One week later.
The mark ached.
Not the constant burning of the early days - more like a toothache, a dull pressure that reminded me it was there. Watching. Waiting. The Watcher lived up to his name.
Fourteen days remaining.
Routine had become armor.
Morning classes. Afternoon training. Evening patrols with whoever Rias assigned. Night study sessions that were half strategy meetings, half attempts to pretend we were normal students.
We weren't. But the pretense helped.
Mira had integrated faster than I expected. Not into the social fabric - she still ate alone, still flinched when anyone moved too quickly - but into the tactical structure. She understood threat assessment, patrol routes, fallback positions. Three years of running had taught her things that took most devils decades to learn.
"Your formation is sloppy," she said during morning training. Kiba's sword stopped mid-swing. "When the Knight commits, the Bishop should already be repositioning. You're reacting instead of anticipating."
Kiba nodded, adjusting his stance. No ego. Just efficiency.
She's good at this.
"The Sixth was always a survivor. Different method, same result."
I watched my peerage move through combat drills. Kiba flowing between positions, Koneko anchoring the center, Akeno providing covering fire, Asia ready with healing the moment anyone took a hit. Smooth. Coordinated.
My peerage.
The thought came naturally. Too naturally. I didn't used to think of them as mine.
The Fragment's gift came without warning.
We were reviewing patrol maps when the world shifted. Not visually - everything looked the same - but I could see differently. The routes we'd marked weren't just lines anymore. They were probability matrices. Intersection points. Vulnerability windows.
[ABILITY ACQUIRED: ENHANCED ANALYSIS]
Efficiency: 45%
Duration: Passive (always active)
Function: Pattern recognition, tactical assessment, predictive modeling
Limitations: Information quality dependent on available data
Cost Paid: Sense of invincibility
"A gift," the Fragment murmured. "You've been fighting blind. Now you see."
What's the cost?
"Already paid. You won't notice immediately."
That wasn't reassuring. I pulled up the cost again, trying to understand what I'd lost.
Sense of invincibility.
I looked at the patrol routes and saw seventeen ways we could be ambushed. Three of them had no good escape options. One would result in casualties even if we executed perfectly.
I used to charge into fights without thinking about odds.
Now I couldn't stop calculating them.
"You're more careful lately," Rias observed.
We were in the ORC, late afternoon light painting everything gold. She sat across from me, paperwork forgotten, those crimson eyes studying me like I was a puzzle she intended to solve.
"Is that bad?"
"It's different." She tilted her head. "You used to be reckless. Charging in, trusting your abilities to save you. Now you hesitate."
"I think of it as tactical assessment."
"I think of it as fear." She held up a hand before I could protest. "Not weakness. Smart fear. The kind that keeps you alive." She paused. "I'm just not sure I like the trade-off."
I'm not sure I do either.
But the Fragment had taken the choice away. The sense that nothing could really hurt me - the irrational confidence that had let me fight Dohnaseek, face Riser, endure the trial - was gone. Replaced by clear-eyed analysis of how badly things could go.
Maybe that was better. Maybe it would keep me alive longer.
It definitely felt worse.
Mira found me on the rooftop during lunch.
She kept her distance - three meters, standard - and sat on the ledge across from me. The autumn wind played with her hair, and for a moment she looked almost peaceful.
"Your Echo is higher than when we met," she said without preamble.
"You can tell?"
"All Fragment users can sense each other. Part of why the Restoration tracks us." She pulled her gloves tighter. "You were at 38% when I arrived. You're higher now."
I checked internally. The number floated up without prompting.
"Forty-two percent. Rising faster since the Watcher's intervention."
Why?
"Stress accelerates integration. You've been under considerable stress."
"When you hit 45%," Mira said, "the Watcher will strike harder. That's his pattern. He waits until Fragment users are unstable, then pushes them over the edge."
"How do you know?"
"I've watched him do it. Three times." Her voice went flat. "Three hosts I met in my three years running. All of them hit 45% Echo. All of them had psychic episodes that drove them to extraction points. He herds us like cattle."
The Enhanced Analysis kicked in unbidden. Calculating probabilities. Mapping attack vectors.
Forty-two percent. Three points from his trigger zone.
"She knows the pattern," the Fragment observed. "She knows nothing of the solution."
Which is?
"The Watcher doesn't need you at 50%. He just needs you unstable. Panic. Fear. Loss of control. At 45%, most hosts break. But you could choose differently."
Integration.
"Or suppression. Both prevent the instability he requires. Neither is easy. Both have costs."
Mira was watching me. "Your Fragment is talking to you."
"How can you tell?"
"Your eyes unfocus slightly. Same thing happens to me." She looked away. "Whatever it's offering, remember the price."
I always do.
The Restoration scouts hit at sunset.
Three of them - no designations I recognized, low-level operatives wearing civilian clothes and carrying concealed weapons. They tried to breach the academy's boundary ward near the eastern gate.
Tried.
Akeno's lightning hit the first one before he finished cutting through. Kiba's blade took the second in the same heartbeat. The third turned to run.
Koneko caught her by the ankle.
"...weak," Koneko said. "Not even training weights."
The Enhanced Analysis provided context without being asked. These weren't real agents. Test probes. Measuring response time, force composition, communication protocols.
