The final enemy of the Concord squad took a step forward.
And that was a mistake.
Asvara didn't reach for his weapon.
He didn't conjure a glyph.
He didn't even stand properly.
Instead, he flicked something from his hand.
A crumpled bread wrapper.
Thin, plastic, glinting in the wind.
The enemy tilted its head.
Riven blinked.
Lyra stared.
The wrapper flew like nothing, light and harmless... until it shimmered midair.
Symbols burned across its surface, ancient, compact, compressed into the molecular fibers.
It struck the enemy's forehead with the gentlest tap.
Silence.
Then...
A flash of white.
The body imploded inward like origami folded by a vengeful god.
Dust scattered into the wind.
"You killed a monster... with trash," Riven muttered, genuinely horrified. "Who are you anymore?"
Asvara dusted his hands. "Please. I'm a minimalist now."
"You're a war criminal with recycling issues."
"Better than being a time vampire with attachment problems."
Lyra stood silently, her hands clenched.
Her breath was short.
Her heart louder than it should've been.
She didn't understand why… but the boy who stood before her…
She'd seen him before.
Not here. Not now.
Somewhere deeper.
And before she could stop herself, a single tear rolled down her cheek.
She wiped it fast, hoping no one saw.
But Asvara… saw everything.
"...Do I... know you?" she asked, voice trembling.
Asvara said nothing. Not yet.
"Oh great," Riven drawled. "We've hit the 'mysterious tearful reunion' trope already. What's next, reincarnation reveal by Chapter 3?"
Lyra blinked at him, confused and mildly offended.
"Excuse me—who even are you?"
"Riven. Resident sarcastic immortal. I suck up people's lifespans for breakfast. You?"
Before Lyra could respond, a familiar voice called out from the stairwell.
"Lyra! There you are!" a teacher shouted. "You're needed for the class council briefing!"
"...Wait," Asvara blinked. "She's class president?"
Lyra looked between the two boys, clearly still shaken but pulling herself back together with the kind of composure only someone with deep-seated trauma—or excellent grades—could summon.
"Yes. I'm Lyra Anandita. President of Class 2-A."
"And I'd really like to know what just happened on my rooftop."
Asvara gave a small, tired smile.
"Same here. Maybe we can compare trauma stories over coffee."
Riven muttered, "You don't even like coffee."
"I like pretending I'm normal."
As the others filed back inside, Asvara pulled his phone from his pocket and opened a message thread.
TO: Kenji Mori
Get your overdramatic katana-summoning ass to Bandung. Liberium. Class 2-A. Shit's already happening. Bring incense.
He stared at the screen for a moment before locking it.
"Let the chaos resume," he said softly. "As usual."
The next morning.
A luxury black car rolled through the school gates of Liberium International High School.
Security didn't even stop it.
They saluted.
Inside sat a boy with messy, uncombed hair and sleepy eyes.
He was in a full school uniform but wore wooden sandals.
Because of course he did.
The car door opened and a man in an immaculate suit and monocle stepped out first.
"Young Master Kenji Mori," the butler announced to no one in particular, "on behalf of your grandfather's foundation, welcome to the Bandung branch."
Kenji yawned, dragging a bamboo katana bag behind him. "Thanks, I guess."
Behind them, two other assistants carried a portable incense altar and a box full of talismans.
"Will this be another cursed institution, sir?" the butler asked politely.
Kenji replied, dead serious, "If it isn't cursed, I'm not learning anything."
Class 2-A. Morning homeroom.
Lyra Anandita stood at the front with a clipboard.
Still as poised as ever, though her eyes lingered longer than usual on one specific empty seat.
"As many of you know," she began, "we have a new transfer student joining us today."
The door slid open.
Kenji entered.
Katana bag in one hand.
A talisman stuck to his forehead.
No explanation given.
"Yo!" he waved. "I'm Kenji Mori. My ancestors are probably watching, so please treat me well."
Silence.
"Do you… always wear paper on your face?" someone asked.
"Of course," he answered. "Protection against ghosts, low grades, and heartbreak."
Asvara, in the back seat, chuckled.
Riven facepalmed.
Lyra cleared her throat.
"Right. Since we've had so many transfers lately, let's all reintroduce ourselves."
The Self-Introduction Disaster, Class 2-A Edition
🔹 Lyra Anandita:
"Class President. Likes psychology, ghost stories, and probably regrets being here."(Everyone clapped politely.)
🔹 Riven Takarashi:
"Chronically tired. Reads obituaries for fun. Might be older than the school building." Pause. (Dead silence. One girl fainted.)
🔹 Asvara Regalia:
"I transferred from Singapore. Seventeen. Again. I enjoy webtoons, late-stage capitalism, and dismantling ancient secret societies before lunch."(Class didn't know whether to laugh or call the counselor.)
🔹 Kenji Mori:
"I'm here to summon dead samurai into my body and pass midterms. Also, I really like beef noodles."(One student clapped. Might've been paid.)
🔹 A.I.R.A. (from Asvara's phone):
"Greetings. I am A.I.R.A., artificial intelligence, partially possessed by a dead Egyptian priestess. I will not be participating in PE."
"You're letting your phone introduce itself now?" Lyra blinked.
Asvara shrugged. "Better than half the people I've met this decade."
