Their footsteps echoed through the academy's corridor. The distant chatter of students faded behind them, leaving only the sharp, solitary rhythm of their shoes against the cold floor.
Reika followed Yuuji in absolute silence—no questions, no hesitation, no emotion. But this silence wasn't the kind that came from obedience or fear. It was a different kind of void. The kind that absorbed everything around it. Even the air itself felt heavier, as if the space between them had been hollowed out.
Yuuji walked ahead, deep in thought.
What the hell was that?
That explosion—it wasn't normal. It wasn't the kind of cursed technique mishap you'd expect from an amateur sorcerer. No, this felt more like an anomaly. Something that wasn't supposed to happen. Something that wasn't supposed to exist.
And now, behind him, walking without a sound, was the girl at the center of it all.
A girl with dark crimson eyes.
A girl who felt... wrong.
Not in the way curses did. Not in the way malevolence lingered around the strong. It wasn't even about an intent to kill.
It was the absence of it all.
Like looking at something that had been erased from the world, but still somehow remained.
They stopped in front of an empty training hall. The walls, scarred from years of combat practice, stood quiet in the dim light.
Yuuji turned to face her.
"Reika," he called, his voice carrying a weight that hadn't been there before. "Do you know what happened back there?" Reika met his gaze for a moment, then looked away.
"I don't know."
There was no uncertainty in her tone. No defensiveness. No attempt to lie. Just a simple statement. Yuuji narrowed his eyes. "But you weren't surprised, were you?"
Silence.
That was all he needed.
She wasn't unaware—she just didn't want to answer.
Yuuji exhaled through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, I'm not the kind of teacher who pressures his students. But if something like this happens and you're at the center of it, I can't just ignore it."
Reika remained motionless.
Her gaze wasn't even on him anymore. She was staring at something beyond the walls, beyond the room itself. The kind of stare that came from seeing too much—seeing for far too long.
Yuuji's eyes flickered to the old bracelet on her wrist.
The patterns—subtle, intricate—weren't just decorative. To an untrained eye, it was nothing more than a relic, something ancient and worn. But to a sorcerer, it was clear.
A seal.
"...That bracelet," Yuuji said, "it's a binding seal, isn't it?"
Reika's fingers twitched slightly. Almost unconsciously, she raised her hand, brushing her fingertips over the bracelet's surface.
She didn't answer. But she didn't deny it, either.
Yuuji leaned back against the wall, his tone shifting into something more casual. "I won't push you to talk. Not yet. But one way or another, I'll figure it out." Something flickered in Reika's expression. Not fear. Not anger.
Something more subtle.
Awareness.
As if his words had stirred something buried deep inside her. Something that had been waiting—dormant, unnoticed—until this very moment.
BOOM.
The ground trembled. A second explosion.
The walls shuddered, dust cascading from the ceiling. Distant screams filled the air, blending with the sharp crack of shattering glass.
Yuuji's entire body tensed. His instincts kicked in, sharpening. "Stay here," he ordered, before bolting out of the room.
The door slammed shut behind him. Reika didn't move. She simply stood there, listening.
The echoes of chaos rippled through the academy, but inside this room, everything remained unnervingly still. The dust from the ceiling settled in slow motion, blanketing the window's fractured glass, warping the dim light into a distorted haze.
The world outside was shifting into panic. But inside her, something else was shifting, too. Something old. Something hungry.
She lowered her hand from the bracelet, her eyes—dark crimson, shadowed with something restless—fixating on the window.
The evening sun struggled to reach her, its golden glow attempting to wrap around her form. But it didn't. Light did not reflect off her skin. It did not shimmer in her hair. It vanished. Like it had been consumed.
Silence.
Not the kind that comes with peace, but the kind that devours sound—an absence so complete it feels unnatural.
Reika exhaled slowly.
Too soon.
She had spent so much time blending in, burying herself beneath the mundane routine of human life. Moving unnoticed, just another student in a uniform, her presence diluted by the crowd. But now—
Now, she could feel his eyes on her. Yuuji Itadori. Still there. Still watching.
His gaze wasn't just curiosity. It was something deeper, something that smelled of recognition—of a memory just out of reach.
Reika didn't need to turn around to know. She had seen it before. In his eyes, there was a flicker—an echo of something long forgotten.
A dimly lit corridor. Faint whispers. A place that should have existed, but didn't.
She shifted slightly, catching her own reflection in the glass. But the girl staring back wasn't just her. No, it was something older, something that had existed long before she was ever called by a name.
Her fingers brushed the old bracelet around her wrist. A seal. A lock. A cage. Not just for a curse. But for herself.
"...Sensei."
Her voice barely rose above a whisper, yet it carried weight. It seeped into the air like a slow poison, slipping through the cracks of consciousness, settling where it was least expected.
She turned to face him. No smile. No expression. Just eyes—deep, bottomless, pulling him toward something he couldn't quite grasp.
───⭑⭒⚊奈落の顎⚊⭒⭑───
Reika sat at her desk, fingers drumming lightly against the cold wooden surface. The classroom had returned to its usual rhythm—at least, for everyone else.
Not for her. She traced the room with her gaze, listening—not actively, but distantly.
"That explosion... what the hell was that?"
"An attack, maybe?"
"But by who? The school's security is tight, right?"
How fragile they were. How unaware.
Did they ever realize how thin the thread of their existence was? How easily it could be cut—erased—forgotten?
Her hand moved absently to her wrist, touching the old bracelet. The rough texture of its surface met her skin, uneven and cracked in places. Flawed.
And yet, more real than anything else in this room. Real. Unlike them. A hollow feeling settled in her stomach. Not hunger for food. Not something so trivial. Deeper. Sharper. Persistent.
Before the bracelet, that hunger had been overwhelming. Before she learned restraint, the world had felt unbearably delicate. Too delicate.
A moment too long—just a touch—and things would begin to dissolve, unraveling into nothingness.
Humans were far more fragile than they realized. But not anymore. Now, she knew how to hold back. How to avoid touching.
How to let things remain in place without—
"...Reika."
She barely turned her head. Yuuji stood in front of her, brows slightly furrowed. "You okay?"
A blink. Then, she nodded. "Of course."
Yuuji didn't look convinced. His gaze lingered—not just on her face, but lower, just for a second.
On the bracelet.
"You look... pale."
Reika smiled—soft, practiced. "Maybe I'm just tired." Not a lie. But not the truth either. Because the truth was—
She was always hungry.