing and breaking things in the police office. Ching, knowing the giant personally heads over immediately to check on them.

When he arrives at the police station he does indeed find it a mess and in the middle of it a woman, whom he suspects Yuw, digging through papers and tearing them to shreds. However she isn't in the blue colour scheme of Yuw. While the woman, who is a redhead, looks similar hair style and appearance wise, she is a bit smaller than the giant and wears a damaged red suit. Ching carefully approaches and talks to her, only to find that he is dealing with Rutbouc, who is searching for any and all information about Pheybis that she can find.

When the mirror notices that she is vastly outnumbered and about to get moved down by shots, she comments that she will be back later before she bursts into dust. Loco then informs Ching that the actual Yuw is waiting outside the restroom, where he heads to then. He notices that the mirror in the restroom contains a missing part in the shape of Yuw, which hints that this incident is related to the toxin that is spreading through the city. The giant then mentions, that she was having nightmares about Rutbouc for a while already, though she doesn't know who the woman is.

To try and solve the problem Ching spends a long time talking to Yuw, only to find that the underlying conflict cannot be resolved that easily. He gives up, telling her to just head home and rest, before leaving the police station and ending up in a call with Derbri. She informs him to head to Dark Auras, since someone named Iris Boromas is having the same problem as what just happened at the police.

As he makes his way over, he keeps talking to Derbri, asking her further information or hints on how to deal with the problem. She explains that he cannot expect to use the same approach for every person, because everyone is different with their own problems and views. She also hints that if the problems are not solved, people could die. When Ching leaves the bus he is informed by Derbri, that she hears a distress call. Though since he cannot make out a source for it, she suggests he use his agate ball to locate it.

Using the ball, he ends up finding two bodies in an alleyway. Apparently a confirmation for Derbri earlier suggesting that if not dealt with, this problem could get people killed. Ching calls for backup, then proceeds to worriedly head to Dark Auras, where he encounters Iris and Galice Boromas, with the latter just at that moment bursting into glass dust, revealing her to be a mirror. Unable to deal with the reason for the mirror's appearance, he sends Iris home as well, telling her to cover up reflective surfaces.

On the way out Ching once more calls Derbri, who doesn't respond for a long time, until she finally answers, telling him that she had to deal with her own mirror reflection, which she took care of. Ching voices his concern for her, though she assures him that she is fine. Curious he then asks her how she dealt with hit, hoping to learn something helpful to deal with the situation.

She answers the question by telling him to deal with the deepest fears and problems, even if it's difficult, so they don't pile up and then overwhelm. After hearing her explanation, Ching comes to the conclusion, that he doesn't need to deal with the mirrors themselves, but rather the people who caused the reflection to appear and their internal struggles or fears. He then puts that theory into practice and successfully helps Ahrow in dealing with a mirror problem. During his further dealings with people, Ching also gets a lot of help from Derbri, though she also keeps urging him to go talk to Autumn (YiFung). He is a bit confused by this, though keeps his thoughts to himself, ignoring it when she brings it up, since he cannot imagine the woman in question to be related to the problem with the mirrors. So at the end of the day he reports to Yavei and heads home.

Uuzoo at the same time gets up to perform her job. She isn't happy with the recent days and the lack of news regarding Ryahno on the radio, so she considers talking to Ahrow about it, as he and Ryahno are close. On her way to work she remembers the days where she got drunk, depressed after the comments ZeChow made towards her, and the scolding she got from Ryahno for her acting. With a sad feeling in her heart she goes to perform her job then.

Before the night is over Ching is woken up by a call from Loco Wish, who is working overtime at the police station. He is informed that the mirror situation has gotten worse with people getting killed and that the virus seems to spread fast, though is short-lived if it doesn't have negative energy to feed on. He leaves the house and heads outside, trying to reach Derbri for any suggestions. The first thing she asks of him, is if he talked to Autumn yet and he admits that he hasn't. Feeling bad for not having done it earlier, her then decides to head over.

Meanwhile Ryahno arrives back in Dikuda from a mission and is informed about the current mirror situation by Yavei. When the former looks into a mirror, she sees herself in the form of a black mist, which isn't unusual, but she notes that the mirror is not reflecting her current solid form. The woman then decides to meditate.

Ching by then arrives at Autumn's home, where he heads inside, when he notices the lock broken. The inside of the home is a mess, with the furniture, walls and windows broken and damaged. He heads back outside, where he observes the woman running and jumping from roof to roof, with the mirror chasing and attacking her. It is stated that usually Autumn wouldn't have problems dealing with attacks, that her fear seems to be holding her back.