Lunch Break – Rooftop
Asvara, Riven, and Kenji sat in a triangle, boxed lunches open.
A.I.R.A. projected herself as a floating hologram made of hieroglyphs and code.
"So," Kenji said between bites. "What exactly is this Concord of Dust thing? Some kind of cosplay cult?"
Riven answered flatly, "They're real. Ancient. They believe history must be 'cleaned', that immortals like us disturb the natural order."
"Basically," Asvara added, "they want to delete us. Erase every trace of anomalies. We're seen as... corrupted records."
"Neat," Kenji muttered. "And here I was worried high school would be boring."
A.I.R.A. chimed in:
"They operate across timelines, tracking immortal resonance and spiritual distortion. Each of you leaves a 'temporal fingerprint.'"
"So we're walking glitches," Riven said dryly.
"Worse," Asvara replied. "We're backups from a world the universe wants to uninstall."
"Then what's their end goal?"
A.I.R.A. paused.
"To collapse the reincarnation cycle. Kill all soul anomalies. Reset human fate. And forcing the unbalance so they become the only balance that known"
Kenji blinked. "That's... pretty ambitious."
"They killed off hundreds like us before," Asvara said. "But this time, they've come too close. We're not running."
"We're fighting back?"
"No." Asvara smiled grimly. "We're rewriting the damn script."
Then, the door to the rooftop clicked open.
Lyra Anandita stepped into the wind.
"Regalia," she said softly. Her voice didn't match the chaos around her—calm, focused, but brittle. "Can we talk? Alone. Just you and me."
Kenji raised an eyebrow. "Oooh, awkward timing."
"We're having a strategy meeting," Asvara said, straightening. "You can join or—"
"No," she cut in. "I'm asking... if we've met before."
Silence.
The wind stopped.
A distant crow screamed.
Somewhere, the universe held its breath.
"Because," Lyra said, stepping closer, "I see your face in dreams I shouldn't have. In places I've never been. And every time I look at you, something inside me breaks."
Asvara's voice was low. "You shouldn't remember. Not yet."
"So it's true?"
"...I never said that."
Before the silence could stretch, A.I.R.A.'s voice rang out from Asvara's phone.
Sharp. Alarmed.
"Contact breach. Anomaly on-site. Classification: Chess Piece of Dust – Tier: Pawn."
A black fog began forming behind the stair door Lyra had just come through.
It slithered across the tiles, thick and sharp-edged, like tar with a purpose.
From it, a figure stepped out.
Not cloaked like the others.
This one wore a segmented ceramic mask shaped like a pawn chess piece, head bowed, body twitching like a broken puppet.
"You've been marked," it rasped. "The Key. The Immortal General. The Time-Eaters. All must fall."
Riven stood first. "Damn it. They tracked the signature again."
Kenji cracked his knuckles. "Finally."
The Pawn lunged.
Not for Asvara. Not for Riven.
For Lyra.
In a blink, Asvara stepped between them, glyphs forming midair, blocking the creature's claws with a wall of fractal light.
"Back off. That memory's mine."
But the Pawn split in two.
One fragment danced around them lunging at Kenji with warped, scythe-like limbs.
Kenji grinned. Eyes focused.
He pulled a small blade charm from his sleeve and whispered:
"I summon the spirit of the Crimson Blade…"
Wind howled. Talismans glowed.
His body ignited with red aura, wrapping him in a translucent samurai armor.
Ghostly hands clasped his shoulders and then melted into him.
"Link: Takeda Shingen."
His pupils sharpened. His stance shifted.
The ghost of war had arrived.
Kenji blocked the scythe with a precise twist of his summoned katana, then countered with a brutal slash that launched the Pawn back into the rooftop fence.
"Yo, Asvara!" he shouted mid-spin. "You couldn't have summoned this kind of fun yesterday?!"
"You were late," Asvara replied, casually redirecting a spectral projectile with a flick of his wrist.
"You didn't say there'd be a boss fight!"
"This is just the pawn, Kenji."
The Pawn screeched. Its mask cracked.
A second mouth opened on its neck, whispering something indecipherable in reverse Latin.
Lyra stumbled back, eyes wide, clutching her head.
"Make it stop… I— I can hear it. I know that voice—"
"It's digging into your Soul Core," Asvara muttered. "It's not after your body. It wants your past."
A.I.R.A.:
"Memory extraction attempt detected. Defensive invocation advised."
Asvara turned to Riven. "Cover Lyra."
Riven raised his hourglass. "Time to pay for your sins."
The sand pulsed red.
Kenji charged.
His voice rang across the rooftop.
"I fight not just for grades and glory, but for every dead samurai who never got closure!"
(Asvara facepalmed quietly in the background.)
Kenji's blade met the Pawn in mid-air and sliced straight through its mask.
A blinding flash. Silence.
Then—Ash.
The Pawn crumbled into dust, blown away by the mountain wind.
Kenji landed like a hero in a shonen manga.
"And that's the power… of spiritual lineage, baby."
"Please don't ever say that again," Riven muttered.
"But it was cool, right?"
"I said what I said."
As the dust cleared, Lyra looked at Asvara, her breathing shaky, but steadier.
"That thing... it called me the Key."
"They're wrong," Asvara said, voice low."You're more than that."
He turned to the sky.
Storm clouds brewing.
"The game's started now. And we're all on the board."