Chapter 14 - The Shattered Awakening
Jack's breath came ragged as silver light crawled over his skin. The mirrored shards spun around him, flashing images of fire, wings, claws, stormlight — fragments of all the clans.
The cops tightened their circle. One shouted in Russian:
«Сейчас! Оглушитьего!» (Now! Stun him!)
Jack's head jerked toward the speaker. He repeated the phrase perfectly, word for word — but his voice split into three tones at once, like broken glass speaking. The officer froze.
Ghost stepped forward, panic in her voice. "Jack! Focus — listen only to me—"
But Iris whispered in Japanese:
「鏡は全てを映す.」 (The mirror reflects everything.)
Jack's eyes snapped to her. His lips moved of their own will, reciting the phrase back in perfect intonation. Then he added a line she hadn't said:
「そしてそれを破壊する.」 (And then it shatters it.)
Iris' smirk faltered for the first time.
The bangle on Jack's wrist burst apart, fragments hovering around him like orbiting stars. Silver light pulsed from his chest.
Then — the accident happened.
A red arc of flame carved across the ground, identical to Iris' blade strike. Before anyone could react, blue wings of fire erupted from his shoulders, lifting him off the ground. He crashed back down, clawed handprints scorching into the asphalt like the Green Griffin squad's signature.
Rourke's men staggered back. "He's… all of them—!"
Jack clutched his head, screaming. Every language, every voice, every power clashed inside him. He stumbled forward, eyes blazing silver. "I can't— I can't control—"
Ghost leapt to him, pressing her hand to his chest. "Then don't control. Just breathe!"
But Iris only grinned, crimson fire spiraling around her blade. "Yes. Break, Jack. Break wide open."
The shards spun faster, reflecting each clan member present — showing versions of them that looked older, darker, twisted. For a moment, Jack felt as if the world itself was inside him, and he was staring into an infinite hall of mirrors.
The gymnasium stank of ozone and old sweat, but tonight the air carried something sharper. Fear. Jack stood in the center of the cracked court, his sneakers squeaking faintly against the varnished floor as his heart thundered. Around him, the mirrored shards spun like restless hawks, each one catching the overhead lights and bending them into silver knives.
He couldn't move. His chest felt split open from the inside, light pouring out through invisible cracks. Every breath tasted like smoke and iron.
The cops had him surrounded. Men in reinforced armor, visors down, weapons humming with dull blue charge. He'd seen them once before at a distance, but never this close. Their presence alone was suffocating — disciplined, steady, like iron jaws closing.
"Target acquired," one of them barked in clipped English. His accent was Eastern European. Then, in rapid Russian, the same man snapped:
«Сейчас! Оглушитьего!»
(Now! Stun him!)
Three rifles raised. Jack flinched—
And then he repeated the command. Perfectly.
The syllables rolled out of his mouth like he'd been born with them. His voice cracked, splitting strangely, as if two other tones were echoing his own. The sound bounced off the mirrored shards and came back sharper. The cops froze, their weapons wavering.
Jack blinked, confused. "What—? I didn't mean—"
Ghost surged forward, planting herself between him and the officers. Her long coat swirled like wings, and her blade, that impossible phoenix-forged thing, hummed at her side. "Jack, don't listen to them. Stay with me."
But from the corner, Iris leaned against the bleachers, her crimson hair catching the glow like fire. Her lips curled as she murmured in Japanese:
「鏡は全てを映す.」
(The mirror reflects everything.)
The words slid into Jack's ears, foreign yet… familiar. His breath hitched. Before he could think, his lips moved, whispering the same phrase back, each syllable precise, fluid, perfect.
Iris tilted her head, amused.
Then Jack added something he didn't know he knew:
「そしてそれを破壊する.」
(And then it shatters it.)
For the first time since he'd met her, Iris' smirk faltered.
The shards spun faster, orbiting him like planets, catching reflections not just of the gym but of faces — Ghost's grim determination, Iris' sly hunger, the cold calculation of the cops. He could see them all in the glass, like infinite versions trapped in infinite halls.
And then his bangle cracked.
It didn't just break. It detonated.
Fragments burst outward, then stopped midair, hanging in orbit around him like tiny silver moons. A pulse tore through the court, blowing out half the overhead lights and showering sparks across the wooden floor. The shockwave shoved the cops back a step, their boots screeching.
