The room was quiet. Too quiet for a place that had seen magic scream.
Moonlight spilled across the white-tiled floor of the infirmary. Everything was still.
Except the boy in the bed.
Noé didn't move.
But the pendant on his chest ticked.
Professor Lior sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, staring at the floor like it held a secret he couldn't solve.
The woman next to him had sharp glasses, short black hair streaked with silver, and a voice like soft ink.
Her name was Professor Elenya Vael—researcher of magical irregularities and one of the few scholars allowed to access Arkana's Chrono-Restricted Archives.
"He didn't cast a spell," she said quietly. "He executed a command."
Lior nodded. "And the language?"
"Altrunisch. Sealed by the Fifth Accord. Dead for over four centuries."
Lior rubbed his temple. "But he's never studied it."
"Exactly."
They both looked at Noé.
And then—
He murmured something in his sleep.
A single sentence. Soft. Hollow.
"Et valis reventar... la memoria qui non fuit."
(And so shall return... the memory that never was.)
Elenya froze.
"That's a trigger phrase," she whispered. "From a forgotten school of memory spells. A pre-reality structure."
Lior stood slowly. His voice was tight. "He's not waking up."
"No," Elenya said. "Because I don't think he's asleep."
The Space Between Time
There was no sky.
No ground.
Only silence and fragments of light floating like broken memories.
Noé drifted in that space, weightless.
Around him, echoes moved—his voice, her name, a kiss that hadn't happened yet.
He reached for something he didn't understand.
Tick.
A sound. Soft. Familiar.
Tick... tick... tick...
He looked down.
There was a clock embedded in his chest, its hands spinning in reverse.
Open the door, a voice whispered—not outside, but from inside him.
He turned.
In the distance, a tower rose, dark and endless, covered in glowing runes.
And somewhere within... someone was waiting.
Elsewhere: Three Thoughts, Three Rooms
Lysira lay in her dormitory bed, staring at the ceiling.
Her pillow was cold. She hadn't slept. Couldn't.
He said a phrase in Altrunisch.
No one teaches that anymore. No one even dares to read it.
She turned her head to the window, where the stars refused to twinkle.
What are you, Noé?
And why do I feel like... I've lost you before?
Kael sat cross-legged on the floor, robes draped around him, a sigil glowing faintly in the dark.
That energy—when he cast it. It wasn't cast.
It obeyed.
He clenched a hand around a sealed scroll.
The Core Project was abandoned a hundred years ago.
So why does he match the profile?
Kael's eyes narrowed.
If he becomes unstable again... I'll end him myself.
Mira was curled beneath a blanket of stars and sketches—doodles of plants, spells, and Noé's awkward smile.
She had cried earlier. Quietly.
Now she whispered to the air:
You saved us.
But when I looked in your eyes... you weren't you anymore.
She clutched the pillow tighter.
Please come back.
And somewhere deep in the silence... the clock kept ticking.
Noé stood in the space between worlds.
In front of him, another version of himself stood—taller, sharper, eyes heavier with time.
The same face. But older. Worn.
"I've been waiting for you," the other Noé said. "Or maybe I always was you."
Noé blinked. "What is this?"
"A reflection. A fracture. A warning."
The older version stepped forward.
"You can't stop it," he said. "But you can choose what breaks."
Noé's voice trembled. "Choose what...?"
But the figure was already fading—like smoke pulled into the wind.
And just before he vanished, he whispered:
"Not all cores are born. Some are remembered."
In the infirmary, Professor Elenya gasped.
Lior leaned forward, eyes wide.
Noé's arm—still motionless—was burning with white light.
A symbol was etching itself into his skin, line by line, glowing runes spinning into form.
"No spells," Elenya whispered. "Nothing active. It's... drawing itself."
Lior didn't answer.
He recognized the rune.
He had seen it in a forbidden text—once. Long ago.
Aeternum.
The Core.
The light faded.
And Noé's eyes opened.
Noé's eyes opened—but they didn't focus.
For a second, he looked past the room.
Past the world.
Elenya didn't move.
Lior held den Atem.
Then Noé's lips parted.
His voice—low, quiet, like a song trapped in a dream—spoke:
"The seal fractured when emotion aligned with resonance. It wasn't an error. It was an echo."
Silence.
Lior stepped forward slowly.
"Noé," he said gently. "Are you... awake?"
Noé blinked.
Then blinked again.
"...Professor?"
He looked around. At the ceiling. At Elenya. At his own arms.
And froze when he saw the mark on his forearm.
"What... is that?"
Elenya's voice was soft. "It appeared while you were unconscious."
Noé touched it—but it wasn't hot.
It didn't hurt.
And yet, it felt... familiar.
"I've seen it," he whispered. "In a dream."
After they let him rest, Noé sat alone in the infirmary.
He kept his arm under the blanket, the mark still pulsing faintly.
The pendant on his nightstand clicked—once.
Then again.
Noé picked it up.
A line of light etched itself across its surface.
Words formed—faint, shimmering like starlight on water:
"One has been erased."
"One has remembered."
"The Third waits where time has not yet turned."
Noé's fingers tightened around the chain.
"What does that mean..."
But before he could think, a chime rang through the air—clear, magical.
A voice echoed in every room of the academy:
"All students, report to the Grand Courtyard immediately. Level 3 magical anomaly detected outside the south gate."
Noé stood quickly, pain forgotten.
Outside his window, beyond the dark trees, a tall figure stood in the mist—cloaked in silence.
It didn't move.
It didn't attack.
It simply stared.
Right at him.
The Grand Courtyard buzzed with tension.
Students gathered in clusters, murmuring, eyes on the horizon.
Above them, the sky had dimmed, though no clouds moved.
Noé walked through the crowd, his steps slow, deliberate.
The figure at the south gate had not moved.
It stood perfectly still.
Clothed in long grey robes that shifted with no wind.
No visible face. No aura of attack.
Just... presence.
Professor Lior stood at the edge of the courtyard, murmuring with Kael, who was already drawing barrier glyphs in the air.
Lysira was watching the figure—but occasionally, her eyes flicked to Noé.
As if waiting for his reaction.
Because this wasn't a threat.
This was... a message.
Noé stepped forward, past the front line.
And then—
The figure raised a hand.
Not to attack.
But in recognition.
A gesture from one Core to another.
Noé's breath caught.
And in that moment, the mark on his arm burned—not in pain, but in memory.
And with that, the figure turned—
and walked into the mist.
Gone.