Chapter 34 – The Mirror's Center Fractures in the Routine
Jack sat in the back of History, pretending to take notes while his eyes scanned the room.
Half the class laughed at the teacher's stale jokes, their faces blank and easy, just as they always were. But the other half… the other half had seen something. He knew it.
The kid two rows ahead kept rubbing his wrist as if checking for a bracelet that wasn't there. A girl near the window scribbled furiously in a notebook, but when Jack glanced over, he realized she was drawing the same shape over and over again—a jagged circle, like a broken halo.
When the teacher turned to the board, Iris leaned across the aisle, her whisper slicing the air. "We're not supposed to remember. But some of us do."
Jack's pen froze mid-stroke. He turned just slightly, enough to catch her watching him, her eyes alive with meaning.
Before he could respond, Ghost spoke up from behind him. "Stop recruiting him, Iris." Her voice was low, dark, dangerous. Then, in flawless Mandarin: "He doesn't belong to you."
Jack stiffened, every instinct screaming not to react. But the language was clear, sharp in his mind. He didn't miss a word.
So he wrote his answer on the margin of his notebook instead. In the same language. "I don't belong to anyone."
When Ghost saw it, her expression faltered for just a fraction of a second. Enough to tell him she hadn't expected him to keep up.
The bell rang, and the illusion of normalcy swept the room again—students bustling, laughter echoing, the scent of cafeteria food drifting through the halls. But Jack knew the cracks were widening. Iris testing him. Ghost warning him. And he—understanding everything.
The Watchers Decide
"Pause there," Darius ordered.
The footage froze on Jack's scrawled note. Even though the classroom cameras weren't meant for close-ups, the words were sharp enough. In Mandarin. Words Jack shouldn't know.
The room in HQ was heavy with silence.
Torres leaned back, muttering, "Kid's a damn polyglot overnight? That's not natural."
Yelena shook her head. "It's not about language. It's about the reset. The resets don't just repair things—they're rewriting him. Every loop, he absorbs something. A memory. A skill. A piece of someone else's mind."
Darius's jaw tightened. "Like a sponge."
"Like a mirror," Yelena corrected, her eyes never leaving Jack's frozen image. "He reflects what others think he can't understand. And now… he reflects all of them."
For the first time, the fear in the room wasn't just professional. It was personal. Because if Jack was collecting fragments from every reset, every clan, every clash—what was he becoming?
Torres broke the silence. "So, what's the call? Do we pull him? Intercept before this gets ugly?"
But Darius didn't answer right away. He stared at Jack on the screen, that calm expression masking the storm beneath. He'd seen it before—in soldiers who didn't know yet they were about to break. Or ascend.
Finally, the captain said, "We keep watching. If we move too soon, we'll spook the clans. But make no mistake—Jack O'Connor isn't just in the middle of this war." He paused, voice hardening. "He is the war."
The Lunchroom Fracture
The cafeteria was alive with noise, trays clattering, the scent of fried food and steam rising from plastic plates. Jack moved through the crowd with his usual quiet pace, sliding into his corner seat with a carton of milk.
But today, the room buzzed with a different tension.
He noticed it immediately: the way clusters formed, not just by friendship but by clan allegiance. The Green Griffins lounged near the back, their jackets too pristine, their laughter sharp. Across from them, the Crimson Serpents occupied two tables, all wearing bracelets they pretended were fashion but carried a faint glow if Jack focused. And then, closer to the windows, the Blue Phoenixes sat with Ghost at their center, her posture regal, her gaze like a blade across the room.
Every clan was here. All ten, scattered through the cafeteria like pieces on a chessboard pretending to be pawns.
Jack kept his eyes down. But the whispers crept to him anyway.
In Japanese, near the vending machines: "He carries the bangle. Iris failed to take it back."
In Russian, from the Griffins: "He doesn't even know what he is. We should cut him down before he learns."
In French, from a girl in the Serpents: "No, the Mirror isn't to be destroyed. He's to be protected… or claimed."
Jack swallowed hard. They thought they were whispering secrets he couldn't grasp—but each word landed clear, sharp, as if the cafeteria had turned into one vast translation chamber inside his skull.
He bit into his sandwich just as the tension snapped.