Jack staggered. Heat boiled inside his veins, but it wasn't just fire. It was everything.
A red arc slashed from his hand, identical to Iris' dragon flame strike, searing across the floorboards. The bleachers erupted in fire.
He gasped, clutching his wrist— and blue light surged across his shoulders. Wings, fiery and feathered, flared outward. Ghost's wings. They burned brilliantly for two seconds, lifting him clear off the ground, before sputtering violently. He crashed back down, splintering the polished wood.
"No—no no no!" Jack scrambled backward, but his hands tore gouges into the floor. Green, jagged, claw-like marks carved into the boards. Griffin marks. His breath came in shallow bursts. Every exhale tasted like smoke, ash, ozone, stormlight.
The cops faltered. One swore under his breath, another whispered, "He's—he's all of them—"
Jack's scream ripped through the gym. The shards reflected it, splitting his voice into dozens, each echo speaking in a different tongue. Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, English — all overlapping, all him.
Ghost grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him. "Jack! Focus! Don't let them—"
But her words drowned under Iris' laughter. She stepped forward, crimson blade spiraling with heat. "Yes… break wide open. Let it all spill out. You were never meant to be one. You were always meant to be all."
The shards obeyed her taunt. They whirled faster, catching not just present reflections but twisted futures: Ghost burning black instead of blue, Iris crowned in ash and bone, Rourke's officers bleeding silver light from empty sockets.
Jack choked on the visions. His knees buckled. "Stop—stop—I can't—"
The cops raised their weapons again, this time with real fear in their eyes. "Contain him! Now!"
One of them shouted something in Mandarin:
"快点!困住他!"
(Hurry! Trap him!)
The words burned into Jack's skull. His body shuddered— then he screamed the phrase back at them, louder, jagged, the tones perfect. The command warped, carried by his shards, bouncing around the gym until the officers staggered as if their own order had turned against them.
Weapons slipped from their grips.
Ghost's eyes widened. "Jack…"
His body burned too hot. Too much. He wasn't in control anymore. He was a storm of borrowed powers, every clan's signature tearing out of him in unstable bursts. Lightning cracked. Fire roared. Feathers fell, burning blue before hitting the ground.
The shards swirled into a halo, and Jack swore he heard a thousand voices whisper at once, languages he couldn't name, yet all perfectly understood:
The mirror reflects. The mirror shatters. The mirror consumes.
He reached for Ghost, then Iris, then no one at all. His knees gave.
Silver light flooded the gym — and Jack collapsed into darkness.
Chapter 15– Ashes on the Court
The gym was a graveyard.
Smoke curled up from the bleachers where fire still licked at the edges, sprinklers hissing overhead but failing to put out the crimson blaze Iris had conjured. Shards of Jack's broken bangle littered the floor, but instead of lying still, they hovered faintly in place, spinning around his unconscious body like satellites unwilling to abandon their orbit.
Jack lay sprawled in the center of it all, his chest rising in shallow, erratic rhythm. His veins glowed faintly — sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes green — cycling through colors as if his body couldn't decide what it was.
Ghost knelt at his side instantly, cradling his head, her phoenix blade discarded at arm's reach. Her eyes burned with something Jack had never seen before: fear.
"Don't you dare leave me here, Jack," she whispered fiercely in English. Then, softer, in Japanese:
「お願い…戻ってきて…」
(Please… come back…)
Iris leaned against the collapsed bleachers, her sword still smoking, crimson hair plastered to her cheek. She laughed, but it was brittle, strained. "Look at him. Even unconscious, he's already rewriting the rules of our war."
Ghost shot her a glare, her voice cutting sharp as a blade. "He's not your weapon."
Iris smirked, switching into Russian so the cops wouldn't understand:
«Может, оннеоружие…ноонключ.»
(Maybe he's not a weapon… but he's the key.)
But Ghost's lips tightened — and to Iris' surprise, Jack stirred faintly, his unconscious voice parroting the same phrase back in flawless Russian. The shards pulsed.
Both women froze.
The cops were regrouping now, their commander barking orders in clipped tones. "Form perimeter! Keep them contained!"