Ching tries to get to the two to solve the situation, asking for Autumn to explain the comments the mirror is making. The mirror is temporarily shattered as it is kicked off the roof and Autumn makes an escape with Ching trying to catch up to her. As he follows her he notices that the woman's negative energy seems to fuel the virus more than any other person in the city, so much even, that the mirrors of passersby temporarily manifest as she runs past them, before shattering again.

As the woman and her mirror keep bumping and struggling, Ching tries to get her attention to find out what is causing the problem. During another fight the appeared mirror bursts, with pieces of it hitting Ching, one shard "cutting" his face. Since it's no longer a normal mirror the shard it doesn't cause bleeding, but instead the essence of it passes through him, causing him to see a vision.

He finds himself at the bottom of a cliff, where a large wolf had just been buried underneath a boulder, with a small girl crying her eyes out and Autumn trying to move the boulder, before chasing after the person that caused the boulder to fall down from the top of the cliff, leaving the girl behind. The girl then has to flee the scene in fear when a mysterious mist appears. Autumn later appears at the scene again, finding the girl gone and in despair trying to kill herself by dropping off the cliff to the body of the wolf, only to survive.

The vision then ends and Ching finds himself back in reality, realising that this must be what is causing the mirror to stick around. After hearing in the vision, that the little girl was Derbri, he decides to call her for further help. He asks her to meet up at the guild lobby in a few minutes and heads off to said place.

The two meet up and he asks her about the vision he saw, to which she only replies that Autumn needs to forgive herself for what happened. Before Ching can inquire further about the answer, Autumn arrives at the guild hall in panic and, when spotting Derbri, runs to her and hugs her, apologising. Meanwhile her mirror is slowly catching up with her and with it the negative potent energy, which then influences the reflection of Ryahno, who is at the guild hall as well at that point, mediating in front of a glass window.

Her reflection transforms into the shape of the wolf that died back then and seeing this, Autumn realises that Ryahno is the reincarnation of the wolf. Since she had taken care of and raised Ryahno since the other was a baby, she realises that there is no guilt left to have. Autumn's mirror then collapses into pieces of glass.

Meanwhile Uuzoo calls up Sandala to try and make some sense of thoughts she is recently having. She asks him about the FungGao Ghost Girl, named ShiaoChiao, and how he mentioned reading a newspaper article about her having survived the suicide attempt, even though every other newspaper stated that she died on the spot. He seems to be just as confused about the matter as she is. To add to the confusion and worry, Uuzoo then tell him that he saw the Ghost Girl, transform into Gwadeweido.

Uuzoo voices her concerns about how maybe nobody is able to catch the rat, because she actually isn't alive anymore. Sandala tries to calm down Uuzoo, who is scared about the whole situation and the two decide to try and learn more about it and if the criminal could still be able to cause explosions, even as a ghost.

In the police station at the time, Yuw absent-mindedly passes by a reflective mirror surface, once more causing Rutbouc to appear, though before anything or anyone is damaged, Falehi intervenes and causes the mirror to shatter, commenting with a "No. Not yet."

## Characters

The following characters appear in this episode (in order):

* Krrah
* Yin Uuzoo
* Gwadeweido
* Dicante Gen
* Akin Bolo
* Dr. Isabella Pertinax
* Sheenyai Yavei
* Liu Cha Ching
* Dahvius Derbri
* Loco Wish
* Tenyu Eesh Yuw
* Rutbouc
* *Pheybis (mentioned)*
* Iris Boromas
* Hwong YiFung (named Autumn)
* *The Ink Butterfly (mentioned)*
* *37 (mentioned)*
* Galice Boromas
* *Bayroff (mentioned)*
** Paci Ahrow (mentioned)** *ZeChow (mentioned)*
* Kuraz Ryahno
* Faso Haru
* Hweibin Sandala
* *Fung Gao Ghost Girl/ShiaoChiao (mentioned)*

## Trivia

* The nightmares Yuw mentions started after she came into contact with Bueh in episode 17. One of the reasons for this is, that Bueh's past life and Yuw's past life interacted in a long conflict (as mentioned in episode 21.)

* Iris' part of this episode is hinting towards something that will happen during the course of Mental Wonderland. It was added to this episode mainly because another example for the mirror effect was needed.

* The mirror reflection, as well as the background story to go with it, which Derbri was talking about, is hinting towards episode 24.

* ZeChow's image was supposed to show up way earlier during his first appearance, but wasn't finished on time.

* Ryahno can take on a the form of a black mist, which has been hinted at before, but this episode outright mentions it, when she isn't surprised by seeing the form in the mirror.

* When Falehi shattered Yuw's mirror reflection she said "No. Not yet." and she did indeed return later to solve the problem. According to Zennore by doing the approach this way, a conflict was avoided that might have gone horribly wrong.