Kaelan woke with his heart racing.

  He didn’t know how long he had slept, or why his body felt numb.

  He only knew that something—something vast and formless—had chased him all the way to the last seconds of his sleep.

  He blinked several times, trying to clear his head.

  The white ceiling.

  The curtain half-open.

  Morning light slipping in as a soft line across the desk.

  Everything normal.

  Too normal.

  He sat up slowly. His body ached, though he couldn’t remember training the day before. His muscles felt stiff, like after an absurd effort.

  He brought a hand to his chest.

  His heart was beating fast—but steady.

  No wounds.

  No blood.

  “A dream,” he murmured, barely audible. “It was just a dream…”

  He rested his elbows on his knees and stayed there for a while, breathing. Trying to organize the fragments that remained.

  A dull sound.

  A roar that wasn’t a roar.

  Saji shouting.

  A violet light.

  And then—nothing.

  You dreamed about the attack, he told himself. Your head’s full of shit since the underground incident. Nothing strange.

  He got up, went to the bathroom, and turned on the tap.

  Cold water woke him completely.

  He looked at himself in the mirror.

  Pale face.

  Dark circles under his eyes.

  Nothing else.

  His breathing stabilized again.

  It was just stress.

  It had to be.

  He returned to the room, got dressed, and grabbed his jacket with the seals.

  The digital clock read 7:05.

  Perfect, he thought. I’ll make it to the meeting on time.

  The Sitri headquarters was quiet at that hour. The corridors carried the same scent of magical incense and old paper. The same constant murmur of crystals operating inside the walls.

  Nothing new.

  Nothing unsettling.

  He climbed the stairs toward the operations room.

  From the hallway, he heard Sona’s voice—clear, calm, filled with that order that seemed to hold the entire building together.

  “Adjust the perimeter seal frequency. I want the barrier at full output before noon.”

  Kaelan smiled with a relief he hadn’t known he needed.

  Everything was normal.

  Everything was in order.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  Sona walked with measured steps.

  Tsubaki organized the tablets with near-surgical precision.

  Momo reviewed an applied magic diagram.

  Reya stood at the sensors, eyes narrowed, focused.

  Tsubasa Yura leaned against the wall, arms crossed, observing.

  Saji sat in his usual seat, one leg dangling.

  “Morning,” Kaelan said, forcing a smile.

  Saji gave a vague wave.

  Sona looked up.

  “Arverth, right on time,” she said. “Sit down. We need to review today’s protocol.”

  Kaelan obeyed without thinking. He sat, trying to calm the faint internal tremor that hadn’t left him yet.

  Sona continued, as she did every morning:

  “Today, the Phenex–Gremory ceremony takes place in the Underworld. As Sitri’s heir, I must attend.”

  Kaelan nodded mechanically.

  But something about the way she said it left a hollow feeling in his chest.

  I’ve heard this already.

  He shook his head, dismissing the thought.

  Sona continued:

  “Tsubaki will take charge of the territory during my absence. Full team coordination. Priority: containment. No direct intervention without backup.”

  Tsubaki nodded.

  Kaelan tried to focus on the details, but the words felt… identical.

  Not similar. Exactly the same.

  The same tone.

  The same cadence.

  Even the same pause before saying “Priority.”

  He glanced at Saji. The guy yawned and muttered:

  “Does this come with coffee, or with another existential threat?”

  Kaelan stiffened.

  The same joke.

  The same tired grin.

  The same echo of yesterday… or something else.

  He blinked.

  Told you. Coincidence.

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  Saji always says dumb things.

  Sona always speaks the same way.

  Nothing strange.

  Nothing—

  Then Tsubaki spoke.

  “President, confirming: are you traveling to the Underworld today?”

  “Yes,” Sona replied without looking up. “Politics require our presence.”

  Exactly.

  Word for word.

  Kaelan’s pulse accelerated.

  The Resonance began to vibrate faintly, as if detecting the same pattern.

  It couldn’t be real.