One officer hesitated, helmet shaking. "Sir… with respect… what if he's the perimeter?"
The commander's jaw tightened, eyes fixed on the unconscious boy surrounded by impossible power.
Ghost pressed her forehead to Jack's, whispering again in English, steady this time. "I don't care what they see. I don't care what Iris says. You are not theirs. You are not mine. You are you."
For a heartbeat, the shards slowed. The gym was quiet.
Then the sprinklers sputtered out, and the red flames hissed back to life, throwing jagged shadows across the ruined court.
The Mirror Dream
Jack floated.
Not in water, not in air, but in a cold, endless space lined with silver. An infinite corridor stretched in every direction, every wall made of glass — and every pane held him.
But not quite him.
One reflection wore a green griffin's armor, claws dripping. Another bore Iris' crimson flames in his own eyes. Another held Ghost's phoenix blade aloft, wings unfurled.
Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.
They all looked back at him, some grim, some furious, some broken, some crowned in power he couldn't name.
"Who… am I?" Jack whispered, his voice echoing in every direction.
A thousand mouths replied in unison, but each in a different language: Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, ones he didn't even recognize. And yet… he understood them all.
You are the mirror.
You are the thief.
You are the storm.
You are the one who should not be.
The corridor shuddered. One pane cracked.
Through it, Jack glimpsed Ghost standing in firelight, her sword raised against Iris. In another shard, he saw the cops arming themselves with bangles that pulsed green, preparing to storm the gym. In another… he saw himself, older, eyes pure silver, standing on a battlefield of ash while every clan bowed to him in chains.
"No…" Jack whispered. His breath fogged against the glass. "That can't be me."
But the reflections smirked back.
One stepped forward, peeling out of the mirror. Its eyes were empty silver, its grin jagged. "Why fight it?" it asked, voice like broken glass. "You already understand every tongue. Every blade. Every power. You're not the boy anymore, Jack. You're the mirror. And the mirror doesn't reflect—it devours."
The corridor splintered. A wave of glass surged toward him.
Jack screamed—
And woke up.
Chapter 16– The Awakening
Jack's eyes flew open.
The gym ceiling loomed above him, jagged with smoke stains and flickering light. His throat was raw, his body aching as if he had been torn apart and reassembled. The shards of his broken bangle still circled lazily around him, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"Jack!"
Ghost's voice reached him first. She knelt at his side, brushing wet strands of hair from his forehead. The phoenix emblem on her assassin garb glowed faintly, almost protective. Relief flooded her face — but behind it, Jack saw the tight edge of fear.
Iris was leaning on her sword across the court, red flames licking off her shoulder, her crimson eyes locked onto him with equal intensity. She smirked, but it was thin, almost brittle.
"You survived," she said softly, switching into Chinese now, as if to cut Ghost out of the exchange.
「你比我想的還要強.」
(You're stronger than I thought.)
Jack blinked at her — and to both their surprise, he answered in perfect Chinese.
「我還沒死,不代表我屬於你.」
(Not being dead doesn't mean I belong to you.)
The room froze. Even the cops stopped in their tracks.
One officer muttered, "What the hell is he?"
The commander raised his hand, signaling silence. His eyes narrowed on Jack.
Ghost tightened her grip on Jack's shoulder. "He's not for you. He's not for Iris. He's not for any of you. He's—"
"—the Mirror," Iris cut in, switching now into Russian, her voice a razor.
«Онзеркало. Всё, чтомыпрячем, онотразит.»
(He's the mirror. Everything we hide, he reflects.)
The words sent a shiver through the gym.
Jack tried to stand, but his legs trembled. The shards around him brightened as though sensing his anger. "Stop deciding for me!" His voice cracked, echoing across the broken court. "If I'm the mirror, then maybe all of you should be afraid of what you'll see in me."
The shards pulsed — and every assassin clan insignia flickered across them, one after the other. Griffin green, Dragon red, Phoenix blue, Shadow black, Thunder gold… all ten.
The cops instinctively raised their bangles, forming a protective barrier around themselves. Ghost's face went pale. Iris' smile widened.
And Jack? He staggered back, clutching his chest, because it wasn't just power flooding him — it was memory.
The Deeper Mirror
That night, when the world finally went still, Jack dreamed again.
But this time, he wasn't floating aimlessly.
