A week after the incident, the kids were back on their feet. School resumes as if nothing had ever happened. Their laughter returned, the classroom buzzed with chatter, and the bruises and terror they once wore were now only fair scars.
But to Nas, it was surreal.
It seemed as though everyone had forgotten his presence that night... his sacrifice, his pain, his role in saving them. Wiped clean, erased from memory. Somehow, by some unseen hand, his very existence in the fight had been cut out of the story.
He suspected his mother. Who else could have reached before the ACE ASSEMBLY got involved? Only she had the power, only she was present at the scene, and only she had the motive: to protect him.
He tired reaching out to Victor, but the man was nowhere to be found. Vanished, only Aurora remained, offering small reassurances and less than satisfying explanations.
"Some people are after your mother" she told him. "She'll return when her presence won't bring you harm."
Nas connected the dots in his own silence. His mother was not just hiding, she was a fugitive. Kendra Izeoduwa was an alias, a mask to conceal whoever she really was. If her enemies discovered the mask, they would come for him. Altering his friends' memories, severing his part in the fight, it was all as shield to keep him invisible.
He understood it. He even admired it.
But he hated figurinh it out on his own.
And Aurora, his only link to answers, kept her mouth shut tighter than a vault.
—
That was when the changes began.
In PE class, Nas noticed he was faster. His lungs burner less, his muscles carried him with a strength and agility that surprised even him. Every sprint, every leap felt lighter, sharper— not normal.
And then it happened.
On the walk back from the field, mid conversation with his friends, he froze. His body seized, cold spreading through his veins, and then he collapsed, his classmates' shouts echoing dimly in the distance. His mind drifted for a heartbeat too long, like a soul inspired, before he snapped back.
Gasps. Faces crowded over him. Phoebe, wide eyed, muttered with nervous laughter,
"Dude... You just died and came back."
Nas chuckled, brushing himself off, though her words hit too close to the truth. He had died. He remembered the forest. His mother's bloody palm. Her lips against his forehead. The smoke of her Grace flowing into his lungs. She had pulled him back from the other side.
But he couldn't tell them that.
They didn't even remember he'd been in the fight.
What would be the point?
So he lived. "Sometimes when I overexert myself, I faint. Nothing new."
Phoebe frowned. "That wasn't faintly, Nas. That was... Something else."
"You're over thinking" he said, forcing a grin. "I'm fine."
But deep inside. He knew the truth.
Whatever his mother had done to save him, it had changed him.
And the change was only beginning.
Changing the topic, Nas asked his friends how they were even alive.
"The News going round is that you guys were at death's door. It was even on the news."
The News and gossip whispered of the kids on death's door, missing limbs, futures destroyed. Even if they lived, the rumors said, they would never function as mages again.
Adrian shook his head, a faint grin on his lips. He whispered something that the world had not been told, at least not yet. "The primordial Mage saw to us personally. With that kind of power, healing is was nothing. He fixed everything. Like it never happened."
Nas froze. The name alone set his chest alright.
The Primordial Mage. Warren Etinọwanya Ogun.
The pinnacle of magic, the protector of the planet, the crown only one could bear. The most feared and respected mam alive. Every mage dreamer of him and being him - to be chosen, to wear the weight, to wield that kind of authority.
Even a dud like Nas dated to dream it.
Especially a dud like Nas.
And now his friends - his friends! - has been healed by the man himself. Nas forced a smile, but deep down, even but we got and merciless.
—
Far from the quiet classrooms, Kendra stood in ruin. Rubble and bodes lay at her feet, craters smoked, and entire mountains had bowed to her wrath. Lightning flickered across her form as she dragged up the figure in the red rob - Evian, only for it to crumble Into dust in her hands.
"A clay clone" she hissed, lips curling into a smirk.
Her voice rose, cold and sharp, to the skies.
"I know you hear me, oh great spirituals. Send as many as you like. I'll crush them all. And when you've run out of pawns —" her eyes blazed, thunder rumbling above her, "— I'll come for you. For tearing my family apart."
The spirituals, in their Chamber, leaned over a pond of water glowing her image. Her voice reverberated in the chamber, filling it with a storm's promise.
—
Back in class
Nas blinked hard. His pen slipped from his hand, his breath caught. The world around him blurred. His nose ran hot - blood streaking down his lip. The chatter of the classroom drained away until only a girl's laughter filled his head.
A girl, running through a Valley of green.
Tears slipped down his face before he realised, his classmates' laughter breaking the moment when the teacher barked his name.
"What's wrong with you?" Phoebe whispered, panic and concern mixed in her eyes.
He shook his head, rising to hire feet. "Excuse me" he muttered, not trusting his voice. Laughter chased him out the door.
He slammed the restroom door shut, chest heaving. His face burned crimson, ears buzzing with heat. One hand pressed to his skull, pounding, the other clawing at the sink as his breath came ragged.
The vision kept flashing.
The girl in the green Valley. Her golden hair catching the sunlight. Blue eyes sparkling. Joy radiant on her face.
And then - flames.
The valley engulfed. Ash chocking the air. Everything gone, everyone gone. The girl clung to him, her small body curling into his, as fire consumed all around them.
The image switched - peace to fire, joy to dispair - faster and faster, like a cruel reel tearing through his mind.
"Stop... Stop..." Nas groaned, knuckles cracking against his temple as he fought to breathe. His grip on the skip deepened, fingers digging into ceramic like claws.
The pressure became unbearable. The scream tore out of hime before he could stop it... raw, ragged, and animal sound that shook the walls.
The mirrios above the sinks exploded, shards scattering across the tiles as Nas collapsed to his knees, gasping in the silence that followed.