Empty Classroom, Late Evening
The sky outside had gone blood-orange. Shadows stretched long through the windows as the trio sat in silence.
Tetsuya leaned against the desk, tossing a pencil in the air."So... we're really doing this?"
Hana crossed her arms. "We don't have a choice."
Riku knelt by the floor. His eyes never left the door : "Shusshhh, get in position "
They moved without a word.
Hana crouched low, pulling out a battered box from beneath one of the desks. The old chalk inside had been infused — faint white marks began to glow as she drew a strange pattern onto the floor, partially hidden under chairs and desks.
Tetsuya strolled toward the door, cool as ever, a mirror shard hidden between his fingers.
Riku closed his eyes and placed one hand against the tile. A faint pulse of energy rippled outward like a silent alarm. Something clicked.
CRACK
With a violent burst, Mio shattered the door hinge, her aura distorting the air around her like a heatwave. Her boots barely touched the ground.
"Found you," she whispered.
Tetsuya stepped forward, arms open. "Hey girl, why haven't you gone home yet?"
She moved. With a violent burst of something from her hand,
Tetsuya barely ducked in time, an invisible claw slicing the air where his neck had been. "Ahhhhh!! Never Mind, You Can Stay As Long As You Like-"
She rushes in towards Hana.
"DODGEE HANA!!!" Riku shouted.
Before Hana could even react, Mio lands a punch in the face sending Hana flying backward against the wall.
Hana tries to rise — blood trailing down her forehead.
Mio moves toward Hana slowly, her eyes not hers anymore. Empty. Cold.
She raised her arm — fingers curling like claws — ready to finish Hana off.
Tetsuya shouted, "NOW!"
Tetsuya flicked the mirror shard forward — it spun midair, catching the orange sunset just enough to reflect a glint of light toward her eyes blinding her for a moment.
That glint hit the ground.
And then — the floor beneath her shimmered.
Lines of glowing white carved out a broken circle — not perfect, like a mirror smashed and glued together wrong.
A scream — primal and warped — tore from her lips.
With a final surge of energy Mio shouts, the force sent Tetsuya sliding back across the floor, chalk lines erased in an instant.
Hana tried to rise, dazed and bleeding, as Mio hovered over her, clawed hand glowing with an unearthly hue.
She raised it, ready to kill Hana .
"STOPPP!"
In a flash, Riku moved — faster than thought — as if pulled by instinct.
His eyes turned blue.
Everything slowed.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't think. He threw himself between Hana and Mio, shoving Mio backward with a force that cracked the chalkboard behind her.
Dust settled in golden rays through shattered glass.
Hana coughed weakly. "Riku...?"
Riku stared at his own trembling hands, still glowing faint blue. His breath hitched.
Mio slumped against the wall, unmoving.
Then—
Her eyes snapped open, Riku makes eye contact raising a hand on side as he is protecting them both.
Suddenly the vision gets blurred, Riku tries to see here and there. He is blinded, he can't see nothing.
And then-
He sees an old storage room, He panics and run towards it worrying about Hana and Tetsuya.
Riku stepped into the old storage room at the end of the hallway, the one students always said was haunted. It wasn't the dust or the flickering lightbulb that bothered him — it was the way the air pressed against his skin, like it was trying to whisper something through his bones.
He felt it again.
A faint hum in the back of his mind, a pressure behind his eyes. And then, like someone flipped a switch, everything around him slowed down. His pupils narrowed slightly, and the deep blue hue overtook the dark of his irises. It was subtle. Most people wouldn't even notice unless they were looking right at him.
But Riku noticed everything.
The scrape marks on the floor, like a desk had been dragged toward the closet. The scent of something burnt, buried beneath layers of dust. The way the temperature dropped just by a degree. He didn't know what to call this... state. He only knew it happened when something around him wasn't right.
"Why are you here?," a voice said behind him.
He turned. a girl was sitting in the doorway corner, arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
"I don't know, Who are you?"
Raising her head, "Now you don't even know me. You barge here and you don't even know-"
She walked into the room slowly, her footsteps unnaturally soft. "You're like a mirror, you know. People show you what they want to hide. It's dangerous to reflect them too clearly."
