The Forbidden Circuit
The first time it happened, Raphael Arzenon didn't even feel it — not until the third glyph sank into his skin. A breathless hush filled the dark archive hall, where ancient runes clung to crumbling stone like dying constellations. He knelt in the flickering torchlight, palm pressed to the iron door's broken seal, the pulse of Absolute Analysis humming under his ribs like a second heartbeat.
"Cielux," he whispered under his breath, but of course, there was no voice yet — just the dormant seed of an impossible system, a ghost of code scraped from half-burned grimoire scraps. The runes around him pulsed brighter, mapping every rivet, every hidden latch, every arcane suture inside the ancient door. It was as if the world peeled itself open for him — showing him its veins, its ligaments, its quiet vulnerabilities.
"How…?" Raphael exhaled, fingertips tracing the illusions of inner gears and spectral locks that danced before his eyes. There were no incantations, no spoken theory — just knowing. Like a child instinctively remembering how to breathe. "Is this mine now? This is knowing?"
When the last seal cracked, he didn't roar or cheer. He just stood there in the stale silence, breathing too fast, heartbeat thrumming like a trapped bird against his ribs. He didn't know what Absolute Appraisal was — not truly — only that it was a door that once opened could never be shut.
"I have to get out," he hissed to himself, shoving the door just wide enough to slip through the hidden passage beyond the archives. His stolen notes stuffed inside his threadbare jacket. His knees were shaking. The echo of the iron door's ancient scream still shivered through his bones.
The White-Haired Interceptor
Raphael should have known the Academy would scent his heresy in minutes — but for a brief, breathless eternity, he believed he'd slipped the leash. Two minutes of wind cutting his face as he sprinted through back corridors. Two minutes of freedom, real and raw, humming in his veins.
Then the white-haired shape stepped into the hall, backlit by moonlight slanting through a shattered window. Noah — one of the middle-tier apprentices, but already twice Raphael's circuit count. He was beautiful in that cold, perfect way the high-born mages bred for: snow-pale hair cascading over gold-threaded robes, gold eyes glinting with effortless disdain.
"Arzenon," Noah drawled, rolling the word on his tongue like a snake tasting prey. "Breaking curfew? How quaint. Did you really think you could steal from the archives without getting sniffed out?"
Raphael's eyes darted down the empty hall, searching for any crack in the world to squeeze through. "Noah, I'm not looking for trouble. I just—"
"Oh, I know what you're looking for." Noah's grin was a bright blade in the dark. With a flick of his fingers, sickly green sigils bloomed behind him — and from the cracked floorboards, three reanimated corpses lurched upright. Filthy robes, flesh half-rotted, eyes hollow wells of cold obedience.
"A gutter rat like you," Noah said, his tone almost pitying, "shouldn't pretend to wear a crown of knowledge. Let me remind you what power looks like."
Raphael's breath came shallow. He looked at the stick in his hand — a snapped branch he'd scooped from the garden wall. He ran his thumb over the grain, desperate. "Reinforce," he whispered, pushing what tiny flicker of Magecraft he had into the brittle wood. The stick quivered — a paper sword, laughable against bone and rancid sinew.
"Come on, then, king of filth." Noah's grin widened. "Defend yourself."
First Blood
The first corpse came at him like a memory of hunger. Raphael swung the stick wide — it cracked against the zombie's ribcage and snapped in half with a pathetic squeal of splintering wood. The corpse's clawed hand grazed his shoulder, tearing through cloth and skin. Raphael staggered back, heart hammering, vision blurring.
"I'm going to die." The thought came cold and stupid. "Skia… Omega… I'm going to die here, in the dark, for wanting too much—"
But somewhere in that panic, the Absolute Analysis flared. The corpses froze in his mind's eye — not as monsters but as blueprints. Bone, sinew, rotten nerves. And behind them, like threads through an old tapestry — Noah's Magecraft, necromantic circuits pulsing with rotten mana.
"I see you." Raphael's lips split on a ragged whisper. "I see how you move."
Instinct clawed up his spine. His trembling fingers etched sloppy projection lines into the air — half-remembered tracing rituals patched together from stolen footnotes. And for the first time, the stolen secret of Absolute Appraisal stitched to his will.
