It started with silence.

After your injury in Tartarus—an unlucky Shadow’s strike meant for her—Mitsuru didn’t say much at all. She simply held your hand while Fuuka healed you, face blank, blood on her gloves.

You hadn’t really seen her since that night. Not truly. She was around, always a few steps away. Sitting beside you in the lounge with a book she never turned a page of. Walking slightly behind you on the way to school. Sitting in the student council room long after the meetings ended, eyes fixed on the polished surface of her desk while you sat quietly nearby.

She was becoming present, in the way a ghost is present—silent, always watching, unable to touch anything.

It only came to a head a few days later, when she made you skip third period by telling the teacher you were required for urgent “council matters.” You weren’t, obviously.

You stood in the Kirijo student council office, watching her organize nonexistent paperwork with rigid precision. It was the fifth time she’d adjusted the stack of folders.

“Mitsuru.”

She paused, then continued.

“Mitsuru,” you said again, this time gentler. “I’m fine.”

“That’s not the point,” she said, barely above a whisper.

You took a few steps toward her. She didn’t meet your eyes.

“You’ve been following me like I’m going to collapse any second,” you said. “You’ve been quiet. And you’re never quiet. What’s going on?”

“I wasn’t fast enough,” she said. “I wasn’t good enough. You were hurt because of me.”

“That’s not true.”

She finally turned to look at you. Her eyes were glassy, and the line of her mouth trembled before she clenched her jaw again.

“I swore that I wouldn’t lose anyone else. Not after Father. Not after—” She stopped herself. “And yet I froze. I let it happen again. I saw you bleeding, and I could do nothing. I care for you more than I should, and that.. that terrifies me."