The mirrors didn't fall all at once.
They shattered in slow motion, fragments hanging in the air as if time itself had fractured. Each shard reflected something different—faces, places, moments that should not exist.
Kaito staggered back, clutching his head.
The world split.
He was no longer standing in the Reflection Vault.
He was somewhere else.
A long corridor stretched endlessly before him, lit by flickering oil lamps. The walls were older than the school—stone carved with symbols that pulsed like veins. Shadows crawled unnaturally along the floor, moving against the light.
And lining the walls…
Portraits.
Dozens of them.
All of him.
Not identical—evolved. Different ages. Different expressions. Some looked kind. Some looked cruel. Some looked utterly broken.
Each frame bore a date.
Kaito's breath caught.
"No… no, this isn't possible."
A voice answered him from behind.
"You always say that."
He turned.
Another Kaito stood there—but not like the shadow double from before. This one looked tired. Older. His eyes held centuries of exhaustion.
"You're the latest," the older Kaito said calmly. "The best version so far, if I'm being honest."
Kaito's knees nearly buckled.
"What… are you?"
The other Kaito smiled faintly.
"I'm what you become when you survive."
Back in the Vault, the others watched in horror as Kaito collapsed to the floor, convulsing.
"Kaito!" Airi screamed, rushing to him.
His eyes were open—but glassy, unfocused.
Sora grabbed his wrist. "His pulse is normal, but his consciousness is… displaced."
Takashi clenched his fists. "You mean his soul got pulled in?"
Sora nodded grimly. "Into the mirrors. Into the cycle."
Megumi whispered, barely audible, "Then he's not the first…"
The obsidian mask on the altar began to crack.
Inside the corridor, the older Kaito began walking, gesturing for him to follow.
"You deserve the truth," he said. "The truth they hid. The truth you helped forget."
"I didn't help anyone forget anything!" Kaito shouted.
The older version stopped abruptly.
"Yes," he said softly. "You did. Every time."
He pointed at the portraits.
"Every Kaito who failed became the foundation for the next one. Memories wiped. Names erased. Friends repositioned. Same souls. Different masks."
Kaito's chest tightened painfully.
"My friends—"
"—have lived this loop more times than you can imagine," the older Kaito finished. "Sometimes you saved them. Sometimes you didn't."
He stepped closer.
"Sometimes… you were the monster."
Suddenly the corridor shifted.
The walls melted away, replaced by a classroom—ancient, wooden desks bolted to the floor. Seven students sat silently, heads bowed.
At the front stood a teacher in black robes.
"You see?" the older Kaito said. "This was the first ritual. They needed a constant. A soul that could endure possession without shattering."
The teacher turned.
It was Kaito.
Or rather—the first Kaito.
"They chose you," the older one whispered. "Because you loved deeply. Because you would always try to save everyone."
The first Kaito raised a blade.
Kaito screamed, "Stop!"
But the memory continued.
The blade fell.
Blood splattered the floor.
The seven students vanished.
The classroom collapsed into darkness.
Kaito fell to his knees.
"This is a lie," he whispered. "I wouldn't—"
"You did," the older Kaito said gently. "So many times. And every time you break, the world resets just enough to try again."
He knelt beside him.
"You're not cursed. You're anchored."
In the real world, Airi felt something warm drip onto her hand.
Blood.
From Kaito's nose.
"No," she whispered. "No, no—don't take him."
The mirrors began reforming, pulling themselves back together, their reflections no longer empty.
They showed the group standing without Kaito.
Alive.
Smiling.
Happy.
Sora looked up, horrified.
"It's offering us a version where he doesn't come back."
Silence.
Takashi stepped forward. "That's not an option."
But the mirrors pulsed brighter.
Megumi clutched her sketchbook, tears falling onto the pages. "What if… what if this is the only way it ends?"
Airi stood slowly.
Her voice shook—but did not break.
"Then it's not an ending I accept."
Inside the corridor, the older Kaito stood.
"You don't have much time," he said. "They're being tempted right now."
