The academy didn't sleep that night.
Security teams flooded the halls. Teachers barked orders. Students whispered behind locked doors as the archives were sealed off with glowing barriers.
Kaito stood near the shattered shelves, arms crossed, eyes scanning the wreckage.
"They were careful," Aria said softly beside him. "Too careful for someone just causing chaos."
"They weren't here to destroy," Kaito replied. "They were here to adjust something."
Mira knelt near the terminal. "Logs were wiped—but not clean. Someone interrupted the purge."
She stepped back, frowning. "Almost like they wanted us to see part of it."
Ryo frowned. "Why leave anything?"
Kaito didn't answer. He crouched.
Among the scattered papers, something didn't belong.
A thin strip of metallic cloth—no bigger than a finger—caught on the edge of a shelf. It shimmered faintly, etched with a pattern that twisted when viewed directly.
Not academy issue.
Not civilian.
Dex sniffed it once and backed away with a low whine.
Aria felt it too. "That… doesn't feel normal."
Kaito picked it up carefully.
The moment his fingers touched it, a chill ran up his arm—not cold, not heat. Recognition.
He swallowed.
"Have you seen this before?" Aria asked.
"No," Kaito said.
It wasn't a lie.
But it wasn't the truth either.
Mira leaned over his shoulder. "There's residue on it. Energy-based. Not fire. Not psionic."
"Then what?" Liona asked.
Kaito's jaw tightened. "A marker."
They fell silent.
Later, in the principal's office, the fragment lay sealed inside a containment field. Scans flickered uselessly across the surface, refusing classification.
The principal exhaled slowly. "Whatever this is, it's beyond academy tech."
"And beyond coincidence," Kaito said.
Ryo crossed his arms. "So the traitor wanted us to know they were here."
"No," Aria said, eyes narrowing. "They wanted you to know."
That night, long after the halls emptied, Kaito stood alone on the academy roof.
The wind tugged at his oversized shirt. The lights of the village flickered below.
He turned the fragment over in his mind.
The way it resisted scans.
The way it felt like a warning instead of a weapon.
Somewhere beyond the walls, the traitor slowed to a stop and finally allowed themselves to breathe.
"They found it," a voice said in the dark.
Another voice replied calmly, "Good."
A pause.
"If he recognizes it," the first voice murmured, "he'll start questioning himself."
"And if he doesn't?"
A soft chuckle. "Then the doubt will come from everyone else."
Back on the roof, Kaito closed his eyes.
For the first time since the rumors began, the confusion sharpened into something worse.
Not fear.
Suspicion.
Because whatever the traitor left behind wasn't meant to explain the truth.
It was meant to wake something up.