A sharp knock reverberated through the cold, colorless dorm room.
Shisan's eyes fluttered open. For a moment, he lay still, disoriented by the sterile ceiling above him. Too clean. Too still. No comforting cracks or wooden beams. Only suffocating perfection. The door creaked open with a harsh groan, revealing two young men clad in matching indigo uniforms — one brawny and bald, the other slender with a bowl cut that hung just to his shoulders.
"Oi, Claudius," rasped the bald one, his voice grating like sandpaper. "You're gonna miss breakfast if you keep brooding."
Shisan blinked, pushing himself up awkwardly on the stiff iron-framed bed. Beside him, a polished gold pocket watch clicked steadily atop the nightstand, its ticking somehow louder than it should be.
"Right... breakfast," Shisan muttered, scrambling upright, still blinking sleep from his eyes.
The brawny one leaned lazily against the doorframe, arms crossed, broad shoulders blocking half the light spilling from the hallway.
"You alright?" the slender one asked, studying Shisan with a narrow-eyed glance. "You look like you got hit by a carriage."
Shisan forced a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his head.
"I... had weird dreams," he lied with a light chuckle.
Without missing a beat, he grabbed the neatly folded coat draped over the nearby chair and slipped it on. Following them out into the endless, violet-hued corridors, Shisan fired off an innocent-sounding question to keep up appearances.
"Hey, uh... remind me," he said, struggling to sound casual, "What's our first class again?"
The slender one squinted at him like he had sprouted a second head.
"...Cognitive Reality Reinforcement," The slender one responded slowly, testing the waters.
The brawny one merely gave Shisan a long, sideways look, the suspicion obvious on his face.
"Right!" Shisan said, perhaps a little too brightly. "Love that one."
They walked in uneasy silence until they reached the dining hall.
The scent of toasted bread, roasted tomatoes, and soft-boiled eggs clung thick in the air. Rows of students, dressed identically in sharp indigo coats, ate with mechanical efficiency. No conversation. No laughter. Only the steady clinking of silverware and the hollow sound of chewing.
The pair each grabbed a tray, stacking it with black salted tomatoes, flatbread, and bowls of congealing porridge. Shisan mirrored their movements, though he eyed the blackened tomatoes with the suspicion of a man who had once nearly been poisoned by something that color.
"Say," Shisan said, fumbling with the tray, "we have... a lot of tests coming up, huh?"
The brawny one raised a thick eyebrow.
"Combat Readiness Final. Four days. You've been training for it, right?" he asked, voice rough with skepticism. "Wouldn't want you to get your ass kicked."
"Of course," Shisan said hastily. "Just... testing you."
The pair exchanged a glance — the kind of glance that meant we're definitely talking about this later — but said nothing else.
The trio moved to their usual corner table.
Shisan pushed his food around his plate, feigning interest. All the while, his sharp eyes scanned the hall. Row upon row of students wore the same hollow expressions — some exhausted, some feverishly obsessed, none remotely normal.
By the time a faint bell chimed, signaling the beginning of classes, Shisan's stomach remained as empty as when he had arrived.
The first class of the day proved worse than any battlefield Shisan had ever faced.
Cognitive Reality Reinforcement.
The instructor shuffled in — a gaunt man whose dry voice buzzed like an ancient machine — and, with a wave of his hand, complex sigils and formulae exploded across the black glass walls behind him.
The symbols weren't glyphs or runes Shisan recognized. They twisted and writhed like living creatures, growing more complex the longer he looked.
"Observe the Fifth Recursive Cascade of the mnemonic barrier. Should your mind flinch, the sigil collapses into paradox," the professor droned.
Shisan squinted at the diagrams.
Cascade?
Recursive?
He fought the urge to simply bang his head on the desk and be done with it.
Every few minutes, the professor would call a student up to recreate the spell matrix from pure memory.
"Subject: Hiroyuki Mochizuki. Proceed."
The slender one named Hiroyuki rattled off the incantations flawlessly.
"Subject: Welter Alexandre. Proceed."
The brawny one named Welter stumbled slightly but ultimately passed.
Then came Shisan's turn.
"Subject: Claudius Mornveil. Proceed."
Shisan rose stiffly, his mind a swirling mess of nonsense. He stared at the evolving diagram.
"Uh... the mnemonic cascade... is... very... cascading," Shisan stammered.
A few students tittered behind their hands.
The professor only sighed.
"Sit down, Mornveil. Try not to pollute the air next time."
Shisan slumped into his chair, cheeks burning.
The remainder of the day was a grueling blur of lectures, brain-melting sigil memorization, and debates about "anchoring identity through non-linear consciousness." Shisan understood maybe one word in five, and by nightfall, his head pounded with the strain of pretending to understand.
After what seemed like hours searching, he finally staggered back into Claudius' dorm room, he collapsed onto the hard bed, still fully clothed.
He barely registered the comforting tick of the pocket watch nearby.
This world is insane, he thought miserably.
His mind, drifting between exhaustion and fleeting memories of Yuchan, conjured a small, bittersweet smile. He imagined her teasing him mercilessly for being "too dumb to survive in a basic academy."
The smile lingered until darkness finally swallowed him whole.
It wasn't long after Shisan had fully indulged into his dream that the golden pocket watch clicked past "12:00 AM."
The air grew dense, as if the walls themselves held their breath.
Shisan's body convulsed violently.
For a heartbeat, reality itself seemed to buckle.
The boy with messy dark gray hair jolted upright, gasping for breath.
Claudius Mornveil stared at the familiar blank ceiling, still in his wrinkled uniform.
He let out a long breath, slicking back his sweat-damp hair.
"I see," he muttered to himself, a dry chuckle escaping his lips.
This was beyond Somnus testing. Beyond Clock Tower games.
A predetermined body switch he could neither interrupt nor prevent.
Claudius flexed his fingers experimentally, his expression sharpening.
"So this is how it begins..."