Chapter 7 - Fragments in the Mist

The silence of the night was thick in Tokura Yoshi's bedroom. The faint hum of the magic lamps in the hallway filtered like a muffled murmur through the door. Outside, the shadows of the cypress trees trembled in the moonlight. Inside, he lay on his back, motionless, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Another night. Another day passed without being discovered. Another memory I didn't want to relive.

He forced himself to remember trivia: how many steps it was from his seat to the practice room, what dishes were served in the cafeteria, how many times Haruto scratched his head as he spoke. He wanted to sleep without thinking. Without remembering. Without seeing.

And so in time, his eyelids fell. And with them, reality dissolved.

-

Everything was red.

The headmaster's office was covered in a faint crimson light, as if the bleeding sun had slipped through the cracks. The air smelled of hot metal and something else... damp. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He just lay there, floating like a trapped spectator.

In front of him, four female figures with their backs to him. Naked. Vulnerable. Humiliated.

And on the other side of the desk, standing, a dark-haired young man, laughing. A dry, hate-filled laugh.

-Did they think they were untouchable? -the voice said. His voice. No. It was not theirs.

-Look at them... the perfect daughters... the future heiresses... Where's their pride now, eh? -he laughed as he pointed the headmaster's cane at them.

The figures were sobbing. Haruka tried to move, but her body trembled like a trapped animal. Liz raised her head with frozen eyes full of pent-up rage. Charlotte was muttering something incomprehensible, and Kyria just gritted her teeth as tears streamed down her face.

And then, everything went dark.

-

Lizes Von Arcadia woke up abruptly. Sweat was pouring down his back. Her chest heaved up and down. She was alone in her room, the curtain billowing slightly in the night breeze.

-Again...

He got up and walked to the mirror above his dressing table. He switched on the lamp with a click. His face was pale, but untouched. Except...

He blinked.

For a split second, her reflection did not follow her.

-...

He clenched his fists.

-What are you trying to tell me? -she whispered into the mirror.

-

In another room in the east wing, Haruka walked down the corridor barefoot, a glass of water in her hands. Her face, serene as ever, concealed the subtle trembling of her fingers.

He had woken up crying. She didn't scream. She didn't make a sound. He just sat up slowly, as if his body was remembering something his mind didn't want to accept.

The image was etched inside her: her, in the office, being reduced to nothing with hurtful words and scornful eyes.

-That damned... that face... -he muttered, rubbing his arms.

He went to the corridor window and looked into the boys' dormitory. A light was still on in a room on the third floor.

"Tokura Yoshi"

-Why does his presence seem so familiar...? -he said quietly. The crystal did not respond. But the cold he felt was real.

-

Yoshi was panting. He had woken up drenched in sweat. That damn dream again.

He sat on the edge of the bed, mumbling to himself:

-It wasn't me. It wasn't me. But... why do I still see what I saw... if I closed my eyes?

He looked up and froze.

His reflection in the mirror next to the wardrobe was smiling.

But he wasn't smiling.

The expression in the mirror was that of someone else. Superb. Malicious. A crooked grimace too reminiscent of the original body it now occupied.

-No... no, no, no, no...

Without thinking, he picked up the metal clock on the bedside table and threw it against the mirror.

CRASH!

The fragments scattered across the ground. The sound was deafening.

And then, he woke up again.

The same room. The same position. The clock, untouched on the table.

A dream within a dream.

He sat up with difficulty. Breathing ragged. The trembling still in his hands.

-What the hell...?

He got up and walked to the mirror.

His reflection looked back at him. This time... without smiling. Just him.

But something in his gaze no longer seemed his own.

He knelt down and opened the hidden board on the floor. He took the notebook.

Day 14. I dreamt that I dreamt. And both dreams were very real. Charlotte, Haruka, Liz... Kyria. They all remember me, don't they? And I... I keep wanting to forget.

He closed the notebook and hid it again.

Outside, dawn was still far away. But inside, something had just awakened.

And that was his new skill. Unfortunately for him.

This ability would become his worst nightmare.