Noah's grin wavered when the new glyphs ignited behind Raphael — raw, ugly, but real. Raphael's breath hitched as shadows crawled from under his feet — fifteen zombies clawing up through the marble tiles, jawbones gnashing in the cold air.
"How—" Noah spat, stumbling a step back. "You filthy mongrel, you can't— that's my—"
His snarl cut off when Raphael flicked his eyes to the side — and a single hidden zombie lunged, knife in hand, blade sinking deep into Noah's heart. The white-haired mage's gasp was wet and small. His eyes widened with betrayal, then emptied — gold dimming like coins sinking into mud.
When Noah collapsed, Raphael stood frozen among the dead, throat tight, bile burning the back of his tongutonguell
"I did this." The thought slammed through him like a blade. "I just killed a man. I— I stole his Magecraft— I—"
The new zombies shambled closer, now aimless without a master. Raphael fell to his knees in the cold stone hallway, chest heaving, eyes wild. He vomited onto the floor — hot, bitter — the taste of blood and magic and horror mixing on his tongue.
"What have I become?" he croaked to the dark, to the corpses, to the memory of Skia's smile. "Have I… become a monster…?"
Love Like a Blue Sky
He didn't remember stumbling home — just the echo of his own heartbeat ringing in his ears, his hands slick with sweat and dirt and someone else's life. When he collapsed onto his narrow cot, sleep didn't come. Only images — Noah's eyes, wide and gold, turning gray. Skia's laugh, echoing through a graveyard of stolen dreams.
When dawn finally scraped its claws across the sky, Raphael sat up, ribs aching. He stared at his hands — the same hands that had touched a girl's cold cheek in a gutter, the same hands that pulled runes from forbidden doors. The same hands that now knew how to command the dead.
"I should end it," he thought. The words felt cold and clean in his head. "Before I become worse. Before I forget why I was ever human."
He stumbled through the Academy halls like a ghost. His eyes hollow. His steps aimless. He barely noticed Akane Tohsaka's soft gasp when she saw him — the trembling hands clutched around her books.
"Raphael—" she started, voice fragile as spun glass. He flinched, half-turning away.
"Don't," he rasped. "Don't look at me. I'm filth. I'm—"
"No!" Her voice cracked through the dawn hush, fierce and sudden — so loud it startled them both. She dropped her books, fingers fisting the hem of her uniform skirt. Tears rimmed her eyes, but her jaw trembled with iron.
"I've seen the darkness too, Raphael," she said, her voice breaking like dawn over ruins. "I've seen pain. Suffering. I always asked why me — why this world would let it happen. But now… now I understand."
She took one step closer. Then another — until her hands were on his shoulders, small but burning like hope.
"Pain shows us what beauty is," Akane whispered, voice trembling but clear. "Love is art, Raphael. An artist sees the sky's blue and calls it beautiful because he knows it could be gray. You see this world's flaws — its cruelty, its cages. But that's why you're beautiful too. Because you still stand here. You're still human."
Raphael stared at her — this tiny girl who trembled for him, who should have been terrified of his bloodied hands but wasn't.
"I love this world," Akane said softly, voice cracking. "All its flaws and storms. Because without them, how could we know wonder? Without darkness, how could we know light? That's what love is — seeing the cracks and loving the whole anyway. So don't you dare hate yourself, Raphael Arzenon. Please… don't."
Her words sank through him like sunlight through frost. The chill in his bones cracked. A breath — shaky, startled, ragged — tore through his chest. And for the first time in what felt like years, Raphael Arzenon smiled.
"Thank you," he whispered, voice hoarse, too raw to be pretty. But it was real. Real enough that Akane's eyes went wide — her whole face flushed bright red. She squeaked something he couldn't catch — then bolted down the hall, half-tripping over her fallen books.
Raphael watched her vanish. He pressed his palm to his chest — the heartbeat there, fragile but alive.
"I'm not a monster," he told the empty corridor. "Not yet. And if I have to break this world to prove it — then so be it."
And when he turned to the hidden passage behind the archives once more, his shadow was taller — and the fire in his eyes burned brighter than any circuit ever could.