  It couldn’t.

  The meeting continued, normal.

  Sona explained the itinerary.

  Assigned tasks.

  Distributed the flow markers.

  Everything the same as before.

  Kaelan noticed every repetition.

  Every breath.

  Every precise movement as Tsubaki closed a tablet.

  The déjà vu became unbearable.

  This wasn’t an illusion.

  It was a sequence.

  The same day.

  The same hour.

  The same conversation.

  The same faint smile from Sona when she said:

  “I trust you.”

  Kaelan clenched his jaw.

  His body told him he had lived this already.

  His heart told him he was about to die again.

  And the Resonance—silent—watched.

  The meeting ended.

  Sona withdrew to prepare for the Underworld trip.

  The rest of the team began to disperse, organizing shifts.

  Kaelan left last, his steps slow.

  Saji caught up to him in the hallway.

  “What’s wrong with you, Arverth? You’re whiter than the wall.”

  Kaelan tried to smile, but his voice came out fractured.

  “Nothing. I just… slept badly.”

  “Nightmares?”

  Kaelan glanced sideways at him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”

  Saji shrugged.

  “Don’t worry about it. Probably training-related. If you dream about cataclysms, it means you’re ready to fight, right?”

  And he walked away, laughing at his own joke.

  Kaelan stood still in the middle of the hallway.

  The echo of the laughter faded.

  He pulled the sealed bracelet from his pocket.

  Looked at it.

  The metal was warm.

  Exactly the same as before.

  And in that moment, he knew—without needing to reason it out:

  It hadn’t been a dream.

  He hadn’t survived.

  He had only come back.

  “…Too early,” he whispered.

  The Resonance vibrated softly, as if answering him.

  And in that vibration, Kaelan felt the truth he feared most:

  Morning had just begun.

  But he was already dead again.

  Night fell, and the rain returned over Kuoh.

  It wasn’t violent rain—just constant. Persistent. As if the sky refused to let go of something it had been holding for hours.

  Kaelan walked beside Saji along the outer perimeter of the campus.

  Exactly like before.

  Exactly.

  The same route.

  The same streetlights.

  The same smell of wet earth.

  Every step was a reminder.

  Saji had his hands in his pockets, coat collar raised.

  “I still say this is humiliating,” he muttered. “High-ranking demons patrolling a school. If my past self could see me…”

  Kaelan didn’t answer immediately.

  His senses were wide open.

  The Resonance didn’t scream—but it didn’t rest either. It was like having his skin exposed to a thousand different air currents: scattered emotions, shapeless human thoughts, small daily frustrations.

  And beneath all of it—

  Tension.

  “Saji,” Kaelan said at last. “If something happens tonight… don’t leave my side.”

  Saji frowned.

  “What? You superstitious now?”

  Kaelan shook his head.

  “No. Just… promise me.”

  Saji snorted, then nodded.

  “Fine, mother hen.”

  They kept walking.

  For five minutes, nothing happened.

  And that was the worst part.

  Because Kaelan knew chaos never arrived with a clear warning. It arrived when the world was still pretending to be normal.

  The Resonance tightened.

  Not a pull.

  A growth.

  As if multiple emotional focal points were beginning to align—not by coordination… but by coincidence.

  Anxiety.

  Contained anger.

  Jealousy.

  Frustration.

  “Saji…” Kaelan began.

  The bracelet vibrated.

  Once.

  Saji stopped dead.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Kaelan looked around.

  “It’s not a single point,” he said. “It’s several.”

  Reya came through the communication channel, her voice sharper than usual.

  “Team, reporting minor anomalies in the eastern district. They’re not rifts, but… something’s wrong. The readings don’t match.”

  Momo spoke next:

  “I’m seeing irregular magical pressure increases near the residential buildings. It’s not one large circle. It’s… many small ones.”

  Kaelan closed his eyes for a second.

  It’s started.

  “Yura, status?” Tsubaki asked from central.

