Ruri held Hikari's hand tightly as they navigated the maze.The mirrors here showed different things.At first, just reflections—Ruri's determined face, Tsukasa's pained limp, Hikari's downcast eyes. But after a few turns, the images began to warp.Ruri's reflection suddenly wore a track uniform stained with blood. The girl in the mirror—the opponent from that fateful race—stood behind her, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle. Her eyes were accusatory."You intentionally injured me, Ruri. You remember, right?"The voice came from the gss, whisper?soft.Ruri froze. "No… it was an accident…""Liar. You clipped my heel on the final turn. You wanted to win. And you did.""That's not true!""Then why did you visit me in the hospital only once? Why can't you look me in the eye?"The reflection stepped closer, until its face was pressed against the gss. "You carry my leg with you. Every step you take, you feel it, don't you?"Ruri's breath hitched. She did feel it—a phantom weight, a guilt that dragged at her every movement."Ruri." Tsukasa's hand on her shoulder. "It's not real. ARK is messing with you."She knew that. Logically, she knew. But the guilt was real. The memory was real.She tore her eyes away. "Keep moving."Tsukasa's own mirrors were worse.Every surface showed his teammates walking away from him. Ruri gnced back once, her expression pitying. "Sorry, you're too weak."Yuma didn't look back at all.Komachi vanished around a corner.Sakuya faded into the distance.Even Hikari—the one he'd tried to protect—turned her back.Alone. Abandoned. Useless.Tsukasa gritted his teeth, his fists clenched. "I'm not weak," he muttered to his reflections. "I'm not."But the images didn't change.Komachi's mirrors were different yet again.As they moved through another corridor, the gss surfaces around her began to shimmer. Instead of showing her reflection, they dispyed fragments—shattered pieces of memory, each one sharp and vivid.One mirror showed her at age six, crying over her dead dog, Snowball. The vet's voice echoed: "It was an accident, sweetie. He got into the antifreeze."Another showed her at ten, pocketing a candy bar from a convenience store. The shopkeeper's back was turned. Her heart hammered. She'd never stolen before—or since.A third showed her father leaving. Suitcase in hand. No goodbye. Just the click of the door.But the worst were the ones that hadn't happened yet.A mirror ahead dispyed her own corpse, lying in the desert sand, dehydrated and shriveled. Another showed her falling into a bottomless pit, screaming. A third had her strapped to a medical table, wires piercing her skull, while ARK's voice announced: "Sample?04, memory extraction complete. Commencing recycling."She stumbled, her breath coming in short gasps. "I can't… I can't…"Yuma caught her arm. "Don't look. They're not real.""But they feel real," she whispered. "My hyperthymesia… it remembers everything. Even things that haven't happened. ARK is feeding my own memory back to me, twisted.""Then don't believe it. Your memory is a record, not a prophecy."She nodded, but her hands still trembled. The images kept coming—a waterfall of possible deaths, each one etched with perfect crity.This is my curse, she thought. To remember everything. Even the horrors that might be.

  Corridor