The Silence of Mirrors
It began with mirrors refusing to show reflections.
Kuoh Academy's third-floor bathroom became the first anomaly. A student looked into the sink mirror and saw nothing. No face. Just the room behind him… and a growing crack across the glass.
Within the next hour, six more mirrors followed.
None of them broke. They simply refused to reflect truthfully.
Instead, they whispered.
"He has always been here."
"He is you, and you are not."
By nightfall, all reflective surfaces within a kilometer of Kuoh Academy shimmered with unseen patterns—sigils of a language that denied meaning.
And standing at the epicenter, smiling faintly at a vending machine's mirrored panel, was Amon.
"They always begin to shatter at the seams when faced with themselves."
He reached out and touched the glass. It rippled like water.
Rias' Peerage Unravels
Inside the Gremory manor—teleported into a sealed pocket dimension to protect Rias and her peerage from further incidents—the atmosphere was tense.
Akeno clutched her prayer beads tightly, whispering mantras not from any divine scripture, but from a list Azazel provided. Anti-chaotic verses, designed to anchor the soul.
Kiba sharpened his blade again and again—not because it dulled, but to keep his hands busy. His thoughts kept spiraling back to that moment in the hallway mirror, when he saw a version of himself who had murdered Rias in cold blood… and smiled.
"These aren't visions," he whispered. "They're… invitations."
Only Gasper seemed untouched, his vampiric nature shielding him partially from Amon's invasive influence.
Until he looked into his shadow and saw someone waving back.
"I'm not supposed to exist, am I?" said the boy in the shadow, smiling with Amon's grin.
Gasper screamed.
Azazel's Response
Down below, in a hidden bunker beneath Kuoh, Azazel worked on the Neith Fragment—an anti-chaos artifact left by an ancient goddess of weaving and fate. It had taken weeks to locate and even longer to stabilize. But it was his only shot.
"This might sting," he muttered, activating the fragment with a pulse of concentrated divinity.
The fragment flared with a color no human had words for.
And then it whispered:
"Your world is not what you think it is. The Mask makes it so."
Azazel narrowed his eyes. "You're… aware?"
"I remember what he unwrote."
Suddenly, the map on the table twisted—lines of ley energy redrawing themselves into a spiderweb centered on Kuoh.
The fragment pulsed again.
"If he completes the thirteenth reflection, the Unstory begins."
Azazel turned pale.
"We only counted ten so far…"
Divine Watcher's Warnings
Meanwhile, the god who had taken mortal form as a "student" at Kuoh worked quietly, slipping cryptic verses into ancient mythological texts. He inserted a passage into an old scroll in the Vatican's forbidden archive. Another inside an abandoned Japanese shrine.
And one he whispered directly into the dreams of a Buddhist monk in Tibet:
"Beware the Laughing Mask who makes mirrors blink.
He is not of chaos. He is the absence of causality.
Where he dances, even gods forget their names."
The monk woke screaming.
And far above Kuoh, the stars aligned in a crooked smile.
Amon's Visit – A Personal Touch
Late that night, Akeno found herself alone.
She had tried to meditate. Tried to pray. But when she opened her eyes, she was back in the old church—the one where her mother died.
Except it wasn't abandoned.
The candles were lit. The air smelled like ash and lilies.
And Amon stood in the pews, wearing priest's robes.
"You look like someone praying for forgiveness," he said kindly.
Akeno froze.
"What do you want?"
Amon gestured to the pulpit. "Merely a chat. About truth."
"I know your truth is a lie."
He tilted his head. "And yet you're here."
The crucifix behind him bled silently.
"Tell me, Akeno… What would happen if your pain was never yours to begin with? That it was written for you, like a line in a script."
She clenched her fists. "Stop—"
"No. That's the real curse. Not trauma. But the knowledge that it was never yours."
He handed her a rosary. It burned her hand—but not with fire. With recognition.
"That's for the tenth reflection," Amon whispered.
And he vanished.
Issei's Crisis
Issei had stopped sleeping.
Every time he closed his eyes, he dreamed of being Amon.
Not possessed. Not imitating.
Just… being him.
He walked through lives that weren't his. Spoke words he never learned. Smiled with Amon's face at his own funeral.
He woke gasping.
"Ddraig… what's happening to me?"
{He's not changing you. He's… mirroring you. Making your soul reflect what it hides.}
"I'm not like him!"
{You could be. And that's why it's working.}
Issei ran to the bathroom, splashed water on his face—only to look up and see not his reflection, but a monocle floating in midair.
It hovered there, waiting.
He didn't touch it.
He just fell to his knees.
Rias' Return
No one noticed the window of the Occult Research Club shimmer open.
Rias stepped through.
But it wasn't the Rias they remembered.
Her crimson hair had streaks of white. Her eyes were gold and black, like ink dropped in wine. Her voice echoed with itself.
"I've seen beyond the story."
Kiba raised his blade. "You're not Rias."
She looked at him with pity.
"I'm more Rias than you've ever known."
She waved her hand and the room bent sideways—like a painting peeling off the wall. Symbols filled the air. Laughter echoed from the floorboards.
"I walked through eleven mirrors. On the twelfth, I found a girl who had never known choice. I consumed her."
Akeno whispered, "You've… become part of him."
"No," Rias said, smiling. "He's become part of me."
The Divine Observer's Intervention
On the rooftop, the god watched the stars twist.
He sighed.
"She's nearly reached Reflection Twelve. And once the thirteenth begins…"
He opened his hand. A tiny silver needle lay within—a tool meant to stitch narratives together.
"Forgive me, Amon. I didn't want to interfere."
He stabbed the needle into the sky.
And Kuoh's clouds turned red.
Azazel's Warning
A moment later, every mystical sensor in Azazel's lab exploded.
Wong rushed in. "What the hell was that?"
Azazel looked up from the shattered remains of the Neith Fragment.
"He just moved into the thirteenth frame."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning this is no longer just mischief."
He turned toward the spell map.
"We're now in a realm where cause doesn't lead to effect. Where Amon doesn't just rewrite people… but the rules of reality."
Wong paled. "Can we stop him?"
Azazel paused.
"…No. But we can delay him."
Final Reflection
Amon stood in front of the old mirror sanctum again.
Twelve reflections shimmered behind the glass.
Each one held a version of someone from Kuoh. Laughing. Bleeding. Dying. Dancing.
He touched the surface.
And a thirteenth silhouette began to form.
Not Rias. Not Issei. Not Azazel.
It was you.
The reader.
Watching.
The mirror cracked.
"The final act begins now," Amon whispered.