NECROMANCY'S GUILT
The dead bird weighed almost nothing in his hand — brittle bones, feathers damp with last night's rain. Raphael knelt at the edge of the hidden garden behind the Academy's walls, the grave marker of Skia half-buried beneath moss and fallen petals.
He could feel it — the rune crawling under his skin like a splinter of ice. Absolute Analysis. It whispered every shape, every structure: the bones inside the bird, the fading nerves, the cold core of stillness that was death.
He whispered, "Forgive me," and forced mana into the corpse.
At first, nothing. Then the wings twitched. A snap of bone. One glassy eye flickered open, but wrong — no soul behind it. Just the echo of a heartbeat that shouldn't exist.
He flinched, dropped it. The wings flapped once, twice, and then went still forever. He buried it in the wet dirt next to Skia's ribbon, hands shaking.
Am I next? he wondered. If I can raise the dead… what stops me from becoming one of them?
Wind rattled the ivy. Somewhere inside the Academy's stone belly, bells chimed for curfew. He stayed kneeling.
Skia would hate this, he thought. She'd slap him, call him a monster, then grin and tell him to run. He almost heard her voice in the whisper of the grave's wet earth.
"Hey, Raph. When we see the ocean, we'll stay there forever, right? Not like this dead place stay
He pressed a palm to the moss. His fingers dug through roots and rotted petals. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know how else to fight them, Skia. I don't—"
He didn't hear Kevin until the other boy's foot crunched the gravel. A shape in the dark, white hair catching the moonlight like a blade.
Kevin folded his arms, sharp teeth glinting when he hissed, "You practicing to become a ghoul, Raph?"
Raphael's mouth opened. Closed. He stood, wiping mud on his sleeve. Act cold. Don't show him you're breaking.
"Go home, Kevin."
Kevin stepped closer. His voice was softer now — poison wrapped in silk. "You think they don't know? Do you think no one hears about a street rat kneeling in grave dirt whispering to birds?"
Raphael didn't answer. The rune flickered under his sleeve. A tiny spark of stolen power, humming in his bones.
Kevin's grin sharpened. "You know, I could help you. I could tell them you were just lonely. Stupid. Maybe they'd spare you a clean death. Or—" He leaned in, breath warm and rotten at the edge of Raphael's ear. "Maybe I tell them everything. Right now."
A hush. Cold air. Raphael's heartbeat thudded so hard it made his fingers curl.
"Don't," Raphael said.
Kevin laughed — a short, mean bark. "Too late, 'Seal-Breaker.' You're not special. Just desperate. And I—"
That's when Raphael whispered the apology. Not to Kevin — to Skia. To himself. To the dirt under his fingernails.
He didn't remember moving his fingers — just the rune flaring, the Absolute Analysis flickering over Kevin's mind like a cut. Dead insects crawled from the moss: cockroaches, ants. They scurried up Kevin's boots into his sleeves, burrowing into his ears.
Kevin's scream curdled the night. Raphael watched it happen, frozen — until the scream cut off in a wet gurgle.
When it was over, he dropped to his knees and vomited in the garden.
THE WOLF RETURNS
For three nights after Kevin's death, Raphael hid behind the mausoleum, sleep a distant rumor. His dreams were cracked mirrors — Kevin's eyes staring from inside a swarm of bugs. Skia's ribbon tangled in a nest of rotting wings.
He tested the Necromancy again. Tiny steps — raising beetles and worms. Once, a dead cat he found behind the kitchens. Its ribs moved like a bellows under moonlight. When it snarled, he nearly screamed.
He burned that one. Buried the ashes next to the bird.
The Enforcers came on the fourth night.
No banners, no shining robes — just shadows in the mist, runes on their gauntlets flickering like hunting hounds. He heard them before he saw them — boots crunching gravel, armor whispering against stone.
"Seal-breaker's close. Fan out. No mercy."
Raphael clutched the broken stick he'd enchanted with a half-finished rune. Projection plus Necromancy. He'd tried to make a guard hound — a corpse stuffed with bones and mana.
It worked too well. The thing turned on him. Gnashing teeth, rotten fur. It lunged, and he stumbled backward, tasting blood when it tore his sleeve.