Kaito looked up sharply.
"Tempted with what?"
"A life without you," the older Kaito replied. "No shadows. No blood. No nightmares."
Kaito pushed himself to his feet.
"Then why are you telling me this?"
The older version smiled sadly.
"Because you're different."
"How?"
"You're the first one who made them strong enough to choose you."
The corridor trembled.
Cracks spread through the portraits.
"Listen to me," the older Kaito said urgently. "If you stay here, the cycle continues. If you return… the ghost loses its anchor."
"But—"
"You'll remember everything," he interrupted. "Every life. Every failure. Every death."
Kaito swallowed hard.
"And my friends?"
"They'll forget," the older Kaito said softly. "Not you. Never you."
Kaito clenched his fists.
"I don't care."
The older Kaito's eyes widened.
"What?"
"I don't care how much it hurts," Kaito said, voice steady now. "If I remember everything… then this ends with me."
The corridor began collapsing.
The older Kaito laughed—a sound full of pride and sorrow.
"Yeah," he said. "You really are the best version."
Back in the Vault, the mirrors suddenly went dark.
The obsidian mask split in half.
Airi screamed Kaito's name—
And the air exploded outward.
Kaito gasped violently, sitting upright.
He sucked in air like a drowning man breaking the surface.
Airi threw herself into him, sobbing.
"You came back," she cried. "You really came back."
Kaito wrapped his arms around her tightly.
But his eyes…
His eyes reflected every mirror at once.
And in his mind, thousands of voices whispered the same words:
Welcome back, anchor.
Kaito looked over Airi's shoulder at the others.
At the Vault.
At the shattered mask.
And for the first time…
He smiled.
Not in fear.
But in resolve.
"Okay," he whispered.
"Now I know how this ends."
The Reflection Vault did not return to silence.
It listened.
The candles lining the chamber burned lower, their flames bending inward as if drawn toward Kaito. The air vibrated—not with sound, but with pressure, like something vast shifting beneath the stone floor.
Kaito slowly loosened his grip on Airi.
She felt it instantly.
"Kaito…" she whispered, pulling back just enough to look at his face. "Your eyes…"
"They're fine," he said quickly.
They weren't.
Where warmth once lived, there was now depth—layers upon layers of memory stacked behind his gaze. He blinked once, and for a fraction of a second, Airi could have sworn she saw another face staring out through him.
Older. Worn. Smiling faintly.
Takashi stepped forward cautiously. "You don't look fine."
Kaito stood, steadying himself against the altar. The broken obsidian mask lay in two perfect halves at his feet. He stared down at it, and his head throbbed as images forced their way to the surface—
Blood-soaked classrooms.
Hands reaching through mirrors.
Friends screaming his name in voices that didn't belong to them anymore.
He clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms.
"I'm here," he said, more to himself than to them. "I'm still me."
Sora studied him closely, fear tightening her expression. "What did you see in there?"
Kaito met her eyes.
"Too much."
The First Lie
They didn't leave the Vault immediately.
No one wanted to be the first to turn their back on the mirrors.
Kaito felt them watching him—not reflecting, not anymore, but observing. As if whatever intelligence had lived inside them was no longer trapped behind glass.
It was inside him now.
Megumi broke the silence. "When the mirrors showed us those images… the ones where we were happy without you—"
"—don't," Kaito said sharply.
Everyone froze.
He exhaled slowly, then softened his tone. "I don't want to know."
Airi's heart sank.
"You already know, don't you?" she asked quietly.
Kaito looked away.
That was answer enough.
He remembered everything—every version of them that had walked away from him, every timeline where the world chose peace over him.
And he understood why.
Because he was the wound that never healed.
Sora closed her journal with a snap. "We need to leave. Whatever balance this place had is gone."
As if responding to her words, the floor beneath them cracked.
A thin, jagged line split the stone, glowing faintly with the same sickly white light that had filled the mirrors moments before.
Takashi cursed under his breath. "That's not good."
"No," Kaito said softly. "That's the seal failing."