He stood in a silver arena, surrounded by a thousand mirrors. Each pane reflected not just him — but versions of him armed with the powers of each clan. A Jack cloaked in thunder. A Jack with a dragon's flame. A Jack wielding a griffin's claw.
The silver-eyed reflection from before stepped forward again, lips curled in a cruel smile. "Welcome back."
Jack clenched his fists. "What are you? What do you want from me?"
The reflection tilted its head. "What do you want, Jack? Every choice you make pulls you closer to one of us. Ghost wants you to be her shield. Iris wants you to be her weapon. The cops want you locked away as a threat."
It stepped closer, glass crunching beneath its feet.
"But me? I want you to be honest. You've already tasted every tongue, every power. You know what it feels like to be more than human. Tell me you don't want it."
Jack's jaw tightened. "If being more means becoming like you — no."
The reflection laughed, shards trembling around them. Other reflections stirred, whispering in languages Jack understood without trying:
「英雄?」 (Hero?)
«Монстр?» (Monster?)
"King?"
"Nothing."
One by one, they began pressing against their glass prisons.
And Jack realized with a jolt — these weren't just echoes. They were possibilities. Futures waiting to bleed into reality.
Then one broke free.
A reflection Jack wielding a griffin's talon, eyes burning emerald, lunged at him with a snarl. Jack barely dodged, skidding across the silver floor.
"You can't run from us forever," the silver-eyed reflection hissed. "Every step you take outside will bring another of us closer. The clans don't know it yet… but the Mirror doesn't just reflect. It chooses."
And then, the arena shattered—
Jack woke with a gasp, heart hammering, hand clenched around something sharp. He looked down.
A shard of silver glass sat in his palm.
It wasn't a dream anymore.
Chapter 17 – The Green Griffins' Challenge
The morning sunlight spilled over the schoolyard, golden and deceptively gentle. Students drifted lazily toward the main building, chatting about homework and music, as if the city hadn't trembled the night before. As if reality hadn't been torn apart.
Jack walked alone, his bag slung carelessly over his shoulder. On the surface, he was just another boy trudging toward class. But his eyes carried a weight few could bear — eyes that had seen fire and blade, eyes that now read words meant to be secrets.
He paused when the laughter stopped. A hush spread through the courtyard like a ripple in still water.
Five figures stepped forward, their presence enough to choke the air. Jackets half-buttoned, ties loose, but each bearing the same sigil embroidered in deep green over their chests — a griffin, wings outstretched, talons curled for blood.
The leader, Kazimir Volkov, had a grin that showed too much teeth. His sharp eyes held no warmth, only challenge. His voice cut across the silence like a knife.
"Mirror." He said it not in English, but in Russian, daring Jack to flinch. «Зеркало.»
Jack's jaw clenched. He understood. He always understood.
"Don't call me that," Jack said, steady.
Kazimir's grin widened. "You hear us. Good. That means the stories are true." He tilted his head, the green sunlight catching the scars across his cheek. "And if they're true, then you'll survive this."
In a blink, Kazimir's hand flashed, and a green blade of condensed energy hissed into existence — a fusion of steel and plasma. His squad spread out behind him, each drawing their own weapons: clawed gauntlets, hooked spears, and one who carried no blade at all, only a flute carved with runes.
Gasps rippled through the courtyard. Students whispered, too afraid to step forward, but too entranced to look away.
Jack didn't move. Not yet.
Kazimir's smirk sharpened. "What's wrong, Mirror? No weapon? No fire? No wings? Perhaps the Phoenix and Dragon protect you because you are weak."
Jack's fist curled. He had promised himself he would not show them — not yet. But the shard inside his pocket pulsed, hot, eager, as though it wanted to leap free.
The flute-player raised the instrument to his lips. A low note trembled through the air, unseen but violent, rattling Jack's bones.
Instinct moved faster than thought. Jack's body twisted, and his hand slashed outward. A blade — his blade — shimmered into being, born from nothing but the shard's will. Silver, with edges lined in whispering script he didn't recognize yet understood perfectly.
The courtyard froze. Every clan sigil burned in silent recognition.
Kazimir's grin vanished.
And the fight began.
The courtyard was no longer a schoolyard. It was an arena.
