The door slammed behind them.
Akiro spun, flashlight trembling in her hand, but the exit was gone. Not just closed—gone. The stone wall stood smooth where the door had been moments ago.
"That... wasn't here before," Toma muttered, pressing his palm against it.
"Where the hell are we?" Kenta hissed, his voice edged with panic. "This isn't part of the school anymore. This is something else."
"Calm down," Ren said. He was pale, but steady. His hand hovered protectively near Akiro's shoulder.
The group regrouped in the flickering torchlight.
The underground corridor had widened. The walls were lined with cracked mirrors, tall, antique things that stood like watchers, covered in grime and age.
"This wasn't here in the footage," Daiki muttered, checking his camera. "It's like it's changing. Reacting to us."
"Or to him," Mei whispered.
They didn't speak Yuto's name.
The image of him standing still, masked, eyeless, clung to all of them.
Akiro moved forward, drawn toward the nearest mirror.
The glass shimmered faintly.
She saw herself.
But it wasn't her.
The reflection stared back, smiling.
Only it didn't blink when she did.
And then it moved without her.
Mei screamed.
Everyone turned.
Akiro stumbled backward as her reflection lifted its hand and pressed it against the glass from inside. A spiderweb of cracks spread from its palm. Her own hand had never moved.
"We need to keep moving," Ren said, pulling Akiro back. "These mirrors aren't normal."
"They're not mirrors," Toma said. "They're doors."
Daiki's camera screen suddenly fizzled lines of static dancing across it.
Then a video began to play.
No one touched it.
It was footage from moments ago, but reversed.
They watched themselves backing away from the corridor, re-entering the science lab, stepping backward through the broken door, until they saw themselves outside the school, standing in the rain, staring blankly at the gates.
Then the screen went black.
"It's messing with time," Asahi said. "This place... it's like a dream."
"No," Akiro said. Her voice was faint. "It's like a memory that doesn't want to be remembered."
Suddenly, Hikaru gasped.
He pointed to one of the mirrors.
Inside it, Yuto stood.
This time he moved. Slowly, dragging something behind him. A long, sharp object, an old staff, or maybe a metal pipe.
And he wasn't alone.
Behind him stood nine figures.
All masked.
All faceless.
Each with a number carved into their foreheads.
One. Two. Three… Nine.
And Yuto, the Tenth.
They stood behind the glass.
Watching.
Waiting.
"This isn't just a haunting," Toma whispered. "It's a ritual."
The mirror began to ripple.
And from the glass, a hand reached out.
It wasn't Yuto's.
It was Akiro's reflection.
It grabbed her wrist.
She screamed.
Ren and Kenta lunged at her, pulling her back.
The mirror shattered—glass exploding into the air like falling stars.
They fell back.
Akiro was free. The reflection gone.
But her arm… was marked.
Ten symbols, faint and glowing, pulsed beneath her skin.
"You've been chosen," Rina said, almost dreamlike.
"What do you mean?" Akiro asked, tears in her eyes.
"I don't know," Rina replied. "But I dreamed this before. I saw your arm. I saw the mask. I saw... blood."
Asahi backed away from the group.
"There's something down the hall," he said.
They turned.
A light flickered at the end of the corridor.
And something moved.
Not walked.
Floated.
A pale, tattered figure. A girl. Hair black and wet. Her arms twisted the wrong way. Her head tilted unnaturally.
And she was humming.
The tune was wrong, like a lullaby remembered from a nightmare.
"We have to run," Mei whispered.
But the corridor behind them was gone.
Only mirrors remained.
And every mirror showed something different.
Akiro realized, the only way forward... was through one.
She pointed.
"That one. It shows a door."
They ran.
And one by one, they stepped through the glass.
They emerged on the other side, gasping for breath.
It was no longer a corridor, it was a vast chamber.
Circular, lined with statues.
Each statue wore a mask.
Each mask stared forward.
Each mask bore a nameplate beneath it.
Kenta stepped forward to read one.
His own name stared back.
"What the hell…?" he whispered.
One by one, they all found their names.
"This is us," Daiki said. "Why are we statues?"
Akiro's statue was in the center. But her name was scratched out.
Instead, beneath it, it read:
THE HOST.
"Host of what?" Mei asked.
No one answered.
Because above them, on the ceiling dome, symbols began to glow.
Ten symbols.
Akiro's arm burned.
The same symbols.
And then… the masks on the statues began to crack.
One by one.
Until the stone faces crumbled, revealing hollow sockets beneath.
And the sound returned.
The bell.
One toll.
Then whispers filled the air, voices in ten tongues, old and broken.
They spoke in unison:
"The host is marked. The game begins."
Suddenly, the chamber shifted.
Walls stretched, twisted, becoming a labyrinth.
Mirrors rose again, this time on wheels, moving as if alive.
Ren pulled Akiro close. "Stay near me."
Toma shouted, "Everyone! Stick together!"
But it was too late.
The floor beneath Hikaru cracked, he screamed and vanished into the dark.
Mei chased after him—only to be blocked by a moving wall.
Daiki's camera exploded in sparks.
Everything was falling apart.
Akiro's vision blurred. The air shimmered.
And then, she was alone.
The labyrinth surrounded her.
Stone. Mirror. Echo.
And far ahead, the sound of weeping.
She followed it.
Her footsteps echoed in unnatural rhythm.
Then she found her.
A girl. Kneeling. Pale skin. Long hair.
She turned.
It was her.
Her own face.
Smiling.
"You came back," it said.
"I never left," Akiro whispered.
The double lunged.
Akiro screamed.
The fight was brutal, her mirror self clawed, bit, whispered things Akiro couldn't bear.
But she fought back.
And finally, shattered the reflection's face against the mirror wall.
Glass rained down.
And from the shards, a mask rolled to her feet.
Mask Eleven.
And a name burned beneath it:
Akiro Natsume.