The first thing Kyle noticed was the silence.
Not absence, but void—a silence so complete it bent sound inward, as if the world itself had inhaled and forgotten to exhale. No fire crackled. No distant footsteps. Even the echo of his own heartbeat felt reluctant, lagging behind the motion of his chest.
Then the pain came.
But it wasn't sharp or immediate. It was slow. It lived beneath the surface of things—bone-deep, marrow-soaked, humming with a language not meant for humans.
Kyle's fingers twitched against blood-warmed stone.
He opened his eyes.
At first, all he saw was red. A thick film. No—veins. A membrane between him and the world. When he blinked, it peeled away like wet paper, revealing fractured light and colors that vibrated at the edges. The world seemed sharper but wrong—too high in contrast. The outlines of objects trembled as if resisting form.
He tried to sit up.
His spine obeyed, but each vertebra moved like it had to remember how to be part of him. He felt taller. Thinner. Stronger. More hollow.
The ritual circle beneath him was still faintly aglow, its sigils pulsing with an offbeat rhythm—like a heart not beating for a living thing, but something else entirely. Something inhuman.
A body lay nearby.
Tepes.
His chest rose and fell shallowly, one arm twisted behind his back, the other still outstretched in a failed casting gesture. His mouth hung open, lips cracked, eyes rolled up to show the whites.
Kyle looked down at his own hands.
Long fingers, paler than before. His veins were darker, laced with something that shimmered faintly—violet, charcoal, and deep umber. His fingernails had grown, curved, tapered into subtle clawpoints. Not monstrous, but rather elegant.
Something moved beneath his skin.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Tiny shifts. Like insects dragging chainmail beneath his flesh.
His hair, once unremarkable, now hung in front of his face—white at the tips, drifting slightly despite the airless room. He raised a hand to touch it—and froze.
Runes.
Intricate, foreign symbols crawled across his forearm and up to his shoulder, like tattoos etched in flame and shadow.
Then the voice spoke.
"There is no pain in being remade. Only memory. And you—"
A beat.
"You had much to forget."
Kyle reeled back; it hadn't come from the surroundings. It came from within—not from his mind, not his thoughts, but from his body. His bones. His blood.
"Get out," he croaked.
His voice wasn't right—too low, too clear, like it had been tuned.
"You opened the door. I merely stepped in."
He clutched at his chest. The pain pulsed again—but it was emotion, not injury. Like a memory threatening to surface. A thousand of them, all screaming to be released.
Kyle looked to the edge of the stage.
Mirai.
She lay motionless, blood trickling from her throat. The dagger—the same one Tepes had used—was nearby, its blade catching the faint glow of a dying ward.
"Mirai…" Kyle whispered, the sound cracking.
He crawled toward her. His limbs obeyed, but sluggishly, like he was learning the blueprint of his own anatomy for the first time.
Each movement sparked another pulse of power—unbidden, subtle. The floor beneath his knees darkened where he passed, shadows lingering just a heartbeat longer than they should.
When he reached her, he paused.
She was breathing. Barely.
He reached out—and jerked back as a shock ran through him.
Not lightning.
Emotion.
A flood.
He saw—no, felt—a memory. Hers, maybe. A door slammed in her face. An older man shouting behind it. A child's voice stifled in silence. Shame. Rage. Loneliness sharpened to steel.
Kyle blinked it away, his breath quickening.
"Why… am I seeing that?"
"You are more open than others. You are nothing now. They bleed into you. Like light through cracks."
The voice felt closer this time. It sat behind his eyes. Watching.
He tore a piece of his robe and gently pressed it against her neck, trying to slow the bleeding. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from knowing: he'd let it go too far. He hadn't stopped it. He couldn't.
He'd begged.
He remembered the words.
"I begged once. Never again."
They had left his mouth like prophecy. Like a crown he didn't want but had already worn.
And now, the girl who had warned him, trusted him, fought beside him… lay bleeding.
Because he had opened the door.
A whisper echoed from behind him.
Footsteps. A scrape. A cough.