Kazimir lunged first, his plasma blade carving a streak of emerald light. The heat singed Jack's skin before the blade even touched him. Jack pivoted, his silver weapon shimmering into being just in time to deflect the strike. Sparks scattered like fireflies, drawing gasps from the ring of stunned onlookers.
The Griffins didn't hesitate. They attacked as one, a pack hunting prey.
From Jack's left, a girl with white hair and serpent-green eyes lashed forward with gauntlets shaped into talons. Each swipe tore chunks out of the air, leaving trails of acid that hissed when they touched the stone floor.
Jack ducked beneath her claws, then spun his blade up instinctively — not slicing, but deflecting the acid in a perfect arc that flung it back at her. She cursed in Japanese — 「くそっ!」 — and leapt back, hissing as her gauntlet smoked.
Behind him, the flute-player raised his instrument. A piercing, high-pitched note vibrated across the courtyard, distorting sound, vision, even thought. Jack's knees buckled, his vision swimming with doubled images of Kazimir charging.
His hand moved before he thought. He slashed his blade down, and with it came a wave of silence that shredded the note like paper. The flute cracked in half, the Griffin's eyes widening in disbelief.
On his right, another assassin — tall, wiry, his arms inked with runes — thrust forward with hooked spears that extended unnaturally, bending like living snakes. One spear hooked Jack's ankle, yanking hard. Jack stumbled —
—only for his body to twist mid-fall, blade cutting through the spear's shaft in a single elegant motion. The runes fizzled and died, leaving only splintered wood.
The courtyard erupted in a chorus of whispers.
Kazimir snarled in Russian. «Оннедолженэтознать…»He shouldn't know this…
But Jack answered in the same tongue, low and cold. «Язнаюбольше, чемтыдумаешь.»I know more than you think.
That silenced the Griffins more than the broken spear.
Kazimir's fury surged. His blade roared brighter, plasma flaring as he launched himself at Jack. The two clashed in the center, light against silver, strength against instinct.
For every strike Kazimir landed, Jack countered with impossible precision. His body moved in rhythms he shouldn't have known — fluid like Iris's dragon forms, sharp like Ghost's phoenix slashes, and yet something else entirely, something that made the air tremble.
It wasn't that Jack was winning. It was that he was speaking a language of battle older than theirs — and they all understood it.
The Griffins regrouped, circling him. Acid claws, broken flute, snake-spears, plasma blade, and one more — the smallest of them, a girl who hadn't moved yet. She simply stepped forward, her hand glowing with a sigil that burned emerald.
"Enough," she whispered. Her voice was calm, too calm.
The sigil pulsed, and the ground beneath Jack fractured. Vines of pure light erupted, lashing upward to bind his limbs. For the first time, Jack struggled. His blade sparked, cutting one, then another, but more coiled around him like serpents.
Kazimir grinned again, pressing his blade to Jack's throat. "You are no Mirror. You are prey."
Jack's chest burned. The shard in his pocket screamed, demanding release. His reflection shimmered faintly in the puddle at his feet, lips moving soundlessly — not mirroring him, but mocking him.
And then the voice came, ancient and furious, in a language none of them should know.
「鏡は割れない.」
The Mirror does not break.
The vines exploded. Jack's blade blazed with light, not silver now but a cascade of every color at once, as though the world itself bled through it.
The Griffins stumbled back, shielding their eyes. Kazimir hissed, his grin faltering at last.
And Jack stood, breathing hard, his weapon humming with power he did not understand — power that belonged to all of them.
Shadows and Plots
While the courtyard erupted in violence, elsewhere the shadows grew longer.
Ghost sat alone after the council's dismissal, the weight of their words pressing into her chest. Her blue fire had finally dimmed, but her hands still trembled. She stared at the faint scar across her palm — where Jack's shard had brushed against her during battle.
"Why do I keep protecting you?" she whispered, half to herself, half to the silent air.
The silence answered in Chinese, a memory replaying in her mind: "你不属于他们."You don't belong to them.
But those hadn't been her words. They'd been his. Clear, confident, spoken in a tongue he should never have known.
Her heart clenched. Jack was already unraveling the chains that bound them all. And she… she didn't know if she wanted him stopped.