"They're scouting us," I said.
Rias arrived in a swirl of crimson, Power of Destruction already gathering in her palm. She took in the scene - three unconscious scouts, no casualties, minimal property damage - and let the energy fade.
"How long?"
"Twelve seconds from breach to containment," Kiba reported.
"Good." She looked at me. "Assessment?"
The analysis flowed naturally. "Probe attack. They wanted to see how fast we respond and how coordinated our defense is. These three were expendable - probably new recruits or locals they pressured into service. The real threat will come with better intel."
"Agreed." Rias turned to Akeno. "Have them secured for questioning. Then increase patrol frequency for the next week."
"Ara ara, understood."
I watched my peerage move. Kiba restraining prisoners with precise efficiency. Koneko dragging the unconscious woman to the staging area. Akeno coordinating with Sona's team for the handoff. Asia already healing minor injuries no one had noticed taking.
My peerage.
The possessive thought surfaced again. Stronger this time.
They're Rias's peerage. I'm just another piece.
But that wasn't how it felt anymore.
The strategy session ran late.
Rias had called it after the scout attack. Full peerage, plus Mira, plus Sona's core members for coordination. The ORC's meeting room felt cramped with so many people.
"Options," Rias said. "We need to break the Watcher's mark or find a way to defeat him directly."
"Can't defeat him directly." Mira's voice was certain. "I've seen Fragment users try. Power Level 150 or higher. Psychic attacks that ignore physical defenses. And that's his weakened form. In his true state - " She shook her head. "No one knows what that looks like."
"Then we focus on the mark," Sona said, adjusting her glasses. "Can it be removed?"
Everyone looked at me. I touched my wrist where the twelve-pointed star burned permanently under the skin.
"The mark is not physical," the Fragment said. "It exists in the space between dimensions. Removing it would require power comparable to the Watcher himself."
"Fragment says no," I translated. "Not without matching his power."
"Then we find another approach," Kiba said. "What weakens him?"
"Integration," I said. The word came from the Fragment, but I spoke it. "The Watcher exploits instability. Fragment users at high Echo are vulnerable to psychic manipulation - he pushes them until they break, then harvests them at extraction points." I met Rias's eyes. "If I integrate before he can destabilize me, he loses his leverage."
"And if integration fails?" Sona asked.
Silence.
"Then you become me," the Fragment said privately. "And I become something that no longer remembers being you."
Not encouraging.
"Truth rarely is."
Mira was shaking her head. "Integration is just as dangerous. Most hosts who try don't survive with their identity intact."
"Most hosts don't have support," I said. "I do."
The words hung in the air. Rias's hand found mine under the table. Warm. Steady.
"We're not making this decision tonight," she said. "But we start planning for it. Both options - integration and alternative methods. We find a way, or we make one."
Later.
The roof again. Stars visible between cloud breaks. Cold enough that our breath misted.
Rias stood beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. She'd shed her King's composure somewhere between the meeting room and here. What remained was something quieter. More honest.
"Mira's decided to stay," I said. "Permanently."
"I know. She told me this afternoon." Rias looked up at the stars. "She said something interesting. 'The Restoration wants both of us. Safer together than apart.'"
"Practical reasoning."
"Yes. But I don't think that's why she's staying." Rias turned to face me. "I think she found something worth staying for. Something beyond survival."
The same thing I found.
I didn't say it. Didn't need to. Rias had always been good at reading what I didn't voice.
"Whatever comes next," she said softly, "we face it together."
"No more secrets," I agreed.
"No more secrets." She smiled - tired, worried, but genuine. "That was our promise. I'm holding you to it."
The mark ached. Fourteen days. The Watcher watching. The Restoration probing. The Echo climbing toward thresholds I couldn't predict.
But standing there, on that rooftop, with Rias beside me and my peerage - my peerage - somewhere below, it didn't feel hopeless.
It felt like the beginning of something.
I checked my Echo before sleep.
Forty-two percent. Higher than a week ago. Rising faster than the early days, when I'd been lucky to gain a point per major event.
"The acceleration is expected," the Fragment observed. "The Watcher's psychic touch leaves resonance. Your system adapts to handle the interference. Adaptation requires Echo."
So fighting him makes me more like you.
"Fighting him, running from him, even thinking about him. The mark ensures constant exposure. His design is elegant in its cruelty."
Can I slow it down?
"Not without isolation. Even then, the mark maintains connection. You could suppress for a time. But suppression has limits. Integration has permanence."
I stared at the ceiling. Forty-two percent. Eight points from the critical threshold. Three points from the Watcher's hunting ground.
"A choice approaches," the Fragment said. "Integration or suppression. Choose before 50% chooses for you."
I know.
"I wonder if you do." A pause. Something almost like concern. "The others who faced this choice waited too long. Convinced themselves they had more time. By the time they decided, the decision had already been made for them."
I'm not them.
"No. You're not." The Fragment went quiet, then added: "That's why I'm warning you now. We have two weeks. Use them wisely."
The mark throbbed. The Echo hummed. And somewhere in the between-spaces, the Watcher watched.
But I wasn't facing this alone.
Forty-two percent. Rising. Choices ahead.
I'd made impossible choices before. I'd make this one too.