He turned.
Tepes stirred.
His lips curled into a weak smile.
"You… have no idea… what you've let in."
Kyle rose, slowly. Shadows coiled at his feet like breath given form.
"No," he said, his voice growing colder. "But I'm about to find out."
"I begged once. Never again." Kyle repeated the words in a slight whisper, as if reminding himself of their meaning.
The words echoed—not just from Kyle's lips, but through the hall, through stone and silence, as if spoken by the place itself. His voice was layered—his and something deeper. Almost malevolent in nature. Dry and thunderous. A cathedral whisper.
The cracked floor beneath him pulsed.
Darkness bled from his feet in slow, intelligent tendrils. They didn't just spread—they searched, curling across shattered tiles and broken sigils like curious snakes made of ink.
Across the stage, Tepes flinched.
Luwen's confident mask slipped, just for a moment.
"Luwen," Tepes barked. "He's—"
"I see it," Luwen said, voice sharp, tight. "He merged. Fully."
Kyle twitched. His limbs spasmed once—then stilled.
His body shifted beneath torn clothes. Cursed magic rippled like armor across his chest and arms—charcoal-grey skin now webbed with glowing lines of deep violet, etched in intricate sigils that moved. His hair drifted around him unnaturally. His eyes burned: one human, brown; the other glowing blue like the void rimmed in shadow.
He stood at the broken heart of the academy's grand hall, the cracked black mirror behind him like an open wound in the wall, humming.
And when he moved, the room answered.
With a flick of his wrist, a lance of shadow erupted from the floor. It tore through a marble column to his left like it was paper, shattering the stone into powder.
Another gesture—and a wave of warped force slammed outward in a jagged arc. Benches, banners, all the remnants of Sanctum Magna's sacred space were thrown aside like chaff in a storm.
Tepes raised a ward—golden, humming, unstable. It barely held. Mirai and Chris, still unconscious, were shielded behind him.
"You dare resist your role!?" Tepes screamed, but desperation cracked through. "We summoned you! We chose you!"
Kyle took a step forward.
The air around him bent, shimmered. Magic warped from him in slow pulses. His shadow flickered ahead of him—but not in sync with his body.
"I wasn't summoned," Kyle said—and there was something inhuman behind it. "You unsealed me. You broke the lock and now scream when the door opened. Pathetic."
He vanished.
In a blink, he was behind Luwen. A clawed hand tore forward. Luwen twisted—barely. A reinforced barrier sprang up in a flash, deflecting the strike. Sparks flew as Kyle's fingers scraped metal-hard magic.
"You're fast," Kyle said, voice almost amused. "It seems you've studied my kind."
"I'm not impressed," Luwen muttered, casting a glyph into the ground. It exploded—heat, flame, debris.
Kyle walked through it.
Smoke curled off his shoulders. The shadows peeled back, reassembling over his body like a second skin.
Tepes began chanting, invoking spells carved into the flesh of his arms. Transmutation magic burst to life—metal from the rubble lifted and reformed into jagged spears, which launched toward Kyle.
Kyle lifted a single hand.
And the world darkened.
The spears froze mid-air, held by invisible chains. Kyle's expression didn't change. A circular rune spread outward from his feet—precise, geometric, written in an ancient tongue.
The spears reversed. They launched back.
Tepes stumbled, dodging wildly. Two slammed into the pillar behind him. One grazed his shoulder. Blood bloomed like rust in water.
"Enough!" Tepes shrieked. "You were meant to be a weapon! Bound to me! Why do you resist?!"
Kyle's voice cut through the air like a blade.
"You think control is power. You tried to puppet a god, thinking it would make you one."
He stepped forward again.
Luwen snarled—and grabbed Chris by the collar, dragging the boy up like a shield.
"Take another step," he hissed, "and I snap his neck."
Kyle froze.
His lip curled. "Coward."
"You're still outnumbered."
"And how has that worked for you so far?" Kyle said flatly.
At that moment, Mirai stirred.
A soft gasp escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open. She blinked slowly, confusion melting into horror.