When the first Enforcer rounded the mausoleum, Raphael thought he'd die there — eaten by his own sins.
Then the shadows bled. A whisper of steel. The hound yelped, split open. The Enforcer didn't even scream — he fell with his throat a ruin of meat.
Omega Heinriel stepped over the corpse like it was nothing.
"You—" Raphael croaked. He pushed himself up, breath ragged. The hound's corpse twitched beside him.
Omega didn't look at him. He wiped his blade on the grass. His eyes were cold as the moon — no warmth, no spark. Just calculation.
"Seal-Breaker," Omega said, voice flat. "How far are you willing to run?"
Raphael's answer was lost in the thunder of more boots. Another enforcer lunged — Omega was faster. A flicker of black steel, a wet cough, a body hitting marble.
Raphael sank to his knees, shaking. "You killed them—"
Omega's lip curled. "You killed Kevin, Rapha. Don't pretend you're clean."
Another flicker. Another corpse.
Monsters kill monsters, Raphael thought. And his best friend's eyes were those of a wolf who knew the taste of blood all too well.
AKANE'S REVELATION
After the bodies were burned, Raphael crawled to the garden again. He pressed his forehead to Skia's grave, mumbling apologies, dry heaves wracking his ribs.
That's where Akane found him. Lantern in hand, her cloak clutched tight against the wind.
"Arzenon."
He didn't turn. "Go back."
She stepped closer. Her shoes crunched frost. Her breath fogged in the air between them.
"Look at me."
He didn't. Couldn't.
Akane dropped the lantern. It guttered out in the dirt. She slapped him, sharp and loud, twice.
"LOOK AT ME."
He did. Her eyes were wet — not with fear, but something deeper. A quiet storm.
She pulled back her cloak — thin linen blouse slipping from her shoulder. The moonlight hit the scars carved into her back: runic brands, binding seals, old burns that never fully healed.
"They used me like a battery, Raphael. Tohsaka heir, they called me. But I'm just fuel for the towers. Do you think you're alone?"
His breath caught. He reached for her shoulder — she slapped his hand away.
"Don't pity me. Stand up. Or drown in your own grave."
In the silence, she pressed her hand to his chest. Warm mana pulsed through him — raw, unrefined. Hope.
For a heartbeat, he saw her not as the shy girl behind him in lectures — but as a rebellion wrapped in silk skin.
When her fingers laced with his, the garden didn't feel like a grave anymore.
OMEGA'S SHADOW
The snow fell thicker that night. Omega dragged Raphael behind an old shed and patched his wounds in silence.
Raphael asked, voice barely a whisper: "When did you stop being human?"
Omega laughed — no humor, just bone-deep chill.
"Six years old. Nanaya Clan. Blood on the floors. My father's voice telling me — monsters kill monsters."
He showed no scars. He didn't need them. His eyes told every story Raphael feared.
When another bounty hunter came at dawn — Omega killed him with his bare hands. No rune, no spell. Just a twist of the neck. He didn't flinch when the corpse hit the snow.
Raphael vomited again. Omega didn't look away.
"You're turning us into monsters," Raphael said.
Omega flicked blood from his knuckles. "We always were."
THE PROMISE IN THE DIRT
The next night, Raphael forced Absolute Appraisal inward — reading his own circuits, his flaws, his frayed soul.
The data flooded him like a thousand knives. Numbers behind his eyelids. Skia's voice in the rustle of leaves: "Careful what you drown in, Raph."
His lungs locked. His ribs cracked with pressure only he could feel.
Omega found him and dragged him from the garden mud. Akane pressed mana stones to his chest. He gasped back to life, tears freezing on his lashes.
When he could speak again, he knelt with them both beside Skia's grave.
Omega gave him a knife. Akane gave him paper.
Raphael carved their vow into the parchment — fingers trembling. Omega held the lantern. Akane pressed the paper into the dirt.
"They'll remember Arzenon like Solomon," Raphael whispered.
Omega: "No. Higher."
Akane: "Not alone. Never alone."
In the wind above the graves, the towers loomed — a kingdom of chains waiting to burn.