  “On the move,” came the reply. “If this escalates, I’ll plant myself where needed.”

  The air changed.

  Not abruptly.

  Incorrectly.

  As if space itself had decided to tense without physical cause.

  Kaelan’s Resonance exploded.

  Not outward.

  Inward.

  He felt human fear rise like a tide: students who didn’t understand what was happening, people staring at the sky without knowing why, chaotic thoughts searching for explanation.

  “Saji,” Kaelan said, his voice hard. “Barrier. Now.”

  He didn’t wait for confirmation.

  He extended his hand and let the Resonance flow.

  Not as a weapon.

  As a response.

  An invisible pulse swept through the area.

  Saji’s, Yura’s, and Momo’s bodies reacted instantly: muscles steadier, breathing clearer, fear stepping back a pace.

  “What did you do?” Saji growled, surprised.

  “Nothing,” Kaelan answered. “I just… gave you space to think.”

  Then it happened.

  The sky opened.

  Not like a clean portal—but like a wound.

  A massive rift tore open over Kuoh’s northern district, and from it fell something that shouldn’t have had weight—but did.

  The impact shattered the asphalt.

  The roar wasn’t audible.

  It was emotional.

  An incomplete dragon emerged amid fragments of broken reality: malformed scales, wings that didn’t fully exist, a violet core beating in the center of its chest like a diseased heart.

  “MAJOR CONTACT!” Reya shouted. “THIS ISN’T A STABLE SUMMONING!”

  “Formation,” Tsubaki ordered. “Now!”

  Yura was the first to advance.

  Her black sword flashed as it collided with the monster’s claw. The impact sent a shockwave that shattered windows a hundred meters away.

  “YOU DON’T PASS!” she roared.

  Momo raised Applause Wall, forming a floral barrier that softened the second blow.

  Saji launched a concentrated blast straight at the core.

  The dragon answered with presence.

  A beat.

  THM.

  Half the barrier disintegrated.

  Kaelan dropped to his knees.

  Not from the impact.

  From what he felt.

  The panic of the entire city flooded into him like an avalanche.

  “DON’T LOOK AT THAT!” he shouted, not knowing to whom.

  He forced himself up.

  He ran.

  Every step was pain.

  Every second, the Resonance absorbed more: Yura’s fear, Tsubaki’s strained focus, Momo’s silent terror as she held the barrier.

  “KAELAN, FALL BACK!” Saji shouted.

  Kaelan didn’t obey.

  He extended both arms.

  The Resonance overflowed—not in attack, but reinforcement.

  Yura screamed as her blade cut deeper than it should have.

  Saji felt his energy stabilize and launched another attack without losing control.

  Momo held the barrier one second longer than her body allowed.

  “KEEP GOING!” Kaelan shouted. “DON’T STOP!”

  The dragon reacted.

  It turned its head.

  It saw him.

  Not as an enemy.

  As a key.

  “ARVERTH!” Tsubaki shouted. “RETREAT!”

  Kaelan couldn’t.

  The dragon descended.

  Yura stepped in front of him.

  “RUN!” she shouted, driving her sword into the ground.

  The claw came down.

  Yura didn’t scream.

  She simply vanished beneath the impact.

  Momo fell seconds later, her barrier shattered from the inside.

  Saji was hurled into a building, unconscious.

  Kaelan stood alone.

  Standing.

  Trembling.

  The Resonance was tearing him apart from within—saturated with fear, guilt, despair.

  But he kept moving.

  “No…” he gasped. “Not again…”

  The dragon roared.

  Kaelan jumped.

  Not with magic.

  With rage.

  The impact wasn’t heroic.

  It was useless.

  The claw passed through the space where his body was.

  Kaelan felt the blow split him in two.

  He fell.

  As the world dimmed, he felt something else.

  A green light.

  Weak.

  Distant.

  Like a reflection on the old auxiliary building.

  I’m not the flaw.

  The Resonance didn’t scream.

  It whispered.

  I’m the alarm.

  And Kaelan died.