Everyone turned to him.
"You sound awfully sure," Yui said.
Kaito swallowed.
"Because it's not just a vault," he said. "It's a womb."
What the Ghost Was Hiding
The temperature dropped instantly.
Frost crept along the walls, crystallizing over the broken mirrors. A sound rose from beneath the floor—not a scream, not a roar, but something worse.
A heartbeat.
Slow.
Massive.
Ancient.
Megumi grabbed Kaito's sleeve. "You said the ghost was the main threat."
Kaito shook his head.
"It was a jailer," he replied. "A failed one."
The memories surged again—this time uninvited.
He saw the original ritual not as an observer, but as a participant. Felt the weight of the blade in his hand. The chanting wasn't to summon a spirit.
It was to create a sacrifice that could endure eternity.
The ghost—the hollow-eyed thing that had haunted the school—was never meant to rule.
It was meant to feed.
To weaken what slept below.
And now…
"It's starving," Kaito whispered.
The heartbeat grew louder.
The mirrors began bleeding black liquid from their cracks.
Sora backed away slowly. "What exactly is down there?"
Kaito closed his eyes.
"Something that remembers the world before fear had names."
The Second Presence
The lights died again.
This time, they didn't come back.
Darkness swallowed the Vault, thick and suffocating. The air tasted metallic, like rust and old blood.
Then—
Footsteps.
Not theirs.
Measured. Deliberate.
From the shadows at the far end of the chamber, a shape emerged.
It was humanoid—but wrong. Its limbs bent at unnatural angles, its skin stretched too tightly over a frame that seemed to shift constantly, as if struggling to remember its own form.
Its face…
Its face was smooth.
No eyes. No mouth.
Just a single crack running vertically down where a face should be.
Kaito felt it immediately.
The ghost.
But changed.
Weaker.
Afraid.
It stopped a few feet from him and bowed.
"My anchor," it rasped, its voice now fractured, layered with something deeper beneath it. "You have returned… and broken the silence."
Airi screamed. Takashi moved in front of her instinctively.
"You lied to us," Kaito said coldly.
The ghost twitched.
"I protected you," it hissed. "I kept it asleep. I erased you, again and again, so the world could continue."
"You erased my friends."
"Yes," it admitted. "And I would have erased them again."
The crack in its face widened.
"Because if you all remember at once—"
The floor split open.
A deafening crack thundered through the chamber as a massive fissure tore the Vault apart. A blinding white glow surged upward, accompanied by a sound that shattered every remaining mirror into dust.
A voice rose from the depths.
Not loud.
Not angry.
Just… aware.
"At last."
The Choice That Wasn't Given
The ghost screamed.
It wasn't defiance.
It was terror.
"No—no—no—you cannot wake yet—!"
The fissure widened, revealing an endless pit of light and shadow spiraling together. Shapes moved within it—memories without bodies, thoughts without minds.
The thing beneath the school was not a creature.
It was a concept.
The embodiment of recurrence.
Of inevitability.
Of the universe correcting itself.
Kaito stepped forward.
Airi grabbed his arm. "Don't."
"I have to," he said gently.
"You don't even know what it wants!"
Kaito looked back at her, and for the first time, his expression was truly afraid.
"It wants me," he said.
The voice spoke again, clearer now.
"Anchor."
Kaito's head rang.
Images flooded his mind—worlds collapsing, reforming, looping endlessly around a single constant.
Him.
"Remain," the voice said.
"And the cycle stabilizes."
Airi shook her head violently. "No! He's not yours!"
"Leave," the voice continued, unbothered,
"and reality fractures beyond repair."
Silence fell.
The group stared at Kaito.
At the impossible choice hanging in the air.
Kaito closed his eyes.
And smiled.
Not in surrender.
But in defiance.
"Then I'll do what I've always done," he said quietly.
The light surged.
"What's that?" Sora asked.
Kaito opened his eyes.
"I'll find a third option."
And somewhere deep beneath the school—
Something ancient began to laugh.