A Griffin boy stood too suddenly, his tray clattering to the floor. His gaze locked on Ghost across the room. "Now," he said, in English this time, his voice loud enough to draw eyes.
Ghost rose smoothly, like a shadow drawing a sword no one else could see. Iris was already moving, crimson hair flashing as she stepped into the center aisle.
And Jack? He felt it again—that sensation that every eye, every clan, every whispered scheme was tightening around him.
The Watchers Debate
"Stop the feed," Torres snapped, slamming a fist against the console. "They're circling him like wolves. We need to move now, Captain."
On-screen, the cafeteria froze mid-chaos, every clan visible in their colors, every rival on edge.
But Yelena's voice was calm, steady, dangerous. "No. If we pull him now, we break the illusion. The clans will close ranks, and we'll lose our chance to see which side he leans toward."
Torres glared. "He's a kid. You're using him like bait."
"He's not bait," Yelena shot back. "He's the center of the board. The Mirror. Every word he hears, he keeps. Every fight he watches, he absorbs. You really think we can stop that now? No. Our job is to survive long enough to see what he becomes."
Captain Darius didn't speak at first. He paced, hands behind his back, eyes sharp on the frozen image of Jack in his corner seat. The boy looked unremarkable—milk carton in hand, half a sandwich eaten. But every faction in that room wasn't watching Iris or Ghost or the Griffins. They were watching him.
Finally, the captain said, low and grim, "We don't intervene. Not yet. But double the surveillance. If he shows even a flicker of power, I want it recorded."
Torres muttered a curse but obeyed. Yelena simply leaned back, eyes glinting.
In her mind, one truth settled heavy as iron: If Jack O'Connor survives lunch, the war begins in earnest.
The Breaking PointJack's Perspective: The Slow Unraveling
Jack chewed his sandwich, but the bread turned to dust in his mouth. His milk carton sweated in his palm, condensation dripping, matching the cold that ran down his spine.
He could feel it now. Not just whispers in foreign tongues, not just stares cutting sideways—no, something deeper. The cafeteria wasn't a room anymore. It was a stage. And he was standing dead center, under a spotlight only he could feel.
His heartbeat quickened.
Why me? Why all at once?
But the answer pressed itself into his mind without mercy: because the bangle on his wrist glowed faintly beneath his sleeve. Because Iris had given it to him when she ran, because Ghost had fought to keep him alive. Because every clan knew it was on him now.
They weren't watching Iris. They weren't watching Ghost. They weren't even watching each other.
They were watching him.
He tried to take a sip of milk, but his hand shook. Across the room, Ghost's eyes flicked to him, soft for just a heartbeat. Iris followed, her gaze sharp, predatory. The Griffins leaned forward. The Serpents smirked. Even the Silent Monks, usually expressionless, tilted their heads toward him like predators scenting prey.
And in that awful silence between tray-clatters and voices, Jack realized: they're about to break the rules. Here. In broad daylight.
The Eruption
It started with a sound like steel slicing air.
The Griffin boy didn't throw a punch—he drew a blade. Not metal, but a shimmer of energy pulled from the air itself, emerald light cutting the space between tables. His target wasn't Ghost or Iris.
It was Jack.
The blade arced, screaming toward him—
—and Ghost moved first. Her chair screeched across the floor as she leapt, feathers of azure flame sparking from her shoulders. She caught the strike with her forearm guard, the cafeteria filling with the crackle of energy clashing against fire.
Students screamed, trays dropped, but before the chaos could scatter, Iris was already in motion. Her crimson sword was in her hand, drawn as if from air, and she lunged—not at Ghost. Not at the Griffin.
At Jack.
Her blade came fast, faster than thought, and Jack froze. He saw his reflection in the steel, saw his own wide eyes staring back. The bangle on his wrist pulsed once, hard.
The cafeteria exploded into chaos.
Tables overturned, chairs became shields, and suddenly every clan moved. Blue Phoenixes encircled Ghost. Griffins surged like wolves. Serpents hissed with blades flashing red. The Silent Monks were gone from sight—only to reappear near exits, sealing doors.
And Jack—
Jack was shoved sideways, his tray flying, as Ghost blocked Iris's strike with her burning sword. "Move, Jack!" she snarled, switching to Japanese: "Run while you can!"
