Rain tapped lightly on the academy windows.
Most students saw weather as background noise.
Neo saw it as camouflage.
---
The hallways of Virelia Academy twisted like a maze—by design. Built for surveillance, confusion, and isolation. Each floor slightly mismatched in layout, each hallway embedded with low-level psychological triggers.
Neo walked as if the building itself bowed to him.
His Echo Step had begun whispering—soft, subtle pulses of spatial dissonance. It wasn't power in the traditional sense. It was a sense that something was *off*, that the fabric of the moment bent beneath lies.
And someone nearby was lying.
---
**Target: Unknown Student. Masked. Forged Credentials.**
Neo began with the cafeteria.
He entered just as the morning rush started. Students laughed, bickered, scrolled through updates. At a corner table, a boy with mismatched shoes glanced up mid-sip. His eyes darted—too alert.
Neo registered him.
**Not the target. But hiding something.**
He filed it for later.
Echo Step stirred again—this time stronger.
From across the room, a student walked past a vending unit. A shimmer, no—a *lag* in their motion. Like a frame skipped in reality. Neo's eyes narrowed.
> *Found you.*
---
He didn't follow immediately.
He rerouted—out of sight, above via maintenance crawlspace, below into a side corridor, then back up through the abandoned archive stairwell.
By the time the masked student entered the East Wing study deck, Neo was already there—seated, reading, waiting.
The target froze.
Just a second.
But enough.
Neo shut his book slowly. "You forged credentials with Class-D code layering. That's how you beat the initial scan."
Silence.
The student didn't move. Didn't blink.
Neo stood.
> "Your timing was perfect. Your movements weren't. You paused at hallway junctions like you weren't used to the rhythm. You avoided patrol drones in reverse pattern."
The figure exhaled—and bolted.
---
Neo didn't chase.
He walked.
Echo Step pulsed again—this time like sonar.
Each hallway corner whispered where the target had gone, which locker door had been skimmed by cloth, which shadow held warmth where it shouldn't.
Three turns. Two flights down.
A dead-end.
Neo appeared behind the student like a phantom.
> "I know what you are. But not why you're here."
> "So let's fix that."
The figure lunged—Neo didn't flinch.
He shifted weight, twisted under the punch, redirected the force into the wall. The impact echoed. The mask cracked.
And beneath it:
**A familiar face.**
Neo froze.
> *"...You?"*
The target bled from the lip, but smiled with shattered calm.
**"They said you'd forgotten."**