"Books remember. Pages bleed. And some stories should never be told."
03:13 AM – The Dream Classroom
Hiragi's pen continued writing on its own.
Ink moved across the paper, forming words he didn't recognize—until he realized they were his own thoughts. His secrets. His regrets. His buried pain.
A voice from the front of the classroom snapped his attention forward.
"Late, as always."
The chalkboard split open. Out stepped a figure robed in burning pages, mask stitched from paper and black thread.
The Librarian.
Its presence weighed down the dream world, like gravity made of memory.
"You've entered a restricted section, Hiragi. You of all people should know…
Readers don't rewrite the book."
Hiragi stood, breath calm.
"And murderers don't get to call themselves authors."
The classroom twisted, desks turning to coffins, walls melting into shelves. The dream shifted from memory into nightmare.
A Battle of Will
The Librarian raised one hand—an incantation inked midair. The dream began collapsing into words. Paragraphs. Sentences folding over Hiragi's form, trying to compress his soul into a single phrase.
But Hiragi was already moving.
He carved a sigil in the air, the Void Glyph of Unwriting. The illusion cracked.
"I've read enough of your lies," he said coldly.
The Librarian's mask twitched.
"You don't understand. This is salvation. I give them peace. A final chapter without pain."
"You're erasing them."
"I'm setting them free."
Back in Reality – Headquarters
Suguru stared at the terminal, blinking rapidly.
"Bro, Hiragi's spiritual signature just dropped—like, violently. He's deep inside a Class-V dream trap."
Airi leaned over his shoulder, panic in her voice.
"Can you pull him out?"
"Only if I reroute every soul-anchoring charm we've got. It's gonna overload the system."
"Do it."
Suguru gritted his teeth and slammed the activation rune.
Back in Hiragi's apartment, a glyph circle ignited under his bed.
Inside the Collapse
The dream began to burn.
Pages curled. Shelves fell into ink. The Librarian roared, voice layered with a thousand forgotten stories.
"You cannot unread what is written!"
Hiragi held up a single torn page—his own memory, a fragment of the night Reina almost died. A night he failed.
"Some stories deserve to be erased," he whispered.
He pressed the page against the Librarian's mask.
The Void glyph ignited.
The world shattered.
03:14 AM – Return
Hiragi bolted upright in bed, gasping.
Blood trickled from his nose. His coat was half-burned. But his eyes were clear.
Airi and Suguru burst into the room.
"You're alive!" Suguru shouted, holding up a half-melted charm. "Barely!"
"What did you see?" Airi asked.
Hiragi stood up, silent.
He looked out the window.
"The Librarian is real. It's not just dream manipulation. It's a Void-born entity using narrative magic to rewrite souls."
"So it's… what? A ghost that writes people out of existence?"
"No," Hiragi said darkly.
"It's not writing them out. It's replacing them—with a story of its own."
Elsewhere: The Pageburner Grows Stronger
In a dark chamber, the Librarian stood over a new page.
Written on it:
Airi Yukishiro
Scheduled Entry: Tonight
And beneath it, the words:
She dreamed of saving someone who could not be saved.
To Be Continued...