But Iris hissed in Russian, her voice like venom: "He cannot run. He belongs to us."
The bangle flared again, heat running through his veins, and Jack realized something terrifying:
He understood both. Perfectly.
The Shattered Illusion
The cafeteria was no longer a cafeteria.
The scent of spilled milk and reheated fries was gone, swallowed in an instant by fire, steel, and ozone. The polished tiles warped with heat, the ceiling shook under the weight of raw power unleashed, and the buzzing fluorescent lights above cracked, stuttering into darkness.
Students—no, assassins—shed their human shells. Their uniforms tore or shifted as though reality itself bent to their will. Wings of green fire burst from the Griffins. The Serpents coiled with blades that hissed like venom. The Silent Monks did not move loudly but blurred into impossible speed, their forms splitting and rejoining as though time itself obeyed them.
And all of it—all the chaos, all the fury—swirled around one boy clutching his tray, breath trapped in his chest.
Jack.
His heart hammered so violently he thought it would burst through his ribs. The bangle on his wrist seared against his skin, pulsing faster with each clash of weapon and flame, as if it knew something he did not. He stumbled back, nearly falling over an overturned chair, the clang of metal echoing like a war drum.
Ghost stood in front of him, azure fire dancing along her shoulders. Her sword glowed with mystic runes that pulsed like veins of lightning, every movement a storm given form. She met the Griffin's emerald blade strike for strike, sparks carving searing lines across the walls.
"Stay behind me!" she barked, her voice harsh in English, before switching to Japanese, sharp as steel: "I'll hold them. Don't let him touch you, Iris."
Jack understood her perfectly, though she hadn't meant for him to. His stomach twisted. Why could he hear it all?
Iris's laugh cut through the roar. Crimson fire licked up her blade as she circled, eyes locked on Jack with the hunger of a predator. "You're trembling, boy." Her tongue shifted effortlessly into Russian, cold as winter steel: "And you don't even know what you are yet."
Jack flinched, but her words slid cleanly into meaning in his mind, as though the world itself translated for him. He shook his head violently. "Stop—stop talking like I'm not here!"
But no one listened.
The Griffins surged. The Serpents drew their curved, blood-red weapons. The Silent Monks closed every exit with movements so fast Jack's eyes could barely register them. The cafeteria was sealed.
And then the illusion cracked.
A wave of sound split the air, louder than thunder, sharper than shattering glass. For one heartbeat, Jack saw the truth beneath the veil: the school walls melted into ash and flame, the ceiling split into a starlit void, the tiles under his shoes fractured into floating shards of glass. The cafeteria was gone. He stood instead on a battlefield carved from nightmare and dream, a plane where magic and steel ruled, not textbooks and lockers.
The bangle burned. His blood surged with fire.
Not yet, a voice whispered inside him, low and steady, not his own. Not yet, but soon.
Jack gasped, staggering as the voice echoed. The others didn't seem to hear it. Or perhaps… they had heard something else.
Ghost pivoted, her blade singing as she drove back the Griffin. Sparks rained. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes catching Jack's in the chaos. For an instant, he saw not fire, not rage, but fear.
And then Iris struck.
Her crimson blade darted toward him like a serpent's fang, slicing through the air, too fast to dodge. Jack's instincts screamed, his body frozen between terror and motion—
The bangle exploded in light.
Blue fire roared up his arm, a shield erupting between him and Iris's blade. Her steel slammed into the wall of flame, sparks exploding outward, and for the first time Iris staggered backward, eyes narrowing in shock.
The whole room froze.
Dozens of eyes turned toward him—not at Ghost, not at Iris, not at the bangle, but at him.
Jack stood at the center of the storm, his body trembling, his arm wrapped in azure fire that belonged to no one else.
And in the silence that followed, Ghost whispered—not to Jack, not to the others, but in a tongue older than any classroom: "It's begun."
Fire in the Veins
The fire didn't fade. It clung to Jack's arm, alive, breathing with him, as if the bangle had carved open something deep in his blood. His pulse was no longer his own; it thundered in rhythm with the flames, every heartbeat drawing the blue light brighter.
The clans moved at once.
The Serpents struck first. Two of them, blades gleaming with venomous green, darted across the broken cafeteria like twin shadows. Their swords slashed downward, one for his throat, the other for his chest.
