The assignment came wrapped in urgency.
No scrolls. No ceremony. Just Instructor Brannic waiting at Toji's dorm with his arms crossed and a silver glyph glowing over his shoulder.
"Get your cloak," he said. "You're coming with me."
No questions asked.
Toji moved.
⸻
They arrived at the outpost by nightfall, the carriage slowing as shadows crept like ink across the forest trail. The moon was just a sliver—sharp and cold.
Kaela was already there.
She leaned against a stone column, arms crossed, staff slung across her back. Her eyes flicked to Toji when he arrived, no words spoken.
But she nodded.
Once.
Brannic pointed toward a jagged structure barely visible behind the treeline.
"Old ritual site," he said. "Used centuries ago for tether-splitting. Something inside woke up. Maybe it was always there."
He turned to them both.
"This isn't a cleanse. It's a confirm-and-contain. You're to go in, identify the breach, and survive long enough to report it."
Toji blinked.
"You expect it to be hostile?"
"I expect it to be confused. That's worse."
Brannic pressed a black charm into Toji's palm.
"Emergency mark. Break it only if you're ready to be dragged out by your bones."
Kaela smirked. "Comforting as ever."
⸻
The site was wrong.
Not in design—it was just old stone, moss-covered and angular—but in atmosphere. Magic clung to the space like stale breath. The ground was too quiet. Even the leaves refused to rustle.
Toji stepped inside first, the Mnemo-Eye forming silently over his shoulder.
Kaela followed with deliberate footsteps.
"Echo-readings are thin," she whispered. "But layered."
Toji knelt, touching a broken seal in the center.
He felt it.
A memory that wasn't his.
Screaming.
A name. His name. But not said by him.
The Mnemo-Eye rotated.
Words formed in his mind:
"The caster in the dark does not know they are lying."
He stood sharply.
Kaela tensed. "What?"
"Someone's here."
"Toji—"
The shadows split.
A boy stepped out—young, maybe sixteen. Face pale. Hair white. Eyes cloudy with runes burned across the sclera.
He didn't speak.
But his hands twitched.
The Mnemo-Eye spun violently.
Toji saw flashes—
The boy lunging.
Runes unraveling.
Death.
But the Eye whispered:
"He believes you are the enemy."
Toji froze.
Kaela began to raise her staff.
"Wait," Toji said.
"What?"
"He thinks we're threats. But he doesn't even know where he is."
Kaela didn't lower the staff.
The boy began a chant.
"MOVE," she snapped.
Toji did not.
The Eye pulsed.
"He believes the lie because no one told him the truth."
Toji exhaled, stepped forward.
Hands empty.
"Stop."
The boy's chant faltered.
Toji met his eyes.
"You don't have to defend this place."
The runes flickered.
Toji kept walking.
Behind him, Kaela growled. "He's charging—"
"No. He's remembering."
The boy shook—then collapsed.
⸻
They brought him outside together.
Toji watched over him while Kaela bound the glyphs with suppression bands.
Brannic arrived twenty minutes later.
Looked once at the boy.
Then at Toji.
"You didn't strike?"
"No."
"You were shown the outcome?"
"Yes."
"And still chose restraint."
Toji didn't answer.
Brannic nodded slowly.
"Then the Eye works."
⸻
Later, alone in the garden, Toji summoned it again.
The Mnemo-Eye hovered calmly this time, spinning slowly.
"What did he see?" Toji asked aloud.
The Eye responded.
"He saw a version of you that did not wait. And he believed it."
Toji sat on the grass.
"Is that what I'm becoming? A threat no one understands?"
The Eye blinked once.
Then showed him a vision—not of the mission.
Of Kaela.
Just her, walking past him during study hours.
But her eyes lingered a second longer.
Not mistrust.
Not awe.
Recognition.
The Eye whispered:
"Not all consequences are born of violence."
Toji dismissed it.
Quietly.
For once, not because he feared its power.
But because he understood what it was trying to show him.
.
.
.
The Trial came first.
No warning. No instructions.
Just a portal in the center of the training atrium, stitched from light and shadow, humming like a heartbeat in a sealed vault.
Instructor Varn summoned Toji alone.
"You'll go in for ten minutes," Varn said. "Inside is a room that reflects not your fears—but your truths."
Toji said nothing.
"The Mnemo-Eye will be tested. If it fails, you will not return."
He stepped into the portal without hesitation.
⸻
The Trial Room wasn't a room.