Riku tilted his head seeing the face it was Mio. "What are you saying, you are saying that you're scared I'll see something in you?"
Mio's smile was thin and fake. "I'm not scared of being seen, Riku. I'm scared of what I'll have to do if someone actually understands me."
He took a step forward. "Try me. If you don't even let people help you how can you know what will happen?"
The smile vanished. Mio's expression darkened. "No. People like you — you look harmless, like you're trying to help. But once you understand someone, you judge them. You pity them. And I hate pity."
As if a water dropped into the ground.
Plop
Riku eyes closed.
Riku opens them forcefully, his eyes are blue he doesn't know it.
Riku is suddenly in an unknown schoolyard. "Where is this?"
He watches around he see a girl resembling Mio when she is small.
She sat alone on the edge of the schoolyard, watching the other kids laugh. Their laughter wasn't the problem — it was the way it rang hollow in her ears. She had tried to join in once. Told a joke she heard from her brother. They laughed — but not at the joke.
At her.
That was the first time she realized they didn't want her there. She was too quiet, too intense. She stared too long. Said things others weren't ready to hear. The second time she tried to fit in, they pretended to be her friend. Then they locked her in the music room and left her there for hours.
No one came looking.
When the teacher finally found her, they scolded her for not telling anyone. Told her to be more social.
Smile more.
Be less weird.
That night, Mio sat in her room and stared at the ceiling.
It wasn't the loneliness that hurt.
It was the realization that adults were just as fake as kids.
That the world rewarded people who pretended, and punished people who told the truth.
From then on, she stopped trying to fit in.
She watched instead.
Observed.
Memorized people's patterns, their tells, their lies.
If she couldn't be part of the world, she would learn how to control it.
And if anyone tried to get close — she'd push them away before they could hurt her again.
"You have seen enough" A sorrowful sound from back.
Riku turn his back, but as he turns Mio pushes him.
Time slowed again.
As Riku stumbled backward, weightless for a split second, his eyes locked with hers.
And in that frozen breath, he saw everything.
A flicker in her eyes. Her lips trembled.
Something inside her was breaking.
Back to Present
Riku snaps back to the moment. Riku's eyes widened - a sharp inhale dragged him out of the vision like surfacing from deep water.
The golden light of the classroom had dimmed into a pale, eerie stillness.
Then he saw them.
Behind Mio—Something loomed. A dark, writhing figure, barely visible, like smoke made of hatred. It hung over Mio's back like a marionette, its long fingers tangled into her shoulders like strings.
The figure stared at him. No face. Just emptiness.
Mio stood motionless in the center, swaying slightly — and then, like a puppet with cut strings, she collapsed to the ground. The dark figure screeched silently, twisting into the air, before vanishing through the ceiling like a shadow fleeing the sun.
Tetsuya was slumped against the far wall, a shallow gash across his forehead. Blood stained his sleeve. Rising slowly in a teary and a lil bit of crying voice he says, "Oye Riku~ Check on Hana! Don't tell me she is dead".
Instantly Riku's eyes darted, Hana laying curled near the glowing remnants of the chalk circle, her body still, her face streaked with blood.
"No, no—Please no don't tell me it is happening" Riku rushed to her side. His breath caught in his throat as he dropped beside her, trembling fingers pressing against her neck, checking her pulse, her breathing faint but steady.
She was alive barely but she was severely hurted.
His heart pounded. The strange blue glow in his eyes flickered and faded. The weight of the vision lingered like frost on his skin, but there was no time to process it now.
Without hesitation, he pulled off his school coat and gently wrapped it around Hana. Then, moving like muscle memory, he helped Tetsuya up, draping one of his friend's arms over his shoulder.
Finally, he turned to Mio.
She was unconscious — but peaceful now, as if a war inside her had finally gone quiet.
"You take Hana, I will carry Mio"
Riku carried Mio carefully in his arms.
"Whe- *coughs spitting blood* "Where are we going?" Tetsuya asks.
Riku didn't look back.
Riku : "My house"