Jack screamed and threw his arm up—
And the fire answered.
The azure blaze erupted into a shield, pure and translucent, humming with alien geometry. The blades crashed against it with a ringing cry, sparks flying like meteor trails. The Serpents stumbled back, snarling, their eyes wide.
Jack blinked. He hadn't thought. He hadn't moved. The shield had simply appeared.
But before he could breathe, a Griffin lunged, his emerald glaive whistling down. Jack rolled to the side clumsily, crashing into a table. The fire sputtered as he fell, scorching the tile, and he felt the weight of his weakness—he wasn't a warrior. He wasn't trained. He didn't belong in this war.
Yet the fire pulsed again.
When the Griffin raised his glaive for another strike, Jack's hand lashed out instinctively, and the fire didn't form a shield this time—it spat. A spear of flame tore from his palm, shrieking through the air. It struck the Griffin in the chest, sending him flying backward into a wall. The impact cracked tile, dust raining down.
The cafeteria went still.
Ghost's sword lowered slightly, her eyes fixed on Jack. "Impossible," she breathed, her voice low enough that only he heard.
Iris smiled instead, crimson light dancing across her blade. "No… not impossible." She licked her lips, her gaze sharp and hungry. "I told you. He's waking up."
Jack stumbled to his feet, breathing ragged. His knees shook. His whole body felt like it was splitting in two—part of him screaming to run, part of him burning to unleash more.
And then—
The Watchers Outside
Miles away, in an unmarked van parked across from Ridgewood High, three men and two women watched their monitors in silence. The screens usually flickered with static whenever the illusion cloaked itself—white noise, corrupted feeds. But today was different.
The noise cleared.
The high school shimmered on their screens, and then cracked open like glass under pressure. Where neat brick walls and windows had stood, a new vision bled through: a fortress of flame and shadow, spires of light piercing the sky, figures with wings and weapons locked in combat. And at its heart—
A boy blazing with blue fire.
"Mother of God," whispered Captain Reyes, clutching his bangle as though it might anchor him.
One of the rookies muttered something in Spanish, voice trembling. "Esto no es posible… That's a kid. He's—he's just a kid."
"Not anymore," said another, voice flat. She tightened the bangle on her wrist, the metal thrumming faintly in answer. "The Seal's broken. We're past surveillance. This is war now."
The van shook faintly as the illusion spread wider, leaking into the daylight. A passing pedestrian on the sidewalk froze midstep, staring at the impossible cracks in the sky.
Reyes slammed his fist against the console. "Damn it, no! We can't let this spill out—containment protocols! Call in the second team!"
The rookie swallowed. "And the boy?"
Reyes hesitated, eyes locked on the screen where Jack's fire blazed against the clans. The look on his face was not just fear, but recognition.
"The boy," he said finally, his voice grave, "might be the only one who can end this. Or the one who ends us all."
Shattered Veil
The cafeteria was a storm.
Every clan moved as one, their colors flaring like banners in the chaos. Green fire from the Griffins, crimson arcs from the Serpents, jagged obsidian strikes from the Shadows. Ghost cut through the noise like a phantom, her blue aura shimmering in lethal silence, while Iris danced in spirals of scarlet flame.
Jack was drowning.
Each step back felt like falling deeper into a dream that wasn't his. The blue fire pulsed wildly around him, not armor, not a weapon—just raw energy spilling out of him like an untamed beast. He tried to focus, to command it, but it was like holding back the ocean with his hands.
And still, he understood every strike, every word, every tactic.
When two Griffins spoke in clipped Russian— "Сбейеговниз! Отрежьдыхание!" ("Drive him down! Cut his breath!")—Jack pivoted before their blades even swung, the blue shield flashing into place.
When a Serpent muttered in Mandarin— "别让他恢复力量" ("Don't let him recover his strength")—Jack's fire lashed out like it had heard the command itself, blasting the Serpent off his feet.
Their languages were walls. He stepped through them like open doors.
"Stop playing with him!" Ghost finally snapped, her blade whistling as she blurred forward. Her strike came fast—faster than his eyes could track. Instinct screamed. Jack raised his hand—
The blue fire didn't shield this time. It roared into wings.
