School felt the same.
That was the problem.
Noah walked beside Lilly through the front gate, the morning noise washing over them—students arguing, laughing, running late. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary motions.
Yet something tugged at him.
He didn't know why his eyes drifted toward the staff building.
Then he saw her.
She stood at the entrance, clipboard in hand, posture straight enough to look unnatural among teachers who slouched from routine. Long dark hair tied back. Calm eyes that didn't wander.
The new transfer.
Noah stopped.
The world narrowed.
…No way.
A memory surfaced uninvited.
A backyard.
Dusty ground.
A girl older than him, kneeling to his height, tying a bandage around his scraped knee.
"Don't cry. If you cry, it hurts longer."
She had been the neighbor's daughter.
An older sister.
She used to play with him when no one else did.
Then one day—
Gone.
No goodbye. No explanation.
The woman at the entrance turned.
Their eyes met.
For half a second, something flickered in her gaze.
Then it vanished.
Professional. Neutral.
She looked past him.
Lilly noticed Noah had stopped.
"…You okay?"
He didn't answer.
His attention never left the teacher.
Inside the woman's mind, a different clock started ticking.
She adjusted her grip on the clipboard.
So you remember, she thought.
Good.
[CONTROL ROOM – STRATEGIC COMMAND]
The room had gone quiet.
Crime graphs filled the main screen.
Spikes.
Patterns.
Too deliberate to be coincidence.
The Chief Commander shook his head.
"They didn't," he said. "They synchronized."
The President stood, hands resting on the table.
"And Nana knew."
All eyes turned to the frozen image of the folded note.
"She didn't tell us to stop watching," the President continued.
"She could have. She chose not to."
His gaze hardened.
"This was permission," he said.
"No—more than that. A signal."
The Chief Commander straightened.
"Get Unit Zero on the line."
A pause.
Even the analysts stiffened.
Unit Zero wasn't a task force.
It was an eraser.
No insignias.
No reports.
No survivors who could testify.
Specialized in total destruction—without anyone knowing destruction occurred at all.
Screens shifted.
Encrypted channels opened.
The President spoke once.
"Criminal activity didn't spike randomly," he said.
"There is an organization behind it."
A symbol appeared briefly on-screen before being locked behind clearance most in the room didn't possess.
"You will locate it," the President continued.
"You will remove it."
No hesitation.
No questions.
Unit Zero acknowledged.
The Chief Commander turned to a secondary feed.
Live footage from a high school hallway.
Noah Sato walking.
Lilly Cross beside him.
A new female teacher observing from a distance.
"And the children?" someone asked quietly.
The President didn't look away from the screen.
"They're not bait," he said.
A beat.
"They're the reason this signal was sent."