The once-proud central hall of Sanctum Magna was gone. Rubble, blackened stone, fire-scarred banners. The pillars of the Flame stood cracked and dim. She looked toward the center of the destruction—
And saw him.
"…Kyle?"
Her voice was fragile. It cut through the haze.
He didn't turn.
Maybe he didn't hear. Or maybe whatever wore his skin didn't care.
Mirai tried to sit up. Her wrists burned with magic restraints. She was weak. Her body fought her at every movement. Blood stained her blouse from the shallow cut on her neck.
She turned her head just in time to see Tepes grab her again and yank her upright by the throat.
Kyle's focus snapped to her instantly.
"You made me beg," he said to Tepes, voice trembling at the edges. "You used her. Hurt her. You dragged this… thing into me."
He took a step.
And the shadows surged.
Tepes roared, unleashing a stream of elemental magic—fire, lightning, ice—blending and crackling in chaotic spirals.
Kyle raised his hand, slicing the air.
Black magic scythed forward, cutting through the barrage like acid through paper. The attacks twisted off course, burning lines across the walls, leaving warped trails behind them.
Tepes grabbed Mirai tighter.
"Don't make me do this!" he screamed. "I'll gut her! She's nothing—just another dead body! You're mine, boy. Mine!"
Kyle stopped.
His face shifted. Pain cracked through the mask of power.
Mirai's eyes locked on his. She didn't plead. She didn't scream. She just stared—with fear.
And that broke him.
Inside his mind, the real Kyle clawed at the walls of his own mindscape.
No. Not her. Don't let him hurt her. Please—save her. Save Mirai.
The voice within answered.
"She's the daughter of Malloran. The same family that carved your suffering into your childhood. Why protect her?"
Kyle screamed back. "I don't care! She's my friend. She tried to understand me. I won't let her die for me!"
"You know the price. She's already a hostage. You know what I must do to stop him."
A pause.
Then Kyle only looked down, even in his mind:
"I'm sorry," the entity said as it left him once again.
In the ruined hall, Kyle whispered aloud, "Forgive me."
Then he launched.
Magic streamed behind him like a comet of night. His cloak of shadows peeled back, narrowing into a spike.
But not toward Tepes.
Toward Mirai.
The dagger—Tepes' dagger—appeared in his hand, shadows extending its length like a jagged fang.
And he drove it forward—
—through Mirai.
Not fatal. Not direct. But real.
Just under her ribs, angled through.
Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened in silent shock as she coughed up blood.
But the blade didn't stop there.
It continued—into Tepes' chest.
The professor screamed as blood erupted from his mouth, his grip on Mirai slackening instantly.
He stumbled backward.
"You—fool…" he gasped.
Tepes collapsed to his knees, coughing blood.
A sharp hum filled the room. Magic vibrated the air. Behind him, a swirling portal burst open—red and blue energy spiraling like oil in water. A last escape.
Kyle lunged—but the portal sucked Tepes in.
His final words echoed: "This isn't over… boy."
Then he vanished.
Gone.
The gate snapped shut.
And all that was left was silence.
Kyle held Mirai.
Blood soaked his arms.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Over and over. "I'm so sorry."
Mirai coughed weakly, her hand clenching his sleeve.
"You… stabbed me."
"I—" His throat closed. His glowing eye dimmed.
Mirai gave a faint smile. "I'd have done the same. Idiot."
"Liar," he choked, laughing bitterly.
She coughed again. Her head fell against his chest.
Still breathing.
Barely.
Kyle's arms trembled.
He looked down.
His hands. Still shifting. Still humming.
And the voice returned, colder now.
"You see? Power rejected is power wasted. You made your choice. You tasted mercy—and you bled."
Kyle didn't answer.
He just held her.
And when his body gave out, he collapsed beside her—both bloodied, both broken.
Above them, the fractured dome of Sanctum Magna groaned. A single stone fell nearby.
And somewhere in the distance—
Footsteps.
But help was no longer rescue.
It was witness.