Kenji walked toward Dormitory Beta-7, the Siphon Watch on his wrist feeling less like a tool and more like a shackle. The Headmaster had called his condition a gift, but Kenji knew the truth. He wasn't a student who had unlocked a power; he was a liability the academy had found a way to weaponize.
His new friends—a word his mind still struggled to accept—trailed him like a mismatched honor guard.
"Think about it! You could borrow a Chronal-Burst, freeze time, then echo-blast someone with a telekinetic shove!" Rylan said, practically bouncing with excitement. "You're a walking combo-attack!"
"The probability calculations for a device that can stabilize and replicate an energy signature from a baseline Null are astronomical," Elara mused, her bright green eyes fixed on the watch. "It shouldn't exist. Which, I guess, is the whole point of this place."
Leo, as always, was silent, his attention consumed by the floating data screen he was guiding ahead of him.
Room 713 was clinically sparse, split perfectly down the middle. One side was empty, waiting for him. The other was meticulously organized. The occupant was already there, sitting with a perfectly straight back at his desk. The air on his side of the room felt… still. Heavy. Like the moment before a lightning strike.
He was polishing a complex, silvery gyroscope that spun silently, its movements impossibly smooth. This was Kai. He didn't turn as they entered, but his voice, flat and cold as a glacier, cut through the air.
"You're the Null."
It wasn't a question. He finally looked up, and his eyes were voids, deep and black and utterly unreadable. "My ability is Temporal Stasis. I require absolute environmental stability. Your presence is an uncontrolled variable. Keep it, and your chaotic Null signature, on your side of the room."
Kenji felt a fresh wave of anxiety. His roommate could stop time. He was a cosmic hazard.
"Right," Kenji managed to say, his voice thin. He tossed his school bag onto the empty bed. The motion was small, but in the oppressive stillness of the room, it felt like a gunshot.
Leo, who hadn't even looked up, suddenly froze. A tiny, red icon blinked on his data screen. "Security ping," he murmured, his brow furrowing. "Low-level. Probably just a dorm sensor recalibrating to your… unusual signature."
He tapped the screen, expanding the data. His clinical calm shattered. His eyes widened. "No. This isn't from you. This is… residual." He swiped frantically, his fingers a blur. The screen flashed with complex waveforms before locking onto a single, degraded energy trace.
"I've cross-referenced the signature," Leo said, his voice now strained, tight with disbelief. A file appeared on the screen, stamped with a crimson, high-threat warning.
DESIGNATION: ANOMALY INSTIGATOR 99-OMEGA.
Elara took an involuntary step back, her playful curiosity replaced by genuine fear. "Omega? That's not just a person, Kenji. That's a ghost story they tell first-years to scare them. An Instigator is a reality-assassin. They don't just break rules; they shatter entire timelines for sport. Why would someone like that risk coming here just to drop off a Null?"
The pieces clicked into place in Kenji's mind, forming a picture of terrifying clarity. The man in white. The split-second of distraction. The fact he was left alive. It wasn't a mistake.
"He didn't drop me off," Kenji heard himself say, his voice hollow. "He needed a key. Something that could pass through the Nexus's defenses without setting off a single alarm." He looked down at his hands, feeling a phantom stain on them. "A Total Null. He didn't just dump me here to get rid of a witness. He used me to mask his own entry."
Leo nodded, his face grim. "A perfect Trojan Horse. He didn't just ruin your life, Kenji. He used it. You were the ghost that let the monster in." He pointed a trembling finger at the fading energy trace on the screen. "And that trace is a homing beacon. Sooner or later, he'll come looking for what he left behind."
The door slid shut, locking with a soft hiss that sounded like a final judgment. Kenji stared out the window at a swirling purple nebula, a sight of impossible beauty. But all he could see was the reflection of the Siphon Watch on his wrist. He wasn't just a boy in a strange new school.
He was a loose thread in a cosmic war, and the monster who put him there was still holding the other end.