Iris stood at the highest balcony of the Dragon compound, the crimson sun sinking behind her. Her sword rested against the railing, its blade reflecting the fire in her eyes.
She remembered the elders' demands, their whispers of break him, end him, destroy the Mirror. But the truth refused to leave her blood: he wasn't just the Mirror. He was the boy who had looked her in the eyes, unflinching, even when her blade nearly ended him.
Her lips moved before she realized, whispering in Russian: «Почемуяколеблюсь?»Why do I hesitate?
But there was no answer. Only the wind, carrying the scent of ash and fate.
In the task force bunker, Ryker and his team replayed footage from hacked school cameras. Blades clashed, sparks danced, and a boy with nothing but a bag slung over his shoulder had conjured a weapon that did not belong to this world.
"Pause," Ryker ordered.
The screen froze on Jack's face. His eyes were glowing faintly, not with flame or plasma, but something older. Something deeper.
"Zoom in," Ryker said.
The rookie hesitated. "Sir… his reflection…"
On the frozen screen, Jack's reflection in a puddle stared back — but it wasn't him. It smirked, sharp and cruel, lips moving soundlessly, as if mocking them.
Ryker's mouth tightened.
"We're running out of time."
And in the middle of it all, Jack swung his blade against Kazimir's green plasma, sparks lighting the courtyard. The Griffins attacked from every side, but his movements flowed with an instinct he couldn't name, a language of battle carved into his bones.
Every strike whispered in tongues he had never learned. Japanese in one motion, Russian in another, ancient Chinese in a third.
And the Griffins faltered.
Not because Jack was strong. But because the Mirror had always been all of them.
Aftermath and Reactions
Far above, hidden on the rooftops, cloaked eyes watched.
The Red Dragons, the Blue Phoenixes, the Shadow Serpents, and even the White Lotus had gathered, their students crouched in silence, watching Jack ignite. None spoke, but their clan sigils burned faintly, reacting to the Mirror's awakening.
On a higher rooftop, Ghost clutched her mask. Her breath caught when she saw the silver blade dissolve into a rainbow flame. Her fingers dug into the stone ledge, the memory of his voice in Chinese returning to her, sharp as the night it had happened: 你不属于他们.You don't belong to them.
And now, hearing him speak Russian, Japanese, words older than fire itself, she felt her chest tighten. What are you?
Iris, standing beside her, said nothing. Her crimson eyes narrowed, but her hand trembled against her sword's hilt. She whispered in Japanese, low enough Ghost couldn't hear:
「彼は止められない.」
He cannot be stopped.
Down below, Ryker's team watched through grainy surveillance feeds. The rookie muttered, pale, "Sir… his reflection isn't synced to him anymore."
The screen showed Jack panting, blade raised. But in the puddle, his reflection was smiling, its eyes glowing too bright, its lips forming words that chilled Ryker to the bone.
Soon.
Ryker shut off the feed. "We move tonight."
And in the courtyard, Jack lowered his blade, the light fading. Around him, the Griffins lay scattered — not defeated, but shaken, afraid in ways they had never been before.
Kazimir rose slowly, his plasma blade flickering. His grin was gone. His eyes, however, were sharp with a new kind of hunger.
"You are the Mirror," he said, voice trembling with awe and fury. "And if that's true… then all of us are already dead."
The courtyard fell silent.
Jack stood alone in the center, the echoes of languages he shouldn't know still burning on his tongue.
And above him, ten clans watched, waiting.
The courtyard smelled of ozone and scorched stone. Shards of light still lingered in the air where Jack's blade had burned through the Griffins' binds. For a long, heavy moment, no one moved.
The Griffins pulled back into shadow, licking their wounds. Their unity had fractured, and Kazimir's silence was louder than any taunt. The Green Griffins had never been humbled before — not until tonight.
High above, Ghost crouched on the rooftop's edge, mask glinting in the moonlight. Her hand pressed against her chest as though steadying her own heartbeat. That glow. That language. That power… She whispered in Russian, almost to herself:
«Онихвсехпереписывает…»
He's rewriting them all.
Iris shifted beside her. Her crimson hair shimmered under the moon, her dragon-mark faintly glowing as though reacting to Jack's surge. "Don't let it rattle you," she said sharply in Japanese, but there was a tremor beneath her tone.
