The war council had dispersed an hour ago, but the tension hadn't.
We'd gathered in the ORC clubroom - all of us. Rias in her chair, the peerage arranged around her, Mira standing apart but present. For the first time since the Architect revelation, we'd been strategizing as a unified force.
Patrol schedules. Information networks. Escape routes if the Restoration struck in force.
Normal planning for abnormal circumstances.
I sat by the window, watching the afternoon light fade across campus. The twelve-pointed star on my wrist ached dully - a constant reminder of the brand I carried.
Three weeks since the trial. Three weeks since they marked me.
"The scar remembers," the Fragment murmured. "It always remembers."
Mira was explaining something about Restoration tactics when it happened.
Her voice cut off mid-sentence.
I felt it before I saw it - a wrongness in the air, like reality itself had developed a crack. Mira's eyes went wide, her hand flying to her own wrist where her mark burned beneath gloved fingers.
"The Sixth is afraid," she whispered. "That means - "
A voice cut through.
Not in the room.
In us.
"The First Fragment."
The words scraped across my consciousness like nails on glass. Ancient. Amused. Hungry.
"I can taste your fear."
My vision doubled.
One moment I was in the ORC clubroom - familiar walls, concerned faces, Rias rising from her chair with magic gathering at her fingertips. The next, I was somewhere else entirely.
Infinite darkness stretched in every direction. No floor, no ceiling, no horizon. Just void.
And at the center of that void, something watched.
It had no face. No form I could comprehend. Just presence - vast and patient and utterly, terrifyingly aware.
"Hello, little Core."
"The Watcher," my Fragment said, and for the first time since awakening, I heard fear in its voice. "One of the Restoration's hunters."
What is it?
"Something older than me. Older than the shattering."
The faceless presence shifted, and somehow I knew it was smiling.
"Correction," the Watcher said. "I am the Watcher. I watch. I wait. I collect."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere - inside my skull, behind my eyes, in the space between thoughts. Physical sound couldn't touch this. This was something deeper.
In the real world - I could still see it, layered beneath the infinite dark - Rias drew a rune in the air. Complex, blazing with demonic power.
Nothing happened.
"Physical magic cannot touch psychic presence," Akeno said, her voice tight. She'd recognized what we were dealing with. "This isn't here. It's - "
"Between," the Watcher finished. "I exist in the spaces your reality cannot reach. I have watched the First Fragment for months now. Waited. Counted."
Its attention fixed on me, and the weight of it was crushing.
"You are at 38%. At 50%, you will be mine."
The room had gone silent.
Everyone could hear it now - Rias, the peerage, Mira. The Watcher's voice resonated through Fragment and devil alike, impossible to ignore.
"One month," Mira whispered. She'd gone pale, her gloved hands trembling. "That's how long until extraction."
"The Sixth speaks truth," the Watcher said. "One month, little Core. Then I collect."
"What do you want?" Rias's voice was steel, commanding even in the face of something that outclassed her utterly. "Why hunt the Fragments?"
"Want? I want nothing. I am the Watcher. I watch. I wait." A pause, vast and terrible. "The Restoration wants. I merely deliver."
Deliver to what?
"To reunion," the Watcher said, and the word carried weight I couldn't comprehend. "The Architect scattered. The Architect returns. All Fragments must be collected."
"Including the hosts?"
"The hosts are vessels. Useful for transport. Discarded upon arrival."
The casual cruelty of it hit like a physical blow. We weren't people to them. We were containers. Packaging to be thrown away once the contents were extracted.
"One month, First Fragment. Reach 50%. Open the door. Let me in." The presence began to recede, darkness pulling away like tide from shore. "Or run. It makes no difference. The mark knows where you are."
The Watcher withdrew.
Reality snapped back - the ORC clubroom solid around me, afternoon light golden through windows that suddenly felt fragile. Everyone stood frozen, processing what they'd witnessed.
Then my wrist exploded with pain.
I bit back a scream as the twelve-pointed star flared violently, burning deeper into my skin. Light blazed from the scar - cold, pale, wrong - and when it faded, the mark was darker. More permanent.
Not just a brand anymore.
A tracking device.
"That's the Restoration's sigil," Rias said, her voice carefully controlled. "They mark their targets."
I looked at the scar. The star's twelve points seemed to pulse with alien awareness, responding to something I couldn't perceive.
[RESTORATION HUNTER: THE WATCHER]
[Designation: Fragment Collector #1]
[Power Level: 150+ (True form unknown)]
[Method: Psychic assault, Echo amplification]
ABILITIES:
- Manifests as psychic projection (no physical form)
- Can accelerate Echo accumulation
- Creates illusions based on host's fears
- Cannot be harmed by conventional means
- Watches from "between spaces" (Fragment psychic plane)
[MANIFESTATION]
"The First Fragment. I can taste your fear."
"At 50%, you will be mine."
"One month, little Core. Then I collect."
[FRAGMENT WARNING]
"The Watcher is not the Restoration. He is merely their blade."