Twin arcs of living flame burst from his back, feathers of azure light scattering like meteors. Ghost's sword struck the wing and ricocheted with a metallic scream, the force sending her stumbling back for the first time. Her eyes widened.
Jack stared, chest heaving, the phantom wings unfurling behind him.
"What… what are you?" she whispered.
Jack didn't answer—he didn't know.
The Watchers Move
The van's alarms blared. The Seal's energy readings spiked, jagged lines crawling across every monitor. The illusion that cloaked the school fractured wider, blue light seeping into the real world like blood in water.
Reyes didn't hesitate. "All units, move in! Containment perimeter—now!"
Doors slammed open, boots pounding pavement. Watchers fanned out, their bangles glowing faintly as shields shimmered around them. Civilians nearby froze in confusion as the Watchers formed a cordon, their presence commanding, urgent.
Inside his headset, Reyes barked orders in clipped bursts. "Squad Bravo, east wing! Squad Delta, secure the gym entrance! No one in or out!"
One of the veterans, her face pale, murmured as she checked her rifle, "If the Veil's breaking, there's no holding this back. The whole damn city's going to see."
Reyes's jaw tightened. "Then pray to whatever gods you have that the boy's on our side."
The ground rumbled beneath their feet. A pulse of blue light blasted through the school windows, shattering glass outward. Shards rained like crystal rain. The civilians gasped and scattered, screams rising in the distance.
Through the breach, Reyes caught a glimpse—just a fragment—of the boy with wings of fire.
And he knew.
This wasn't a skirmish anymore.
This was the beginning.
Wings of Fire
The cafeteria floor was unrecognizable. Tables had been reduced to splinters, banners hung half-burned, and the walls pulsed faintly as though alive—woven now into the Mirror's shifting fabric.
Jack's wings stretched wider, scattering feathers of blue fire that dissolved into sparks before hitting the ground. Each movement felt alien, as though his body wasn't his anymore, as though the wings knew more than he did.
Ghost moved first. Her sword cut a clean arc, blue steel flashing with inscriptions that glowed like liquid ice. Jack's wings folded instinctively, intercepting. The clash rang like a cathedral bell, sparks cascading in a waterfall of blue.
"あなたは選ばれし者じゃない!" Ghost hissed in Japanese. "You are not the chosen one!"
But Jack understood. The words cut straight into his head. His chest burned with rage he didn't know he had.
"You keep saying that," Jack spat, his voice carrying like a growl. "But if I'm not the chosen one… why do I keep beating you back?"
Gasps rippled among the clans.
Then Iris leapt in, her blade streaking crimson. She spoke in Russian this time, words sharp like knives— "Убейего, покаоннепонялсвоюсилу!" ("Kill him before he understands his power!").
The Serpents closed in from behind. The Shadows vanished into smoke. The Griffins descended in formation, claws of green fire slashing down.
Jack's wings flared. The floor shattered beneath him as he rose into the air, the cafeteria ceiling cracking as if it could not contain what he was becoming.
For the first time, the clans looked… afraid.
The Watchers' Assault
Outside, the Watchers met resistance.
The Mirror Realm, sensing intrusion, bled creatures into the physical world—constructs of glass and shadow, reflections that slithered into reality. They were tall, faceless figures with limbs too long, their skin rippling like water. When they moved, they echoed, like distorted video frames.
"Hold the line!" Reyes barked. His shield flared as one of the creatures lunged, claws scraping against the bangle's barrier. "Push them back!"
Blue bolts and energy rounds lit the night as Watchers opened fire. The constructs shattered like mirrors under the shots, but for every one destroyed, two more emerged from the cracks.
"Captain!" one soldier cried, pointing at the school.
Through the jagged hole in the cafeteria wall, they could see Jack—wings blazing, the clans circling him like predators. His power rippled outward, the Mirror's veil splitting wider.
Reyes swore under his breath. "That kid's going to tear the whole city apart if this keeps up."
Another pulse shook the ground. Several Watchers stumbled, their shields flickering.
Then—silence.
The constructs stopped moving. Every glassy head turned in unison, as though listening. Slowly, they pivoted toward the school. Toward Jack.
"Damn it," Reyes hissed. "They've recognized him."
The creatures broke into a sprint.