Valemont Academy – Central Courtyard – 6:21 AM
Renji hadn't told Hana what the mirror said.
He wanted to.
But some truths are shaped like blades.Once unsheathed, they cut everything.
He sat on a stone bench, trying to breathe evenly, watching the students file through the courtyard. Too early for class. Too late for excuses.
And then he saw it.
Not a person. Not a ghost.
A mark.
On the stone wall across from him, just above the crest of Valemont:
The sunflower symbol.
Small. Faint. Not carved. Not painted.
Growing.
He stood and walked straight to it.
It wasn't there yesterday. He was sure of it.
He reached to touch it—
Hana grabbed his wrist.
"Don't."
Her voice was sharp. Fragile.
He turned to her. "You see it too?"
She didn't answer.
She just rolled up the sleeve of her jacket.
The same symbol. Burned into the skin of her forearm.
Not a tattoo.
Not a wound.
Something in-between.
Renji stepped back. "When?"
"This morning. It wasn't there last night."
"Anyone else?"
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
"I saw it on Zane's binder. And on Professor Lutz's desk. Like… the symbol is moving."
Renji's mouth went dry.
"It's not moving," he whispered. "It's replicating."
Archive Tower – Observation Chamber – 8:12 AM
Renji paced.
"This is a memetic breach," he muttered. "The symbol is behaving like a virus. Visual transmission. Possibly conceptual. It embeds itself when perceived."
Hana sat, staring at her arm.
"What if… what if it changes us?"
Renji looked at her. "It already is."
She pulled her sleeve down.
"You think it came from Vault 9?"
Renji didn't answer immediately.
Then: "No. Vault 9 didn't create it. It was made to hold it. But the seal's failing."
She closed her eyes.
"So what do we do?"
Renji sat across from her.
"We find the original version of the symbol. Before it spread. Before it turned viral. If we can trace its first appearance, maybe we can learn how to suppress it."
Hana opened a file. "According to TP logs, the symbol first appeared—"
Renji interrupted.
"Don't trust TP's records. They're post-infection. I saw the symbol before anyone even knew what TP was."
She blinked.
"You mean… at Valemont?"
Renji stood.
"No. Before that."
Flashback – Age 11 – Kyoto, Japan
Rain on temple stones.
A boy alone in the dark. A funeral procession he wasn't allowed to attend.
Renji stood in a family shrine no one believed in anymore.
And on the back wall, in the dust and moss and rot—
A sunflower, carved so long ago it had roots.
He'd touched it once.
Felt nothing.
And dreamed of doors every night since.
Back to Present – Renji's dorm – Midnight
The symbol was now in his mirror.
It wasn't a reflection.
It was on the other side.
He didn't look at it long.
Just enough to confirm it was there.
Then he turned the mirror around.
Taped it to the wall.
And opened Elias's letter again.
A line was now circled in red ink:
"When they start repeating, you don't have time."
"Whatever the symbol is trying to open… it's almost awake."
Renji lay down. Not to sleep.
To watch the ceiling.
Because now the cracks above his bed were forming a pattern.
A pattern shaped like a sunflower.