"Worse things wait behind him."
"Do not reach 50%."
[COUNTERMEASURES]
Physical: None known
Psychic: Unknown
Temporal: Unknown
Recommendation: Avoid, delay, survive
```
The Fragment's assessment appeared unbidden - cold, clinical, utterly unhelpful.
"Power Level 150+," my Fragment said. "You are at 95. The math is not favorable."
No kidding.
"Can we fight it?" Kiba asked. His hand rested on his sword hilt, ready for combat that wouldn't come. "Find its physical form, destroy it - "
"It doesn't have a physical form." Mira's voice was hollow. "The Watcher exists between realities. Between thoughts. You can't stab something that's made of attention."
"Then how do we stop it?"
"You don't." She met my eyes across the room. "You survive. You delay. You find something else to distract it."
"And if we can't?"
"Then it collects you. Extracts the Fragment. And you become another empty host for them to discard."
The room fell into silence.
I could feel everyone's eyes on me - concern, fear, determination. Rias stood closest, her hand finding mine without hesitation. The warmth of her touch grounded me, pulled me back from the edge of panic.
One month. 38% Echo. A psychic hunter that can't be fought.
"The countdown begins," the Fragment said. "At your current rate of Echo accumulation, you will reach 50% in approximately twenty-eight days. Faster if stressed. Faster still if exposed to strong emotional stimuli."
Emotional stimuli. Like caring about people. Like what we discussed last night.
"Yes."
So loving Rias - or whatever this feeling was - would speed my doom. And avoiding her would only delay it slightly.
Great. Just great.
"We'll find a way," Rias said. Her voice was steady, commanding. The King speaking, not the woman. "One month is time. We'll use it."
"How?" I asked.
"Research. The Gremory archives have records on psychic entities. Akeno's shrine maiden training included mental defense techniques. Sona's family has connections to the magical research community." She squeezed my hand. "We're not helpless."
I wanted to believe her. Wanted to trust that determination in her eyes.
But during the Watcher's manifestation, something else had happened.
When its presence had filled the room, when that voice had scraped across my consciousness, every Echo in my head had screamed.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Dohnaseek's combat instincts had recoiled, recognizing a predator beyond his ability to fight. Koneko's threat assessment had maxed out, red warnings flooding my peripheral awareness. Kiba's footwork instincts had calculated retreat angles that didn't exist. Akeno's pain tolerance had shattered, overwhelmed by psychic pressure that transcended physical sensation.
And Rias's strategic thinking had tried to analyze, tried to find weakness - and found nothing.
Thirty-eight percent of me was borrowed from others. And that thirty-eight percent knew, with absolute certainty, that we were facing something none of us could survive.
The Watcher feeds on fear. And I'm carrying the fears of five different people.
"Six," the Fragment corrected. "You forget your own."
"So we have one month to prepare," Akeno said, breaking the silence. "To find a way to shield against psychic intrusion. To somehow outmaneuver something that exists outside reality."
"Or to run," Mira added quietly. "Leave Kuoh. Keep moving. Stay ahead of the hunters."
"Running didn't save you," I said.
"No. But it kept me alive." She pulled up her glove, revealing the mark on her own wrist - smaller than mine, less defined, but unmistakably the same symbol. "Three years of running. Three years of watching it grow darker. They always find you eventually."
"Then running isn't an option."
"Running is always an option. Just not a good one."
Rias stepped forward, placing herself between me and the rest of the room. Not protectively - strategically. Drawing attention, taking command.
"We fortify Kuoh," she said. "Coordinate with Sitri. Research every possible defense against psychic entities. And we train."
"Train for what?" Kiba asked.
"For everything. Ryder's Echo percentage is the countdown. The more he can control his abilities - integrate them instead of being overwhelmed by them - the slower that percentage rises." She looked at me. "You need to master what you've copied. Stop fighting it. Start using it."
"She understands," the Fragment murmured. "Integration rather than rejection. Interesting approach."
Will it work?
"Unknown. But it is better than waiting to become a collection."
The meeting continued for another hour.
Plans were made. Responsibilities assigned. Mira agreed to share everything she knew about the Restoration - their methods, their hierarchy, their weaknesses. Not many of those, as it turned out.
By the time we finished, night had fallen over Kuoh Academy.
I stood at the ORC window, watching stars emerge. The mark on my wrist pulsed with cold awareness - the Watcher's gift, a brand that would never fade.
One month.
Rias appeared beside me, her presence warm against the chill that had settled into my bones.
"We'll find a way," she said. Voice steady. Eyes determined.
But I could see the fear beneath the confidence. For the first time since I'd known her, Rias Gremory was genuinely afraid.
Not for herself.
For me.
"We'll find a way," I agreed.
I didn't believe it. Neither did she.
But we had to say it anyway.
"One month, little Core."
The Watcher's voice echoed in my memory, impossible to forget.
"Then I collect."
The mark burned cold, a brand that would never fade.
The Fragment didn't mock. It simply agreed.
One month. Find a way. Or become a collection.