Ghost turned, eyes narrowing through her mask. "You felt it too."
Iris didn't answer. Instead, she looked back down at the boy below. Jack was bent over, breathing heavily, blade dimming. His reflection in the puddle had not vanished. It stood straighter than him, lips moving in silent syllables, as if whispering to the clans above.
The other clans stirred uneasily.
From the Shadow Serpents, a masked girl hissed in Mandarin: 「他懂得太多了.」He understands too much.
A Blue Phoenix recruit muttered in Spanish, "Si él es el Espejo… estamos acabados."If he's the Mirror… we're finished.
The Red Dragons stayed silent, but their leader's eyes burned with something dangerous — not fear, but recognition.
Iris finally whispered, low enough only Ghost could hear. 「彼はすでに私たちの外にいる.」
He already stands outside of us.
Ghost's reply was softer still. "Then maybe he's the only one who can stand above us."
They did not look at each other. Both watched the boy below, each wondering if they had just seen the rise of a savior — or the birth of something that would end them all.
Chapter 18 – The Next Morning
Morning came as though nothing had happened.
The courtyard was pristine again. No scorch marks, no shattered tiles, no acid burns on the stone. The vines that had erupted from the ground were gone, as though they had never existed. Students streamed through the gates, chattering about tests, gossip, and weekend plans.
But Jack felt the weight in the air. The way eyes lingered on him too long. The silence that fell when he entered homeroom. It wasn't paranoia. Every clan was here. Every assassin, every hidden warrior disguised as a teenager, watching him from behind mundane smiles.
He slipped into his seat. The desk was ordinary, smooth and clean. He ran his hand over it, half-expecting to feel the hum of last night's battle. Nothing.
But when he glanced up, Kazimir was there — across the room, leaning back in his chair like nothing had changed. His grin had returned, but it was thinner now, stretched too tightly across his face.
The girl with serpent claws twirled a pen, eyes glinting. The rune-covered boy was sketching symbols in his notebook. The flute player hummed faintly under his breath, though the notes carried no power in daylight.
And when Jack's gaze drifted to Ghost and Iris, seated on opposite sides of the class, his stomach tightened. Ghost was bent over her notebook, pretending to write, but her hand was clenched around the pen so tightly it bent. Iris's crimson eyes flicked toward him once, then away, her expression unreadable.
They all remember, Jack thought. Even though the world reset, they remember.
The teacher droned on about equations. Jack didn't hear a word. His ears picked up whispers instead — Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, French. Some were deliberate, sharp-edged messages meant to confuse him. Others were conspiratorial murmurs among clans.
And yet… he understood them all.
The words slid into his mind, rearranging into meaning whether he wanted them to or not. The Mirror has awakened.He carries their powers.He will unbalance everything.
Jack gripped his desk until his knuckles whitened.
At the back of the classroom, a student Jack had never spoken to lifted his sleeve just enough to reveal a faint golden insignia glowing on his wrist. Another clan. Another watcher.
They're everywhere, Jack realized. And they're all waiting for me to fall.
Far from the classroom, in the hidden chambers of the Council, the leaders of the ten clans convened. Their faces were obscured by shifting masks, their voices layered by enchantments.
"The boy has awakened the Mirror."
"He should not exist."
"Kill him before the balance fractures."
But one voice cut through the rest, calm and heavy with authority.
"No. Killing him will not stop it. The Mirror has returned because it must. If we slay him now, it will only awaken again… in another form. Better to control him. Better to bend him to our will."
Silence. Agreement. Dissent. The chamber filled with unease.
In the shadows, Ryker listened through his surveillance feed. His jaw was set, his knuckles tight. He'd seen the reflection smile, and he knew what the clans didn't.
The danger wasn't just Jack's blade. It was his shadow.
And it was smiling still.
The Classroom Fracture
Jack's pencil snapped in his hand.
It wasn't loud, but in the silence that hung over the classroom, it might as well have been thunder.
Thirty pairs of eyes lifted toward him, some feigning disinterest, others watching with predatory curiosity. Jack muttered an apology, reaching for another pencil, but the sound of whispers crawled into his ears.
「見たか? また力が漏れた.」
Did you see? His power leaked again.
"Оннеможетконтролироватьэто."
