The next morning, Mystic sat alone in his room, the glow of his computer washing over his face. For once, no Luna sat nearby, no voice interrupted his thoughts, and no footsteps crossed the hallway.
Hina's death had left an uncomfortable silence behind, and Mystic had spent most of the morning filling it with the clicking of his keyboard.
Lines of police data streamed across the monitor as he worked his way through the department's files.
His fingers stopped when a familiar case number appeared. He opened it, scanned the evidence list, and leaned closer to the screen. Buried among the files was the footage recovered from the memory gun.
"Bingo." He grinned, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Got what I need."
Mystic copied the video onto a drive and transferred it to his VR headset. The headset's indicator remained dark. He pressed the power button again, then glanced at the battery percentage. Nothing.
He plugged the charger in and waited, his fingers tapping impatiently against his desk while the battery slowly climbed.
Luna wouldn't be coming over for another four days. That meant nobody would walk in on him, ask what he was doing, or notice the headset sitting on his desk. Mystic watched the charging symbol finally disappear and picked it up, his grip tightening around the device.
"Here goes nothing I guess. I might die but that's life of a hero." He tightened his grip on the VR headset before lowering it over his eyes.
He stood in the centre of his bedroom and lowered the headset over his eyes. The room vanished. Darkness swallowed him before the sensation of falling pulled him somewhere else, and then the world snapped into focus around him.
Mystic turned slowly, searching the unfamiliar surroundings. This wasn't the locked room described in Harold's notes.
There were no four walls trapping Hina inside, no signs of the room where her body had supposedly been found. Instead, warm summer air hung over a deserted school courtyard.
"What am I going to do with you, homewrecker Hina?"
The voice made Mystic freeze. His eyes followed it toward the courtyard entrance. The yandere stepped into view with Hina's lifeless body hanging over her shoulder. Her movements were calm, almost casual, as though carrying a sleeping person instead of a corpse.
Mystic pressed himself against the nearest wall. He barely breathed as the killer crossed the courtyard. The empty school made every footstep sound louder than it should have, while the summer sunlight stretched across the abandoned grounds. No students were around. No teachers. Nobody who could see what was happening.
Mystic watched from behind the wall as the yandere laid Hina down and began preparing the body for the gruesome display. He recoiled, his stomach twisting as the memory revealed what had really happened.
His hands clenched against the wall, but he stayed hidden, afraid that even the smallest movement would expose him.
"Come out," the yandere called, her head tilting toward the darkness. "I can hear your breathing, creature."
Inside the police office, monitors flickered with lines of unfamiliar code as warning symbols spread across the memory gun system. Officers crowded around their stations, fingers racing across keyboards while the system displayed an active connection.
Someone was inside their network, watching the memory footage in real time. None of them knew the intruder was Mystic.
"Find out who's doing this and explode their device!" He barked, his men immediately rushing to their terminals as he pointed at the screens. "We have the tech, now move!"
Harold slammed his hand against the desk as his men scrambled to trace the connection. Screens flashed between encrypted files and failed attempts to locate the hacker.
Joe sat hunched over his terminal, sweat gathering along his forehead as he typed commands he barely understood. He wasn't much of a coder, but he refused to sit back and watch.
Then a strange address appeared on his screen.
"Boss, look at this. It's the kid from Satoshi Academy. The one you tried to stop. What should we do? If we don't stop this, he could die."
Harold leaned closer to the monitor. His eyes followed the address, then widened as another window appeared beside it. A red countdown had already begun. Numbers dropped one after another, each beep sounding louder than the last.
The realization hit him too late. Mystic wasn't simply watching the memory recording anymore. His headset had been compromised, and the device was already preparing to detonate.
Whatever happened next, Mystic had no idea how to escape the dream realm before the countdown reached zero.
Meanwhile, inside the dream realm, Mystic pressed his back against the cold wall and held his breath. Footsteps echoed through the corridor. Slow at first.
Then faster. He peeked around the corner and immediately pulled his head back when he saw the yandere moving closer. Her shadow stretched across the floor toward him.
His fingers tightened around the mask hanging from his hand. Staying hidden would only buy him a few more seconds. He pulled the mask over his face, covering everything except his eyes, then glanced toward the courtyard.
"Come on, I need to get out of here and find a way to help the others solve this crime," Mystic muttered, glancing around.
Mystic sprinted toward the courtyard, his shoes slamming against the floor. For one brief moment, he thought he'd made it. Then a sharp mechanical whine tore through the air behind him.
The yandere's kinetic boots erupted with force, launching her forward like a bullet. Mystic barely had time to turn before she appeared directly in front of him. Her first pulled back, the machinery around her arm humming as purple energy crawled across the metal plating.
Mystic threw both arms in front of his chest. His small, fragile arms trembled as the glowing fist came toward him, but there was nowhere left to run.
BANG!
The punch struck his chest with enough force to lift him from the ground. His body crashed through the wall behind him, sending chunks of plaster and dust into the room beyond. He landed hard against the floor, his mask splitting down the middle.
Warm blood trickled from beneath his hair and ran past his eye. He tried to push himself upright, but his arm buckled beneath him. Every breath came out shallow and uneven as his vision blurred. Through the cracked mask, he could barely make out the yandere approaching.
"Name your purpose in this world, creature." The yandere tightened her fists, her eyes narrowing. "Are you going to take my senpai away from me like Hina did?"
Mystic's head shifted slightly. The broken mask slipped from his face and hit the floor with a faint clatter. The yandere froze. Her eyes widened as she stared at his face, recognition spreading across her expression.
"Senpai. Shit, I didn't mean to hurt you."
Mystic stared at her through half-open eyes. He tried to ask what she meant, but his throat refused to cooperate. His hands pressed against the floor as he forced himself upward, yet his arms shook violently beneath his weight.
A warm trickle suddenly ran from his nose. He wiped it with the back of his hand and stared at the blood coating his fingers. Neither of them understood where it had come from. The room began to stretch and distort around him, the walls bending at the edges of his vision as darkness crept inward.