By the time Kazuki returned to the Lounge of Left-Behinds, the room had thinned out. Most students were still at training or dozing in study pods. The fireplace crackled low. Someone had scribbled "Trust No One" in glowing chalk across the wall beside the coat rack.
Kazuki dropped into the couch, mind still spinning from what Akashi had revealed.
Origin Null.Not powerless. Just unreadable. Untouchable. Dangerous.
He didn't know what scared him more—that the System had bonded to him for a reason, or that he might one day forget who Kazuki Tanaka even was.
"Thought you'd vanished."
He looked up.
Luna stood near the stairwell, sipping something dark and steaming from a bone-white mug. The blood in her eyes had faded back to silver and red, but her aura still flickered subtly—like a fire that didn't know if it wanted to die or explode.
"I got summoned," Kazuki said. "Headmaster stuff."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're five chapters into this place and already in the big man's office? You're either in trouble… or a threat."
He didn't respond.
That was answer enough.
Luna sighed and crossed the room, dropping onto the opposite couch. "You saved me earlier. I'm not used to that."
Kazuki frowned. "You've never been rescued?"
"I'm the dangerous one," she said. "Usually it's me they try to restrain."
They sat in silence for a while, the warmth from the fireplace clashing with the chill in his bones.
Then Luna leaned in slightly. "Do you know about the Mirror Market?"
Kazuki blinked. "What?"
She lowered her voice. "It's not on the maps. Not in any schedule. It exists for three hours a week—between 2:00 and 3:00 A.M.—underneath the multiversal archives. Only night-students and failures know about it."
"What do they sell?" he asked.
"Anything that doesn't officially exist."
She ticked the list off with her fingers.
"Blacklisted relics. Illegally modified spells. Emotion fragments. Memory shards."
Kazuki felt a chill creep up his spine.
"You're kidding."
"I don't joke about power." She leaned back. "And neither do they."
He followed her a half-hour later, curiosity overriding caution.
They slipped past a holographic wall behind the Archives tower—past a statue of a headless sage and into a hidden stairwell lined with mirrors.
No guards. No signs. Just the quiet hum of forbidden magic.
When they reached the bottom, Kazuki stopped cold.
The room was massive—part cavern, part pocket dimension. Floating booths shimmered midair, manned by masked vendors whose faces were blank slates. A fountain at the center dripped time itself—glowing liquid that reversed the moment it touched the ground. Students in black robes moved between stalls like shadows with coin pouches.
Luna whispered, "Welcome to the Mirror Market."
Kazuki's gaze drifted to one booth labeled "Echo Extracts."
Inside, a vendor held out a glowing vial to a hunched student.
"Three minutes of your happiest memory," the vendor said. "I'll give you thirty seconds of someone else's trauma—freshly distilled."
The student nodded and made the trade.
Kazuki shuddered. "This is insane."
"No," Luna said. "It's Midnight. And it's survival."
A few booths later, a glass orb caught Kazuki's eye.
Inside it swirled a flickering image of his own face—younger, maybe twelve, smiling in a hospital bed he didn't recognize.
"What is that?" he asked.
The vendor behind the stall, a masked woman with silver chains draped over her shoulders, leaned forward.
"A memory fragment. Yours."
Kazuki felt his mouth go dry. "I don't remember that."
"Of course not," she said. "You gave it up."
"I've never—"
"Not consciously. But not all trades are made with awareness."
Luna stepped in. "Back off."
The vendor smiled. "Careful, hybrid. You know how memory trades work."
Kazuki grabbed Luna's arm. "Let's go."
As they left, he could still feel the orb's presence like a hook in the back of his mind.
Back in the hallway, Kazuki exhaled. "That was a mistake."
"Maybe," Luna said. "But now you understand what this academy really is."
He stared at her. "Why did you bring me?"
"Because you need to know what you're up against," she said. "This place won't kill you with monsters or spells. It'll eat away at you with questions. What am I willing to give up for power?How much of myself can I lose before I'm not myself anymore?"
Kazuki looked at his reflection in the hallway mirror.
The glyphs still glowed faintly beneath his skin.
"I'm starting to think the System didn't pick me," he said. "I think it lured me."
Luna met his eyes.
"Then you'd better learn how to bargain back."