He can't control it.
"Il est instable."
He's unstable.
Jack clenched his jaw. He understood all of it. That shouldn't have been possible. He hadn't studied Japanese beyond anime catchphrases, didn't know Russian outside of movies, and his French was barely passable. Yet every word hit his mind like it had always belonged there.
He glanced at Ghost. She wasn't looking at him, but her knuckles were white against the desk, her pen trembling as though she was suppressing the urge to write something down. Iris, on the other side of the room, leaned back in her chair, eyes half-lidded, almost daring him to acknowledge her.
Then, a boy he didn't know — thin, pale, with too-perfect posture — dropped his eraser. It rolled across the floor and stopped at Jack's shoe.
When Jack bent to pick it up, his reflection in the polished tile didn't move with him.
It stared back, lips curving into that same faint, knowing smile.
"—Jack?"
The teacher's voice cut in. He looked up.
"Yes, sir?" His voice cracked.
"Your answer to problem six?"
Jack glanced at the board. Equations. Numbers. Symbols that swam together. But the moment he blinked, the symbols rearranged into something else — runic letters, circles, chains of power.
His mouth opened before his brain caught up.
"x equals negative root, but the balancing constant is hidden under sigma three."
The class froze.
That wasn't math. That was arcane structure.
The teacher blinked. Then, almost imperceptibly, his expression hardened. "Sit down, Jack." His voice was calm, but too calm. Controlled.
Jack swallowed and obeyed, heart pounding.
As he sat, he felt the gazes. Not ordinary stares, but clan stares. Watching, measuring. Waiting.
By the time the bell rang, Jack's palms were damp, his desk scarred by faint grooves where his hand had pressed too hard.
He had kept his head down. But he knew. They knew. And something in him — in his shadow — had whispered the answer before he'd even thought of it.
The Assassin Council
Beneath the city, behind veils of mirrored stone, the council gathered.
Ten thrones in a circle. Ten figures cloaked in power. They did not meet in person — their images flickered like holograms, woven from magic and technology, a compromise between assassin traditions and modern secrecy.
Each mask reflected their clan: serpent scales, dragon horns, phoenix wings, griffin feathers, wolf fangs, and more.
The Speaker, his mask a flawless mirror, addressed them. His voice was layered, impossible to place.
"The boy has awakened. The Mirror breathes again."
Murmurs spread like wildfire.
"He should not exist."
"He is destabilizing the balance."
"He must be eliminated."
But others shook their heads.
"If he holds all our powers, killing him only resets the cycle."
"Better to bind him."
"Better to make him ours."
A tall figure in feathered green leaned forward. "The Griffins were humiliated. Their leader kneels. If the boy can bring them low, he is already beyond control."
From the shadows, the Phoenix representative hissed, "Or perhaps he simply reflects what we give him. That is the nature of the Mirror, is it not? He is nothing without us."
A serpentine mask chuckled. "And yet, he spoke in every tongue. He read the runes none but my clan knows. Does that sound like nothing?"
The chamber heated with argument, voices clashing like swords.
Finally, the Speaker raised a hand. Silence rippled outward.
"The Mirror cannot be destroyed. That has been proven across centuries. But it can be guided."
The mask shifted, the reflection deepening. "You all seek power. You all fear loss. But understand this—if we do not claim him, another will. And should he rise without leash or chain…"
A pause, heavy and final.
"…then the clans themselves will burn."
The Unruly Reflection
The classroom emptied. Jack lingered, pretending to organize his books. He needed a few minutes without stares, without whispers.
But the window betrayed him.
When he caught his reflection in the glass, it didn't match. The other Jack smirked, shoulders straighter, eyes sharper — as if it approved of the chaos.
Jack froze.
"Stop it…" he whispered.
His reflection tilted its head. Then — impossibly — it raised a hand in a gesture he hadn't made. Two fingers to the lips. A mocking shh.
"Jack?"
Ghost's voice at the door jolted him. She leaned against the frame, her posture casual, but her eyes scanning every inch of him. He forced a smile, shoved his books into his bag.
"You good?" she asked, switching to Japanese for the last word. Daijōbu?
Jack nodded too quickly. "Yeah."
Behind him, the reflection mouthed the same word — in Chinese this time. Hǎo de.