The day of the selection battle.
Noah stood alone in the center of the massive arena for a long time, but even when the referee officially announced over the loudspeakers that Shizuya Kirihara had been formally disqualified for absence, he still did not appear.
Not only that, he had seemingly vanished directly from the school grounds.
His dormitory, his classroom—no matter where anyone looked, there was absolutely no physical trace of him.
Even when the school security sent people to actively search for him, they found nothing.
Although he had technically won his first bracket without a fight, this cowardly situation instead left Noah with an inexplicable sense of irritation.
Since that day at the mall, Shizuya Kirihara had completely disappeared.
With his invisibility Ability, if he truly wanted to hide from the world, there was indeed no way anyone could find him.
His erratic actions seemed almost as if he were desperately trying to avoid something terrifying.
During the Seven Stars Sword Art Festival selection period, regular academic classes at Hagun Academy were only held in the early morning.
The rest of the afternoon was dedicated entirely to the selection battles, and students could legally choose to study independently, take elective courses, or go to the massive venue to loudly watch the matches.
The vast majority of people would absolutely not miss the exciting selection battles to do anything else.
"Are you really not coming to watch my selection battle today?" Stella once again confirmed with the boy in their dorm room.
"The outcome is already decided, isn't it? Aside from a select few monsters, no one else in this school could last even a single round against your flames."
"Even if that's true... Hmph, fine! I am heading out!"
With a proud tsundere-like huff, Stella departed the room first.
As the afternoon selection battles officially began, the sprawling campus suddenly became much quieter, with all the noise and student activity concentrated entirely at the distant battle venue.
...
Pitter-patter.
A light, cold rain began to fall from the grey sky.
Noah silently put on his dark raincoat, pulled up the heavy hood and stepped outside into the weather.
Following the information he had gathered beforehand, he made his way directly to Shizuya Kirihara's upperclassman dormitory.
Knock, knock, knock.
He gently knocked on the wooden door.
He waited for a long moment.
But there was no response from inside the room.
Noah raised his hand, effortlessly manipulating the magnetic elements inside the lock mechanism to unlock the heavy door from the inside without ever touching it.
With a soft click, the door swung open as if pushed by a sudden gust of wind.
He stepped inside the dark room, and the door closed automatically behind him as if pulled by an invisible hand.
Noah activated an invisible wind barrier around himself, physically ensuring that anything moving within a five-meter radius would instantly enter his perception.
The invisible wind swept over every inch of the messy room.
Suddenly, Noah came to a dead halt.
He lifted his head, ostensibly looking at the tall mirror standing in the corner of the room, but his eyes were actually fixed directly on the empty space between two heavy wardrobes.
There, something completely invisible to the naked eye existed, desperately holding its breath.
Perhaps he hadn't noticed it when dealing with Bisho at the mall, but this time, he wouldn't overlook the anomaly.
If the naked eye couldn't physically see it, then he would use his skill to see.
As the Truth Seeker's effect activated, Noah's eyes turned into a shimmering blue.
Under that unique piercing gaze, the mirror perfectly reflected the terrified figure hiding between the wardrobes.
At that exact moment, Shizuya Kirihara, still desperately maintaining his invisibility, saw those glowing blue eyes that appeared in his bloody nightmares every night and nearly forgot to breathe in sheer fright.
Noah slowly turned around and walked step by step toward that "invisible figure."
He gently raised his hand, moving at a steady, deliberate pace and precisely grasped the empty air where the other boy's throat was.
Even as he began to choke, Kirihara did not deactivate his Ability.
Noah narrowed his glowing eyes, applying slight pressure with his hand, gradually increasing the crushing force as he tightened his grip.
Kirihara's thrashing figure slowly materialized, as if emerging from an invisible mirror.
As his Ability was completely dispelled by the physical pain, that mirror shattered entirely.
"Cough... Gah—ah! S-Spare... spare me! Please! Do not turn me into that horrible monster! I—I will do anything! Please!"
Kirihara's face turned completely ashen, then a suffocating purple.
Even in this pathetic state, he showed absolutely no intention of summoning his Device to fight for his life.
He was utterly terrified, like a broken cowardly puppet, repeating the exact same phrase over and over.
"Spare me."
"You said... monster?" Noah frowned and asked softly, his grip loosening slightly.
"So you were following us that day at the mall and secretly saw everything?"
"Y-Yes! I am sorry! I will forget it! I swear I will completely forget all of it! I haven't told anyone! I really know I was wrong! Please! Ah!"
Tears streamed pathetically from the corners of Kirihara's bloodshot eyes and snot sprayed out over Noah's hand with his desperate sobs.
Noah let go of his throat in pure disgust, dropping the weeping senior heavily to the wooden floor.
"Cough! Cough! Cough!"
Kirihara greedily gasped for air, coughing uncontrollably on his hands and knees.
"You really should forget it."
Noah stood calmly behind the weeping Kirihara and placed a firm hand directly on the top of his head.
Instantly, Kirihara convulsed violently, as if he had been brutally electrocuted by a live wire.
His pupils dilated in an instant, all human expression vanished from his tear-stained face, leaving him as stiff and lifeless as a broken robot.
'Huh?'
'Damn, did I delete too much...?'
He had originally intended to use Weaver to erase only the boy's recent traumatic memories of the mall, but in actual practice, mental manipulation turned out to be far more delicate and difficult than expected.
Through a direct soul link, he could completely immerse his consciousness in another's soul as if he were physically standing there.
This was an inspiration born from shaping his own Device, allowing him to transform his own soul into a heavy anchor, mooring it deep within another's soul to directly manipulate their inner being.
He called this technique the Soul Anchor.
Now, his consciousness found himself standing in an immense dark space—a long corridor dedicated entirely to displaying the individual memories of Shizuya Kirihara.
From past to present, everything he had ever experienced was laid out on the walls like vivid paintings.
Noah calmly walked through this vast echoing corridor, observing Kirihara's pathetic life up to this point.
Suddenly, a vivid painting tore violently down the middle.
At the exact same time, the dark corridor shook violently, growing dangerously unstable.
This was the terrifying side effect of the Soul Anchor.
However, the side effect didn't affect Noah himself, but the fragile mind of the one being anchored.
A soul anchored by Noah would gradually collapse—the longer the anchor remained, the more severe the mental collapse, until the core personality vanished entirely and the soul physically shattered.
It was only because Kirihara feared him to the extreme that the invasive anchoring succeeded in the first place.
For a strong-willed Blazer like Stella or Ikki, if they had even a hint of mental resistance, the anchoring would fail completely.
This also perfectly revealed just how incredibly fragile Kirihara's mind truly was—no different from a terrified, immature child.
Tracing back to the most recent memories at the end of the hall, Noah finally saw the vivid scene from that day at the shopping center.
Kirihara was arrogantly surrounded by four or five beautiful female students.
Blazers were one in a thousand, exceptional beings, while ordinary people outside their ranks still needed to attend normal school and work.
Judging by their expensive uniforms, these civilian students were from various prestigious girls' schools in the city, each quite attractive, yet they all fawned heavily over Kirihara, clinging desperately to his side for status.
Noah pressed his hand directly against that specific painting and his entire consciousness sank into the memory in an instant.
When he came to, he found himself standing right in the middle of that busy shopping mall, seeing through Kirihara's eyes.
At the same time, several giggling girls were clinging to his arms, whining without pause.
'This is... Shizuya Kirihara's memory?'