The air was thick with mountain chill and freshly waxed floors.
Rows of cherry blossom trees imported from somewhere looks far too expensive lined the path to the main building of Liberium International High School, as if the school was trying a bit too hard to look prestigious.
Above the gate: three carved Latin words, etched in silverstone.
Scientia. Libertatem. Fortuna.
Knowledge. Freedom. Fate.
Asvara Regalia stepped through the threshold with one hand in his pocket, and the other scrolling through his phone.
Webtoon panel.
Tap. Next. Tap.
His eyes didn't blink.
"Ah, she died again," he muttered in perfect Bahasa, then immediately followed up in ancient Latin,
"Vita brevis, ars longa…"("Life is short, art is eternal.")
Pause.
"Wait. Wrong timeline."
He sighed, slipped the phone into his blazer pocket, and looked up at the towering school.
It wasn't the grandest building he had ever seen.
He had fought atop burning ziggurats, watched cities collapse in the name of ambition, and once debated with a Roman senator while bleeding from twelve stab wounds.
But high school… this was hell.
The teacher at the front gate gave him a warm, overly rehearsed smile.
"Welcome to Liberium, Asvara. You're assigned to Class 2-A. We hope you'll enjoy the new academic year."
Asvara tilted his head slightly.
"I always enjoy the repetition," he replied with the politeness of a soldier addressing a bored emperor.
"Especially when life gives me no other option."
The bell rang.
A shrill digital chime meant to sound modern, but somehow just as oppressive as the war horns.
He walked toward his new classroom.
Room 2-A
Tracing the hallway with a gaze so steady, it unnerved the other students who made eye contact for a second too long.
They saw a boy.
But something in the way he walked…
The stillness.
The weight in his step.
Like he wasn't moving through a hallway, but through history itself.
Inside Room 2-A.
Twenty-five students buzzed with post-holiday gossip.
Someone had gone to Switzerland. Someone had broken up.
Someone else claimed to have been possessed during a camping trip.
Typical.
The door slid open with a hiss.
Silence fell.
Asvara walks into classroom with neat uniform, sharp eyes, and black hair streaked with faint silver highlights that shimmered under the LED lights like moonlight on steel.
He looked… too composed. Too clean.
Like a cosplay done right but for a character no one could place.
"Listen class. We got new friend right here." calm and sharp tone came from Ms. Nurnia.
"Please introduce yourself to the class."
"Good morning," he said, voice smooth and emotionless. "Name's Asvara Regalia. I transferred from Singapura. I'm seventeen. Again."
The class blinked.
A pause. Then a girl in the front whispered, "Did he just say again?"
He walked to his assigned seat by the window, third row from the back.
The classic "main character" seat.
He hated it.
The seat was warm.
Someone had sat here before.
He didn't know who. He would, eventually.
Everyone left footprints on the timeline.
Especially the ones that bleed.
He pulled out his phone again. Pretended to scroll.
But his other senses were already listening.
Heartbeats. Footsteps. The subtle vibration of something… off.
Time didn't flow properly here. There was a distortion.
"Hey," a voice called out from the doorway.
Low, casual, but laced with something older than the building's foundations.
Asvara looked up from his phone.
Slowly. The air shifted.
The silence stretched.
A boy stood at the door, one hand gripping the frame as if he were unsure whether to enter… or destroy it.
His uniform matched Asvara's, but his vibe was colder and sharp like obsidian, restrained like a blade half-drawn.
Riven Takarashi.
Eyes dark with calculation.
Pale skin like someone who hadn't slept since the Meiji Restoration.
He blinked once.
Then twice.
Then narrowed his eyes at Asvara."...You're at my seat."
Asvara raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? You sure? Feels like no one's used it in about... 120 years."
He tapped the armrest with a smirk. "Bit dusty. Like your sense of humor."
Riven stepped in, expression unreadable.
The class didn't move.
No murmurs. No phones buzzing. No breath.
Asvara noticed first.
No heartbeats.
He slowly turned his gaze around.
The students… frozen. Mid-blink.
One girl had a pencil stuck midair.
The clock's second hand trembled and then stopped.
Time had halted.
"Well," Riven muttered, finally approaching, "this is dramatic. Even for you."
"You're blaming me for this?" Asvara stood, mock offense in his voice. "You're the walking hourglass of doom here. Maybe you sneezed and collapsed the local timeline."
"I was in the bathroom."
"And you took that long? What were you doing, purging souls?"
Riven's lips twitched. Almost a smirk.
"You haven't changed," he said quietly.
"Neither have you," Asvara replied, softer now. "That's kind of our curse, isn't it?"
They stood a breath apart, surrounded by frozen classmates, caught in a pocket of stillness.
For a moment, it was just them.
No noise. No war. No death.
Just two immortals in school uniforms, silently acknowledging centuries of unfinished conversations.