It was a void—endless and flat, lit by a sky with no sun.
Twelve mirrors floated in a circle around him.
Each shimmered with a different memory—some his, some not. Some were possible futures, others were outright lies. He felt it.
The Eye spun into existence beside him. Faster this time.
It blinked twice and began to whisper.
"Three of these mirrors show truth.
Three show false memory.
Three show hidden belief.
Three show lies told to the self."
Toji stood still.
"You must name one of each. If you name incorrectly, your own tether will fracture."
He breathed.
And began.
The first mirror showed him strangling Varn, blood on his hands.
False memory.
The second showed him walking with Kaela, their hands brushing lightly. Her eyes calm.
Hidden belief.
The third showed him kneeling, broken, before the Mnemo-Eye, begging it to take away his power.
Lie told to the self.
And the fourth—
His own face, eyes golden, blade drawn, walking through a field of corpses.
Truth.
He knew it.
Not because he remembered it.
But because the Eye stopped spinning.
It hovered beside that mirror.
Toji named them, one by one.
The Eye flared once with each word.
When he was finished, the mirrors folded inward.
The void collapsed.
He opened his eyes in the atrium.
Varn stood unmoved.
"You pass," he said. "But next time, you might not recognize the lie."
Toji nodded once.
"I'll learn."
⸻
Two days later, the dungeon dive was announced.
Class C had been rotated into a full-scale exploration: a sealed chamber system in the southeastern mountains, recently unearthed after a tremor shifted the terrain.
Five students were selected.
Toji.
Kaela.
Levia.
Cyrin—the quiet conjurer with shifting tattoos.
And Roth, the only student in C ranked above Toji in duel score.
They met outside the vault entrance.
The stone door was already open. Inside, only darkness and the scent of dry metal.
Brannic handed them sigil tags.
"Only use these if a room collapses. The dungeon is active. Expect traps. Possibly old constructs. One of you will lead."
Everyone turned.
Brannic pointed to Toji.
"Fushiguro. You're Echo-bound. This dungeon predates current spell logic. The Eye may see what you can't."
Toji didn't refuse.
He just nodded, turned, and entered.
The others followed.
⸻
The first chamber was inert.
Stone tiles. Stale air. Cracked murals of silver-armored figures kneeling before an orb.
Kaela swept the room for runes.
"Dead," she said.
Cyrin muttered a binding spell to float a light orb beside them.
Toji summoned the Mnemo-Eye.
It appeared slower now—heavier.
It pulsed once.
Then rotated twice.
Toji blinked.
"The floor is layered. There's a channel under it."
Levia knelt. Her fingers ran along the edge of the nearest tile.
"A trap gate," she confirmed. "Well beneath enchantment level. Couldn't see it without the Eye."
They adjusted formation.
⸻
The second room was smaller. Domed.
In its center: a pedestal with a crystalline sphere pulsing slowly.
The walls shimmered with heat mirages.
"This is it," Roth said. "Core chamber?"
"No," Toji said.
The Eye spun harder.
"Someone is watching us."
Kaela tensed.
"Constructs?"
"No."
He approached the pedestal.
The Eye hissed in his mind.
"This room was meant to judge. Someone failed the test."
The sphere pulsed brighter.
Then cracked.
Sound exploded.
A humanoid figure erupted from the pedestal—woven of goldlight and echo-shadow. Its face blank. Its limbs jagged.
Combat formation.
Toji stepped forward.
Roth shouted. "Let me—!"
"No."
Toji raised his hand.
The Eye formed completely.
The enemy paused.
Toji didn't strike.
He watched.
The Eye rotated—so fast it blurred.
Then it stopped.
Toji lowered his stance.
"It thinks we are its creators."
The figure twitched.
Kaela glanced at him. "So?"
"We walk slowly. Backwards. It's programmed not to confront those who show no fear."
They obeyed.
Five steps.
Ten.
The construct slowly knelt.
As they left the chamber, its form flickered.
And vanished.
⸻
Outside, Toji sat on a stone ledge, the dive completed, the core crystal now stored safely in a containment bag.
Kaela tossed him a waterskin.
"You froze again."
"I listened."
She sat beside him.
"Roth's mad."
"I'm not here to make him happy."
She glanced sidelong at him.
"Or anyone?"
Toji looked ahead.
Then down at his shadow.
The Eye pulsed once in silence.
"I'd rather be right than liked."
Kaela grinned.
"I think some people like that about you."
Toji said nothing.
But his silence said enough.