The sky above the school had darkened, though it was still morning. Thunderclouds hung low, heavy and bruised, casting strange shadows over the rooftop crosses and peeling walls.
Otaki stood outside the principal's office, frowning.
"She went to the restroom, you said?" she asked the secretary.
The woman nodded nervously. "Yes. But that was over thirty minutes ago…"
Otaki's lips thinned. Her chest tensed.
She turned swiftly, heading down the creaking hallway, her boots echoing like warning bells. Instinct guided her—not just worry. Something deeper. Something like memory.
Something like fear.
She paused near the east wing—a section of the building long condemned.
She had walked this hallway once before.
With Miyako.
"Why would she come here…?"
Then, she heard it.
The faintest chime of chains clattering.
And a sound that didn't belong in any school: the sound of weeping from underground.
Otaki stepped forward. The dust shifted beneath her feet. Her hand brushed the old wooden wall—and it creaked inward.
A hidden door.
It groaned as she pushed it open, revealing a dark stairwell carved of stone.
The air was ice-cold.
As she descended, the light behind her dimmed, swallowed by the gloom. Her flashlight flickered as if resisting.
Then she reached the door at the bottom. It was old, reinforced with black iron, and bore the ancient crest of the Sakuma family—the seal of the blind crow.
Otaki's breath caught.
"No… not again."
She pressed her palm to the seal. The metal was warm. Breathing.
The door hissed open, like lungs releasing a long-held breath.
---
Inside, Reiko stood frozen before the mirror, tears streaking her cheeks, her hands trembling.
The chamber pulsed with an unnatural heartbeat. The walls dripped, as if bleeding.
Chains writhed around the platform, and the cracked mirror continued to flicker—now flashing visions:
Children screaming. A ritual room soaked in blood. Young Miyako screaming, bound. Keisuke Sakuma's face, unreadable behind glass lenses. A crow plucking its own eyes out.
And behind it all—the Eye.
Watching.
Always watching.
Reiko took a step forward. The mirror called to her.
"Reiko!"
A voice pierced the dark.
She turned.
"Otaki…?"
Her aunt burst into the room, pale with terror, her flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. She ran to Reiko and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"We have to go," she said, voice shaking. "This place should never have been opened."
"But…" Reiko looked back. "The mirror… I saw her. I saw Mother. She—she was chosen. And there was a door. A door behind the mirror. It's still there."
Otaki's face paled further. Her lips trembled.
"I thought it was over," she whispered. "I thought when Miyako sealed it, we'd buried it for good."
"You knew?" Reiko asked.
Otaki nodded slowly. "Not everything. But enough. Your mother was the last vessel. She volunteered—no, forced herself to take the burden from the others. She thought she sealed the Eye forever."
"But it's waking," Reiko whispered. "It called to me."
Otaki grabbed her hand. "That's how it starts. It calls, then it feeds."
A sound echoed through the chamber.
Drip… drip… drip…
Reiko looked at the mirror again.
The glass was no longer cracked.
Now it was shining—like water. Like a window.
And from behind it… fingers pressed against the other side.
Human fingers.
Bloody.
Then a face.
Reiko screamed.
Otaki yanked her back.
The Eye blinked.
The room trembled.
"We have to seal it," Otaki said. "Before it chooses you, too."
She pulled out a vial from her coat. Inside swirled black ink—blessed ink, sealed decades ago by a priest from Mount Kurama.
She opened it, dipped her finger, and began to draw the counter-sigil on the chamber floor. The crow's mark. The binding seal.
Reiko watched, heart hammering, as the chains began to rise again—this time fighting back, trying to strike Otaki.
The mirror began to scream.
Faces of children appeared inside it, clawing at the glass.
"Don't look at it!" Otaki shouted. "Not directly! It sees through eyes!"
Reiko turned away.
Otaki completed the final line of the seal.
The ground cracked.
The mirror shattered—not into shards, but into black feathers that scattered like ash.
The platform split down the middle. The Eye vanished.
The chains fell, clattering to the floor, lifeless.
Silence returned.
The chamber was still.
Reiko fell to her knees, panting.
Otaki wrapped her arms around her, holding her tight.
"I should've told you everything," she whispered. "But I was afraid… afraid you'd end up like her."
Reiko looked up, her eyes distant.
"She's still in there, Otaki. I saw her. Mother didn't escape. She sealed herself with it."
Otaki's hands trembled.
Then Reiko whispered, barely audible.
"I'm going to find her soul ."
---
To Be Continued.