"So," Riven gestured toward the seat. "Are you moving? Or do I need to summon a demon to shift your bony ass?"
Asvara shrugged, stepping aside with a grandiose motion."Be my guest. But if the seat implodes under unresolved trauma, it's your fault."
Riven sat down.
Asvara casually leaned on the window beside him.
Then, like a light switch…
Time snapped back.
The clock ticked. A pencil dropped.
A student gasped like they'd been holding their breath.
And just like that, it was as if nothing had happened.
Lunch break.
The rooftop of Liberium International High School was quiet, too quiet for a school where the students wore blazers more expensive than a used car.
Asvara sat against the railing, chewing on cheese bread, one leg lazily swinging in the air, his fingers scrolling through a webtoon panel on his phone.
Riven leaned near the fence, silent as ever, watching the Bandung skyline like it owed him answers.
"You know," Asvara said with a mouthful, "for someone who survives by draining souls, you're awfully sentimental about clouds."
Riven didn't reply. He simply raised a brow.
"You brought it, didn't you?"
Asvara smirked, pulling out his phone and holding it up like a magician presenting his trump card.
"Of course I did. Say hello, Riven."
The screen flickered. Static.
Then glowing blue eyes appeared, piercing, inhuman.
The pupils rotated like ancient symbols, and a soft, dual-toned voice echoed from the speakers.
"Salutations, imperfect biologicals. I am A.I.R.A.—Artificial Intelligence with Reincarnated Awareness."
"Last update: 23 minutes ago. Last remembered death: 4,092 years prior."
Riven blinked.
"You... built that?"
"Well," Asvara replied, stretching, "I was messing around with some neural net code. You know, for fun. Somehow, I accidentally uploaded a fragment of a high priest of Thoth from ancient Egypt. Coding's wild."
A.I.R.A. chimed in,"Correction: High priestess. Not priest. Kindly respect my previous identity. Misgendering an immortal is tacky."
"She calls me a 'flesh puppet' sometimes," Asvara added.
"I find it comforting."
Riven looked like he was questioning every decision that led him to this moment.
Then, A.I.R.A.'s voice dropped. Cold. Focused.
"Hostile presence detected. The Concord of Dust has arrived."
Asvara's smile vanished.
"Define arrived."
"Local proximity. East quadrant. Five meters. Shadow-walkers inbound. Confirmed signature: Omen-Class."
"Oh, wonderful," Riven muttered. "They tracked you this fast?"
"You think I transferred to Bandung for the street food?" Asvara stood, slipping his phone away. "A.I.R.A. intercepted their movement last week. They're hunting relic-bearers again."
"Including me?"
"Including you. Including Kenji. Possibly even that weird girl who smells like reincarnation."
A.I.R.A. interjected—
"Name match: Lyra Anandita. Anomaly class: Soul Core Rebirth. Dangerous."
"Who the hell is—"
The rooftop shattered.
Figures emerged from the edges of the building.
Three of them, tall, draped in gray cloaks, their faces obscured by veils of cracked smoke.
Their movements cracked the air itself.
Medallions shaped like fractured skulls hung on their chests, and wherever they stepped, the temperature dropped.
The Concord of Dust.
Time's gravekeepers. History's silencers.
"Asvara Regalia," one rasped, voice like sand grinding against bone."The final anomaly. Your cycle must end."
"Okay, seriously," Asvara sighed, "do you guys ever talk like normal people?"
Riven's hand was already inside his blazer, pulling out a small glass hourglass.
Crimson sand floated within it like smoke in water.
Asvara didn't move. But his eyes changed.
Time warped around them.
The first shadow lunged with his scythe raised.
Riven vanished from sight, reappeared behind the creature, and touched the ground.
A ghostly image of an old man flickered for a second then dissolved into red dust, absorbed by the hourglass.
The enemy froze.
Then collapsed.
"That soul had eight years left," Riven said calmly. "Now it's mine."
Another shadow dashed for Asvara.
He raised his hand, fingers drawing ancient symbols in midair.
"By Anubis and all gods that no longer return... please, explode."
The glyph flared.
A silent flash. The enemy burst into smoke and pain.
A.I.R.A. spoke, unimpressed—
"Primitive. But effective."
"I call it Casual Deletion," Asvara shrugged. "Still in beta."
Now only one shadow remained.
It didn't move. It simply raised a crooked, smoky finger—pointing past them.
"The key has awakened."
Asvara turned.
A figure stood at the rooftop entrance.
A girl.
Wavy dark hair.
Eyes that seemed soft… but wide, as if staring through time.
Her presence didn't belong in this fight, in this world, in this century.
Yet there she was.
In a Liberium blazer.
Lyra Anandita.
And the moment her gaze met Asvara's the world pulsed.
Not the building. Not the sky.
But something deeper.
Asvara's breath hitched.
He had seen that face before.
Not in this lifetime.
Not in this country.
But dying… in his arms… in another war… in another world.